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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS & COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE 545
Therefore, even according to the concept of cost-benefit analysis itself and economic analysis
more generally the criterion of economic efficiency is not of exclusive importance.
Having completed the second step of our analysis of the term “economic efficiency” we can
draw on that analysis and our discussion of the ends of welfare economics in order to evaluate
Jamieson’s second critique. The primary results are these: First, the promotion of welfare
should be at least one important goal of public policy. Therefore, the ends of welfare
economics and the ends of management approaches that draw on it are well-chosen albeit not
all encompassing. Thus, economic analysis should play an important role in guiding public
policy. Second, on any plausible reading of the term efficiency we should be concerned to
reach our goals efficiently. Therefore, we should seriously consider the results of cost-benefit
analyses. How central they should be to the decisions of policy makers again depends on their
views regarding the importance of welfare.
5. Uncertainty
Lastly, Jamieson claims that “economic considerations should take a back seat in our thinking
about global climate change” because of their special exposure to risks and uncertainties
(Jamieson 1992: 144). Here the basic argument is that because we cannot reliably predict the
specific climatic effects of climate change (disastrous storms, floods, temperature volatility
and precipitation changes, etc.) we are even less able to predict the economic effects of
climate change. This is due to uncertainties about regional effects, the coping strategies and
reactions of humans, the workings of local and global economies, as well as complex
economic interaction effects. 21
In part, this claim again appears to reflect a misinterpretation of the term “economic effects”.
If we take economic effects to relate exclusively to the workings and the development of
economies Jamieson’s analysis appears to be well constructed. Indeed it finds anecdotal
evidence in the inability of central bankers and other experts in economics to forecast the
developments of their economies during the upcoming months – entirely independently of
massive exogenous shocks in the further future such as climate change. 22 However, as argued
in section four, economic analysis has a much broader concern and takes into consideration a
policy’s effect on welfare even if that effect is independent of any interaction with the
economy (e.g. welfare reductions through the negative aesthetic effects of air pollution).
Importantly, these effects of climate change on welfare need to be taken into account by any
plausible theory and therefore cannot be used to criticize economic analysis in particular. At
present there simply is no way around the uncertainty inherent in that task.
Further, even if we narrow our perspective and exclusively consider the workings and the
development of economies, it is unclear how we can avoid attempting to measure and
consider these effects, as long as we have reason to believe that they will have an impact on
the promotion of welfare or other policy goals we may want to pursue. However, Jamieson
believes that we should refrain from doing so because “conventional economic analysis is
practically useless“ in the context of climate change and that other forms of analysis or other
approaches to mitigating the problem are inherently better suited to deal with uncertainty
(Jamieson 1992: 144). Specifically, Jamieson claims that:
[a] bad analysis can be so wrong that it can lead us to do bad things, outrageous things
– things that are much worse than what we would have done had we not tried to assess
the costs and benefits at all […]. (Jamieson 1992: 146)
21
Jamieson 1992: 144-6.
22
For examples consider the Monthly Bulletin of the European Central Bank.