The climate change issue is a policy concern that falls within the broader issue of sustainable development. Sustainable development means different things to different people. Green economists argue that sustainable development involves the adequate provisioning for people everywhere, of other...

This article provides two axioms that capture the idea of sustainable development, and characterises the welfare criterion that they imply. It presents a formal theory of sustainable development, created by the author (Chichilnisky, 1996a, 1997). The axioms require that neither the present nor...

Energy security, economic development and averting global warming are conflicting objectives in a fossil fuel economy. In the long run, sustainable development requires a shift to renewable energy sources. In the short run it requires swift action (IPCC) and different strategies. The article...

New physical constraints emerged in the 20th century and are changing the decision criteria used until now. Two optimisation problems are equivalent: (1) maximising discounted utility with a long-run survival constraint and (2) maximising a new type of utility that treats the present and future...

New physical constraints emerged in the 20th century and are changing the decision criteria used until now. Two optimisation problems are equivalent: (1) maximising discounted utility with a long-run survival constraint and (2) maximising a new type of utility that treats the present and future...