Reply [to Comments on “The greenhouse debate: Time for action?”] Greenhouse economics and policy

In their comments, Harvey [1992], Oeschger et al. [1992], and Bolin [1992] raise the intertwined issues of greenhouse economics and policy, particularly the economic and environmental costs of a 10‐year delay in action and the need for the natural and socioeconomic sciences to define future scenarios. In the following I address these concerns by summarizing recent research conducted on greenhouse economics and policy by Peck and Teisberg [1992a, b], W.D. Nordhaus (Rolling the “DICE”: An optimal transition path for controlling greenhouse gases, submitted to the Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1992; hereinafter, referred to as Nordhaus, 1992), and Hammitt, Lempert, and Schlesinger [1992], followed by conclusions and recommendations.