Yale Climate, Environment & Economic Growth Conference 2023

• Yale Climate, Environment & Economic Growth Conference 2023
• Date: November 9-10, 2023
• Hosts: Yale Economic Growth Center (EGC), Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy, and Yale School of the Environment
• Location: Yale University
• Agenda: Click here to view and download the conference program

The first day "The Future of Growth in the Climate Transition" explored questions on environmentally sustainable economic growth, from climate justice and poverty reduction to energy markets and the relationship between economic and climate models. The second day commemorated the 50th anniversary of Nordhaus and Tobin’s classic paper, "Is Growth Obsolete?" and examined the linkage between the environment and economic growth and the opportunities and implication of including the environment in systems of economic measurement. 

What is the future of economic growth in the face of climate change, and how should we measure it? How will low-income countries achieve significant poverty reduction without using carbon-intensive approaches or further degrading the environment? Have we been able to measure the economic value to natural resources accurately? How well do macroeconomic models capture the assumptions in climate models, and vice versa?

Such questions were the focus of the conference, presented on Thursday and Friday, November 9-10 by EGC, the Yale School of the Environment, and the Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy, with additional support from Yale Planetary Solutions, the Knobloch Family Foundation, and Smart Prosperity Institute.

On November 9, the Economic Growth Center hosted a problem-focused climate economics conference examining the future of economic growth in the climate transition. Sessions covered frictions in climate adaptation in lower-income countries, energy markets and the renewable energy transition and the spatial and macro-economics of climate change. Esther Duflo delivered a keynote address and we concluded with an inter-disciplinary panel on the modelling of climate impacts with human/social feedback.

On November 10, the Yale School of the Environment and Tobin Center marked the 50th anniversary of William Nordhaus and James Tobin’s seminal paper “Is Growth Obsolete?”, and highlighted plans for Natural Capital Accounting that Yale economists have helped develop within the Biden Administration.

The conference was held in New Haven and included researchers and policymakers.

Speakers on November 9 included Nobel laureate Esther Duflo (MIT), as well as Natalia Fabra (UC3M), Islamul Haque (Yale), Allan Hsiao (Princeton), Kelsey Jack (UCSB), Samuel Kortum (Yale), Gregory Lane (Chicago Harris), Valerie Ramey (UCSD), Catherine Wolfram (MIT), Tony Smith (Yale), and more.

Speakers on November 10 included Nobel laureate Bill Nordhaus (Yale), as well as Ethan Addicott (Exeter), Matthew Agarwala (Cambridge), Spencer Banzhaf (NCSU), Steven Berry (Yale), Linda Bilmes (Harvard), Eli Fenichel (Yale), Dennis Fixler (BEA), Chad Jones (Stanford), Beth Kiser (Fed Board), Sarah Kapnick (NOAA), Albert Kroese (IMF), Steve Landefeld (BEA), Ehsan Masood (Nature), Nick Muller (CMU), Carl Obst (IDEEA), Rohini Pande (Yale), and more.

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Halting the ongoing climate breakdown requires commitments from high-income countries to rapidly implement drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and commitments from low- and middle-income income countries to limit future emission increases. At the same time, politicians in both rich and poor countries cannot steer away from promising continued economic growth, as a widely accepted prerequisite for improving citizen welfare and reducing poverty. This conference asked whether it is possible to pursue global economic growth as currently defined and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously, and, if so, what policies are required to achieve this – and if not, what economic and environmental targets our policies should aim for instead. Key themes for discussion included:

• The spatial and macro-economic implications of climate instability
• Energy market policy in the renewable energy transition
• Frictions in adaptation and policies to mitigate the increases in national and international inequality
• How should redistributive climate transfers from rich to poor countries be designed?
• Interdisciplinary research on the modelling of climate impacts with human/social feedback

Friday, November 10, 2023

GDP has been called one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Yet, even in GDP’s (GNP’s) earliest days, economists and policymakers raised concern that the metric was not sufficient to measure economic welfare or socio-economic progress. 50 years ago, Bill Nordhaus and James Tobin’s paper “Is Growth Obsolete” took these concerns, organized them, and launched research programs and policy actions to improve national accounting in order to avoid the “serious consequences of treating as free things which are not really free[, because] this practice gives the wrong signals of the direction of economic growth.”

Today, the international community is committed to going “Beyond GDP”: the System of National Accounts is being revised to better consider sustainability; 90 countries have adopted the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting; and the U.S. national strategy to develop natural capital and environmental-economic statistics, released last January, credits “Is Growth Obsolete” as the modern origin of these efforts. Despite the progress made over the last 50 years, national accounting practice and economics have drifted apart. The 50th anniversary of “Is Growth Obsolete” provided an opportunity to bring national accountants and economists back together, to celebrate Nordhaus and Tobin’s seminal contribution, take stock of the progress made, and build the bridges to support the research and work ahead – all at a time when this economic measurement of public goods has never been more important.

This workshop included sessions on:

• The evolution of national accounting and the environment
• How economic measurement needs to evolve to account for the environment and climate
• The role of the environment in the future of economic growth.

