I have just produced three short videos (around 10 minutes each) introducing carbon pricing. More are planned. … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Many Lives of Carbon
"The Many Lives of Carbon" by Dag Olav Hessen was released originally late last year, but just this month had its English translation published. … [Read more...]
Trump Administration Misleads Americans About the Cost of Climate Pollution
The Trump Administration is attempting to justify the rollback of crucial environmental and health protections by vastly undervaluing the costs of climate change. The latest safeguards under attack are the Clean Power Plan, the nation’s first-ever limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants, and the Bureau of Land Management’s vital standards to reduce wasted natural gas from oil and gas facilities on public and tribal lands. … [Read more...]
Social Benefits of Carbon, Part 2: Projections and the COP21 Paris Agreement Future Impacts
In ‘The Social Benefits of Carbon (SBC) - Part 1’, the history of Civilizations’ growth and major developments, supported largely by evolving fossil fuels technologies and energy supplies, were covered over the past two Centuries. In this SBC Part 2 article we will cover recent World energy supplied projections and International agreements intended to substantially reduce total World greenhouse gas emissions towards mid-21st Century. Analysis of … [Read more...]
In Win for Environment, Court Recognizes Social Cost of Carbon
If someone was tallying up all the benefits of energy efficiency programs, you’d want them to include reducing climate pollution, right? That’s just common sense. Thankfully, that’s what our government does when it designs energy efficiency programs—as well as other policies that impact greenhouse gas emissions. And just this month, this approach got an important seal of approval: For the first time, a federal court upheld using the social … [Read more...]
U.S. LNG Exports Can Save GHGs Globally, U.S. Accrues Social Cost
By Leslie Abrahams and Costa Samaras While much of the eastern U.S. is trying to keep warm during the recent Alaska-like cold snap, it’s useful to remember the winter of 2006. The residential price of natural gas, which heats more than half of U.S. homes, was more than $16/thousand cubic feet (MCF). Today, residential delivered gas is closer to $9 and the U.S. commodity natural cost is less than $3. The growth of U.S. shale gas has reduced … [Read more...]
Costing Damages from Climate Change Offers Only a Partial Guide to Choice of Policy
Estimates of the cost of damages from greenhouse gas emissions are more use for ruling in policy measures than ruling them out.Estimates of the cost of the damages caused by greenhouse gas emissions are widely used to assess the cost effectiveness of policies to reduce emissions. Broadly speaking, emissions reductions that are cheaper than the cost of damages are judged cost-effective, while emissions reductions more expensive than the cost … [Read more...]
The Myth of Price
Our society’s prevailing economic zeitgeist assumes that everything has a price, and that both costs and prices can be objectively calculated, or at least agreed upon by parties involved in the transaction. There are some big problems with this proposition.Externalized costs are involuntary transactions — those on the receiving end of the externalities have not agreed to the deal. Putting a price on carbon can theoretically … [Read more...]
Shipping Oil by Rail: A Modern-Day Problem of Social Cost
While environmental groups and other stakeholders have been working hard to delay – if not derail- major pipeline projects like Keystone, oil companies have been working hard to find alternative ways to get their crude oil to market:A single unit train can move up to 90,000 barrels of oil. Photo sourceRail transportation is viewed by some as a stop-gap measure because it is more costly per gallon-mile as compared to pipeline transport. But … [Read more...]
Reality Check: Society Pays for Carbon Pollution and That’s no Benefit
This open letter, co-authored by Jeremy Proville and first published on EDF Voices, was written in response to a New York Times article citing Dr. Roger Bezdek’s report on “The Social Costs of Carbon? No, The Social Benefits of Carbon.”Dear Dr. Bezdek,After seeing so many peer-reviewed studies documenting the costs of carbon pollution, it’s refreshing to encounter some out-of-the-box thinking to the contrary. … [Read more...]
Why the Cost of Carbon Pollution is Both too High and too Low
Tell someone you are a “climate economist,” and the first thing you hear after the slightly puzzled looks subside is, “How much?” Show me the money: “How much is climate change really costing us?”Here it is: at least $40.That, of course, isn’t the total cost, which is in the trillions of dollars. $40 is the cost per ton of carbon dioxide pollution emitted today, and represents the financial impacts of everything climate change wreaks: higher … [Read more...]
Calculating the Social Cost of Carbon and Value of Rooftop Solar: The Movement Has Begun
How much value should owners of rooftop solar systems receive credit for in reducing their use -- and the environmental impact -- of utility-generated electricity? That is THE question Minnesota is tackling this month, the first state ever to do so.Minnesota’s Department of Commerce is due by January 31 to submit a methodology for figuring the value of solar to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. It is one of the most closely-watched … [Read more...]
OMB Issues Call for Additional Public Comments on the Social Cost of Carbon
Laurie Johnson, Chief Economist, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, DCLast week the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) invited additional comment on the government’s “social cost of carbon” (SCC), an estimate of climate change damages resulting from carbon pollution. The invitation comes after a recent update provoked intense backlash by the fossil fuel lobby against its use.Couching their attack in terms of process issues and … [Read more...]
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