The Financial Post and the Fraser Institute are unusual sources of encouragement for people who are very concerned about the climate emergency. In Episode 106 of the Down to Business podcast, Nobel-prize winning economist William Nordhaus, is cited as one expert who thinks that Canada is showing the world how carbon pricing should be done.
This week on Down to Business, Yale economist William Nordhaus discusses the economics of climate change.
In 2018, Nordhaus won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work integrating long run models of climate change with macroeconomic analysis. (Friedman, 2021)
In his new book, The Spirit of Green, Nordhaus examines what markets can and cannot address when it comes to climate change, and other issues, including the pandemics. He also talked about Canada’s carbon tax and what the costs and rewards of stopping climate change are.
In a discussion that ranges from the history of the environmental movement to the Green New Deal, Nordhaus explains how the spirit of green thinking provides a compelling and hopeful new perspective on modern life. At the heart of green thinking is a recognition that the globalized world is shaped not by isolated individuals but rather by innumerable interactions inside and outside the economy. He shows how rethinking economic efficiency, sustainability, politics, profits, taxes, individual ethics, corporate social responsibility, finance, and more would improve the effectiveness and equity of our society. And he offers specific solutions—on how to price carbon, how to pursue low-carbon technologies, how to design an efficient tax system, and how to foster international cooperation through climate clubs.
The result is a groundbreaking new vision of how we can have our environment and our economy too. (Nordhaus, n.d.)
An article on the web site of the Fraser Institute features a commentary by Kenneth P. Green
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute, that expresses a desire for more empirical measurements in our analysis of trends in climate change.
Rarely, if ever, do we see much discussion of empirical measurements of climate change; global average temperature and sea level are rare exceptions. But empirical measurements of climate policy impacts, empirical measurements of changes that might, or might not, validate modeled projections of such climate changes, or empirical measurement of meteorological (weather) changes are scarce to non-existent in most media. (Green, n.d.)
The path to effective mitigation and adaptation of the effects of rising global average temperature and increasing sea level requires working on the common ground between environmental activism and strategic economic planning. Some of that common ground appears to be in carbon tax systems and empirical measurement of change in crucial parameters.
References
Friedman, G. (2021, June 16). Canada is showing the world how carbon pricing should be done: Nobel-prize winning economist William Nordhaus. Financial Post. Retrieved June 30, 2023, from https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/renewables/canada-is-showing-the-world-how-carbon-pricing-should-be-done-nobel-prize-winning-economist-william-nordhaus
Green, K. P. (n.d.). Models or Measures of Climate Change: Why Does It Matter? Fraser Institute. Retrieved July 2, 2023, from https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/
Nordhaus, W. D. (n.d.). The Spirit of Green. Princeton University Press. Retrieved July 2, 2023, from https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691214344/the-spirit-of-green
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