The U.S. is putting a price on carbon, but SEI economists warn about skewed, misleading calculations.
The United States has a crucial role to play in climate mitigation, given both its large share of global greenhouse gas emissions, and its economic and technological capability to address the problem.
Legislation to curb emissions is still wading through Congress, but in the meantime, the executive branch is trying to fill the gap by considering climate impacts in the regulatory process.
The white paper explains the concept of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) and how the interagency task force came up with its figures. It questions several key choices made by the group, starting with an overly narrow reading of the climate economics literature that considers only three models – FUND, PAGE, and DICE.
These models, Ackerman and Stanton find, underestimate the SCC.
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