We have entered a new era of increasing ecological scarcity and rising environmental risks - global warming, land use change and biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, and deteriorating oceans and coasts. How economies choose to respond to this scarcity challenge is critical to both their sustainability and prosperity.
In this talk, Professor Barbier will explain why we are at a defining turning point for all economies, but especially those that are vying to win the “green race” for emerging global sectors and markets. This race is ushering in a new era of competition over, first, fostering a low-carbon transition that will affect not just a few sectors but the product mix and production processes of the whole economy, and second, creating environmental markets, investing in nature-based assets and mitigating environmental risks. The outcome of this green race will define how innovation and productivity unfold over the coming decades, global decision-making over environmental public goods, and whether economies will become more environmentally sustainable.
This Lecture and Q&A is moderated by INET Oxford's Cameron Hepburn.
About the Speaker
Edward B. Barbier is a Visiting Fellow, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. He a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics, Colorado State University and a Senior Scholar in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. His main expertise is environmental and resource economics as well as international environmental policy. He has consulted for a variety of national, international and non-governmental agencies, including many UN organizations, the World Bank and the OECD. He has authored over 350 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, written or edited 27 books, and published in popular journals and social media. Barbier is a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and is a highly cited scholar on global environmental and sustainability issues. His latest book is the award-winning Economics for a Fragile Planet, Cambridge University Press.