Be informed

Nobel Laureate, William Nordhaus died on 30 October 2026 at the age of 85. He remained to his death a Yale professor seemingly packing out lecture halls. Not surprisingly the Economist (7 November 2026) lauds him and his economics as a “triumph of pragmatism” that curiously produced “numbers that were useful” Usefulness came at a cost of precision, but he is forgiven for that.

I think it is fair to say that, despite what the Economist says, most progressives engaged in climate change scholarship – natural scientists, social scientists including economists and those from the humanities are more on the side of the British economist, Nicholas Stern, Nordhaus’ nemesis on the case for valuing the lives of those in the future a little bit more and respecting the science. Nordhaus makes the case for adapting to 3 degrees Celsius of warming (around the year 2100). We are confident that such temperatures are not tolerable and that civilisation will be challenged by such increases.

His work was picked up by policymakers because, essentially, it makes the case for business-as-usual. With numbers and equations and the maintenance of GDP as the main measure of welfare. What is more, DICE makes clear that rising temperatures will only have a marginal impact on GDP, 2 per cent, for example, for an increase of 3 degrees Celsius. That can be offset by more growth, bizarrely.

At this point I defer to the work of Genevieve Guenther and her book, The Language of Politics: Fossil fuel propaganda and how to fight it (2025). In this book she devotes nine pages to his notoriety. She credits him with almost inventing climate economics on the publication of his Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy model (DICE). That is as far as the credits go. Nordhaus published his work just at the right time when the United Nations, on establishing the Framework Convention on Climate Change, was looking for something to work with. DICE was it. Nordhaus cautions against too rapid decarbonisation because that could render capital unproductive. Capital should be deployed against climate change only when it becomes urgent. In the meantime capital should continued to be invested productively and in ways that rewards investors today. The growth driver will remain, largely, fossil fuels.

It seems that Nordhaus’ could not see that productivity will be impacted (already is) by heat, extreme weather, flood and desertification. Guenther notes that Hurricane Harvey in 2017, intensified 15 per cent by global warming (at just over 1 degree Celsius of warming) that hit Texas and Louisiana had a greater impact on GDP than Nordhaus’ model predicts and that was below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Whether on his death, policymakers will revisit DICE remains to be seen. With CoP31 starting imminently (November 2026) we will get a flavour of his longevity.

Photo of William Nordhaus: By Bengt Nyman – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74934773