Whatever you might happen to think about Richard Tol’s views, he cannot be criticized for being indirect. The statement below I have elevated from our comments. It is one of seveal gems from Richard in the past few weeks, and provides a cogent summary of why it is that solid policy arguments matter in political discourse — whether the subject is climate change or WMDs or whatever.

I cannot speak for Nordhaus, but I have known him for many years and carefully read all his papers on climate change.

Nordhaus indeed favours climate policy, specifically greenhouse gas emission reduction. The House of Lords report also seems to favour climate policy — its main author, David Pearce, was a strong advocate for sure. Indeed, any economist I know who seriously studied climate change, has come out in favour of emission reduction.

That does not imply that there is agreement with Stern.

Nordhaus and others have berated Stern for a number of technical errors and wild exageration. Qualitatively, Stern may be correct — but quantitatively, Stern is very wrong.

There are several problems with that. Firstly, a supposedly eminent economist made a fool of himself in the public eye. This increases the general distrust of the public. Secondly, anyone who dislikes climate policy can quote Stern to demonstrate what fools climate policy advocates are.

Stern did not provide an argument for climate policy, but ammunition for the skeptics.

Besides, he has forced people like Nordhaus to waste precious time on refuting a silly argument. To the general public, the message of people like Nordhaus must be very confusing: Stern is wrong but right nonetheless.

Really, climate policy would have been in a better place without Nick Stern.