Richard Tol
Encyclopedia
Richard S. J. Tol is a Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute
, Dublin, Ireland
, where he works in the research areas of energy economics
and environmental economics
. He is the professor of the economics of climate change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin and an associate at Hamburg University and the Hamburg
Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science. He is a member of the Academia Europaea
.
from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 1997. In 1998, he contributed with some 19 other academics to a joint project of the United Nations Environment Programme
at his home university. Tol collaborated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize
2007 with Al Gore
.
He regularly participates in studies of the Energy Modeling Forum
and is an editor of Energy Economics
, associate editor of Environmental and Resource Economics, and on the editorial board of Environmental Science and Policy, and Integrated Assessment. From 1998-2008 he was an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
's Department of Engineering and Public Policy. IDEAS/RePEc
ranks him among the top 250 economists in the world.
Tol specialises in energy economics and environmental economics, with a particular interest in climate change
, such as the economics of global warming
. Tol was the Michael Otto Professor of Sustainability and Global Change and director of the Center for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and board member of the Center for Marine and Climate Research at the University of Hamburg
. He was also a principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije University. Tol is a board member of the International Max Planck Research Schools on Earth System Modeling and Maritime Affairs and the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment.
"list of scientists disputing man-made global warming claims", which stated that Tol "dismissed the idea that mankind must act now to prevent catastrophic global warming".
Tol characterises his position as arguing that the economic costs of climate policy should be kept in proportion to its benefits.
He argues against the 2°C 'guardrail' target for limiting temperature rises. Tol does not advocate another target, but has recommended a carbon tax
of $5/tC. He acknowledges that this level of taxation is too low to significantly discourage fossil fuel use but argues it would help to stimulate the development of fuel-saving technology and improve the competitiveness of renewable energy sources. He states that compliance may affect the coal and oil industries and the people they employ.
In an interview with Der Spiegel
in 2005, he argued that temperature rises between 2-4 °C would also have advantages. North of a line drawn from Paris
to Munich
, people would benefit, e.g., from reduced energy bills. However, south of it, people would be overall "losers" of climate change.
In 2007, Tol predicted a reduction in annual economic growth by 0.4% in the Republic of Ireland
if greenhouse gases were reduced by 3% per year.
chose Tol to participate in his 'Copenhagen Consensus
' project in 2008. In 2008, Tol collaborated with Gary Yohe
, Richard G. Richels
and Geoffrey Blanford to prepare the 'Challenge Paper' on global warming which examined three approaches devised by Lomborg for tackling the issue. The 3 results were then compared with 27 similar investigations, 3 each relating to 9 other 'challenges' in the areas of health and environment. Of the 30 policy alternatives that resulted, Lomborg's ranking procedure rated the 2 dealing with controlling emissions of greenhouse gases 29th and 30th in terms of cost effectiveness.
Kåre Fog pointed out that the benefits of emissions reduction were discounted
at a higher rate than for any of the other proposals, stating "so there is an obvious reason why the climate issue always is ranked last" in Lomborg's environmental studies. Tol accepted that emissions reduction was accounted for differently from the competing proposals it was ranked against. Fog further criticised the study because, by using aggregate GDP to evaluate outcomes across regions of differing prosperity, it accorded people in wealthy countries more weight than those in poor countries purely because they are wealthier.
A 'perspective paper' by Anil Markandya of the University of Bath
on the Yohe/Tol study stated that "a short time period analysis is misleading" when all the costs are incurred during the period examined but benefits continue to accrue after its conclusion. He pointed out that the study "stops short of the most that can be supported on a cost benefit basis" and stated that "it does not seem reasonable" to rely solely on Tol's own FUND model when alternatives "reported in the peer-reviewed literature are also credible".
Gary Yohe
later accused Lomborg of "deliberate distortion of our conclusions", adding that "as one of the authors of the Copenhagen Consensus Project's principal climate paper, I can say with certainty that Lomborg is misrepresenting our findings thanks to a highly selective memory". In a subsequent joint statement settling their differences, Lomborg and Yohe agreed that the "failure" of Lomborg's emissions reduction plan "could be traced to faulty design".
Lomborg awarded Tol a position on his Copenhagen Consensus panel again in 2009. According to Tol, "Lomborg successfully punches holes in climate hysteria" and "plays a useful role in the debate on climate policy".
or an upsurge in terrorism.
