
“Why Economic Analysis Supports Strong Action on Climate Change: A Response to the Stern” by Simon DIETZ
Authors:
Simon DIETZ
London School of Economics and Political ScienceNicholas STERN
London School of Economics and Political Science
Economic research that opposes the strategy of strong and urgent reductions in green-house gas (GHG) emissions, such as the articles in this symposium by Robert Mendelsohn (in press) and by John Weyant (in press), usually makes a distinction between scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and others who favor strong action, and economists, who apparently do not. Drawing on the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (Stern 2007), this article shows that strong and urgent action is in fact good economics. Much of the previous economic literature on climate change has failed to grasp the necessary scale and timing of action (notable exceptions include Cline 1992; and Azar and Sterner 1996), because it has failed to simultaneously assign the necessary importance to issues of risk and ethics. The case for strong and urgent action set out in the Review is based, first, on the severe risks that the science now identifies (together with the additional uncertainties that it raises, but that are difficult to quantify), and second, on the ethics of the responsibility of current generations for future generations. It is these two issues-risk and ethics-that are crucial.