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Report n°7: summary
The Stern review on the economics of climate change: from scientific controversy to issues for public and private decision-making
The media success of the Stern review is related to the fact that its disquieting message on the damage caused by climate change comes not from environmentalists but from a former World Bank Chief economist commissioned by the UK Government. If implications for decision-makers are to be understood therefore, there can be no separate analysis of its content and context.
The Stern review should be understood as UK-USA geopolitical posturing; the timing of the report's publication was chosen to influence the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), at the cost of scientific "risk-taking"; and finally this mixture of science and politics produced strong reactions. The most critical accuse Stern either of issuing a political report or of basing a sound case (speed is of the essence) on faulty arguments (we know how to predict damage sufficiently to quantify them). It is thus symptomatic that controversy focused on damage assessment although it represents only one fifth of the report. Yet, the issues relating to the cost of preventive decarbonisation and to the principles of international coordination of climate policies are just as important.
The present analysis will rectify that imbalance hereafter by discussing the Stern review both on the issue of damage and of decarbonisation policies, after which it will come to the strategic consequences to be drawn for economic actors.