Thinking Through the Climate Change Challenge

There is common agreement that climate change presents a serious threat to the planet. In this chapter, we provide an introduction to the climate change problem and summarize the main findings of the other chapters of the book. In addition we present 10 consensus principles on climate change policy developed by participants at a conference in honor of Tom Schelling. We argue that there is a need to go beyond many economists’ preferred solution of doing no more than pricing pollution appropriately to also include consideration of alternatives such as geo-engineering and R&D subsidies. In addition, there is a growing realization that unless the cost of containing carbon emissions can be reduced substantially through innovation, not much mitigation is likely to occur. Finally, the authors of the Schelling consensus believe that a new approach is needed to climate change negotiations, which focuses on enforceable, realistic targets