Optimal learning on climate change: Why climate skeptics should reduce emissions |
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Institution: | 1. CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, P.O. Box 80510, The Hague NL-2508 GM, The Netherlands;2. Department of Quantitative Economics, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, Maastricht, MD 6200, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | Climate skeptics typically argue that the possibility that global warming is exogenous, implies that we should not take additional action towards reducing emissions until we know what drives warming. This paper however shows that even climate skeptics have an incentive to reduce emissions: such a directional change generates information on the causes of global warming. Since the optimal policy depends upon these causes, they are valuable to know. Although increasing emissions would also generate information, that option is inferior due its irreversibility. We show that optimality can even imply that climate skeptics should actually argue for lower emissions than believers. |
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Keywords: | Climate policy Global warming Climate skepticism Active learning Irreversibilities |
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