This paper describes the development of the Energy and Climate Policy and Scenario Evaluation (ECLIPSE) model—a flexible integrated assessment tool for energy and climate change policy and scenario assessment. This tool builds on earlier efforts to link top-down and bottom-up models, and...

Climate science indicates that climate stabilization requires low GHG emissions. Is this consistent with nondecreasing human welfare?

The Kyoto and Copenhagen Protocols on climate change mitigation postponed the specification of binding commitments to a future negotiation. This paper analyzes the strategic implications of delayed negotiations. While, as is well-understood, the incentive to free ride leads to excessive...

International migration is maybe the single most effective way to alleviate global poverty. When a given host country allows more immigrants in, this creates costs and benefits for that particular country as well as a positive externality for individuals and governments who care about world...

We analyze the effect of “milestones” on reaching a long-term target, which if missed implies dramatic payoff risks. In our experiment, a cumulative threshold public goods game, milestones are captured by intermediate contribution targets on the way to the final target. Missing the final...

Soil degradation can take many forms, from erosion to salinization to the overall depletion of organic matter. The expression of soil degradation is broad, and so too are the causes. As the world population nears eight billion, and the environmental uncertainty of climate change becomes more...

Bangladesh is vulnerable to climatic changes, and there has been a serious debate about the occurrence and the relationship with the frequency of flooding. For example, in Dhaka, further flood controls are claimed to be necessary due to a change of climatic patterns and more frequent flood...

Solar radiation management (SRM) could quickly offset global warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Because SRM would have global side effects, it raises not only technological but also political and social concerns. Therefore, SRM research should be accompanied by a global...

While experts in economics place transition to green economy on two directions - reducing ecological footprint and increasing human welfare - climate change specialists warn that effects of global warming will have a much greater impact in the future. It is natural to join scientific...

The debate on growth versus the environment is usually summarized as optimists believing in limitless growth versus pessimists seeing environmental and resource limits to growth. This opposition defines the main strategies: namely, striving for green growth versus some anti-growth approach. In...