Suzi Kerr

Last updated

Suzi Kerr
Born1966
Nationality New Zealand
Other namesSuzi Clare Kerr
Alma mater Canterbury University (B.S.)
Harvard University (Ph.D.)
Scientific career
Fields economics
Institutions Environmental Defense Fund
Thesis Contracts and tradeable permit markets in international and domestic environmental protection  (1995)

Suzi Clare Kerr (born 1966) is a New Zealand economist. She joined Environmental Defense Fund in 2019 as its chief economist.

Contents

Biography

After completing a BSc at Canterbury University and a PhD at Harvard University, she started Wellington-based non-profit economic and public policy research institute, 'Motu Economic and Public Policy Research'. The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme work has been a strong focus.

Kerr is also an adjunct professor at Victoria University of Wellington's Climate Change Research Institute. [1]

She has appeared frequently in the mainstream New Zealand media, primarily explaining economic aspects of issues in the news, such as the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme [2] [3] [4]

In February 2016, Kerr was part of a group of three presenters in the keynote opening session of the Aspiring Conversations Festival called "Cool it! Dealing with Climate Change", which was held in Wanaka. [5]

In 2018, Kerr was announced as a member of the Interim Climate Change Committee. [6]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

Emissions trading is a market-based approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for reducing the emissions of pollutants. The concept is also known as cap and trade (CAT) or emissions trading scheme (ETS). Carbon emission trading for CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been introduced in China, the European Union and other countries as a key tool for climate change mitigation. Other schemes include sulfur dioxide and other pollutants.

Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical or empirical studies of the economic effects of national or local environmental policies around the world. ... Particular issues include the costs and benefits of alternative environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, toxic substances, solid waste, and global warming."

Environmental finance is a field within finance that employs market-based environmental policy instruments to improve the ecological impact of investment strategies. The primary objective of environmental finance is to regress the negative impacts of climate change through pricing and trading schemes. The field of environmental finance was established in response to the poor management of economic crises by government bodies globally. Environmental finance aims to reallocate a businesses resources to improve the sustainability of investments whilst also retaining profit margins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbon tax</span> Tax on carbon emissions

A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon emissions required to produce goods and services. Carbon taxes are intended to make visible the "hidden" social costs of carbon emissions, which are otherwise felt only in indirect ways like more severe weather events. In this way, they are designed to reduce carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emissions
by increasing prices of the fossil fuels that emit them when burned. This both decreases demand for goods and services that produce high emissions and incentivizes making them less carbon-intensive. In its simplest form, a carbon tax covers only CO2 emissions; however, it could also cover other greenhouse gases, such as methane or nitrous oxide, by taxing such emissions based on their CO2-equivalent global warming potential. When a hydrocarbon fuel such as coal, petroleum, or natural gas is burned, most or all of its carbon is converted to CO
2
. Greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change, which damages the environment and human health. This negative externality can be reduced by taxing carbon content at any point in the product cycle. Carbon taxes are thus a type of Pigovian tax.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Kerr</span> New Zealand businessman and economist

Roger Lawrence Kerr, a public policy and business leader, was the executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, a free-market think-tank based in Wellington, New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resources for the Future</span> U.S. non-profit organization

Resources for the Future (RFF) is an American nonprofit organization, founded in 1952 that conducts independent research into environmental, energy, and natural resource issues, primarily via economics and other social sciences. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., RFF performs research around the world.

