CONSTANT UTILITY PATHS AND IRREVERSIBLE GLOBAL WARMING

This paper shows that the Hartwick rule for sustainable utility with d epletable resources still applies to the case of the greenhouse effect from fossil fuel carbon emissions. Although a carbon tax is necessary , for sustainable utility it is sufficient that the sum of net energy rents and carbon tax revenues is invested in reproducible capital. Exa mination of recent savings rates and energy cost shares suggests that this may be difficult to achieve with current global savings rates.