Climate

As concern with climate change increases, people seek to behave and consume sustainably. This requires understanding which behaviors, firms and industries have the greatest impact on emissions. Here we ask if people are knowledgeable enough to make choices that align with growing sustainability intentions.

While the broader Inflation Reduction Act will substantially cut carbon emissions, the new tariffs on Chinese EVs will have the opposite effect. They risk derailing the transition to EVs, and they pit U.S. middle-class consumers against auto workers and shareholders.

We develop a financial-economic model for carbon pricing with an explicit representation of decision making under risk and uncertainty that is consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report. We show that risk associated with high damages in the long term leads to stringent mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions in the near term, and find that this approach provides economic support for stringent warming targets across a variety of specifications.

Even if Donald Trump defeats President Joe Biden and tries to take a wrecking ball to US climate and environmental policies, he ultimately would be powerless to derail the inevitable renewables revolution that is gaining momentum worldwide. His anti-climate agenda would be another wall that never gets built.

“Clean growth” versus “degrowth” is a highly contentious political debate. It ought not to be.