University of Gothenburg

Thomas Sterner

Thomas Sterner is professor of environmental economics, focused on the design of environmental policy instruments. Recent research focuses on issues like: • Does refunding or earmarking make carbon taxes more acceptable? • How should we update biodiversity values over time? • How should we deal with methane compared to carbon in climate economics? • Policies for aviation (particularly contrails) His current teaching is on policy instrument design and modeling climate.

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Thomas Sterner is professor of environmental economics focused on the design of environmental policy instruments. On this subject, he has written a standard textbook that has appeared in several language editions (link to textbook).

He teaches three courses in environmental economics at Chalmers: Course 1, Course 2, and Course 3Recent research focuses on issues of acceptability of policy instruments, their distributional effects and ways of making efficient instruments such as taxes more acceptable by refunding or using revenues constructively.

Although he still works on the economic theory of policy design and such overarching issues as fiscal reform, corporate environmental responsibility, circular economy, green growth, more and more attention is turned to actual interdisciplinary, empirical work. Currently he works on a range of issues from biodiversity protection and climate economics to green bonds and green finance, chemicals management. When it comes to Biodiversity he is a PI (Principal Investigator) in BECC www.becc.lu.se, and a member of Biopath https://www.mistrabiopath.se/

During the last two decades he has built up the Environmental Economics Unit (EEU) at the University of Gothenburg. This research group works both on environmental valuation, policy design and natural resource issues. For about two decades we gave a unique PhD program (with a large participation of graduate students from developing countries financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida). After graduating most of the PhDs joined the Environment for Development initiative (EfD) which does policy relevant research in developing countries.

Our research group is thus closely connected to several others with which we collaborate closely. This applies in particular to EfD but also Mistra Biopath and BECC on the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services and FRAM on chemicals. Moreover, we have close research and teaching links to Physical Resource Theory at Chalmers.

Recent highlights:

  • Fellow of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis, inducted 2023.
  • Honorary member of the French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (FAERE), appointed 2021.
  • Chevalier (Knight) in the French Légion d’Honneur, appointed 2021.

Boards

  • Member of Editorial Committee of the Annual Review of Resource Economics, 2026-2030.
  • Editorial board of Ecological Economics 2023 -
  • Associate Editor of the journal Environmental and Resource Economics, 2012-
  • Member of the Gothenburg Climate Council, 2022-24.
  • Jury member of the Frontiers Planet Prize committee 2023
  • Member of the Scientific committee for the Global Conference on Environmental Taxation in Paris. 2022-2023
  • Member of the selection committee of the Young Researchers Prize for Green Finance, by Banque de France, 2021, 2022
  • Reference group to the Governmental comission ‘Näringslivets klimatomställning’, 2021-22. (Climate transformation for industry).
  • Member of the Conseil Scientifique de la Chaire Economie du Climat, University Paris Dauphine. 2017- (President 2017-2022)
  • Member of Green OAT Evaluation Council (Council on French Sovereign Green bonds, French Government), 2017-

Honors & Prizes

  • Frontiers Planet Prize 2025 (Netherlands) for the Article (A204) Accounting For the Increasing Benefits From Scarce Ecosystems https://www.science.org/stoken/author-tokens/ST-1741/full
  • Received a mention for excellence at the ERE Best Paper Award at the EAERE 2021 Conference for the article: Hagem, C., Hoel, M., & Sterner, T. (2020). Refunding Emission Payments: Output-Based versus Expenditure-Based Refunding. Environmental and Resource Economics, 77, 1-27.
  • Fellow of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis inducted 2023
  • Honorary member of the French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (FAERE), appointed  2021
  • Chevalier (Knight) in the French Légion d’Honneur, appointed 2020
  • Doctor of Science Honoris Causa, University Collage Dublin 2019
  • Pro Studio et Scientia Award, University of Gothenburg, October 2019
  • EAERE Fellow 2019
  • Elected Guest Professor at the Collège de France 2015-16
  • Honorary Guest professor University of Cape Town
  • University Fellow Resources for the Future, USA.
  • Member of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences
  • Beijer Fellow at the Beijer Institute of the Swedish Royal Academy, 2007-
  • Environmental Fiscal Reformer of the Year Award 2014, Green Budget Europe
  • Myrdal Prize 2008

Selected publications

Research

I am working in a number of separate projects with different coauthors and different funders:

Länsförsäkringar

  • Event studies of big decisions such as US elections or signing of Paris agreement on financial markets for different types of energy companies (fossil, nuclear and renewable)
  • Financial Effects of Climate Policy in the Energy Sector

Kamprad

Integrated Assessment modelling of climate change.

We have recalibrated Nordhaus Dice model and also included methane, dinitrous oxide, airline contrails and worked with irreversible damages in a series of articles looking at global climate policy. These papers include estimates of the Social cost of Carbon (and methane etc).

Climate Damages

Together with Peter Howard I have written a couple of Meta-analyses of the literature on global climate damages.

Design of climate and other environmental policies.

