He Pioneered a Groundbreaking Idea and Was Met With Corporate Wrath

Long before climate change entered the vernacular, the economist William D.Nordhaus had seized on the idea of taxing pollution as the most effective way to combat man-made global warming.Dr.

Nordhaus, who died Friday at 85, spent his career championing the idea of a tax on carbon dioxide.Putting a price on planet-warming pollution, he contended, would slow down climate change and could be achieved without severe harm to the economy.His work helped inform government policies around the world, and in 2018 he shared the Nobel Prize in economics.But Dr.

Nordhaus faced powerful adversaries who ultimately curtailed the influence of his ideas.The fossil fuel industry, which would have absorbed the costs that Dr.

Nordhaus proposed, vigorously opposed his work and commissioned reports that attacked carbon taxes.“What economists did not take account for a long time was the enormous political interests that were lined up to fight any kind of climate policy,” said Gilbert E.Metcalf, emeritus professor of economics at Tufts University.

“Basically, the fossil fuel industry had a lot of money and they spent it wisely to block any progress in this area.”Dr.Nordhaus, who joined the faculty of Yale University in 1967, began thinking about the effects of a warming world on economic growth in the 1970s, when the subject drew comparatively little attention.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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