April 02, 2020

Zeroing In: Free market approaches to the 2050 target

24 minutes

This IEA podcast explores some of the economic considerations around the debate on climate change. Over the last three decades, governments have repeatedly set targets – often for their successors, or their successors' successors – which may be missed, but then replaced by more ambitious targets.

Is this because solving the climate problem requires a restructuring of the energy sector and agriculture, which will take many decades, not years? And, if so, will 2050 be another target that passes us by? Are politicians, many of whom have shared platforms with environmental activists, saying one thing and failing to do another? What are the free market solutions to climate change and pollution? Would a carbon tax disproportionately hurt the poor?

Richard Tol, who joins the IEA's Professor Syed Kamall, remotely of course, is a former member of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. He has been a convening author with the IPCC and is a Professor of Economics at Sussex University. The discussion covers a number of issues including Coronavirus, challenging environmental orthodoxy, and whether we underestimate human ingenuity in tackling climate change.

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