I write a monthly column for Project Syndicate. My latest books are »Stadt Land Klima« (written in German; English: City Country Climate) and Geoengineering: the Gamble.
At Columbia Business School, I teach half courses in Business and Climate Change, Climate Risk, and Climate Policy, and I lead the fledgling Climate Knowledge Initiative, a $2.5m initiative employing ~25 graduate student fellows a term.
CKI aims to provide business leaders with the curated, actionable knowledge needed to pick investable and scalable low-carbon technologies, while unapologetically flagging areas where business and public interests diverge. First up: steel, including, for example, a Financial Times mini business school case study on steel. (Next up: cement, solar, and half a dozen other sectors and technologies.)
Latest writing and research:
Moore, Frances C., Moritz A. Drupp, James Rising, Simon Dietz, Ivan Rudik & Gernot Wagner. “Synthesis of evidence yields high social cost of carbon due to structural model variation and uncertainties,” PNAS (17 December 2024). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2410733121
Wagner, Gernot. “What Will Trump’s Victory Mean for the Climate?” Project Syndicate, 9 November 2024.
Wagner, Gernot. “Business school teaching case study: capture or cut carbon to make steel greener?” Financial Times, 7 October 2024.
Wagner, Gernot. “Floods are wreaking havoc around the world. Vienna might have found an answer.” The Guardian, 2 October 2024.
Schnitzer, Monika and Gernot Wagner. “Gute Industriepolitik ebnet den Weg zu effektiven CO2-Preisen” [German; “Good industrial policy paves the way to effective CO2 prices”]. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 23 September 2024.
Wagner, Gernot. “Stegra: Green Hydrogen Steel.” Columbia CaseWorks #240307 (18 September 2024).
Hänsel, Martin C., Michael D. Bauer, Moritz A. Drupp, Gernot Wagner & Glenn D. Rudebusch. “Climate policy curves highlight key mitigation choices.” Climate Policy (16 September 2024). doi:10.1080/14693062.2024.2392744
Wagner, Gernot. “What counts as climate mitigation costs.” Nature Climate Change (22 August 2024). doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02094-z
Schnitzer, Monika and Gernot Wagner. “The Best Climate Policy Puts Carrots Before Sticks.” Project Syndicate, 8 August 2024.
Wagner, Gernot. “Tipping Carbon.” Milken Review, 24 July 2024.
Wagner, Gernot and Conor Walsh. “Don’t Slam the Door on Inexpensive Chinese Electric Vehicles.” New York Times, 15 May 2024.
Bauer, Adam M., Cristian Proistosescu, and Gernot Wagner. “Carbon dioxide as a Risky Asset.” Climatic Change 177:72 (6 May 2024). doi: 10.1007/s10584-024-03724-3
Current research:
“Delayed renewable energy deployment pits climate tipping points against potential nuclear accidents” (with Ruipu Yang, Rong Wang, Philippe Ciais, Josep Peñuelas, Greet Janssens-Maenhout, Katsumasa Tanaka, Jordi Sardans, James Clark, Junji Cao, Yijing Wang, Xiaofan Xing, Xiajia He & Renhe Zhang; 7 July 2024; R&R at Joule)
“Climate shift uncertainty and economic damages” (with Romain Fillon & Manuel Linsenmeier)
“Updating climate beliefs based on latest IPCC report points to increased willingness to act” (with Mark C. Freeman, Ben Groom, and Frikk Nesje)
“Adverse Weather Events and Mental Health: Evidence from Health Insurance Records” (with Valeriya Azarova, Martin Halla, and Gerald J. Pruckner)
“Contracts over economics: exiting fossil fuel power purchase agreements” (with Sugandha Srivastav, Abhinav Jindal, Haneea Isaad, Windy Dewi, and Sam Fankhauser)
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