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Warming the World: Economic Models of Global Warming
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2001
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EconomicsNatural EnvironmentEngineeringDice ModelsGlobal Warming ModellingClimate Change MitigationAgricultural EconomicsBusinessGlobal WarmingClimate EconomicsEnvironmental EconomicsClimate PolicyIntegrated AssessmentGlobal Warming PotentialClimate GovernanceEnvironmental PolicyClimate Change
Humanity threatens the environment through emissions, chemical use, land‑use changes, and habitat destruction, making it essential to protect natural resources, and while greenhouse‑gas warming has been studied for decades, the economic, political, and institutional aspects of mitigation are only now being seriously examined. The book presents two detailed climate‑economics models. The authors use the RICE‑99 and DICE‑99 models, built on earlier RICE and DICE work, to address data, uncertainty, coordination, and institutional design challenges in climate‑economics. The models enable policymakers to design improved economic and environmental policies.
Humanity is risking the health of the natural environment through a myriad of interventions, including the atmospheric emission of trace gases such as carbon dioxide, the use of ozone-depleting chemicals, the engineering of massive land-use changes, and the destruction of the habitats of many species. It is imperative that we learn to protect our common geophysical and biological resources. Although scientists have studied greenhouse warming for decades, it is only recently that society has begun to consider the economic, political, and institutional aspects of environmental intervention. To do so raises formidable challenges of data modeling, uncertainty, international coordination, and institutional design.Attempts to deal with complex scientific and economic issues have increasingly involved the use of models to help analysts and decision makers understand likely future outcomes as well as the implications of alternative policies. This book presents in detail a pair of models of the economics of climate change. The models, called RICE-99 (for the Regional Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy) and DICE-99 (for the Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy) build on the authors' earlier work, particularly their RICE and DICE models of the early 1990s. They can help policy makers design better economic and environmental policies.