Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Economic Consensus

...on global warming, is being driven largely by the people named in this list:

Joseph Aldy, Resources for the Future
James Edmonds, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richard Howarth, Dartmouth College
Bruce McCarl, Texas A&M University
Robert Mendelsohn, Yale University
William Nordhaus, Yale University S
Sergey Paltsev, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
William Pizer, Resources for the Future
David Popp, Syracuse University
John Reilly, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Roger Sedjo, Resources for the Future
Kathleen Segerson, University of Connecticut
Brent Sohngen, Ohio State University
Robert Stavins, Harvard University
Richard Tol, Economic and Social Research Institute
Martin Weitzman, Harvard University
Peter Wilcoxen, Syracuse University
Gary Yohe, Wesleyan University


Note how climate change skeptics tend to regard folks like Nordhaus as being on their side of the issue, but really the variation of opinion among this bunch is limited to technicalities:

Opinions varied on whether the Congress should implement a cap-and-trade system or a tax to control greenhouse gas emissions, with eight panelists preferring a cap-and-trade program with a safety valve (sometimes referred to as a hybrid system), seven preferring a tax, and three preferring a cap-and-trade program. All of the panelists agreed that the policy should target all sectors of the economy, and the majority believed that it should include all greenhouse gases. For example, one panelist stated that by establishing a price on emissions from all sources in the United States with no exceptions, the policy would equilibrate the marginal cost of reducing emissions across all sources, making it economically efficient.

h/t Rabbit.

No comments: