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We
are deeply concerned with global climate change, the higher
frequency of extreme weather conditions, the rise of sea level,
land losses and floods in coastal regions, the intrusion of saltwater
into the freshwater of small islands, the dramatic reduction in
biodiversity, ubiquitous pollution. However, we are optimist that
mitigation is still possible if the world reacts with extreme energy
and cohesion.
After COP15, it's clear that a global
carbon tax is impossible and that the low level of carbon prices
makes the financial markets unable to transmit a powerful enough
signal to real investors. The economics of climate change, until
now all too narrowly focused on the debate between carbon tax and
cap-and-trade, requires innovative approaches, both in terms of
analysis and of policy.

Book
Innovative Economic Policies for Climate
Change Mitigation
More than 20 policies to foster the transition
towards a low-emission economy in developed and developing countries,
with a wide spectrum of measures and solutions targeting firms,
sectors, households and governments. They can be used as building
blocks for NAMAs (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions).
Instead of framing "climate change mitigation"
as a cost, as the traditional carbon tax and the cap-and-trade system
do, we feel it is a huge opportunity for innovation, profits, employment,
wages and improvement of real quality of life.
Now available!
A synthesis
Adaptation
Climate
Change and Adaptation: The Italian Case
Innovative
Schemes for Financing Adaptation and Enhancing Technology Tranfer
Adaptation
strategies to minimize climate risk in companies
Finance
Copenhagen
Green Climate Fund - A Comment
Our
COP15 side-event
The Economics Web Institute, IESP and the Club
of Rome - EU Chapters organised this side-event to the Climate Conference
in Copnehange (December 2009)
Just transition to a low-carbon economy
Climate
change and social justice: recommendations to policymakers
The King
Baudouin Foundation has invited our EWI director, among many
other stakeholders and experts, in laying down recommendations to
EU, national and sub-national policymakers to order to strike the
right balance and synergies between social policies and climate
change mitigation.
The process has been very transparent and inclusive,
with final results being a far-sighted, clear, articulated and fairly
detailed document fruit of real interaction. In particular, we are
pleased that the need for transformational policies aimed at a fair
and universal switch towards a low-carbon economy has been underlined,
as our book has systematically
suggested.
While not necessarily agreeing on each line of the
text, the Economics Web Institute supports the widest diffusion
of the recommendations, as it will be doing soon in public events
in Russia and in Italy.
Migrations, bio-diversity and climate change
"Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is
vital if we are to avoid unmanageable levels of climate change."
This is the final and key message of a
June 2010 UNEP report on migratory species and their devastating
vulnerability to climate change.
The state of the debate on climate change
The authors use an extensive dataset of 1,372
climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show
that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing
in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise
and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC
are substantially below that of the convinced researchers
Essay
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