This economist doesn't think that climate change is a big deal so perhaps he's a luke warmist at best.
According to Tol "the impact of climate change is relatively small".[5] He was also among the US Senate Republican Party's "list of scientists disputing man-made global warming claims", which stated that Tol "dismissed the idea that mankind must act now to prevent catastrophic global warming".[6] He disagrees with and has written that the IPCC is alarmist. He's written about the positive aspects of atmospheric warming and believes there should be more emphasis on adapting to climate change (just deal with it!). He states that
those in politically favored industries or with connections to powerful politicians have benefited from current and past climate policies but as mentioned in this thread, fossil fuel based industries and those with connections to powerful politicians have historically benefited from the lack of any climate policy prior to the recent political and regulatory environment. Obviously CO2 emissions are being incrementally reduced from what they could be with every solar array and windmill installed and with every power plant that switches to natural gas from coal, etc. but it's going to take decades before we know if the greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts are paying off. He's stating that current and past climate policies haven't done enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so I support him if he's in pursuit of stronger and more effective GHG emission reduction policies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Tol