Regarding terrorism, he says "it may well be that a Maldivian terrorist will try and blow up the headquarters of ExxonAramco". Regarding the Horn of Africa scenario, he acknowledges it might cause substantial human suffering but assesses the probability of this actually happening as unlikely. He concludes that "poor and exhausted people are unlikely to take up arms, and if they do, they are probably not very effective".
Economic and Social Research Institute
The Economic and Social Research Institute is a think tank in Dublin, Ireland. Its research focuses on Ireland's economic and social development in order to inform policy-making and societal understanding....
, Dublin, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where he works in the research areas of energy economics
Energy economics
Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Due to diversity of issues and methods applied and shared with a number of academic disciplines, energy economics does not present itself as a self contained academic...
and environmental economics
Environmental economics
Environmental economics is a subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues. Quoting from the National Bureau of Economic Research Environmental Economics program:...
. He is the professor of the economics of climate change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin and an associate at Hamburg University and the Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science. He is a member of the Academia Europaea
Academia Europaea
Academia Europæa is a European non-governmental scientific academy founded in 1988. Its members are scientists and scholars who collectively aim to promote learning, education and research. It publishes European Review through Cambridge Journals....
.
Academic career
Tol obtained his PhD in EconomicsEconomics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 1997. In 1998, he contributed with some 19 other academics to a joint project of the United Nations Environment Programme
United Nations Environment Programme
The United Nations Environment Programme coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. It was founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has its...
at his home university. Tol collaborated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
2007 with Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
.
He regularly participates in studies of the Energy Modeling Forum
Energy Modeling Forum
The Energy Modeling Forum is a structured forum for discussing important issues in energy and the environment. The EMF was established in 1976 at Stanford University. The EMF works through a series of ad hoc working groups, each focussing on a particular corporate or policy decision...
and is an editor of Energy Economics
Energy Economics (journal)
Energy Economics is a scientific journal published by Elsevier under its "North Holland" imprint. The journal publishes research papers concerned with the economic and econometric modelling and analysis of energy systems and issues...
, associate editor of Environmental and Resource Economics, and on the editorial board of Environmental Science and Policy, and Integrated Assessment. From 1998-2008 he was an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
's Department of Engineering and Public Policy. IDEAS/RePEc
Research Papers in Economics
Research Papers in Economics is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in 57 countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics. The heart of the project is a decentralized database of working papers, preprints, journal articles and software components. The project started...
ranks him among the top 250 economists in the world.
Tol specialises in energy economics and environmental economics, with a particular interest in climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, such as the economics of global warming
Economics of global warming
-Definitions:In this article, the phrase “climate change” is used to describe a change in the climate, measured in terms of its statistical properties, e.g., the global mean surface temperature. In this context, “climate” is taken to mean the average weather. Climate can change over period of time...
. Tol was the Michael Otto Professor of Sustainability and Global Change and director of the Center for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and board member of the Center for Marine and Climate Research at the University of Hamburg
University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...
. He was also a principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije University. Tol is a board member of the International Max Planck Research Schools on Earth System Modeling and Maritime Affairs and the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment.
Climate Change
According to Tol "the impact of climate change is relatively small". He was also among the US Senate Republican Party'sRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
"list of scientists disputing man-made global warming claims", which stated that Tol "dismissed the idea that mankind must act now to prevent catastrophic global warming".
Tol characterises his position as arguing that the economic costs of climate policy should be kept in proportion to its benefits.
He argues against the 2°C 'guardrail' target for limiting temperature rises. Tol does not advocate another target, but has recommended a carbon tax
Carbon tax
A carbon tax is an environmental tax levied on the carbon content of fuels. It is a form of carbon pricing. Carbon is present in every hydrocarbon fuel and is released as carbon dioxide when they are burnt. In contrast, non-combustion energy sources—wind, sunlight, hydropower, and nuclear—do not...
of $5/tC. He acknowledges that this level of taxation is too low to significantly discourage fossil fuel use but argues it would help to stimulate the development of fuel-saving technology and improve the competitiveness of renewable energy sources. He states that compliance may affect the coal and oil industries and the people they employ.
