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News Photogr aPHy: Johan Wingborg
Thomas Sterner chief economist in the US How can we manage emis sions of methane in natural gas extraction? It’s one of many questions that the Environmen tal Defense Fund (EDF) in New York works with. Thomas Sterner will be the organisation’s chief economist. EDF i s p ro ba b ly not well known by many Swedes. Thomas Sterner, professor of environmental economics, compares the organisation with Naturskyddsföreningen (the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation) but with more than 400 employees and a budget of over a billion crowns. The head office is in New York City, but there are nine more offices in the US, one each in Mexico and China and smaller offices in many other countries. One example of environmen tal policy measures that EDF works with is natural gas extraction.
“The US and a number of other countries are facing a new technique, fracking, which makes it possible to extract new, enormous amounts of natural gas. This appears to have great environmental advantages since natural gas is a fossil fuel with about half as much carbon dioxide emissions as coal. However, the climate advantages can be wiped out because natural gas consists to a large extent of methane, which leaks out during extraction and is very harmful to the climate,” says Thomas Sterner. M e t h a n e i s a powerful greenhouse gas with about a 25 times greater warming effect than carbon dioxide. There are no sure statistics at this time on how large the leaks are. “EDF has prepared a proposal for measurement and control programs and rules for limiting methane gas leakage to one per cent of the extracted gas.”
Thomas Sterner otherwise does research on economic instruments, for example how taxes can be formed to effectively prevent climate changes or protect natural resources and at the same time be fair between people and countries. Together with a great number of international researchers, he recently published a book on petrol tax, Fuel Taxes and the Poor, about how taxes primarily affect middle and high wage earners, not low wage earners. The effect is particularly clear in poor countries. He points out that the formation of instruments must be carefully tailored to suit each country and each individual question. Why did you say yes to the job of chief economist for EDF?
“I believe in the significance of a sabbatical year for researchers, in other words the tradition of allowing researchers to leave their posts to broaden their horizon somewhere else for a
year. It’s especially important for us who work at comparatively small universities to get inspiration now and again from other researchers in the world, not least if we want to keep our place in international competition.” B u t h e ’ ll k e e p working 20 per cent for the University of Gothenburg, which he plans to visit regularly. And he feels that there are good possibilities for cooperation between EDF, the University of Gothenburg and other Swedish universities. “I see not least possibilities for Environment for Development Initiative, which is a part of the international environmental economics program that the Unit for Environmental Economics has been running since 2007;” says Thomas Sterner.
Karin Backteman edf The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is a not-for-profit organisation and one of the USA’s most powerful environmental organisations. It was established in 1967 in connection with the fight against DDT that was inspired by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. The organisation is behind the introduction of trade in emission rights for sulphur dioxide, for example, and the introduction of marine reserves in the Pacific Ocean. The Economist recently called the Environmental Defense Fund USA’s economically most literate environmental advocate.