One controversial environmental sustainability issue has to do with using carbon pricing as a means of reducing greenhouse gases. In this university podcast, Harvard professor Robert Stavins lays out two instruments for carbon pricing: taxing CO2 emissions and issuing tradable carbon permits that major league polluters must buy for each ton of CO2 they send into the atmosphere, also known as “cap and trade.” He explains the ins and outs and pros and cons of both. Stavins was talking at the 2010 Climate Policy Instruments in the Real World conference, an event convened by the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) at Stanford University.
Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, director of doctoral programs, and co-chair of the Harvard Business School/Kennedy School Joint Degree Programs. He is a university fellow of Resources for the Future and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Stavins’s research has focused on diverse areas of environmental economics and policy, and has appeared in leading economics, law, and policy journals, as well as a dozen books. He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard, an MS in agricultural economics from Cornell, and BA in philosophy from Northwestern University.
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This free podcast is from our Stanford Discussions series.
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Photo: Harvard Kennedy School