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Duke News Tip -- President's Call for Action on Climate Change Will Need Balance

President's approach will need to balance environmental goals, economic costs, says environmental economist Billy Pizer

In tonight's State of the Union Address, President Obama is expected to call for renewed action to address climate change. 

Billy Pizer Associate professor, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke UniversityFaculty Fellow, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke Universitybilly.pizer@duke.edu (Pizer will be traveling Wednesday morning and email will be the fastest way to reach him.)http://fds.duke.edu/db/Sanford/faculty/billy.pizer  Pizer, an environmental economist, was deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2008 to 2011, overseeing Treasury's role in the domestic and international environment and energy agenda of the United States. He also has served as the senior economist for energy and environment on the President's Council of Economic Advisors. Pizer recently co-authored a paper reviewing the state of carbon markets (published in the winter 2013 edition of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, http://tinyurl.com/pizer) and a paper examining the challenge of addressing climate change in a global economy.  Quote: "Climate change is a challenging problem because it is intricately linked to our use of energy and economic activity.  "In 2009, the climate change policy debate was dominated by discussions of a cap-and-trade approach. Now, there are discussions of other ideas -- carbon taxes, clean energy standards and a more traditional regulatory approach, as well as cap and trade. All these approaches will have different overall costs, a different distribution of costs, different impacts on emissions and different legislative versus regulatory requirements.  "The president's approach will need to balance environmental goals, economic costs, and the need to achieve an equitable distribution of outcomes."