全球气候变化:质疑与释疑

Global Climate Change:Puzzles and Explanations

当前,学术界围绕全球气候变化问题正在进行着一场声势浩大的讨论。本文从经济学角度阐释了这场讨论的缘起,选取了其中最受争议的10个热点问题进行归纳和说明,既有对流行观点的释疑,也有对学术研究和政策制订中关键问题的探讨。在简要描绘气候变化产生的原因、后果以及全球公共物品特征的基础上,文章分析了解决气候变化问题的理论难点和现实障碍,对国际社会解决气候问题的机制以及减排和适应的涵义进行了剖析,特别强调了折现率、不确定性和不可逆转性在气候政策和措施制订中的意义和作用。

This paper surveys 10 issues and debates in the context of the global climate change. We first brief the prevailing debate arisen by the Stern Review, and the charaeteristics of climate change as Global Public Goods（GPG） are anatomized. We clarify some popular myths and decompose the problems of climate change. Then we make an inquiry into the climate policy and its theoretical basis, with particular emphasis on the implication of mitigation and adaptation as major measures to tackle climate change. Given mitigation has been widely adopted to deal with the global warming, we argue that mitigation is not only relevant to the specific conditions of economic development, but also subject to uncertainty arising from climate change, and actually depends on discounting rate as well. Under the circumstances of abrupt or extreme climate changes, it is an inevitable choice to adapt to changing climate. Finally we build some linkages between climate change, discounting rate and uncertainty, and detail the decisive impact of discounting rate and uncertainty on the climate policy - making.