The findings of recent scientific and economic research on the impact of global climate change differ sharply from those of an influential 1989 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress. The EPA report suggested that the change would cause extensive, universal damage in the near term. But the results of the last decade of research indicate otherwise. Climate change over the next century will be relatively mild and bring both benefits and damages--and it is no longer clear which of the two will be greater. Global warming will not affect every part of the world in the same way; cold regions are likely to benefit from warming, even as warm regions are harmed.

Robert Mendelsohn contends that the results of recent research on the impacts of climate change dramatically weaken the case for expensive, near-term abatement programs. He argues instead for programs that will work over the course of the next century, in conjunction with prudent and effective policies that cap long-term emissions concentrations at reasonable levels, limit climate-change impacts, and maintain economic prosperity.