WHAT:
Media Briefing: On the eve of the UN Copenhagen climate change conference, a panel of international economists will analyze the economic uncertainties surrounding climate change that complicate the work of the delegates. Given the extreme difficulty of predicting social conditions in 50 years and the magnitude of climate change costs, the economists worry that policy-makers may get sticker shock and fail to give adequate weight to climatological risks.
The panelists will offer analysis, drawing on conclusions offered in a new book, a series of analytic papers called “Changing Climate, Changing Economy,” published by the Cournot Centre for Economic Studies (Paris, France).
Panelist Thomas Schelling, a retired economist at the University of Maryland who won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in game theory, describes in the book the underlying challenges faced at meetings such as the one in Copenhagen.
“I know of no peacetime historical precedent for the kind of international cooperation that is going to be required to deal with climate change,” Schelling says. “I also don’t see any chance that we can have enforceable national limits on greenhouse gas emissions.”
Schelling adds that the economic impact of climate change will fall disproportionately on developing nations and that industrialized nations will need to bear much of the cost.
The event is co-sponsored by the Cournot Centre for Economic Studies and the University of Maryland. Panelists will offer brief presentations and answer media questions. Breakfast and free copies of the book will be available.http://www.centrecournot.org/http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/Microsite/climateUM.cfm
WHO:
Thomas Schelling, a Nobel laureate and University of Maryland economist who began studying climate change in the 1970s, will offer his take on the Copenhagen meeting, what is lacking in international negotiations and the role of developing nations.http://www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/facstaff/faculty/SchellingCV.htm
Among the points Schelling will address:•“Developing countries are vulnerable to climate change…in a way that Americans, Canadians, French, Australians or Israelis are not,” he asserts in his paper. “The impact of climate on GDP per capita in the developed countries is not likely to be large.”•“It is going to be hard to get people in my country, the United States, to take climate change seriously, if they are made to believe that the vulnerable parts of the world are someplace else,” he asserts.•Future role of geo-engineering
Jean-Philippe Touffut, economist and director of the Cournot Centre for Economic Studies (Paris, France) and editor of the book “Changing Climate, Changing Economy.”http://www.e-elgar-environment.com/Bookentry_contents.lasso?id=13743
Touffut argues that policy-makers need to take extreme care in weighing the economic and climatological risks and benefits.
“The highest degree of uncertainty…is found in the economic costs of climate change,” Touffut says in his introduction to the book. Spending a lot in the present to avert future risks, tests the willingness of political leaders to take corrective action. As a result, economists are debating what analytic tools should be used in making projections – including standard risk-benefit analysis.
WHEN:
Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009 from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
WHERE:
Murrow Room, National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor, Washington, D.C.
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