Re: [asa] Vattenfall

There was a hearing recently before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee
in which some testimony was presented about this. (Full transcripts here:
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=detail&hearing=529)

One Witness, not an economist, suggested that a reasonable estimate is that
costs of mitigation would be 2% of U.S. GDP by 2100 -- about 6 trillion
dollars. However, he suggested that projected growth in GDP over that same
time frame would more than make up for that loss. (That is probably a
dubious assumption, as this kind of energy cost would likely slow economic
growth in all sectors of the economy.) Testimony here:
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=5564)

However, another witness, David Montgomery, an economist with Charles River
Associates (I've used CRA as experts in antitrust litigation -- they are
very good), suggested mitigation efforts would cost 0.3% to about 1.9% of
U.S. GDP by 2020 -- again, trillions of dollars. Montogmery lays out very
effectively why caps that exempt India and China are probably
counterproductive. (I don't know for sure, but since CRA is a private
consulting firm, it is likely that CRA was retained by some interest group
to present his testimony).

On 3/5/07, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> The current issue of BusinessWeek had a brief clip about the Swedish
> utility firm Vattenfall. The CEO is Lars Josefsson who is also an adviser to
> the German government. A few weeks ago he presented this analysis
> http://www2.vattenfall.com/www/co2_en/co2_en/399862newsx/404068press/index.jsp?pmid=70593&WT.ac=content which
> indicated the economic cost of containing carbon emissions to be only 0.6%of global domestic product. Any perspectives on the credibility Josefsson
> and this analysis?
>
> Randy
>

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Received on Mon Mar 5 20:59:06 2007