In the News

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.

“People joke about how economists can’t agree on most things,” said Derek Sylvan, the institute’s strategy director and one of the authors of the survey. “But we find a pretty strong level of consensus” on the economic importance of climate action.

The majority of economists say that the benefits of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 would outweigh the costs, a new survey suggests. The findings suggest the majority of economists agree that the costs associated with unabated climate change would exceed those of ambitious climate action, said Derek Sylvan, strategy director the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, which conducted the survey. "There is a clear consensus among these experts that the status quo seems far more costly than a major energy transition,” he said. “Economists overwhelmingly support rapid emissions reductions, and they are optimistic about key technology costs continuing to drop.”

A growing number of climate economists say the world should take “immediate and drastic action” to tackle climate change, according to a survey published Tuesday. Failing to do so could cost the world some $1.7 trillion a year by the middle of this decade, escalating to about $30 trillion a year by 2075, according to estimations by the 738 economists from around the world surveyed by New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

The cost of global warming will far outweigh the cost of rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, more than 700 economists from around the world said Tuesday in an unprecedented call to climate action. "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 for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, which conducted the survey. "These findings show a clear economic case for urgent climate action."

Nearly nine in 10 leading global climate economists think climate change will deepen income inequality between rich and poor countries, with most calling for urgent action to cut planet-warming emissions, a survey showed on Tuesday. "There seems to be extremely high concern about the risks of climate change," said Derek Sylvan, the institute's strategy director and co-author of the survey, which interviewed economists published on climate issues in top-ranking journals.

A growing majority of economists are concerned about the impacts of climate change and support "drastic action" to address the problem, according to a survey released today. The poll from New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity is based on the responses of more than 700 economists who've published climate-related papers in prestigious economics journals. For the survey, they answered a series of multiple-choice and forecasting questions. "If policymakers look at these findings, it seems pretty clear that economists recommend the idea of spending on clean infrastructure now so we can reduce the risks of climate damages later," said Derek Sylvan, strategy director at the institute and co-author of the research, in an interview.

A growing number of climate economists say the world should take “immediate and drastic action” to tackle climate change, according to a survey published Tuesday. Failing to do so could cost the world some $1.7 trillion a year by the middle of this decade, escalating to about $30 trillion a year by 2075, according to estimates by the 738 economists from around the world surveyed by New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “People joke about how economists can’t agree on most things,” said Derek Sylvan, the institute’s strategy director and one of the authors of the survey. “But we seem to find a pretty strong level of consensus” on the economic importance of climate action.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Shumer announced Thursday that Democrats would use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn two different Trump-era regulations. NYU's Richard Revesz worries that Democrats are too cautious about the CRA language blocking any future regulation that is substantially similar. “I understand that argument floats around, but for this administration it shouldn't be considered a bar even in cases where they actually want to replace a regulation,” he said. “Strengthening something is not substantially the same as weakening something.”

New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity in a new report is arguing the Trump administration failed to adequately consider many health and environmental benefits from strict effluent limits for certain power plant discharges but that simple policy changes would allow EPA to give appropriate weight to climate and other harms. The report, written by Bethany A. Davis Noll and. Rachel Rothschild, comes as the Biden administration is reviewing the Trump EPA’s effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) for coal-fired power plants for possible changes.