December 9th USGCRP Seminar on "The Economics of Climate Chnage Impacts and Mitigation: The Importance of Values and Assumptions"
Tony Socci
tsocci at usgcrp.gov
Tue Dec 3 15:42:37 EST 1996
U.S. Global Change Research Program Second Monday Seminar Series
The Economics of Climate Change Impacts and Mitigation:
The Importance of Values and Assumptions
What is the basis of cost/benefit analyses of projected climate change
impacts and mitigation options? What are the values and assumptions that
have gone into these analyses? How significantly do cost/benefit analyses
change in instances where one makes different assumptions and value
judgments?
Public Invited
Monday, December 9, 1996, 3:15-4:45 PM
Rayburn House Office Bldg., Room B369, Washington, DC
Reception Following
INTRODUCTION
The Honorable Mark Chupka, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of
Policy and International Affairs, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC
SPEAKERS
Dr. Richard B. Norgaard, Professor of Energy and Resources, University of
California, Berkeley, CA
Dr. Robert Costanza, Director, University of Maryland Institute for
Ecological Economics, College Park, MD
Overview
As we move from a world that was relatively empty of humans and their
influences on the environment to one that is relatively full, interactions
between the ecological life support system and the economic subsystem
become increasingly important. Of particular importance is the integration
of the three broad goals of ecological sustainability, social fairness, and
allocative efficiency. The potential for global change to damage
irreversibly the ecological life support system and reduce the well-being
of our descendants is a key concern in this context.
To address the complex set of issues that arise, improved methods are
needed for: the valuation of natural capital, national income and welfare
accounting, integrated modeling and assessment, dealing with uncertainty,
and the intertemporal allocation of resources. To address these issues,
and their implications for global change in an integrated way requires
moving beyond the standard approaches in both ecology and economics (while
not discarding the best elements of each). "Ecological economics," is
helping to develop a new "habit of mind" that can provide the basis for
understanding and managing the planet in a sustainable way.
Within this broad framework, a number of important issues are being
considered. These include: 1) the advantages and disadvantages of an early
response to predicted climate change; 2) the value of reducing the
uncertainties surrounding the environmental processes, ecological impacts,
and economic consequences of climate change; 3) the mix of mitigation and
adaptation that may ultimately prove the best strategy; and 4) the
augmented benefits of mitigation that result from the environmental gains
that can be captured through decreased greenhouse gas emissions and
increased protection of forests and other biomass sources.
Findings from approaches based on ecological economics generally suggest
the need for earlier action than do economic studies that do not consider
ecological perspectives. These findings are based on studies that focus on
system limits, thresholds, and dynamic complexities. When considering
ecological connections, the Index of Social and Economic Welfare (also
called the Genuine Progress Indicator) suggests, for example, that the
increases in GDP per capita over the past quarter century are largely
illusory. Economic models that do not fully include consideration of the
complexity of our environment then tend to extrapolate these illusory gains
for future generations and improperly weight these against the real
benefits of investing in climate change mitigation. Analyzing the societal
impacts of climate change also highlights the importance of considering
equity along with efficiency in reaching an appropriate solution. What is
efficient for this generation is not necessarily equitable for the next and
doing what is efficient for the industrialized countries may have major
adverse impacts on poor countries and on global stability in the longer
run. Ecological economics also allows for a coupling of climate change to
related issues such as biodiversity loss and the local and regional
problems of environmental quality.
Improving understanding of and capabilities for considering environmental
complexity in association with economic efficiency is thus an essential
research task needed to support policy development.
Biographies
Dr. Richard B. Norgaard is Professor of Energy and Resources, University of
California at Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the
University of Chicago in 1971, assisted in the creation of the Energy and
Resources Group as a Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at
Berkeley, and joined the core faculty of the Energy and Resources Group in
1987. Dr. Norgaard has contributed to the economic theory of
intergenerational equity and the economics of energy development, climate
change, and biodiversity loss. He also writes on how environmental
complexity has modified our understanding of how science works. He has
over one hundred publications including a book that provides an
epistemological explanation of our environmental crisis and explores how a
coevolutionary understanding of process can be used to envision a more
sustainable future ("Development Betrayed: The End of Progress and a
Coevolutionary Revisioning of the Future", Routledge, London and New York,
1994).
Dr. Norgaard helped found and is currently President-elect of the
International Society for Ecological Economics. He is a member of the U.S.
Committee of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment
(SCOPE) hosted in the U.S. by the National Research Council. He
participated in the founding and serves as chairman of the board of
Redefining Progress, an NGO based in San Francisco engaged in research and
public education on greening the system of national accounts and on
resource and environmental taxation.
Dr. Robert Costanza is director of the University of Maryland Institute for
Ecological Economics, and a professor in the Center for Environmental and
Estuarine Studies at Solomons, MD, and in the Zoology Department at College
Park, MD. His academic research has focused on the interface between
ecological and economic systems, particularly at larger temporal and
spatial scales. This includes landscape level spatial simulation modeling,
analysis of energy flows through economic and ecological systems, valuation
of ecosystem services and natural capital, and analysis of dysfunctional
incentive systems and ways to correct them. He is the author or co-author
of over 200 scientific papers and 11 books.
Dr. Costanza is co-founder and president of the International Society for
Ecological Economics (ISEE) and chief editor of the society's journal:
"Ecological Economics." He serves on the editorial board of five other
international academic journals. He is also vice president of the newly
formed International Society for Ecosystem Health. In 1982 he was selected
as a Kellogg National Fellow; in 1992 he was awarded the Society for
Conservation Biology Distinguished Achievement Award; and in 1993 he was
selected as a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment. He has
served on the EPA National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and
Technology (NACEPT); the National Research Council's Board on Sustainable
Development, Committee on Global Change Research; the National Research
Council's Board on Global Change; and the U.S. National Committee for the
Man and the Biosphere Program.
Dr. Costanza received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1979 in
systems ecology with a minor in economics. He also has a masters degree in
Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning, also from the University of
Florida. Before coming to Maryland in 1988, he was on the faculty at the
Coastal Ecology Institute and the Department of Marine Sciences at
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The Next Seminar is scheduled for Monday, January 13, 1997
Planned Topic: Food, Agriculture, and Climate Change:
The International and U.S. Outlook
For more information please contact:
Anthony D. Socci, Ph.D., U.S. Global Change Research Program Office
Code YS-1, 300 E St., SW, Washington, DC 20546
Telephone: (202) 358-1532; Fax: (202) 358-4103
E-Mail: TSOCCI at USGCRP.GOV.
Additional information on the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)
and this Seminar Series is available on the USGCRP Home Page at:
http://www.usgcrp.gov. Normally these seminars are held on the second
Monday of each month.
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