Progress 10/28/14 to 09/30/15
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience are researchers in environmental economics, economcs in general, and climate change researchers in general. Some of the project's results are immediately relevant to long-term evaluation and cost benefit analysis as carried out by the government. In addition, part of the research is used in class at both the graduate and the undergraduate level to inform the student body on the topic. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?I have taught some of the material to my graduate students in Environmental and Resource Economics, focusing on both methodolical insights into dynamics integrated assessment as also the understanding of the related findings. I have also adviced the world bank on how the insights from my research and those of the field should change the evaluation of their projects. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I have presented my results at several professional meetings including theAssociation for Public Economic Theory, the meeting of the Allied Social Science Network,the Association ofEnvironmental and Resource Economists, and the environmetal congregation of theVerein für Socialpolitik and a workshop on tipping points inKnoxville, Tennessee. I presented my work at manyEconomics Departments around the world, including theUniversity of University of Oslo, theUniversity of Toulouse, theLondon School of Economics, Ohio State University, theUniversity of Cambridge, theUniversity of Miami, VU University of Amsterdam, and Stanford University. I was also invited keynote speaker at the international conference onEthics of Social Risk. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
I have built the first analytic integrated assessment model of climate change that models the atmosphere-ocean temperature dynamics. Previous models fell short of modeling temperatures and assumed that damages are caused directly by the stock of atmospheric carbon. I used the model toadvanced the analytic understanding of the integrated assessment of climate change explaining how carbon and temperature dynamics affect the optimal mitigation policy. I derived how uncertainty and time preference interact in creating the optimal policy recommendation. In a different project, I have derived the optimal mitigation policy and the cost of policy delay in the fact of climate tipping points. Natural scientists warn about a climate domino that is a series of regime shifts in the cliamte system that can change carbon sinks, temperatures, and ecosystems irreversibly. The danger is that once one of the regime shifts happens, others can become more likely. I have co-authored the first study that evaluates the interaction of multiple tipping points in an economic framework of policy assessment under uncertainty. We show how different tipping points can increase each other probability of occurance and how policy can respond to the possible "domino" problem.
Publications
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