By Jean Chemnick
“This has been a long time coming,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School.
Wagner pointed to a 1999 paper by economists William Nordhaus and Edward Kokkelenberg that urged the U.S. government to improve its environmental accounting, which he said was finally realized when the White House released an economic accounting road map earlier this year that for the first time included environmental assets.
This week’s guidance, Wagner said, brings those social goods into the regulatory review process, affirming that “yes, nature provides crucial services that ought to be considered when making decisions.”
When those benefits aren’t considered, he added, “we basically treat natural assets as if they’re simply there for the taking.”
Quoted in: “White House to agencies: Tally projects’ financial damage to ecosystems” by Jean Chemnick, ClimateWire/PoliticoPro (1 August 2023)