Recently within a week of each other China and Europe intensified their commitments on climate change. China surprisingly pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060. Europe undertook new legislation to increase its 2030 emission reduction target to 55%, up from 40%.
At the same time the United States remains on track to leave the Paris Agreement. Ironically, the government calls its policy “America First”. But it is governments that act on climate change that better serve their national interests.
To understand why, it is necessary to distinguish between two ways to see climate change.
One view all too common is of climate change as an isolated problem competing for limited societal resources. This perspective is at the core of the U.S.’s justification for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. It is also how the issue is treated in basic economics: as an externality in an otherwise optimally functioning system. This framing presupposes that addressing climate change requires sacrifice. It predisposes us to focus on how much it will cost to solve and who will pay. …
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