Gernot Wagner
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gwagner.com
Gernot Wagner
@gwagner.com

Climate economist, Columbia
https://gwagner.com
It’s pronounced juggernaut without the jug.

Gernot Wagner is an Austro-American climate economist at Columbia Business School. He holds an AB and a PhD in political economy and government from Harvard University, as well as an MA in economics from Stanford University. A founding co-director of Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program (2017–2019) he joined the faculty of New York University in 2019, moving to Columbia University in 2022. Wagner writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, and is the co-author, with Martin L. Weitzman, of Climate Shock, a Top 15 Financial Times-McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2015. He won the "Austrian of the Year" award in 2022, awarded by Austrian daily Die Presse. .. more

Economics 35%
Environmental science 29%

Yes! (± Vince mcmahon gif)

Plus just really basic enforcement of traffic laws that all pass benefit-cost analyses with flying colors.

Traffic cameras at every NYC intersection pay for themselves after a couple days. They hopefully won't be needed thereafter, once drivers get the message.
<Vine mcmahon gif>

- Buses

- Buses that issue tickets to cars parked in bike lane

- That plus the money goes back into the bus system for more bus service and bike lanes

- More buses issue more tickets and now there are nice bus lines and nice bike lanes

"Human-caused warming" gone. Phew! There I was thinking we had a problem.
It appears that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, within the past week, scrubbed a large amount of climate change content from its official website, as well as *removed human-caused warming* from the discussion on its "causes of climate change" page.

The bit that hurts the most: "despite laws"

Monday morning.
It appears that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, within the past week, scrubbed a large amount of climate change content from its official website, as well as *removed human-caused warming* from the discussion on its "causes of climate change" page.

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

Landmark case up for argument at SCOTUS at 10am on the power of presidents to fire independent agency heads.

Here’s my quick preview in Espresso, @economist.com’s daily app.

I’ll be posting live analysis during the oral argument in this thread

Sigh.

Sounds sanctimonious, I know, but my last day on Twitter was sometime in August 2022.

Yes, my "reach" took a hit, but not really. A handful journalists signed up for my email newsletter, a prominent one reached out for coffee. Sanity: way up.

Preaching to the choir here, but this isn't hard.
Sehr geehrte demokratische Abgeordnete des Deutschen Bundestags,

der einzige Grund, warum die Plattform X in Deutschland noch Relevanz hat, ist Ihre Anwesenheit dort. Ohne Amts- und Mandatsträger wird die Plattform auch für Journalisten irrelevant und mit ihnen für die gesamte politische Blase.

Lastly, the big climate-economic controversy of the week: a @nature.com retraction, where the new study shows an estimate that's well within the confidence interval of the full range.

wapo.st/48ToLHP, though this one technically via @apnews.com: apnews.com/article/clim...
Researchers slightly lower study's estimate of drop in global income due to climate change
Researchers who examined climate change’s potential effect on the global economy say data errors led them to slightly overstate an expected drop in income over the next 25 years
wapo.st

Next up: "Private companies have raised millions to block the sun. What could go wrong?" wapo.st/4pUcOan

And yeah, not every country with the money to do geoengineering "might have a democratically elected government acting in the best interest of the planet."
Private companies have raised millions to block the sun. What could go wrong?
Proponents of the controversial climate solution say start-ups can develop a potentially world-changing technology faster than plodding university scientists.
wapo.st

How was your week? So here was mine: got myself quoted 3x in the @washingtonpost.com in 3 days, on 3 entirely different, wildly controversial topics:

How to make a small donation with big climate impact? "Spend it on yourself!"

I s'pose that's what an economist would say. ;)

wapo.st/4po6gkv
Column | On Giving Tuesday, how to make small donations with big climate impact
I asked economists and climate philanthropists what they could teach people like me, whose Giving Tuesday donations may only have one or two zeros behind them.
wapo.st

Elisabeth Gsottbauer & @profjeroenbergh.bsky.social with no fewer than 8 key arguments in favor of "Pricing instruments in environmental and climate policy when polluters are boundedly rational"
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Pricing instruments in environmental and climate policy when polluters are boundedly rational - npj Climate Action
npj Climate Action - Pricing instruments in environmental and climate policy when polluters are boundedly rational
www.nature.com

Hard to pick favorites, but let me call out 2 articles that strike a particular chord: "Veggie Days" in university canteens by @christinemerk.bsky.social et al. Turns out nudging people toward meatless meals is A-OK www.nature.com/articles/s44...
No need for meat as most customers do not leave canteens on Veggie Days - npj Climate Action
npj Climate Action - No need for meat as most customers do not leave canteens on Veggie Days
www.nature.com

Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe

Rather interesting collection of @natureportfolio.nature.com Climate Action papers, if I may say so myself:

Just out: A special issue I co-edited on the "Behavioral economics of climate action," with papers on everything from Veggie Days to carbon pricing

Intro: gwagner.com/climate-action-behavior
Behavioral economics of climate action
by Till Requate, Gernot Wagner, and Israel Waichman
gwagner.com

Might have been one of the last years they handed out a cotton shirt that holds up for decades, rather than the synthetic 'performance' shirts that last a year or two. #OldManYellingAtClouds

Something about a dart-throwing monkey. Oh wait, they're also better than humans. ;)
Sehr geehrte demokratische Abgeordnete des Deutschen Bundestags,

der einzige Grund, warum die Plattform X in Deutschland noch Relevanz hat, ist Ihre Anwesenheit dort. Ohne Amts- und Mandatsträger wird die Plattform auch für Journalisten irrelevant und mit ihnen für die gesamte politische Blase.

But how do we know it would work?

OK, I've got to work on my eye positioning, but props to the photographer 👀

gwagner.com/orf-umweltbeirat
From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

PS: If I didn't write it, you shouldn't have to bother reading it.

gwagner.com/privacy

AI output "reads like it was written by a shut-in with Wi-Fi and a thesaurus"

Sounds about right

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m...
Why Does A.I. Write Like … That?
www.nytimes.com

This is how my local paper in the swing state of Nevada covered it: Huge picture, AP story with nary a hint that this was weird or corrupt.

As low as Trump’s approval ratings are, they’d be much lower if he didn’t have the help of large swaths of the media

Two runners, one dog, Two Bridges; one baker: Saturday morning.

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

Working Paper 🚨
"Climate Shift Uncertainty and Economic Damages"
✍️ @romainfillon.bsky.social @mlinsenmeier.bsky.social @gwagner.com

Read the full paper here:
🔗 www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/pu...

The initial headline does not always get it right. What emerges after intense public scrutiny and open, transparent peer review can indeed be trusted.

If anything, published science often has an inherent, lower-case conservative bias.

gwagner.com/climate-econ-revolution w/ @tombrookes.bsky.social
Economics Needs a Climate Revolution
With its fixation on equilibrium thinking and an exclusive focus on market factors that can be precisely measured, the neoclassical orthodoxy in economics…
gwagner.com

Macro point:

This is how science is supposed to work — not necessarily the retraction, of course, but the self-correcting nature of science.

Good discussion of the latest climate-economic kerfuffle.

Key point: 19% GDP impact by 2050 now 17%, well within 6-31% error bound.

apnews.com/article/clim...
Researchers slightly lower study's estimate of drop in global income due to climate change
Researchers who examined climate change’s potential effect on the global economy say data errors led them to slightly overstate an expected drop in income over the next 25 years.
apnews.com