Uncertainty Can Be
a Reason to Act:
An Economic Perspective
on Climate Change Policy
Event Time: 8:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m.
Event Location: The Glen, Lakeview Room
Event Type: Spotlighted Speaker
Event Location: The Glen, Lakeview Room
Event Type: Spotlighted Speaker
Spotlighted Speaker
- Gary Yohe,Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University
Synopsis:
Uncertainty is ubiquitous in our understanding of climate change, but it should not be used as a reason not to act. Climate is changing faster and impacts are appearing more emphatically than anticipated only 6 years ago. The thresholds of key vulnerabilities therefore loom in the less distant future, and so it is clear that some sort of climate policy will be required. It follows, from simple economics that the least expensive approach is to start now with policies that do not harm economic vitality. To delay action is to increase the costs of doing something in the future. Broad outlines of this argument and its implications for near-term policy will be the foci of the discussion.
Uncertainty is ubiquitous in our understanding of climate change, but it should not be used as a reason not to act. Climate is changing faster and impacts are appearing more emphatically than anticipated only 6 years ago. The thresholds of key vulnerabilities therefore loom in the less distant future, and so it is clear that some sort of climate policy will be required. It follows, from simple economics that the least expensive approach is to start now with policies that do not harm economic vitality. To delay action is to increase the costs of doing something in the future. Broad outlines of this argument and its implications for near-term policy will be the foci of the discussion.
Biographical Information on Speaker:
Gary W. Yohe is the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and received his PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1975.
Dr. Yohe has published more than 80 papers on climate change in scholarly journals over the past two decades. Most of his work has focused on both the mitigation and the adaptation responses to climate change. It has led him to visualize both strategies as tools with which to try to manage the risk of climate change in an uncertain world.
He was a co-lead author of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report (2001) as well as the Fourth Assessment Report (2007) and was a member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report. Dr. Yohe was the Convening Lead Author for a chapter in the Response Options Technical Volume of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
Dr. Yohe also recently served as an editor of Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, and he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the “Hidden (climate change) Cost of Oil” on March 30, 2006 and to the Senate Energy Committee on the Stern Review on February 14, 2007.
Gary W. Yohe is the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and received his PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1975.
Dr. Yohe has published more than 80 papers on climate change in scholarly journals over the past two decades. Most of his work has focused on both the mitigation and the adaptation responses to climate change. It has led him to visualize both strategies as tools with which to try to manage the risk of climate change in an uncertain world.
He was a co-lead author of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report (2001) as well as the Fourth Assessment Report (2007) and was a member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report. Dr. Yohe was the Convening Lead Author for a chapter in the Response Options Technical Volume of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
Dr. Yohe also recently served as an editor of Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, and he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the “Hidden (climate change) Cost of Oil” on March 30, 2006 and to the Senate Energy Committee on the Stern Review on February 14, 2007.
Sponsor: Peapod