OpenMarket » Stern’s Critical Flaws

OpenMarket » Stern’s Critical Flaws: "To sum up the economic criticisms of the report: to obtain his estimate of the damage of global warming, Stern used a worst-case scenario for temperature rises, exaggerated the effects with his “high-climate” model, applied a discount rate which is questionable and a view of the value of inter-generational equity which is absurd in its implications. In none of these cases did he apply sensitivity tests by, for example, using an IPCC scenario that shows less warming, developing a model in which the effects of global warming are easily adapted to by a richer society, using a market discount rate or taking into consideration the idea that our descendants will be quite capable of looking after themselves. Each of these tests separately would have produced lower cost estimates. Together, it is plausible to think they might have delivered a cost figure for global warming that is negligible. A civil servant who is looking to provide unbiased advice to his Minister would have, out of the sense of pure duty alone, provided those sensitivity tests without fear or favor. That Sir Nicholas did not is, in my view as a former civil servant in Her Majesty’s Government, nothing short of unethical."