The social cost of carbon dioxide under climate-economy feedbacks and temperature variability
Date
2021-09-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Environmental Research Letters
Abstract
A key statistic describing climate change impacts is the 'social cost of carbon dioxide' (SCCO2), the projected cost to society of releasing an additional tonne of CO2. Cost-benefit integrated assessment models that estimate the SCCO2 lack robust representations of climate feedbacks, economy feedbacks, and climate extremes. We compare the PAGE-ICE model with the decade older PAGE09 and find that PAGE-ICE yields SCCO2 values about two times higher, because of its climate and economic updates. Climate feedbacks only account for a relatively minor increase compared to other updates. Extending PAGE-ICE with economy feedbacks demonstrates a manifold increase in the SCCO2 resulting from an empirically derived estimate of partially persistent economic damages. Both the economy feedbacks and other increases since PAGE09 are almost entirely due to higher damages in the Global South. Including an estimate of interannual temperature variability increases the width of the SCCO2 distribution, with particularly strong effects in the tails and a slight increase in the mean SCCO2. Our results highlight the large impacts of climate change if future adaptation does not exceed historical trends. Robust quantification of climate-economy feedbacks and climate extremes are demonstrated to be essential for estimating the SCCO2 and its uncertainty.
Description
This article was originally published in Environmental Research Letters. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac1d0b. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Keywords
climate change, cost–benefit analysis, temperature variability, damage persistence, growth effects, PAGE, environmental economics, climate action
Citation
Kikstra, Jarmo S, Paul Waidelich, James Rising, Dmitry Yumashev, Chris Hope, and Chris M Brierley. “The Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide under Climate-Economy Feedbacks and Temperature Variability.” Environmental Research Letters 16, no. 9 (September 1, 2021): 094037. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac1d0b.