Introduction

Economists for Future (E4F) International’s 2021 report highlighted the limited engagement of leading economics journals with the pressing issues of climate change and biodiversity loss, collectively referred to as the planetary emergency. The global environmental crisis has only deepened since then, underscoring the need for continuous academic attention to these subjects  (Ripple et al., 2023, TEEB, 2023). Economists, with their capacity to shape policy and influence decision-making, have a pivotal role to play in addressing this emergency (Colander et al., 2022). Three years since our last report, the urgency has only escalated . In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported unprecedented changes in climate and biodiversity, emphasizing that human activities are driving both crises and threatening ecosystems and human livelihoods. In 2022, extreme weather events continued to escalate, with notable impacts on biodiversity, human health and infrastructure. The year saw significant flooding, heatwaves, and droughts, which were linked to climate change and resulted in substantial economic losses and harm to human wellbeing, followed by a genocide in Palestine. In 2024, as the genocide continues, the year was marked by a record weather and climate disasters across the globe causing significant fatalities and economic impacts. So major global policy and political developments, along with major extreme weather events with notable impacts on biodiversity and human health, forced us to think about our social and economic policy systems and in turn made it crucial for us to revisit whether economics journals have improved their focus on these critical issues. 

In this 2024 rejoinder, we revisit the analysis in the 2021 report, following the same methodology with the aim to see if the updated data from various journals tells us a different story. The goal is to assess whether there has been progress within the discipline (if journal articles were taken as a proxy of progress) since the initial analysis put forth by the team at E4F International. In a time of accelerated environmental degradation, academic inaction can no longer be justified. The results presented here reveal whether or not the economics profession has risen to the challenge of the planetary emergency.

Methodology

For this 2024 update, we maintained the same methodological framework as the 2021 report. A major reason for retaining the same methodological track for the review is to ensure that the findings from 2024 rejoinder can be directly compared with those from the 2021 report. This consistency allows us to track whether there have been any shifts in journal priorities over time. Given the increasing recognition of the planetary emergency in both academic and policy circles, one would expect an uptick in relevant research. The 2024 analysis seeks to challenge this assumption by assessing the level of attention journals in economics are devoting to these urgent topics.

We assess the keywords, abstracts and titles of the top 300 highest-ranking economics journals as ranked by Wohlrabe (2016). The full list of journals we assessed is in the appendix. We used Web of Science to execute the search for relevant articles published between the period 2000 and 2024 (our last report looked at the period between 2000 and 2019). In both the 2021 and 2024 analysis, our starting point was the year 2000 as the data coverage in Web of Science for such a wide range of journals was weaker in the 1990s. 

We categorised the word search into two categories: (1) climate change and, (ii) natural capital, ecosystem services and biodiversity (NEB) and included the following string of words in the search function: climate change, global warming, carbon and greenhouse gases (/GHG), natural capital, ecosystem service(/s) and biodiversity. The word search is available in the appendix. All words were translated into the eight additional languages that are represented in the top 300 journals. These terms were selected to capture a broad yet targeted set of articles addressing the planetary emergency.

Results

Top 300 journals on an aggregate: Figure 1 documents several comparisons of the distribution of articles on climate change and NEB, in relation to topics such as financial crises, labour markets, and sports. The number of articles on climate change has seen a noticeable increase from 2007 onwards. Since our last study and despite the growing urgency of environmental crises, our most recent analysis suggests that economics journals remain largely disengaged on the two issues (climate change and NEB). Out of the 300 journals assessed, 93% continue to publish less than 1% of their total articles on climate change. Similarly, 95% of these journals published less than 1% of their articles on natural capital, ecosystem services, and biodiversity (NEB). 

This result is largely explained by the fact that some of the most frequently publishing journals on CC and NEB happen to be environmentally-oriented. For example, the journal Ecological Economics accounts for 18.2% of recorded articles on climate change and NEB combined, in the sample of journals for the time period of 2000 to 2024. So these aggregates provide a limited picture of the discipline’s research on climate change: it does not answer how widely this is being researched across the discipline. The next few sections provide deeper insights.
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Similarly to the initial report, we found that the number of articles on natural capital, ecosystem services, and biodiversity (NEB) is much lower than climate change and has not shown the same kind of increase over the last decade. As shown in Figure 1, the amount of research on NEB is akin to the amount of research on sports. Since 2000, NEB articles among the top 300 journals accounted for 0.4% of total articles. This number is halved if you do not include the journal Ecological Economics.

The top 300 journals published a total of 461860 articles between 2000 to 2024. Out of which, only 1.97% of all articles focused specifically on climate change. The percentage of articles on NEB is even lower, at just 0.4%. These results remain close to the 2021 findings, indicating that economics as a discipline has not significantly increased its attention to this existential issue.