Within this area I have written several articles looking at the EU ETS, refunded emission policies and other aspects of policy instrument design and instrument sequencing.

Acceptability of - and income distributional effects of carbon taxation

Several studies on preferences for different types of climate policy. Are carbon taxes progressive or regressive? How should revenues from carbon taxation be used to decrease resistance? These surveys have been carried out in Sweden, EU and in Global South countries.

Carbon Policy for Development,  (funded by Sida and Kamprad)

Studies on the popularity of earmarking or refunding of emissions payments and other issues related to the income distribution effects of policy and the perceived fairness effects. Income distribution effects of pricing LPG/kerosene which can be very regressive if the poor are pushed into using second-rate biofuels for cooking which lead to considerable health problems due to indoor smoke. Several studies on pricing and substitution between household fuels.

Biopath and BECC

  • Connections between biodiversity policy and  climate policy.
  • Several articles on the value of information for optimal design of conservation policies.

Books

First of all my major textbook on the design of environmental policy:

Presentations, speeches & lectures

  1. Participated in a panel on ESG and Sustainability at Impact Summit 2026: Advancing Sustainability and Impact organized by GRF on April 23, 2026. Impact Summit 2026: Advancing Sustainability and Impact - GRF CPAs & Advisors 
  2. Lecture in the “Inclusive Green Economy in Practice” (“Inkluderande grön ekonomi i praktiken”) training program entitled “Environmental challenges; The Market mechanism and the Role of Economic Policy Instruments in promoting Climate smart agriculture and sustainable land use; Lessons learned” organized by Environment for Development (EfD), University of Gothenburg. 2025-04-28
  3. Discussant after A “Movie Screening” (“filmvisning”) in an event entitled “Purpose Movie Screening” (“Purpose filmvisning”) at “Chalmers University of Technology” organized by Chalmers Students for Sustainability and Effective Altruism Gothenburg. 2026-03-31
  4. Speech on “The yearly conference for sustainable shipping” (“Årskonferens Hållbar sjöfart”) entitled ”Climate Policies for Shipping” (“Styrmedel för Sjöfart”) at “Lindholmen Conference Center”. Organized by Lighthouse and Trafikverket.  2026-03-12
  5. Host, speaker and organizer of the “Malmsten Workshop in Sustainability Economics” in Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law together with ETH Zurich. Presented on the topic of “FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE - Externality shifting explains Paradox”. 2026-01-21 – 2026-01-23. https://www.gu.se/en/news/malmsten-workshop-in-sustainability-economics
  6. Reflections on environmental instrument design at seminar organized by ETH Zurich 2026-03-05
  7. Presentation on Policy instruments for chemicals and discussion of ongoing research at the MISTRA INCENTIVIZE project meeting at Ågrenska villan, Gothenburg. Organized by Daniel Slunge. 2025-11-19–20.
  8. Presentation on climate policy and sustainability (together with Kalle Sterner) at Lerum Gymnasium. Organized by Lerum Gymnasium. 2025-11-28.
  9. Guest lecture at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (unibz) on environmental and climate policy. Organized by the Competence Centre for Sustainability, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. 2026-02-23–25.
  10. Presentation on “the Environmental Status Day” (“Miljölägesdagen”) enitled “Just distribution of transition costs” (“Rättvis fördelning av omställningskostnader”) at “People, Food and Meetings” conference hall (Folk, Mat och Möten). Organized by Malmö City (Malmö Stad). 2025-10-24

In media

  1. C428 “Människor vill gärna ha klimatpolitik – men inte alltid när den drabbar dem själva” (“Humans would like to have climate politics – but not allways when it affects themselves”) Interview for GK Nordics report ”Omställningsrapporten 2026”.  2026-04-27
  2. Letter: Europe’s price supports risk undermining its energy transition” (Brev: Europas prisstöd riskerar att underminera energiomställningen.) Financial Times, 2026-04-02
  3. Den sista oljekrisen? (The last oil crisis?) Efn - Ekonomikanalen 2026-03-27
  4. Das schwedische Modell  (The Swedish Model) ff - Das Südtiroler Wochenmagazin 2026-02
  5. Så lågt är svenska bensinpriset inom EU (This is how low the Swedish gasoline prices is within EU) Göteborgs-Posten 2026-02-20
  6. De vita flygstrecken på himlen – så påverkar de klimatet (The white aiplane lines in the sky – this is how they affect the climate) Göteborgs-Posten. 2025-11-24
  7. Klimatmötet COP30 i Belém avslutat – nytt klimatavtal klubbat (The COP30 climate summit in Belém concluded – new climate agreement adopted.) Göteborgs-Posten. 2025-11-22
  8. Thomas Sterner: ”Det som inte kan cirkulera kanske inte heller alls ska produceras” (Thomas Sterner: ”That which can’t circulate should perhaps not be produced at all”) Aktuell Hållbarhet, 2025-10-22
  9. Podcast interview with Mira Shah, in Karbon Economics, 20/9 2025
  10. Regeringens nya bensinplan: ”Leker med siffror” (The Governments new gasoline plan: ”Playing with numbers”) Göteborgs-Posten. 2024-08-29
  11. Forskare: Politikerna styr människor mot bilen (Scientist: The politicians are steering people towards the car) Göteborgs-Posten. 2024-09-09

Policy

This section contains interesting reports (not written by me) that I recommend on the current state of our climate, environmental economics, emissions, natural resources and much more.

