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...

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities created for the world by the Kyoto protocol and the creation based on international law of a global market for carbon emissions trading, in particular, the significance of the clean development mechanism (CDM). The projects funded by CDM and...

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...

This article sets out the importance of the Kyoto Protocol process to be decided at the Copenhagen COP XV Conference of December 2009. It clarifies the latest aspects of the clean development mechanism. It explains in practical terms, the relative negotiating positions adopted by developing and...

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...

The article explains the origins of the gender pay gap as a Nash equilibrium of a game with incomplete information about women's work at home and in the marketplace based on the earlier results of Chichilnisky (2005, 2008a, 2008b). Expectations about women's lower market wages leads to the over...

Catastrophic risks are rare events with major consequences and of great interest to green economics. The article investigates the way economics deals with catastrophic risks. Classic expected utility theory is insensitive to rare events no matter how important these may be, based on the axioms...