Apr 02 2020 24 mins 48
Long gone are the days when the science of climate change was contested. But the economics of what many view as the existential crisis of our time are still up for often-heated debate. Over the last three decades, governments have repeatedly set targets – often for their successors, or their successors' successors – which are later missed and replaced by more ambitious targets. Is this because solving the climate problem requires a restructuring of the energy sector and agriculture, which will take many decades, not years? And, if so, will 2050 be another target that passes us by? Are politicians, many of whom have shared platforms with climate activist Greta Thunberg, saying one thing and failing to do another? What are the free-market solutions to climate change? Will a carbon tax disproportionately hurt the poor? Richard Tol, who joins the IEA's Professor Syed Kamall, remotely, of course. Richard is a former member of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. He has been a convening author with the IPCC and is a Professor of Economics at Sussex University. The pair discuss Coronavirus, challenging environmental orthodoxy, and whether we underestimate human ingenuity in tackling climate change.
