The Global Economic Cost of the Paris Climate Agreement

Dear Colleagues,

The Paris Climate Agreement represents the most ambitious and serious attempt to combat climate change to date. The only other experience has been the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, which has not fared, well possibly due to the limited participation and a top down structure envisaging binding absolute targets on emissions. While the Paris Agreement, with its voluntary and highly heterogeneous pledges, could turn out to be an effective agreement from the point of view of country participation, in its current form it still represents an insufficient effort in preventing global temperature increase by +2 °C. Most relevantly, the economic efficiency of the Agreement made at COP21 is still unclear and the overall economic costs are a topic that as of now is still largely un-assessed and un-researched.

This Special Issue is inviting contributions to an assessment of the overall cost associated with meeting the obligations specified in the NDCs, which are an integral part of the Paris Agreement. Additionally, the interest lies also in evaluating the costs of meeting the +2 °C temperature target under both the case of full participation to the agreement or only partial participation, as exemplified by the withdrawal of the United States under the Trump Administration.

Dr. Marzio Galeotti
Guest Editor

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