On October 30, 2006, Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the United Kingdom Government Economics Service and adviser to the UK government on the economics of climate change and development, issued a report on the economics of climate change that has received world-wide attention. (Stern 2006). The 700-page report is the most comprehensive economic analyses of climate change yet and is widely being cited for its claim that climate change could push the world into a deep global economic recession. According to the report, the costs of stabilizing climate change, although not trivial, are significantly less than the costs of delay in taking action.
The report found that unchecked climate change could lead to losing at least 5 percent of global gross domestic product each year (Stern 2006, vi). According the Stern analysis, if we take into consideration the reasonable possibility that there could be unexpected abrupt climate changes, the loss to the global economy could be as much as 20 percent of GDP (Stern 2006, vi). Yet, taking action now would cost just 1 percent of global gross domestic product (Stern 2006, vi).
The Stern report recommends quick action on climate change on the basis that total global welfare will be maximized if action on climate change is taken now. In basing its recommendations on total global welfare, this report is similar to other cost-benefit analyses of climate change policies in that its conclusions are based upon the value of measurable consequences of policy options or inaction.
Although lauded by most commentators, the Stern report also has been criticized by some economists largely on the basis of its approach to discounting future benefits. (See, e.g., Nordhaus 2006.) Despite these controversies about discounting, the Stern report acknowledges certain potential ethical issues with standard economic analysis of climate change policies.
Cost analyses of climate change policies can help policymakers understand which solutions are cost-effective and what will be the economic impacts of climate change policies. These economic analyses, therefore, can provide valuable information to policy-makers. However, standard cost-benefit analyses of climate change policy options used as the basis for climate-change policies have been criticized on a variety of ethical grounds (Brown et al, 2006) Notable in the Stern report is not only its express acknowledgement of some of these potential ethical issues of standard economic analyses but also its inclusion of some recommendations about how to deal with some of the ethical issues. For this reason, the Stern report can be understood as a positive step in reconciling cost-benefit analyses of climate change policies with potential ethical constraints on the use of standard economic analyses alone to determine climate change policies.
The report identifies several types of ethical issues raised by standard approaches to cost-benefit analysis used as prescriptive policy tool that include:
A. Certain general ethical constraints on the use of cost-benefit analysis as the sole prescriptive guidance for climate change policy-making include:
B. Particular features of climate change that raise ethical questions include:
C. Frequently used cost-benefit calculation methods that aggregate harms and benefits create ethical issues that include:
D. Standard economic measurement methods of harms and benefits when applied to climate change create certain ethical problems that include:
E. Procedural justice questions that follow from the use of cost-benefit analyses include:
Because of these acknowledgements of the ethical limitations of standard cost-benefit analyses, the Stern report can be understood not only as a strong economic argument for urgent action to reduce the threat of climate change but also as an argument for the urgency of including ethical analysis as an essential analytic tool and an indispensable augmentation to economic arguments for climate change policies. The Stern report is to be lauded for this conclusion, however to implement these insights policy makers will need to seek the advice of those who are knowledgeable about ethical issues raised by climate change.
To deal with some of the ethical criticisms of standard economic analyses of climate change policies, the Stern report not only identifies these ethical issues, it also includes some economic analyses that could help policymakers deal with these ethical issues. For instance, because of the ethical problems with aggregating harms and benefits across space and time, the Stern report disaggregates some harms and benefits across regions of the world and in time. This, at least, helps policymakers who acknowledge ethical obligations to take into account harms to others regardless of changes in aggregate global welfare. Armed with this information, policymakers could consider harms to those who are most vulnerable to climate change in developing policy. Yet, such a strategy does not completely deal with the ethical concerns particularly if the policy maker decides to ignore harm to others on the basis of economic considerations. If persons have duties not to deprive others of life, health, or liberty without their consent, then welfare considerations cannot justify policies that kill people or damage their health.
Although the Stern report identifies ethical issues that arise in the use of economic analyses of climate change policies, it is not complete. Additional ethical issues that policy makers need to be mindful of are set out in the White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change (Brown et al. 2006). http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate/whitepaper-intro.htm
References:
Brown, Donald, Nancy Tuana. Marilyn Averill, Paul Bear, Rubens Born, Carlos Eduardo Lessa Brand�o, Marco T�lio S. Cabral, Robert Frodeman, Christiaan Hogenhuis, Thomas Heyd, John Lemons, Robert McKinstry, Mark Lutes, Benito M�ller, Jos� Domingos Gonzalez Miguez, Mohan Munasinghe, Maria Silvia Muylaert de Araujo, Carlos Nobre, Konrad Ott, Jouni Paavola, Christiano Pires de Campos, Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, Jon Rosales, Adam Rose, Edward Wells, Laura Westra. (2006), White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change, The Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change, Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State University,
Nordhaus, William, (2006), The Stern Review On The Economics of Climate Change,
Stern, Sir Nicloas, (2006) Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, HM Treasury,