Climate change in developing countries discussion

On Wednesday 18 February at 7pm I will be giving a talk to a YPFP discussion group on the effect of climate change in developing countries at Timberlakes in Dupont. If you're in the area, please feel free to drop by. Here's a short outline of the discussion:

Intro:
The impact of climate change on the developed and developing world is of increasing concern to policy makers. There is little doubt that developing countries will be hardest hit from climate change as they are generally in areas where climate change will have the most impact (such as rising sea levels for Bangladesh, or increased temperaturesin Africa), and they have little infrastructure in place to combat the threat. There is still debate though about how exactly climate change will affect nations, which nations it will affect the most, and what can be done to mitigate or stop it. The short readings listed below discuss these issues and show there is not yet a consensus on what should be done. Some sample questions to think about are also listed below. Feel free to bring up anything you want to discuss.

Questions:
1. Are the debates economists are having over how to measure the impact of climate change important, or are they a waste of time?
2. What is the best strategy to fight the effects of climate change?

Some potential answers include:

• do nothing and let future generations worry about it,
• carbon trading,
• carbon caps,
• give money to developing countries to fix the problems themselves

Short readings: Bad measurement means we should be more worried. Executive summary of the Stern Review. Critique of the Stern Review by Nordhaus. Best discussion on different methods to stop climate change I can find: slides 9-13 and 27-31 of this presentation.