In the News

As economic director of the American think tank Institute for Policy Integrity and researcher on the social cost of carbon, Peter Howard's work tries to estimate the damages done to the environment and human health by CO2 emissions. Recently, Peter Howard published with his colleague Derek Sylvan the results of one of the largest polls of international economists who have analyzed various effects of climate change. It seems that, even in this discipline, a certain consensus on this problem is beginning to form.

Some of the more interesting survey findings come from groups who seem more credible than consumers in their opinions. Economists, for example. Consider a recent global survey conducted by the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. Nearly three-quarters of the 738 economists around the world who responded said they agree "immediate and drastic action is necessary" to address the climate crisis.

The vast majority of economists with expertise in climate change agree that the benefits of deep emissions cuts outweigh the costs, a survey shows. Researchers at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law said they believe their new research is the "largest-ever expert survey on the economics of climate change."

Economists predicted climate change will hurt the economy and worsen income inequality, and said efforts to mitigate change would be cheaper than dealing with the effects of it. The New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity heard from 738 economists, all of whom had published articles on climate in 45 top-rated economics, environmental economics and development economics journals.

Worsening inequality, trillions of dollars in economic damage and depressed economic growth. Those are the outcomes that economists fear we will face unless the world aggressively confronts the climate crisis. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of economists agree "immediate and drastic" action is warranted to curb emissions, according to a survey released Tuesday from the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law. "People who spend their careers studying our economy are in widespread agreement that climate change will be expensive, potentially devastatingly so," said Peter Howard, economics director at the Institute.

Climate change — already a well-known threat to our weather patterns, infrastructure, electric grids, health and safety — also presents a profound and growing threat to our financial system. Public and private sector economic experts must — and increasingly are starting to — take steps to protect against that threat, including at the highest levels of the federal government.

Emission reductions from a permanent leasing ban would be relatively small. But environmentalists and others who want more aggressive action against climate change say a ban would nudge the economy in a new direction. “The federal government is a huge player here. The government has market power,” said attorney Max Sarinsky with New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “If you restrict the supply (of oil and gas), you alter the market and you create a better environment for more sustainable fuels.”

Another supporter of the approach is Jason Schwartz, legal director of New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, which submitted a 2013 petition asking EPA to use its authority to regulate foreign emissions under section 115 of the air law. The Trump EPA denied that petition in the same letter denying CBD’s. Schwartz tells Inside EPA that section 115 “is one of several tools that could be appropriate for addressing climate change. And we’re pleased that EPA now seems to be prioritizing careful analysis on matters like this, in contrast to the Trump administration’s rushed approach done behind closed doors.”

“My immediate reaction is that these states should have a very hard time convincing a judge that a President asking his agencies to work together, to engage with the public and stakeholders, and then to follow the best available science and economics to evaluate the consequences of their decisions, is somehow illegal,” Jason A. Schwartz, legal director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, told Bloomberg Law.

Twelve states filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, accusing President Joe Biden of exceeding the executive branch’s power in restoring Obama-era values for an analytical tool called the social cost of greenhouse gases. “My immediate reaction is that these states should have a very hard time convincing a judge that a President asking his agencies to work together, to engage with the public and stakeholders, and then to follow the best available science and economics to evaluate the consequences of their decisions, is somehow illegal,” Jason A. Schwartz, legal director for New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.