Gernot Wagner
Associated Clinical Professor, NYU Wagner; Clinical Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Public Service, NYU Department of Environmental Studies
Gernot Wagner is a climate economist. His research, writing, and teaching focus on climate risks and climate policy.
G. Wagner writes the Risky Climate column for Bloomberg Green and has written two books: Climate Shock, joint with Harvard’s Martin Weitzman and published by Princeton (2015), among others, a Top 15 Financial Times McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2015, and Austria’s Natural Science Book of the Year 2017; and But will the planet notice?, published by Hill & Wang/Farrar Strauss & Giroux (2011).
G. Wagner teaches climate economics and policy at NYU, where he is a clinical associate professor at the Department of Environmental Studies and associated clinical professor at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service.
Prior to joining NYU, Gernot was the founding executive director of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program (2016 – 2019), a research associate at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a lecturer on Environmental Science and Public Policy. Before Harvard, G. Wagner served as economist at the Environmental Defense Fund (2008 – 2016), most recently as lead senior economist (2014 – 2016) and member of its Leadership Council (2015 – 2016). He has taught at Columbia, Harvard, and NYU, and has been a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Born and raised in Amstetten, Austria, G. Wagner graduated from high school in his hometown before moving to the U.S. for college. He holds a joint bachelor’s magna cum laude with highest honors in environmental science, public policy, and economics, and a master’s and Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard, as well as a master’s in economics from Stanford.