Introduction

Within months of George W. Bush becoming President of the United States of America in January 2001 it was made very clear that economics was at the heart of arguments about climate change policy. Writing to Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and colleagues a few months later, Bush explained: ‘As you know, I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it … would cause serious harm to the US economy. The Senate's vote, 95–0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns.’ And later that spring, in a White House press statement, he said: ‘For America, complying with those [Kyoto] mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases for consumers. And when you evaluate all these flaws, most reasonable people will understand that it's not sound public policy.’

Bush's claimed reason for withdrawing the USA from the Kyoto Protocol was – at least to domestic audiences – because of its perceived damage to the US economy and workforce rather than because the science of climate change was uncertain or incomplete.

A different type of argument about climate change, but again one in which the language and analysis of economics was central, was highlighted a few years later in 2004 when the Copenhagen Consensus Centre in Denmark released the results of an exercise to set priorities for confronting some of the world's greatest challenges.