Why COVID-19's Effect on Carbon Emissions Isn't a Win
Pausing the World to Fight Coronavirus Has Carbon Emissions Down—But True Climate Success Looks Like More Action, Not Less

My columns, essays, books, as well as research and teaching materials like case studies.
Pausing the World to Fight Coronavirus Has Carbon Emissions Down—But True Climate Success Looks Like More Action, Not Less
Like climate economics, the economics of Covid-19 mean we need to take aggressive action, not incremental steps.
To make sense of the spread of Covid-19, economics—particularly black swan events and compound growth—can provide guidance.
The power of compound growth has long been recognized as essential to economic development. But in both the COVID-19 pandemic and the slower-moving climate crisis, this same mathematical force is cutting the other way, revealing dangerous shortcomings in how we manage externalities.
When considering travel and other choices, economic principles can provide guidance.
A $40 carbon dioxide price? Try $100, $200, or possibly more.
The money would go far in politics, but it will also allow for technological experimentation and will take a fundraising burden off recipients.
To drive down tomorrow’s CO₂ emissions, governments need to subsidize fossil fuel alternatives, too.
Inaugural Risky Climate column
By Gernot Wagner and Constantine Samaras
Classifying policies by type and by rights assigned to polluters or victims.
Efforts to combat climate change should be pragmatic above all else.
Fast, Cheap, and Imperfect
by Juan B. Moreno-Cruz, Gernot Wagner, and David W. Keith
by Thomas Stoerk, Gernot Wagner, and Robert E.T. Ward
by Aseem Mahajan, Dustin Tingley, and Gernot Wagner
by Gernot Wagner & Martin L. Weitzman; reply to Cox et al. (2018), Nature 553 (7688), 319-322.
Around 60 percent of all social media discourse on geoengineering is conspiratorial, and belief in the conspiracy appears across party lines.
Gespräch mit Benjamin Enajat
by Kristina Mohlin, Jonathan R. Camuzeaux, Adrian Muller, Marius Schneider, and Gernot Wagner