Individual journals: In this section, we look at the percentage of articles published in individual journals. Figure 2 plots the percentage of climate change and NEB articles for the 300 journals. The majority of journals (95%) continue to publish less than 1% of their total articles on climate change. The median percentage of articles for each journal on climate change and NEB is 0.08% and near 0% for climate change and NEB, respectively.
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Leading journals - leaders or laggards?: If we were to pick up the sample of top 20 economics journals, it is evident that the top 20 journals have devoted minimal attention to climate change and even less to NEB. Figure 3 provides a visual representation for these top 20 journals. 

In fact, many of these journals have devoted more attention to comparatively less urgent subjects, such as sports (see Figure 1). This fact underscores the persistent disconnect between the urgency of the planetary emergency and the priorities of mainstream economics journals (Mastrorillo et al., 2022).  

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Also, we continue to see that there is no significant correlation between the ranking of the journal and the number of articles it has published on climate change or NEB. Figure 4 plots the relationship between a journal's ranking and the percentage of articles on climate change and NEB. Higher-ranked journals are not necessarily publishing more on climate change or NEB. This lack of leadership from top-tier journals suggests that even the most influential economics publications are not necessarily leading the way. We see a low prioritisation of climate change and NEB throughout the sample of 300 journals.
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Discussion

The results from the 2024 analysis confirm the continued disengagement of mainstream economics journals from (a) climate change and/or (b) natural capital, ecosystem services or biodiversity (NEB). Despite growing global awareness of the planetary emergency and an increasing demand for interdisciplinary approaches, economics journals are still not prioritising these topics. The findings indicate that the majority of environmental research in economics is concentrated in a few specialised journals, while the broader field remains focused on traditional economic topics. Perspectives from political economy, historical, computational and complexity economic analyses, are all important but are broadly missing.

This lack of engagement has serious implications. Economists are often at the forefront of shaping public policy, and their research is critical in informing decisions on resource allocation, environmental protection, and climate mitigation strategies (Stern, 2007). By failing to prioritise the planetary emergency in their research, the economics profession is not stepping up to the responsibility to contribute to the global response to these crises. Moreover, the absence of substantial research on these topics within mainstream journals perpetuates a path-dependent approach, where established economic theories and models are privileged over innovative, interdisciplinary solutions (TEEB, 2023).

When it comes to scientific consensus, by 1992, climate science was clear enough to announce anthropogenic global warming was a significant global threat. Yet it was not until 2007 that the economics profession witnessed the beginning of significant growth in climate change articles. This upward of 15-year time lag for a slow diffusion of the climate and ecological crisis in economics literature is too slow a process. The urgency of this issue should give the discipline the impetus to think more concretely about critical questions of a deeply unequal international economic order and neo-colonial dependencies and at the same time, issues of poverty reduction in majority of the world, doing away with malnutrition, questions of employment among other things. 

As shown in figure 1, the trend in articles on financial crises shows little attention pre-crisis and significant interest post-crisis. As seen conjecturally, in many parts of the world, this was the same case with the COVID-19 pandemic. This example of the ex-post nature of economists' attention is a concern. 

Disciplines don’t have a central planner, but the leading journals are the closest we get to having a “guiding” star. For good or for bad, they define the course of the field at all levels - the destination to aim for; the best in class to follow. Careers incentives are closely tied to publishing in these journals, prospective authors are more likely to focus on issues and methods that conform with these journal editors' or editorial board’s preferences, resulting in a path-dependent process. Given the urgency of the intellectual contributions, a timely intervention of the editorial boards is absolutely necessary.

Limitations

It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this analysis. As with the 2021 report, this study relied on the Web of Science database, which may not capture all relevant articles, especially those published in newer or less traditional journals not indexed by the Web of Science database. Additionally, the keyword-based search method may overlook articles that engage with environmental issues in a broader context, without directly referencing climate change or NEB in the title, abstract, or keywords. Nevertheless, the consistency of the findings across both the 2021 and 2024 reports strongly suggests that the overall trends are robust. Moreover, the quantity of articles is only a proxy for the general trends around the attention paid to a certain issue. A qualitative shift in the kind of research done within the discipline is even more important. As mentioned before, there is an immense need to move beyond the orthodox canon of studying interactions between economy and nature. 

Conclusion

Looking ahead, it is clear that the economics profession must adopt a more interdisciplinary and forward-looking approach. This includes integrating environmental considerations into core economics research and expanding the scope of inquiry to address the ethical, social, political and ecological dimensions of our economic systems. 

