Sweden in Transition #10 - Thomas Sterner
Thomas STERNER is a renowned environmental economist, he was involved in the IPCC as one of the authors in charge of the chapters on policy design. He has published hundreds of scientific articles and more than a dozen books on various topics such as energy, climate, transport, resource management and carbon pricing. Thomas shared his vision of the current climate situation as well as key outputs from the latest IPCC report. He then explained why Carbon Tax is the best tool at our disposal, how it works and also how it could ultimately be used to systematically integrate externalities in prices. We also discussed its acceptance, comparing the case of France with the yellow vests crisis, with Sweden, where Carbon Tax has been created as early as 1991! That lead us on various topics such as energy transition, inequalities in revenue but also inequalities between cities and rural areas and of course on politics, and how the risks could escalate if we have bad policies on top of the environnemental crisis.
Thomas shared all that and more with his warmth and humour, providing us with insights and hope!!