Environmental Law Plenary - Climate Change, Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Social Cost of Carbon

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The debate over cost-benefit analysis in the environmental, health, and safety arena takes on special significance in the context of climate change.  With the recent formulation by the Obama Administration of an official “social cost of carbon,” agencies will be required to quantify the benefits of regulatory proposals to abate greenhouse gas emissions or otherwise address the causes and consequences of climate change.  Yet even defenders of the cost-benefit methodology have noted its limitations in the face of a vastly complex and geographically and temporally extended problem like climate change.  This panel will feature three leading participants in the scholarly literature on cost-benefit analysis and climate change.