2012 news chrishope carbonpollution

Dr Chris Hope co-authors a paper on the cost of carbon pollution and climate change

8 October 2012

The article at a glance

Dr Chris Hope, Reader in Policy Modelling at Cambridge Judge Business School, has co-authored a new study focusing on the costs of …

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Dr Chris HopeDr Chris Hope, Reader in Policy Modelling at Cambridge Judge Business School, has co-authored a new study focusing on the costs of carbon pollution and climate change, which was published by Springer in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences in September.

Written alongside Dr Laurie Johnson, Chief Economist in the Climate and Clean Air Programme at the Natural Resources Defence Council, the study claims that the US federal government is significantly under-estimating the costs of carbon pollution because it is using a faulty analytical model. The paper highlights that the current model all but ignores the economic damages that climate change will inflict on far future generations, and a more appropriate accounting of costs would pave the way to cleaner, more economically efficient sources of power generation.

Entitled “The Social Cost of Carbon in US Regulatory Impact Analyses”, the paper was one of 70 studies chosen from around 200,000 to be publicised by Springer – a real honour for both Dr Hope and Dr Johnson.

Dr Hope is a climate change policy researcher, an expert in energy and the environment, and a member of the Economics and Policy subject group. He commented:

Putting a sensible price on our emissions of CO2 is one of the most important things for governments to get right. Our paper shows that the price should be higher than it is today if we want to leave a world to our children that is not threatened by climate catastrophes.”