Alexandre’s Recent Comments

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  evenly applied

  Be it a carbon tax or carbon cap, the effectiveness of such policies is greatly enhanced if it´s evenly applied across countries and economic sectors.On Five ways BC's carbon tax shift can strengthen Cap and Trade posted 1 year, 5 months ago 2 Responses

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  Monetization

  The main problem with cost/benefit analysis on this issue is the necessary monetization of every aspect of it, with the unavoidable subjectitivities and distortions. How valuable is the water you loose if your local river stops flowing because of some distant glacier has melted out? Is it the price of today´s tapwater, is it the local farm´s devaluation because it does not produce as much anymore, or is it some amount you assigned for each life lost due to hunger or drought? None of these, of course, will fully express the loss.

  But having said that, I consider this kind of analysis a useful way to communicate to economists. They usually get lost or over-suspicious when people talk to them with ethereal concepts such as "life" (sarcasm intended, of course). I imagine (I´m no pro) it´s easier to get them talking to you that way.On Lisa Heinzerling responds to Richard Revesz on cost-benefit analysis posted 1 year, 5 months ago 38 Responses

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  One world

  Carbon tariffs (i.e. price per carbon ton emitted) have to be evenly applied across countries and across economic sectors to be effective, otherwise you´ll only end up just exporting emissions. And this is a Brazilian guy speaking.On McCain waters down language on climate dealings with China & India posted 1 year, 5 months ago 2 Responses

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  Mitigation economic analysis

  I´m interested in the economic analysis of AGW mitigation, and I´ve always found suspicious those vague claims of "it´s cheaper to let happen". Lomborg does that often.

  The only extensive paper on this that I found on the internet available to the public was this one by W. Nordhaus, which states
  "Our estimate is that the present value of global abatement costs for the optimal policy would be around $2.2 trillion, which represents 0.11 percent of discounted world income".
  http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/dice_mss_072407_all.pdf

  Does anyone have an opinion about this paper, or maybe could recommend others so that I could get some perspective?

  It also criticizes cap-and-trade as more corruptible (why?), and favors an internalization tax (or at least a hybrid solution).
  On How much will it really cost to address climate change? posted 1 year, 6 months ago 11 Responses