Maurice R. Greenberg Conference Center (391 Prospect St)
(Please note that there will be a bus arriving at The Omni Hotel at 7:40am to take conference guests to the conference center)

8:00 - 8:30 am EST

Breakfast

8:30 - 10:30 am EST: Frictions in adaptation and environmental justice

• Moderated by: Rohini Pande (Yale)

• Islamul Haque (USC/Yale)
  The Role of Land Market in Achieving the Scale for Adaptation to Climate Change

• Kelsey Jack (UCSB)
  Harvesting the rain: The adoption of environmental technologies in the Sahel

• Gregory Lane (UChicago)
  The value of forecasts: Experimental evidence from developing-country agriculture

• Comments provided by: Sunil Amrith (Yale)

10:30 - 11:00 am EST

Break

11:00 - 11:25 am EST

• Lucas Chancel (HKS)
  Addressing Inequality Under Climate Change: Issues in Measurement and Policy

11:25 - 12:30 pm EST

• Keynote: Esther Duflo (MIT)
  Facing our responsibilities: Sustainability funding and structuring a climate fund for low-income countries

• Policy Discussion and Q&A
  Moderated by Nicholas Ryan 

12:30 - 1:30 pm EST

Lunch

1:30 - 3:00 pm EST: Renewable Energy Markets

• Moderated by: Nicholas Ryan (Yale)

• Natalia Fabra (UC3M)
  The Energy Transition: A Balancing Act

• Catherine Wolfram (MIT)
  Economic Implications of the Climate Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act

• Comments provided by: Jose Antonio Miranda (President & Chief Executive Officer, Avangrid Renewables, LLC)

• Q&A

3:00 - 3:15 pm EST

Break

3:15 - 4:45 pm EST: Macroeconomics of Climate Change

• Moderated by: Costas Arkolakis (Yale)

• Valerie Ramey (Hoover Institution, Stanford)
  How Much Will Global Warming Cool Global Growth?

• Allan Hsiao (Princeton)
  Sea Level Rise and Urban Adaptation in Jakarta

• Comments provided by: Samuel Kortum (Yale)

• Q&A

4:45 - 5:00 pm EST

Break

5:00 - 6:15 pm EST: Panel Discussion on Modelling Climate Impacts with Human/Social Feedback

• Moderated by: Jessica Seddon (Yale)

• Anthony A. Smith (Yale)
  High-Resolution Integrated Assessment Models

• Regina Rodrigues (Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brasil)
  Inverting the construction of climate information for local-to-regional climate risk

• Piers Forster (University of Leeds, UK)
  FaIR physical climate model emulator

• Tejal Kanitkar (National Institute of Advanced Studies, India) – (remote)
  Socio-Economic Futures in Climate Modelling

6:15 - 7:30 pm EST

Reception

Kroon Hall, Yale School of Environment (195 Prospect St)

8:00 - 8:45 am EST  

Coffee, continental breakfast registration

8:45 - 8:50 am EST  

• Opening comments

8:50 - 9:00 am EST  

• Welcome remarks Steven Berry (Yale)

9:00 - 9:20 am EST: Why has It taken so long? Identifying and addressing conceptual, estimation, political, and budget barriers to extended national accounts

• J. Steven Landefeld (Former BEA Director)

9:20 - 10:20 am EST: Evolution of national accounting for the environment and relevance today

• Spencer Banzhaf (NC State University)
• Dennis Fixler (BEA, Chief Economist)
• Ethan Addicott (University of Exeter)
• Moderated by: Linda Bilmes (Harvard) 

10:20 - 10:50 am EST

Break

10:50 - 11:05 am EST: Policy Action Session

• Rohini Pande (Yale)

11:05 - 11:25 am EST

• Jed Kolko, (Dept of Commerce, Under Secretary of Economic Affairs)

11:25 - 11:45 am EST: Measuring what counts - How to create tools supporting sustainability transformation

• Csaba Kőrösi, (77th President of the UN General Assembly)

11:45 - 12:00 pm EST

• Rohini Pande in conversation with Jed Kolko and Csaba Kőrösi 

12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Lunch

1:30 - 2:30 pm EST: How economic measurement needs to evolve to account for environment, climate, nature, and other public goods

• Ishan Nath (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)
• Albert Kroese (IMF, Chief Statistician, Data Officer, and Director of the Statistics Department)
• Carl Obst (IDEEA Group)
• Frances Moore (University of California, Davis)
• Moderated by: Matthew Agarwala (Cambridge)

2:30 - 2:50 pm EST: A new era of economic measurement for the coming era of environmentally-dependent economic growth

• Eli Fenichel (Yale)

2:50 - 3:20 pm EST

Break

3:20 - 4:20 pm EST: The role of the environment in the future of economic growth

• Sarah Kapnick (NOAA Chief Scientist)
• Nicholas Z. Muller (Carnegie Mellon)
• Beth Kiser (Federal Reserve Board)
• Charles I. Jones (Stanford)
• Moderator: Ehsan Masood (Nature Publishing)

4:20 - 5:15 pm EST: Keynote

• Introduction by Indy Burke (Yale)
• William D. Nordhaus (Yale)

5:15 - 6:45 pm EST

Reception