 A missed opportunity: the Stern review on climate change fails to tackle the issue of non-substitutable loss of natural capitalLSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library Abstract: The Stern Review on The Economics of Climate Change is one of the few cost-benefit analyses of climate change to come out in favour of immediate and decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The choice of a low discount rate is the main reason for the Review’s divergence in conclusions compared to other economic studies. I argue that the Review’s ethical reasons for a low discount rate are defendable, but unlikely to find wider public support. In order to justify spending a large amount of scarce resources for the purpose of limiting climate change it is necessary to move beyond the discounting debate. Unfortunately, the Review did not develop a persuasive argument for why climate change threatens to inflict upon future generations irreversible and non-substitutable damage to and loss of natural capital. This represents a missed opportunity as it would have provided a much more compelling case for drastic action than the Review’s arguments for a low discount rate. JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in Global Environmental Change, August, 2007, 17(3/4). ISSN: 0959-3780 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:3059 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.