One approach to rationalising policies for addressing potentially catastrophic climate change when such policies may prove unnecessary is to suppose the policies provide a form of social insurance even in the presence of pure uncertainty. Then, provided the policies are effective, such insurance...

An analysis of prospects for deriving self-enforcing, global, greenhouse gas emission mitigation agreements is provided. Policy spillovers and carbon leakages are accounted for. Situations where mitigation effort should be concentrated in particular countries and where efficient outcomes can be...

On 9 September 2007, Australian Ministers and the Indonesian President announced a $100 million Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership (KFCP). This would involve protecting 70,000 hectares of peat forests, re-flooding 200,000 hectares of dried peatland, and planting 100 million trees in...

This paper explores the failure of countries to coordinate climate policies as an equilibrium outcome of a game where countries optimize in the face of both unprecedented economic and environmental uncertainty. Because issues associated with climate change are historically unprecedented and thus...

We review the historical literature on the economics of climate change with a focus on the evolution of the literature from some of the early classic papers to the latest contributions. We divide the paper into three main sections: trends in greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation, and adaptation.

The inundation of an entire nation due to anthropogenic climate change has never been seen. And the low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is likely to be among the first victims of such a disaster. As such, this article examines a number of strategies for the relocation of Kiribati, and finds...

The inundation of an entire nation due to anthropogenic climate change has never been seen. And the low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is likely to be among the first victims of such a disaster. As such, this article examines a number of strategies for the relocation of Kiribati, and finds...

China has embarked on an ambitious and unprecedented programme of energy reform and climate change mitigation. Yet the motivations for this important shift remain unclear. This paper surveys key central government documents and articles by China's leading energy academics to investigate the...

Economists were able to formulate and recommend policy approaches for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (mitigation) by drawing on an existing body of economic theory related to externalities. However, no comparably straightforward approach has yet emerged in the adaptation literature,...