This article reviews the implications for climate policy of the climate economics and development literature, focusing on three key areas of judgments and assumptions that are built into a number of leading climate-economics models:

  1. the treatment of climate science, risk, and uncertainty in climate-economics models;
  2. questions of abatement technologies and costs, including a focus on the “cost effectiveness” method of economic analysis; and
  3. ethical issues surrounding the distribution of the costs of emission reductions and adaptation measures.

 

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