Gernot Wagner

@gwagner.com

23K followers 2K following 2.6K posts

Climate economist, Columbia
https://gwagner.com
It’s pronounced juggernaut without the jug.

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Gernot Wagner is an Austro-American climate economist at Columbia Business School. He holds an AB and a PhD in political economy and government from Harvard University, as well as an MA in economics from Stanford University. A founding co-director of Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program (2017–2019) he joined the faculty of New York University in 2019, moving to Columbia University in 2022. Wagner writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, and is the co-author, with Martin L. Weitzman, of Climate Shock, a Top 15 Financial Times-McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2015. He won the "Austrian of the Year" award in 2022, awarded by Austrian daily Die Presse. .. more

Economics 35%

Environmental science 29%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 3h

Narrator: That's not how benefit-cost analysis works.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 11h

Breaking News: The EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting pollution limits and instead calculate only the cost to businesses.

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved by Limiting Air Pollution

In a reversal, the agency plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.

nyti.ms

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 11h

Breaking News: The EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting pollution limits and instead calculate only the cost to businesses.

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved by Limiting Air Pollution

In a reversal, the agency plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.

nyti.ms

Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 12h

Prior entries: gwagner.com/taming-carbon & gwagner.com/tipping-carbon

Taming Carbon

When the Price Is Right

gwagner.com

Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 12h

How to cut CO₂ when it's part of the chemical formula that makes the product in question: CaCO₃ + Heat = CaO + CO₂.

My next entry into what's now turned into a @milkeninstitute.org Review mini-series is out

gwagner.com/cementing-carbon

Reposted by Reece Jones, Mark A. Lemley, Tom Clark , and 3 more Reece Jones, Mark A. Lemley, Tom Clark, Gernot Wagner, David R. Miller, Sarah Roberts

Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 14h

Reminder that these kind of door-to-door “general warrants” are both explicitly illegal and also a major trigger for the American Revolution.

Dom Ervolina @dominicervolina.com · 1d

A video of ICE agents conducting door-to-door searches today in Minneapolis

The homeowner requests a warrant repeatedly, is told they don't require one, then is told they're getting it, then the agents storm in anyway

They also point a taser at her to try and disrupt filming

Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 14h

Margaret Talbot's must-read Letter from Copenhagen on Greenland, offshore wind, and the nuttiness of it all www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

My own choice words: the only way to interpret Trump's policy moves is as “erratic and vindictive.”

@newyorker.com

In September, a U.S. federal judge ruled in Ørsted’s favor, saying that work on Revolution Wind could resume. But in December the project was blocked again when the Trump Administration froze leases that the Biden Administration had granted to five wind farms off the East Coast, including Revolution Wind. To Wagner, all the back-and-forth looked “erratic and vindictive.” Today, every country’s economy is tied to others, but a small nation that’s as historically dependent on trade as Denmark seems particularly vulnerable to Trump’s caprices.

Letter from Copenhagen
Denmark Is Sick of Being Bullied by Trump
The U.S., once Denmark’s closest ally, is threatening to steal Greenland and attacking the country’s wind-power industry. Is this a permanent breakup?
By Margaret Talbot
January 11, 2026

Reposted by Jürgen Janger

Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 15h

“We are at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel economy. The U.S. is betting on the wrong horse.”

The perfect kicker quote for this important front-page @nytimes.com story:

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c... [gift link]

Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a leading climate scientist, described the Trump administration’s actions as the last gasp of fossil fuel interests.

He argued that on a global level, the transition to clean energy was already accelerating despite Mr. Trump, driven by the economics of clean energy. In 2025, wind, solar and other renewable power sources surpassed coal as the leading producer of electricity.

“We are at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel economy,” Dr. Rockström said. “The U.S. is betting on the wrong horse.”

Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 16h

The clear lesson here: Luther should not have resigned, trusting an assurance that “an independent Reichsbank be preserved for the sake of the German state, its people and its economy.”

Alas, Powell doesn't need to resign. His term is up in May.

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Jonathan M. Gilligan

Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 16h

Even just that first paragraph hits too close to home, I'm afraid.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Adolf Hitler’s first weeks as chancellor were filled with so many excesses and outrages—crushing states’ rights, curtailing civil liberties, intimidating opponents, rewriting election laws, raising tariffs—that it was easy to overlook one of his prime targets: the German central bank.

Reposted by Reece Jones, Ben H. Ansell, Will Jennings , and 34 more Reece Jones, Ben H. Ansell, Will Jennings, Tom Clark, Michael A. Clemens, Steven S. Smith, David Rothschild, Elena Stancanelli, Guy Grossman, Martin Tomko, Fabián Muniesa, Juan Cole, Gernot Wagner, Smith, Rebecca Tushnet, David R. Miller, Aaron Sojourner, W. Andy Knight, Adrian Daub, Scott A. Imberman, Robert B. Reich, Michael D. McDonald, Bob Hudson, James Goodwin, Jason Lyall, Sarah Roberts, Alfie Kohn, Jeremy S. Pal, Brooke Harrington, Blair Fix, Karen O’Leary, Aviel Roshwald, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Virginia Sapiro, Clark Gray, David Darmofal

Dom Ervolina @dominicervolina.com · 1d

Reposted by Martin McKee, Nina Jankowicz, Brendan Nyhan , and 8 more Martin McKee, Nina Jankowicz, Brendan Nyhan, Scott L. Greer, Samuel L. Perry, Fabián Muniesa, Gernot Wagner, Michelle Everson, Jonathan Hopkin, Aaron Sojourner, Scott A. Imberman

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

One basic lesson from political research is that secret police generally rely on mediocre men willing to do the dirty work of authoritarian regimes in order to advance their careers.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-fb...

Reposted by Gernot Wagner, Andréas Nilsson

Adrian Hiel @adrianhiel.bsky.social · 1d

Sunday morning listening!
Thanks @mliebreich.bsky.social for the shout out on the hydrogen ladder and, more importantly, the electrification staircase.
Stay tuned for an upcoming episode of @cleaninguppod.bsky.social with a deep dive on the Electrification Staircase laying out the route to come.

Electrification Staircase showing the prioritisation of which sectors should be electrified.

Reposted by Gernot Wagner, Scott A. Imberman

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 2d

Unacceptable. A road — possibly associated with Tren de Aragua — left unpaved by Minnesota radicals weaponized itself against two of our courageous officers, causing one to discharge his firearm in self-defense.

We stand by our brave boys.

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

VCÖ - Mobilität mit Zukunft @vcoe.bsky.social · 2d

Bilanz von 1 Jahr City-Maut in New York: 27 Millionen weniger Autofahrten, flüssigerer Verkehr, deutlich mehr Öffi-Fahrgäste, weniger Bus-Verspätungen, weniger Lärm- und Abgasbelastung. #Verkehrswende voranbringen! www.nytimes.com/interactive/... via @gwagner.com