It started with that William Nordhaus was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for his DICE model, which concludes that it is economically optimal to limit global warming to 3,5 degrees Celsius. According to the UN Paris Agreement, countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 °C and to actively pursue a 1.5 °C limit. These targets are, according to Nordhaus’s model, economically sub-optimal.

In a new article published in Nature Climate Change, Thomas Sterner together with researchers from among others Germany, Norway, USA and the UK show that the UN climate targets may be optimal even in the DICE model when appropriately updated. You can read the article here.

The article has gotten a fair share of attention both in Sweden and internationally, some of the media coverage is listed below.

“En ambitiös klimatpolitik är samhällsekonomiskt lönsam“, Chalmers University press release. 2020-07-14.
“An ambitious climate policy is economically beneficial“, Mirage. 2020-07-14.
“Två graders uppvärmning ekonomiskt optimalt enligt ny forskning“, Sveriges Radio Vetenskapsnyheter. 2020-07-13.
“Nobelpristagare räknade fel, enligt ny forskning“, Svenska Dagbladet. 2020-07-13.
“Tuffa klimatåtgärder är bra för ekonomin“, Göteborgs Posten. 2020-07-13.
“Der wohltemperierte Klimaschutz UN-Klimaschutzziel liegt nahe am Kosten-Nutzen-Optimum“, Der Tagesspiegel. 2020-07-13.