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a 700-page report released for the Government of the United Kingdom on 30 October 2006 by economist Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE) and also chair of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) at Leeds University and LSE. The report discusses the effect of global warming on the world economy. Although not the first economic report on climate change, it is significant as the largest and most widely known and discussed report of its kind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbon price</span> CO2 Emission Market

Carbon pricing, also known as cap and trade (CAT) or emissions trading scheme (ETS), is a method for nations to reduce global warming. The cost is applied to greenhouse gas emissions in order to encourage polluters to reduce the combustion of coal, oil and gas – the main driver of climate change. The method is widely agreed and considered to be efficient. Carbon pricing seeks to address the economic problem that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG) are a negative externality – a detrimental product that is not charged for by any market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Hatfield Dodds</span> Australian economist

Steve Hatfield Dodds is an Australian philosophical economist, with notable work in the social cost of economic decision-making and particularly sustainable development and the economic impact of climate change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbon emission trading</span> An approach to limit climate change by creating a market with limited allowances for CO2 emissions

Emission trading (ETS) for carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG) is a form of carbon pricing; also known as cap and trade (CAT) or carbon pricing. It is an approach to limit climate change by creating a market with limited allowances for emissions. This can lower competitiveness of fossil fuels and accelerate investments into low carbon sources of energy such as wind power and photovoltaics. Fossil fuels are the main driver for climate change. They account for 89% of all CO2 emissions and 68% of all GHG emissions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change in New Zealand</span> Emissions, impacts and responses of New Zealand related to climate change

Climate change in New Zealand involves historical, current and future changes in the climate of New Zealand; and New Zealand's contribution and response to global climate change. Summers are becoming longer and hotter, and some glaciers have melted completely and others have shrunk. In 2021, the Ministry for the Environment estimated that New Zealand's gross emissions were 0.17% of the world's total gross greenhouse gas emissions. However, on a per capita basis, New Zealand is a significant emitter, the sixth highest within the Annex I countries, whereas on absolute gross emissions New Zealand is ranked as the 24th highest emitter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme</span>

The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme is an all-gases partial-coverage uncapped domestic emissions trading scheme that features price floors, forestry offsetting, free allocation and auctioning of emissions units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economics of climate change mitigation</span> Part of the economics of climate change related to climate change mitigation

The economics of climate change mitigation is the part of the economics of climate change related to climate change mitigation, that is actions that are designed to limit the amount of long-term climate change. Mitigation may be achieved through the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the enhancement of sinks that absorb GHGs, for example forests.

The Climate Change Response Amendment Act 2008 was a statute enacted in September 2008 by the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand that established the first version of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, a national all-sectors all-greenhouse gases uncapped and highly internationally linked emissions trading scheme.

Motu Economic and Public Policy Research is an economic and public policy research institute based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Frank Jotzo is a professor at the Australian National University's Crawford School of Public Policy, Head of Energy at the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions, Director for the ANU Zero Carbon Energy for Asia-Pacific Grand Challenge initiative and Director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at Australian National University. As an environmental economist, his research focuses on policy relevant aspects of climate change, energy, and broader issues of environment, development and economic reform.

Gernot Wagner is a 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.

The Interim Climate Change Committee is a ministerial advisory committee created by the New Zealand Government in mid–April 2018 to explore how New Zealand transitions to a net zero emissions economy by 2050. The Interim Committee was superseded and replaced by an independent Climate Change Commission under the Climate Change Response Amendment Act in November 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Cramton</span> American economist and academic

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard G. Newell</span> 9th Administrator of the Energy Information Administration

Richard G. Newell is an American energy economist and climate policy expert who served as the seventh administrator of the United States Energy Information Administration from 2009 to 2011. He is currently the president and CEO of Resources for the Future, a nonprofit environmental economics research and policy institute in Washington, D.C. He has previously served as Senior Economist for Energy and Environment on the President's Council of Economic Advisers and as Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics at Duke University.

References

  1. "Suzi Kerr | School of Government | Victoria University of Wellington". Victoria.ac.nz. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  2. "From global climate change policy to the New Zealand farm". interest.co.nz. 5 September 2015. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  3. Eric Frykberg (25 August 2015). "ETS not lucrative for industry, says economist | Radio New Zealand News". Radionz.co.nz. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  4. "Thinktank Motu puts forward new plan to tackle emissions trading". Stuff.co.nz. 31 May 2017. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  5. "Wanaka's Aspiring Conversations programme launched". Stuff. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  6. Shaw, James (17 April 2018). "Interim Climate Change Committee announced" (Press release).