Introduction

There is no shortage of models that join climate to economy with the goal of predicting the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in the decades to come and offering policy advice on when, where and by how much to abate emissions. Some models are designed to offer a detailed portrayal of the climate, the process of economic growth or the feedback between these two systems; others focus on the long-run or the short-run, economic damages or environmental damages, carbon-based energy sectors or abatement technology. The best models produce results that inform and lend clarity to the climate policy debate. Some models surprisingly conclude – in direct contradiction to the urgency expressed in scientific literature – that rapid, comprehensive emissions abatement is both economically unsound and unnecessary. Some models seem to ignore (and implicitly endorse the continuation of) gross regional imbalances of both emissions and income.

Good climate policy requires the best possible understanding of how climatic change will impact human lives and livelihoods in industrialized countries and developing countries. No model gets it all right, but the current body of climate economics models and theories contains most of the ingredients for a credible model of climate and development in an unequal world.