The costs of “costless” climate mitigation
Date
2023-11-30
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Publisher
Science
Abstract
How much will it cost to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a global scale? The answer is critical for assessments of how to address climate change—affecting public support, political will, and policy choices. We find that the “bottom-up” estimation approach emphasized by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports considerably lower costs for emission reductions than leading “top-down” economic models. We also find that one core feature explains the vast majority of the difference: The bottom-up estimates include substantial reductions that appear to come at zero cost, or even at a savings, whereas the economic models assume no such “free lunch.” The fact that different methodological approaches produce different results may not be surprising. But that nearly all of the discrepancy loads on how much mitigation is seemingly costless raises important challenges for understanding and communicating the actual costs of reducing emissions.
Description
This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science on 11/30/2023 in VOL. 382, NO. 6674, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adj2453. This research was featured in UDaily on 2/8/2024 at https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2024/february/costless-mitigation-greenhouse-gas-emissions-ipcc-climate-change/
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Citation
Kotchen, Matthew J., James A. Rising, and Gernot Wagner. “The Costs of ‘Costless’ Climate Mitigation.” Science 382, no. 6674 (2023): 1001–3. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adj2453.