PART I: Climate Change – Our Approach 2 Economics, Ethics and Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change is a result of the externality associated with greenhouse-gas emissions – it entails costs that are not paid for by those who create the emissions. It has a number of features that together distinguish it from other externalities: It is global in its causes and consequences; The impacts of climate change are long-term and persistent; Uncertainties and risks in the economic impacts are pervasive. There is a serious risk of major, irreversible change with non-marginal economic effects. These features shape the economic analysis: it must be global, deal with long time horizons, have the economics of risk and uncertainty at its core, and examine the possibility of major, non-marginal changes. The impacts of climate change are very broad ranging and interact with other market failures and economic dynamics, giving rise to many complex policy problems. Ideas and techniques from most of the important areas of economics, including many recent advances, have to be deployed to analyse them.