By Jean Chemnick

Two environmental economists are urging the incoming Biden administration to overhaul the way the U.S. government assigns a dollar value to the pain of carbon emissions.

This metric, known as the social cost of carbon (SCC), is used by regulators to estimate how much damage would result from a 1-ton increase in CO2 emissions.

The approach made its debut under the Obama administration but was greatly diminished during the Trump years.

Now two economists — Tamma Carleton of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago — say that the Biden administration should more than double the SCC figure used during the Obama presidency. The higher figure would justify more costly carbon controls under President-elect Joe Biden than were put forward under President Obama.

“I think it would greatly change the balance between costs and benefits in a wide range of arenas, and I think motivate and justify stricter climate regulations,” said Greenstone, a former adviser to Obama on energy and economics.

The paper by Greenstone and Carleton proposes that the Biden White House immediately scrap the Trump administration’s low social cost of carbon in favor of the Obama administration’s formula.

But instead of using the Obama administration’s central 3% discount rate, Greenstone and Carleton argue that a rate of no more than 2% is now justified because Treasury-backed interest rates have declined sharply since 2003, when George W. Bush’s White House set that as a benchmark to be used in regulatory cost-benefit analyses.

Continue Reading at E&E News…

Areas of Focus: Social Cost of Carbon
Definition
Social Cost of Carbon
The social cost of carbon is an essential tool for incorporating the cost of climate change into policy-making, corporate planning and investment decisionmaking in the United States and around the...
Fossil Fuels
Definition
Fossil Fuels
Under current policies, fossil fuels will play an important role in the energy system for the foreseeable future. EPIC research is exploring the costs and benefits of these fuels as...
Updating the United States Government’s Social Cost of Carbon
Definition
Updating the United States Government’s Social Cost of Carbon
As the Biden administration updates the social cost of carbon, their thorough review should include using the latest climate modeling, applying new climate damage estimates, employing lower discount rates, and...
Fossil Fuels
Definition
Fossil Fuels
Under current policies, fossil fuels will play an important role in the energy system for the foreseeable future. EPIC research is exploring the costs and benefits of these fuels as...