“We must protect the climate together”
Dr Daiju Narita, climate economist at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and member of “The Future Ocean” Excellence Cluster
Daiju Narita from Japan is investigating the economic impacts of climate change. What damage will occur if the Earth continues to heat up? How can rich and poor countries best reach agreement on climate protection measures? These are the kinds of questions he is studying in an interdisciplinary network of economists and natural scientists.
Daiju Narita is concerned with the economics of climate change – for example, what will happen if the intensity of storms increases. If hurricanes and typhoons grow stronger, then the costs of the damage will also increase. “How strongly they increase, however, depends not only on climate change,” says Narita, “but also on economic performance, on population size and on where people are living.”
Dr Narita’s research subjects include the economic effects of storms
(AA, Photograph: Jan Greune)
Responsibility for climate
Narita has calculated that the damage caused by more powerful storms will increase, for example, in China. “Since prosperity is increasing in China, the people will have more to lose in the future when a storm strikes.” He admits, however, that studies of this kind are still indefinite. If you change just one parameter, the result looks rather different. His work is based on complex economic models in which different climate development scenarios are linked to predictions of population and economic development. This is abstract theoretical work, which is, however, closely connected with real events: climate economists also attempt to determine which steps to reduce climate-damaging greenhouse gases are most cost-effective.
The Japanese researcher is also considering the prospects of global climate policy. The crucial question, he says, is how to equitably share international responsibility for the global climate: “We must reconcile the need for climate protection measures with the differences in income between countries,” explains Narita with great sobriety. He is currently attempting to draw up a strategy to this end. “We must protect the climate together,” he insists.
Interdisciplinary education
The Japanese researcher, who was born in 1975, has long been interested in environmental issues. Initially, Daiju Narita studied chemistry in Tokyo and conducted research into air pollution in East Asia. He worked at the Japanese Ministry of Research from 1999 to 2004, before taking the opportunity to complete an interdisciplinary programme at Columbia University in New York on the subject of sustainability. The programme had been launched by two highly renowned economists: Jeffrey Sachs and economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. In 2008, Narita gained a PhD in New York with a doctoral thesis on economic aspects of carbon capture and storage, a promising climate protection technology. Two of the five members of the examination committee were Germans.
The climate economist is a member of “The Future Ocean” Excellence Cluster
(AA, Photograph: Jan Greune)
Tokyo, New York, Kiel
In 2008, when Narita heard that a climate economist was being sought in the German city of Kiel, he thought it would be a good opportunity given the outstanding international reputation of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), which is part of the Scientific Community Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Narita also considered Germany to be highly interesting for political reasons. “Climate policy measures are more advanced here than in Japan or the USA.” For example, a market for CO2 emissions certificates had already been set up in Europe. He therefore thought there would be more real applications for his research in Germany than elsewhere. Furthermore, the job at the IfW is funded by a large research group, “The Future Ocean” Excellence Cluster, which is conducting research into various aspects of the oceans and climate change. This fits in well with Narita’s interdisciplinary background. He works closely with economists at the IfW, while he has contact with many natural scientists working in the excellence cluster.
Teaching is also one of Narita’s duties: he teaches introductory courses in environmental economics at Kiel University’s Institute of Economics. “In Kiel I have better resources for my research work than in New York,” says Narita. He adds that it is easier to do autonomous and independent research because he is not accountable to a professor in charge of a specific project. In the medium term he would like to focus more intensively on how environmental policy problems can be solved in the real world.
At home in Kiel
Narita’s contract runs until 2011. There is a possibility that he will be able to extend it for a few more years. He does not know what will come next. Narita feels comfortable in Kiel: he sees a certain similarity in the mentality of the reserved North Germans and his fellow countrymen. He enjoys the region’s traditional fish dishes, which also make him feel rather at home. Narita attends a German course to better cope with everyday situations and regularly meets with a German learning partner as a member of a “language tandem”. The Japanese researcher has also taken up the city’s sporting challenge: Narita jogs along the Kiel Canal in his free time – whatever the weather.
Text: Sven Titz
"12 Worlds of Knowledge" is realized in cooperation with the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)
Last updated 01.12.2009
