Matthew E. Kahn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, an

Why the cost of mitigating climate change can’t be boiled down to one right number, despite some economists’ best attempts

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2022-05-13 22:00:14

Matthew E. Kahn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and University of Southern California provide funding as members of The Conversation US.

Back in November 2019, before the pandemic began, would you have guessed how important videoconferencing like Zoom would be in people’s lives just a few months later?

That’s the kind of challenge economists face when they try to put a single number on the long-term cost of mitigating climate change or the cost of allowing global temperature to keep rising. Human behaviors shift as public policies change and new technology arrives and evolves.

I am a microeconomist who investigates the causes and consequences of climate change. When I think about the climate change challenge in 2040 and beyond, I anticipate many “known unknowns” about our future. Thus, I am amazed to read precise climate cost estimates like those recently published by economic consultants McKinsey & Co.