scholarly journals Revisiting the social cost of carbon

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (7) ◽  
pp. 1518-1523 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Nordhaus
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Economic Cost ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Climate Change Policies ◽  
Current Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Central Case ◽  
Dice Model

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a central concept for understanding and implementing climate change policies. This term represents the economic cost caused by an additional ton of carbon dioxide emissions or its equivalent. The present study presents updated estimates based on a revised DICE model (Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy). The study estimates that the SCC is $31 per ton of CO2 in 2010 US$ for the current period (2015). For the central case, the real SCC grows at 3% per year over the period to 2050. The paper also compares the estimates with those from other sources.

scholarly journals EMPIRICALLY CONSTRAINED CLIMATE SENSITIVITY AND THE SOCIAL COST OF CARBON

2017 ◽  
Vol 08 (02) ◽  
pp. 1750006 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEVIN DAYARATNA ◽  
ROSS McKITRICK ◽  
DAVID KREUTZER
Keyword(s):  
Climate Sensitivity ◽  
Integrated Assessment ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Temperature Response ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Monte Carlo Experiments ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dice Model

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) require parameterization of both economic and climatic processes. The latter includes Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), or the temperature response to doubling CO2 levels, and Ocean Heat Uptake (OHU) efficiency. ECS distributions in IAMs have been drawn from climate model runs that lack an empirical basis, and in Monte Carlo experiments may not be constrained to consistent OHU values. Empirical ECS estimates are now available, but have not yet been applied in IAMs. We incorporate a new estimate of the ECS distribution conditioned on observed OHU efficiency into two widely used IAMs. The resulting Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates are much lower than those from models based on simulated ECS parameters. In the DICE model, the average SCC falls by approximately 40–50% depending on the discount rate, while in the FUND model the average SCC falls by over 80%. The span of estimates across discount rates also shrinks substantially.

scholarly journals The Social Cost of Carbon from Theory to Trump

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Paul Kelleher
Keyword(s):  
Value Function ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discount Rates ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
A Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Value Function

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a central concept in climate change economics. This chapter explains the SCC and investigates it philosophically. As is widely acknowledged, any SCC calculation requires the analyst to make choices about the infamous topic of discount rates. But to understand the nature and role of discount rates, one must understand how each of these economic concepts—and indeed the SCC concept itself—is yoked to the concept of a value function, whose job is to take ways the world could be across indefinite timespans and to rank them from better to worse. A great deal, therefore, turns on the details of the value function and on just what is meant by “better” and “worse.” This chapter seeks to explicate these and related issues, and then to situate them within the evolving landscape of federal climate policy in the United States.

The social cost of carbon in a non-cooperative world

2021 ◽  
pp. 103490
Author(s):  
Christoph Hambel ◽  
Holger Kraft ◽  
Eduardo Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Social Cost ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Climate Impacts on Economic Growth as Drivers of Uncertainty in the Social Cost of Carbon

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth J. Moyer ◽  
Mark D. Woolley ◽  
Michael Glotter ◽  
David A. Weisbach
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals The Social Cost of Carbon, Greenhouse Gas Policies, and Politicized Benefit/Cost Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-76
Author(s):  
Benjamin Zycher
Keyword(s):  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Cost Calculation ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Benefit Cost

Benefit/cost analysis can be a powerful tool for examination of proposed (or alternative) public policies, but, unsurprisingly, decisionmakers’ policy preferences can drive the analysis, rather than the reverse. That is the reality with respect to the Obama Administration computation of the social cost of carbon, a crucial parameter underlying the quantitative analysis of its proposed climate policies, now being reversed in substantial part by the Trump Administration. The Obama analysis of the social cost of carbon suffered from four central problems: the use of global benefits in the benefit/cost calculation, the failure to apply a 7% discount rate as required by Office of Management and Budget guidelines, the conflation of climate and GDP effects of climate policies, and the inclusion of non-climate effects of climate policies as co-benefits, as a tool with which to overcome the trivial temperature and other climate impacts of those policies. Moreover, the Obama analysis included in its “market failure” analysis the fuel price parameter that market forces are likely to incorporate fully. This Article suggests that policymakers and other interested parties would be wise to concentrate on the analytic minutia underlying policy proposals because policy analysis cannot be separated from politics.

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