Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide
English
By (author): and Medicine Board on Environmental Change and Society Committee on Assessing Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education Engineering National Academies of Sciences
The social cost of carbon (SC-CO2) is an economic metric intended to provide a comprehensive estimate of the net damages - that is, the monetized value of the net impacts, both negative and positive - from the global climate change that results from a small (1-metric ton) increase in carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Under Executive Orders regarding regulatory impact analysis and as required by a court ruling, the U.S. government has since 2008 used estimates of the SC-CO2 in federal rulemakings to value the costs and benefits associated with changes in CO2 emissions. In 2010, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) developed a methodology for estimating the SC-CO2 across a range of assumptions about future socioeconomic and physical earth systems.
Valuing Climate Changes examines potential approaches, along with their relative merits and challenges, for a comprehensive update to the current methodology. This publication also recommends near- and longer-term research priorities to ensure that the SC- CO2 estimates reflect the best available science.
Table of Contents- Front Matter
- Executive Summary
- Summary
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Framework for Estimating the Social Cost of Carbon
- 3 Socioeconomic Module
- 4 Climate Module
- 5 Damages Module
- 6 Discounting Module
- 7 Long-Term Research Needs
- References
- Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff
- Appendix B: Presentations to the Committee
- Appendix C: Elicitation of Expert Opini
- Appendix D: Global Growth Data and Projections
- Appendix E: Comparison of a Simple Earth System Model to Existing SC-IAMs
- Appendix F: Empirical Equation for Estimating Ocean Acidification
- Appendix G: Damages Model-Specific Improvement Opportunities