{"id":54972,"date":"2020-09-11T06:18:21","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T11:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54972"},"modified":"2020-09-11T06:18:21","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T11:18:21","slug":"nobel-prize-winning-economics-of-climate-change-is-misleading-and-dangerous-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54972","title":{"rendered":"Nobel prize-winning economics of climate change is misleading and dangerous \u2013 here\u2019s\u00a0why"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nobel prize-winning<\/span> economics of climate change is misleading and dangerous \u2013 here\u2019s\u00a0why<\/a><\/h3>\n
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While climate scientists\u00a0warn that<\/a>\u00a0climate change could be\u00a0catastrophic<\/a>, economists such as 2018 Nobel prize winner William Nordhaus assert that it will be nowhere near as damaging. In a\u00a02018 paper<\/a>\u00a0published after he was awarded the prize, Nordhaus claimed that 3\u00b0C of warming would reduce global GDP by just 2.1%, compared to what it would be in the total absence of climate change. Even a 6\u00b0C increase in global temperature, he claimed, would reduce GDP by just 8.5%.<\/p>\n

If you find reassurance in those mild estimates of damage, be warned. In a\u00a0newly published paper<\/a>, I have demonstrated that the data on which these estimates are based relies upon seriously flawed assumptions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

If you find reassurance in those mild estimates of damage, be warned. In a\u00a0newly published paper<\/a>, I have demonstrated that the data on which these estimates are based relies upon seriously flawed assumptions.<\/p>\n

Nordhaus\u2019s celebrated work, which, according to the\u00a0Nobel committee<\/a>, has \u201cbrought us considerably closer to answering the question of how we can achieve sustained and sustainable global economic growth\u201d, gives governments a reason to give climate change a low priority.<\/p>\n

His estimates imply that the costs of addressing climate change exceed the benefits until global warming reaches 4\u00b0C, and that a\u00a0mild carbon tax<\/a>\u00a0will be sufficient to stabilise temperatures at this level at an overall cost of less than 4% of GDP in 120 year\u2019s time. Unfortunately, these numbers are based on empirical estimates that are not merely wrong, but irrelevant.<\/p>\n

Nordhaus (and about 20 like-minded economists) used\u00a0two main methods<\/a>\u00a0to derive sanguine estimates of the economic consequences of climate change: the \u201cenumerative method\u201d and the \u201cstatistical method\u201d. But my research shows neither stand up to scrutiny.<\/p>\n

The \u2018enumerative method\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nobel prize-winning economics of climate change is misleading and dangerous \u2013 here\u2019s\u00a0why While climate scientists\u00a0warn that\u00a0climate change could be\u00a0catastrophic, economists such as 2018 Nobel prize winner William Nordhaus assert that it will be nowhere near as damaging. In a\u00a02018 paper\u00a0published after he was awarded the prize, Nordhaus claimed that 3\u00b0C of warming would reduce global […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[1017,141,30282,353,369,4549,30283,750,8487,22344],"class_list":["post-54972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-carbon-tax","tag-climate-change","tag-enumerative-method","tag-gdp","tag-global-warming","tag-gross-domestic-product","tag-statistical-method","tag-steve-keen","tag-the-conversation","tag-william-nordhaus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54973,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54972\/revisions\/54973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}