But it is still worth thinking about the statements offered to the committee and what
SCC calculations tell us about the scale of climate risks.
The IWG
SCC calculations aimed to harmonize those models with a common set of inputs and still found their SCC values could vary by a factor of 2 or 3 (telling you that the technical disagreement is perhaps smaller than the ethical choices being made).
Current administration
SCC calculations are arbitrary and capricious because they do not count benefits, only costs.
In the current practice for
SCC calculations, the costs analyzed are only US domestic costs, whereas the «benefits» are calculated globally.
re negative carbon prices:
SCC calculations allow for a level at which (marginal) abatement costs exceed projected damages so the SCC is negative.
As explained recently by my colleague Joseph Majkut, a survey of all of the recently published studies suggests that
the SCC calculations are premised on an accurate read of the underlying literature.
Returning to Pindyck, are we wrong to worry that
SCC calculations do not appropriately consider the possibility of catastrophic climate outcomes — which could increase the SCC by more than 200 %?
(2) 20 studies published since 2011 find that the climate is not as sensitive to greenhouse gas concentrations as
the SCC calculations suggest.
(4) There is a lot of educated guesswork and subjective analytic assumptions that are employed in
SCC calculations.
Unfortunately, we don't know what the authors think the discount rates ought to be in
SCC calculations because they do not explore the matter.
SCC Calculations In addition to such procedural problems with the use of the SCC in federal policy, there are deeper conceptual concerns.
If
a SCC calculation is needed, it should be done through an agency with legal responsibilities for good science.
And another variable is the «discount rate» used in
the SCC calculation.
Good: make that case and carry on using
the SCC calculation to do it.
Their SCC calculation — in keeping with the playbook of the president's Climate Action Plan — is a backdoor way of implementing a carbon tax.
It is not clear, however, that a low climate sensitivity is actually a better choice for calibrating
an SCC calculation.
Not exact matches
The
SCC — a
calculation of the damage caused by each ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere — is a sort of «volume dial» for climate policy: The higher the
SCC, the tougher (and more expensive) the regulations that policymakers will consider cost - effective.
The Social Cost of Carbon (
SCC), the
calculation of how much carbon pollution hurts us «can be considered a fiction, the way it's produced in the EPA right now.»
At $ 60
SCC / ton, which is far from an extreme number in the world of
SCC analysis, even the very discounted «US only impacts, no other benefits»
calculation would show a cost / benefit wash.
In another departure from its own guidelines, the government's
calculation uses an especially low discount rate, resulting in a high
SCC and thus more «benefits» from regulations reducing carbon emissions.
As you know, the recent US Court of Appeals for the 7th district upheld the DOE's use and
calculation of their
SCC model, and explictly agreed with the DOE's analysis that used a global impact measure, not US.
On August 8, the Social Cost of Carbon (
SCC) took another step closer to being the default monetary value applied to each ton of CO2, when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rather casually approved the Department of Energy's cost - benefit
calculations for commercial refrigeration equipment efficiency standards.
Mainstream
calculations of the
SCC start low and rise gradually over time.
In contrast, the
SCC is only a relatively small part of the CPP's benefit
calculations, which are based largely on the value EPA attached to reductions in conventional pollutants.
All of these are significant and real sources of controversy in the
calculation of, and limitations on the appropriate use of, the
SCC.
While the
SCC is clearly not zero, the complexity and assumptions underneath the current
calculation process make the FSCC of questionable usefulness in the practical policy debate.
This legislation states that the
SCC shall approve toll increases by one of three rates outlined in the statute, adopting the highest
calculation.