What Economics Gets Wrong About Climate Change
Breaking down mainstream economic perspectives, and why our economics is ill-equipped for the challenge of climate and ecological crisis.
What would you say a human life is worth? According to the US government, for an American it’s about $7.2 million, compared with the global average of approximately $1.3 million. If you’re Swiss though, you’re worth a pretty penny at $9.4 million.
While these estimates might sound absurd, they are important to understand: these kinds of figures and the models that produce them are a core part of how mainstream economics understands and shapes policy, and they have had a significant role in how governments have responded (or failed to respond) to the climate crisis. In this episode, Adrienne and Ha-Joon Chang break down what mainstream economics gets wrong, and why it has proven so ill-suited to a challenge like climate and ecological crisis.
Ha-Joon Chang is a celebrated economist and Research Professor at SOAS, University of London. He taught previously at the University of Cambridge, and has been an advisor to several international organisations including as a member of the Committee for Development Policy, the highest advisory body of the United Nations on development. He is also the author of several books, most recently, Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World.
Further Reading
Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, Anthem Press (2002)
Madison Condon, "Damage Functions (Or why I am mad at economists)", Law & Political Economy Project.
Steve Keen, "The appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change", Globalizations.