Climate Change: A Decision Quality Approach to Policy

The polarizing issue of climate change intertwines science, geopolitics, economic trends, and the complexity of assigning a value to things that are hard to assess in economic terms. Scientists fear that human activities—specifically actions that increase the emission of greenhouse gases—have set the Earth on a path of significant, possibly catastrophic, change. Then there is the debate of what might be done to slow the damage or to limit the consequences to humans and other species.

Against this background, researchers are turning to the DICE model—the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model developed by 2018 Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus—which integrates economics, the carbon cycle, climate science, and impacts as it weighs the costs and benefits of taking steps to slow greenhouse warming.

In this webinar, Professor Eric Bickel of The University of Texas at Austin describes his use of decision analysis and decision quality together with the DICE model to explore cost-effective solutions for climate change policy.

Speaker

J. Eric Bickel is an associate professor in the graduate program in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. His longtime research interest in climate change policy has been featured in the documentary Cool It. His work on climate engineering was presented as part of the Copenhagen Consensus on Climate Project, where it was selected by a panel of economists, including four Nobel Laureates, as the best response to climate change.