Right for the Right Reasons: A final rejoinder on the Stern Review

• Published in: World economics (Henley-on-Thames, England) Vol. 8; no. 2; p. 229
• Main Authors: Dietz, Simon, Anderson, Dennis, Stern, Nicholas, Taylor, Chris, Zenghelis, Dimitri
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Henley-on-Thames NTC Publications Ltd 01-04-2007
• Subjects: Bias; Climate change; Criticism; Economic models; Ethics; International; Risk; Studies
• ISSN: 1468-1838; 1474-3884

Four authors of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, and Dennis Anderson who provided advice and background papers for the Review, make a final rejoinder on the debate about the Review that has occupied recent issues of this journal. They respond to comments in the present issue by Carter et al., by Henderson, and by Tol and Yohe. Carter et al. continue to argue against a growing body of scientific evidence and a growing consensus on that same evidence. The source of their critique is, first, a distinctly partisan, and increasingly untenable, position on the broad range of available scientific evidence and, second, a mistrust of the international consensus-building exercise centred on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Henderson is also largely preoccupied with the latter, procedural issues. Tol and Yohe focus on economic arguments. Their critique is rather narrower in focus and concerns the way in which abatement costs were calculated in the supporting work carried out by Dennis Anderson. It rests on basic confusions and misconceptions, many of which were explained in previous contributions.