The cost inflicted on the world by carbon pollution may be nearly four times
higher than recent estimates, a study said Thursday, highlighting how much
climate action could save this and future generations.
اضافة اعلان
The "social cost of carbon" is a way of evaluating the negative
economic, labour and health consequences of
CO2 emissions, calculated as the
difference between the cost of reducing those emissions and the damages
prevented by the reductions.
Arriving at an accurate cost price per tonne of CO2 is vital to the
viability of a carbon tax, which is widely seen as one of the easiest ways to
fund decarbonisation efforts.
In the US, the figure has for years formed part of cost-benefit analyses for
everything from power plant regulations to efficiency standards for cars and
household appliances.
Lead author Kevin Rennert, from the Washington-based research centre
Resources for the Future, said the study represented a "complete
overhaul" of the US government's current carbon cost calculations.
He said that the cost had been underestimated in previous methodologies in a
variety of ways, but none more so than in the excess mortality carbon pollution
causes, and on crop losses.
"The most substantial damages from climate change are driven by greater
rates of mortality from increased temperatures and impacts on the agriculture
sector," Rennert told AFP.
Last year a working group of experts under the Biden administration came up
with a place-holding figure for the social cost of carbon of $51 per metric
tonne.
But they stressed their estimates -- which include separate metrics for
methane and nitrous oxide -- "likely underestimate societal damages",
leading to speculation that the final figure could be substantially higher.
Writing in the journal Nature, Rennert and colleagues -- climate and
economic experts -- argued that the $51 figure was nearly four times lower than
the true social cost of carbon.
They created a tool to estimate the true cost of carbon pollution using the
latest research on socioeconomic projections, climate modelling, climate impact
assessments, and economic discounting -- which determines how much the value of
future climate damages are marked down due to expected growth.
They calculated that society was footing a bill of $185 for every metric
tonne of CO2 emitted.
The International Energy Agency says that carbon emissions from the power
sector alone were some 36.3 billion tonnes in 2021.
Rennert said he hoped the research would inform policymakers when it comes
to setting carbon taxes at an appropriate level.
"The social cost of carbon tells you the price of an economically
efficient carbon tax evaluated along an optimal emissions pathway," he
said.
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