In conclusion, the 2024 update of the 2021 report reveals that economics journals have made little progress in addressing the planetary emergency and continues to receive minimal attention in these top 300 journals. The findings presented here highlight the need for a fundamental shift in the priorities of the economics profession as a whole. We need a qualitative shift in its research (how economics papers engage with the planetary emergency) as well as a quantitative shift (how many economics papers engage with the planetary emergency). We need research that embraces a discipline-wide response to the climate and ecological crisis, calling in all perspectives, seeing the planetary emergency as more than emissions and making it more responsive to scientific advances in climate and earth sciences. We also need research that places the distribution of resources, costs and opportunities across space and time (and the ethics involved in these processes) at the centre of its economic analyses. It must update its conception and measurement of economic progress and become much more responsive to influences from outside its own disciplinary boundary. Many scholars and civil society organisations have made this demand in the past, we join them in making these demands. 

Very much like any crisis becoming the vantage point and reference for future analysis, the planetary emergency will be a major driver in influencing economic thought in the twenty-first century. The question really is about the timing and the way we do it. The time for incremental change has passed—what is needed now is a bold rethinking of research agendas to ensure that the discipline is equipped to address the challenges of the 21st century. 

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What’s ahead?

This rejoinder was our attempt at seeing how far the discipline has come in the last three years, since our last analysis. Off the back of this, the Economists for Future team in close collaboration with the Rethinking Economics local chapters will be approaching the editorial boards of various journals about their assessment of this situation and for ways for the discipline to take some urgent steps in this regard asking them to some key steps in this regard - 

• A statement of priority from the journal boards to deliberately favour, and be seen to publicly to favour, (policy relevant) climate-change research.
• Journals commit to publishing at least one research article in each issue on post-growth that shows evidence for alternative story for growth while not underestimating the heterogeneity in the development trajectories across the globe, and research that talks about fundamental structural changes required over the next two or three decades across the world.
• These journals should commit to having one special issue that provides impetus for analytical contributions from across the discipline  that makes the case for radical change in the way we think about growth, investment, innovation, and technological change. We need contributions from across the board - public economics, public finance, regulatory economics, institutional economics, economic history, international economics, political economy among others.

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We are also asking research funding and promotion bodies to  - 

• Fund more policy relevant climate-change research where we turn our attention to actual concerns about the economic transformation in light of green transition - research getting into the ground game of mitigation and adaptation. This would mean a move beyond funding deficit/disinformation streams when it comes to climate action, which is important, but not enough.
  
  

Does this interest you? Would you like to take part in this conversation? Send us an email to to journals@rethinkeconomics.org

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Bibliography:

• Butler-Sloss, S., Beckmann, M. (2021) Economics Journals' Engagement in the Planetary Emergency: A misallocation of resources. Economists for Future International report
• Colander, D., Föllmer, H., Haas, A., & Rieck, M. (2022). Economics in the age of climate change: A new agenda for research. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 36(4), 143-166.
• Mastrorillo, M., Gray, C., & Goh, M. (2022). Predictive modelling and scenario analysis for climate risk management: New developments and applications. Global Environmental Change, 72, 102474.
• Ripple, W., Wolf, C., Newsome, T., Barnard, P., Moomaw, W., & Grandcolas, P. (2023). World scientists' warning of a climate emergency. BioScience.
• Stern, N. (2007). The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge University Press.
• Stern, N., & Stiglitz, J. E. (2021). The economics of immense risk, urgent action and radical change: towards new approaches to the economics of climate change. Journal of Economic Literature, 59(3), 813-835.
• TEEB (2023). The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature. TEEB for Business 2023 Edition.
• Wohlrabe, K. (2016). Taking the Temperature: A Meta-Ranking of Economics Journals (January 27, 2016). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 5726

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Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Rethinking Economics for their support, without which this rejoinder would not have materialised, and the financial support of Partners for a New Economy. We would also like to thank Meman Diaby for the data analysis, Sonal Raghuvanshi for her editorial support, Ross Cathcart, Reeve Flynn and Sacha Knox for their feedback and finally Sam Butler-Sloss & Marc Beckmann for the original research.

About Economists for Future: Economists for Future is an international initiative of the Rethinking Economics International which aims to mobilise economists and their influence to help avert the climate and ecological crisis. On the international level, we run targeted campaigns and research. In Germany, Econ4Future German is building up a community of young economists to push this agenda forward in departments and institutions.

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‍Appendix 

A1: Journal sample and meta-ranking (Wohlrabe, 2016)

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A2: Additional word search details.

Financial crises: Financial cris*s, financial crash, stock market crash, financial bubble*, financial panic, banking cris*s, Great recession.

Sport: football, soccer, NFL, basketball, ice hockey, tennis, golf, boxing, gymnastics, sport.

Labour markets: employment/unemployment, labo*r market*

Where * represents any or no character. For detailed word search string, and other similar details, please write to us at to journals@rethinkeconomics.org

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Revision note: Error in Figure 3 was revised on 4th February, 2025.