  • “We talk and talk about taxing carbon. Meanwhile lobbyists secure enormous subsidies instead.” IMF Working paper
  • Carbon markets around the world are continuing to expand and gather momentum, according to a series of case studies released by IETA, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and CDC Climat Research today, despite diverse challenges. The World's Carbon Markets
  • Forest Trends' Ecosystem Marketplace has released a retrospective report of transaction activity on the global voluntary carbon markets over the last decade, up to and including information on 2014 transactions. The report finds that companies, governments, and individuals voluntarily spent just under $4.5 billion to transact nearly one billion carbon offsets from projects that halt deforestation, install renewable energy, promote energy efficiency, distribute cleaner-burning cookstoves, and more. Ahead of the Curve: State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2015.
     

Lectures/videos

Below follows a number of interviews and lectures presented by Thomas Sterner related to current topics in environmental economics.

Fathauer Seminar Presentation at Eller College of Management

Navigate to video: Thomas Sterner Fathauer
Video (1:14:08)
Thomas Sterner Fathauer

US President Joe Biden reiterates support for climate goals | Money Talks

Comment by Thomas Sterner after 1 min.

Navigate to video: US President Joe Biden reiterates support for climate goals | Money Talks
Video (07:29)
US President Joe Biden reiterates support for climate goals | Money Talks

Two Degrees of Difference

Thomas Sterner discusses global climate goals at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Navigate to video: 2 Degrees of Difference - A Discussion of Global Climate Goals
Video (1:00:21)
2 Degrees of Difference - A Discussion of Global Climate Goals

#MeetTopEnvEcon

Ingmat Schumacher meets Thomas Sterner for an interview. (November 2018).

Navigate to video: #MeetTopEnvEcon - Thomas Sterner
Video (12:09)
#MeetTopEnvEcon - Thomas Sterner

 

The International Science Festival Gothenburg

Karin Gyllenklev meets Thomas Sterner at Vetenskapsfestivalen (Gothenburg, 2018-09-14)

Navigate to video: 72. THOMAS STERNER
Video (4:39)
72. THOMAS STERNER

 

Fossil free – but how?

Thomas Sterner plenary speech at Fossilfritt Sverige (Stockholm, 2018-09-06).

 

The Risk of Climate Change

Thomas Sterner discuss the most efficient tools to mitigate those risks from the perspective of policymakers, corporates and the (re)insurance industry (SCOR, 2018-07-11).

Navigate to video: The Risk of Climate Change
Video (21:35)
The Risk of Climate Change

Hur kan politiken, tekniken och individen bidra till en smart klimatpolitik?

Thomas Sterner participates in a debate with Isabella Lövin, Minister for Climate and Vice Prime minister in Sweden. (Handelshögskolan Göteborg, 2018-01-31

Navigate to video: Paneldebatt: Hur kan politiken, tekniken och individen bidra till en smart klimatpolitik?
Video (16:36)
Paneldebatt: Hur kan politiken, tekniken och individen bidra till en smart klimatpolitik?

 


Did Paris Solve the Climate Problem?

In a plenary talk at 13th Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development Thomas Sterner asks “Did Paris Solve the Climate Problem?” (Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, 2017-12-20).

Navigate to video: Plenary Talk by Thomas Sterner 20th Dec, 2017, ISI Delhi
Video (1:13:32)
Plenary Talk by Thomas Sterner 20th Dec, 2017, ISI Delhi

 

Åtgärder för att begränsa klimatförändringar - IPCC:s tredje delrapport

At this seminar you will hear Thomas Sterner present the results of the Third Interim Report of the IPCC, which deals with measures to limit climate change. (Seminar at the University of Gothenburg, 2015-03-23)

Navigate to video: Thomas Sterner om IPCC:s tredje delrapport -- åtgärder för klimatförändringar
Video (2:03:10)
Thomas Sterner om IPCC:s tredje delrapport -- åtgärder för klimatförändringar

 

Explaining Ramsey

Thomas Sterner's web lecture on the Ramsey Rule: What is discounting and how much do we care about the future?

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Video (15:53)
Explaining Ramsey

 

Pathways to Paris

In this lecture you will hear Thomas Sterner talk about the climate negotiations leading up to Paris. (Lecture recorded in May 2015).

Navigate to video: Pathway to Paris
Video (22:48)
Pathway to Paris

 

The Menu of Environmental Policy Instruments

Thomas Sterner discusses the policies available to mitigate environmental damages at his inaugural lecture at Collège de France. More lectures with Thomas Sterner at Collège de France can be found here(Lecture recorded in October 2015).

Navigate to video: The Menu of Environmental Policy Instruments
Video (1:08:28)
The Menu of Environmental Policy Instruments