Climate change is already here, and we are on a path towards catastrophic global warming. Governments have failed to curb carbon emissions, and fossil fuel production continues to increase. This is not merely a political failure; it is also a failure of economic analysis.

In this first lecture, Professor Juliet Schor (@bostoncollege) reviews the way economists have approached the problem of climate change. Conventional economists have misunderstood the problem and misdirected their attentions, producing policy recommendations that are not up to the challenge. Many economists have focused on technological innovation, believing it sufficient. Others have misdiagnosed it as a failure of government policy coordination, concluding it is an insurmountable political problem rather than an economic one. They overlook that climate destabilization has structurally inequitable causes and impacts. Economists have tended to analyze it as a market failure and their recommendations over-rely on market mechanisms of dubious effectiveness to correct it. Still others have taken out inadequate cost-benefit analysis toolkits to construct overly optimistic estimates of the impact of climate disruption on the economy. Economists have been central to the failure to respond to the crisis, and their approach has undermined action.

Learn more at https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspec...

Part 2 will be released May 4, 2022

Credits: Juliet Schor, Matthew Kulvicki, Nick Alpha, Gonçalo Fonseca, Kurt Semm