In an interview with Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
in 2005, he argued that temperature rises between 2-4 °C would also have advantages. North of a line drawn from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, people would benefit, e.g., from reduced energy bills. However, south of it, people would be overall "losers" of climate change.
In 2007, Tol predicted a reduction in annual economic growth by 0.4% in the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
if greenhouse gases were reduced by 3% per year.
Copenhagen Consensus
Bjørn LomborgBjørn Lomborg
Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish author, academic, and environmental writer. He is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen...
chose Tol to participate in his 'Copenhagen Consensus
Copenhagen Consensus
Copenhagen Consensus is a project that seeks to establish priorities for advancing global welfare using methodologies based on the theory of welfare economics. It was conceived and organized by Bjørn Lomborg, the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and the then director of the Danish...
' project in 2008. In 2008, Tol collaborated with Gary Yohe
Gary Yohe
Gary Wynn Yohe is the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of economics at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and Director of the John E. Andrus Public Affairs Center at Wesleyan. He holds a PhD from Yale University....
, Richard G. Richels
Richard G. Richels
Dr. Richard "Rich" Gayle Richels directs global climate change research at the Electric Power Research Institute. Dr. Richels received a BS degree in physics from the College of William & Mary. He was awarded MS and PhD degrees in decision science from Harvard University's Division of Applied...
and Geoffrey Blanford to prepare the 'Challenge Paper' on global warming which examined three approaches devised by Lomborg for tackling the issue. The 3 results were then compared with 27 similar investigations, 3 each relating to 9 other 'challenges' in the areas of health and environment. Of the 30 policy alternatives that resulted, Lomborg's ranking procedure rated the 2 dealing with controlling emissions of greenhouse gases 29th and 30th in terms of cost effectiveness.
Kåre Fog pointed out that the benefits of emissions reduction were discounted
Discounted cash flow
In finance, discounted cash flow analysis is a method of valuing a project, company, or asset using the concepts of the time value of money...
at a higher rate than for any of the other proposals, stating "so there is an obvious reason why the climate issue always is ranked last" in Lomborg's environmental studies. Tol accepted that emissions reduction was accounted for differently from the competing proposals it was ranked against. Fog further criticised the study because, by using aggregate GDP to evaluate outcomes across regions of differing prosperity, it accorded people in wealthy countries more weight than those in poor countries purely because they are wealthier.
A 'perspective paper' by Anil Markandya of the University of Bath
University of Bath
The University of Bath is a campus university located in Bath, United Kingdom. It received its Royal Charter in 1966....
on the Yohe/Tol study stated that "a short time period analysis is misleading" when all the costs are incurred during the period examined but benefits continue to accrue after its conclusion. He pointed out that the study "stops short of the most that can be supported on a cost benefit basis" and stated that "it does not seem reasonable" to rely solely on Tol's own FUND model when alternatives "reported in the peer-reviewed literature are also credible".
Gary Yohe
Gary Yohe
Gary Wynn Yohe is the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of economics at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and Director of the John E. Andrus Public Affairs Center at Wesleyan. He holds a PhD from Yale University....
later accused Lomborg of "deliberate distortion of our conclusions", adding that "as one of the authors of the Copenhagen Consensus Project's principal climate paper, I can say with certainty that Lomborg is misrepresenting our findings thanks to a highly selective memory". In a subsequent joint statement settling their differences, Lomborg and Yohe agreed that the "failure" of Lomborg's emissions reduction plan "could be traced to faulty design".
Lomborg awarded Tol a position on his Copenhagen Consensus panel again in 2009. According to Tol, "Lomborg successfully punches holes in climate hysteria" and "plays a useful role in the debate on climate policy".
Conflict
According to Tol, "it is not clear whether climate change would lead to conflict". Citing a lack of suitable methods for evaluating hypothetical conflicts numerically, he examines what he calls plausible scenarios, such as drought and migration in the Horn of AfricaHorn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
or an upsurge in terrorism.
Regarding terrorism, he says "it may well be that a Maldivian terrorist will try and blow up the headquarters of ExxonAramco". Regarding the Horn of Africa scenario, he acknowledges it might cause substantial human suffering but assesses the probability of this actually happening as unlikely. He concludes that "poor and exhausted people are unlikely to take up arms, and if they do, they are probably not very effective".