Valuing Climate Change

Within only a few years, global warming has emerged from scientific speculation into an environmental threat of worldwide concern. Yet the scientific community remains uncertain as to the long-term trends and effects of climate change, and this uncertainty has been seized on as justification for inaction by an international community reluctant to bear the costs of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Valuing Climate Change presents concrete, economic evidence of the need for action. Fankhauser assesses the costs of a doubling of GHG emissions to be a significant percentage of gross world product; a figure which he then compares to the costs of reducing emissions. In his comparison, he looks at regional as well as global estimates of damage, and takes account of the non-climate change benefits of GHG reductions, such as a switch in the energy sector to cleaner technologies or renewable fuels, and the impacts on transport, with reduced congestion and improved air quality. It is clear that the stakes are high, and Fankhauser believes that tougher targets may be needed than those set out in the Framework Convention on Climate Change. He assesses the optimum policy responses to GHG reduction, the likely instruments for achieving it and the potential for international cooperation in dealing with the problems. This is a major contribution to the rapidly changing debate on global warming.

The social cost of carbon (SC-CO2) is an economic metric intended to provide a comprehensive estimate of the net damages - that is, the monetized value of the net impacts, both negative and positive - from the global climate change that results from a small (1-metric ton) increase in carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Under Executive Orders regarding regulatory impact analysis and as required by a court ruling, the U.S. government has since 2008 used estimates of the SC-CO2 in federal rulemakings to value the costs and benefits associated with changes in CO2 emissions. In 2010, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) developed a methodology for estimating the SC-CO2 across a range of assumptions about future socioeconomic and physical earth systems. Valuing Climate Changes examines potential approaches, along with their relative merits and challenges, for a comprehensive update to the current methodology. This publication also recommends near- and longer-term research priorities to ensure that the SC- CO2 estimates reflect the best available science.

This enriching book presents a holistic overview of climate change uncertainty and offers a number of pathways that could be used to account for such uncertainties in the stated preference valuation research. It shows that uncertainty plays an important role in determining the values of climate change mitigation benefits and, as the authors say, 'If this uncertainty remains unaccounted for, there is a potential danger that the estimated economic values will misrepresent social preferences for public policy interventions to manage environmental externalities.' Valuing Climate Change Mitigation discusses the role of uncertainty in valuing the benefits of climate change mitigation policies using contingent valuation and choice experiments techniques. It treats climate change using three dimensions of uncertainty: scenario, policy and preference. Conceptual frameworks are advanced to account simultaneously for these various dimensions of uncertainty. The authors then explore the impact of introducing these uncertainties into benefit estimates for the Australian Carbon Pollutions Reduction Scheme. The authors present frameworks to account for multiple uncertainty in environmental decision analysis that will prove invaluable for academics and students in the fields of environmental economics and management. Policy makers will also gain invaluable methodological insight.

Despite the many benefits of energy, most of which are reflected in energy market prices, the production, distribution, and use of energy causes negative effects. Many of these negative effects are not reflected in energy market prices. When market failures like this occur, there may be a case for government interventions in the form of regulations, taxes, fees, tradable permits, or other instruments that will motivate recognition of these external or hidden costs. The Hidden Costs of Energy defines and evaluates key external costs and benefits that are associated with the production, distribution, and use of energy, but are not reflected in market prices. The damage estimates presented are substantial and reflect damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation, motor vehicle transportation, and heat generation. The book also considers other effects not quantified in dollar amounts, such as damages from climate change, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security. While not a comprehensive guide to policy, this analysis indicates that major initiatives to further reduce other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner electricity generating mix could substantially reduce the damages of external effects. A first step in minimizing the adverse consequences of new energy technologies is to better understand these external effects and damages. The Hidden Costs of Energy will therefore be a vital informational tool for government policy makers, scientists, and economists in even the earliest stages of research and development on energy technologies.

As the world faces unprecedented challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, the resources needed far outstrip the capabilities of nonprofits and even governments. Yet there are seeds of hope—and much of that hope comes from the efforts of the private sector. Impact investing is rapidly becoming an essential tool, alongside philanthropy and government funding, in tackling these major problems. Valuing Nature presents a new set of nature-based investment areas to help conservationists and investors work together. NatureVest founder William Ginn outlines the emerging private sector investing opportunities in natural assets such as green infrastructure, forests, soils, and fisheries. The first part of Valuing Nature examines the scope of nature-based impact investing while also presenting a practical overview of its limitations and the challenges facing the private sector. The second part of the book offers tools for investors and organizations to consider as they develop their own projects and tips on how nonprofits can successfully navigate this new space. Case studies from around the world demonstrate how we can use private capital to achieve more sustainable uses of our natural resources without the unintended consequences plaguing so many of our current efforts. Valuing Nature provides a roadmap for conservation professionals, nonprofit managers, and impact investors seeking to use market-based strategies to improve the management of natural systems.

Transport accounts for nearly a quarter of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The price attached to these emissions is critical to climate policies and emissions mitigation efforts in the sector. As the impact of emissions on climate does not depend on where CO2 is released, the price of ...

When a group of liberal arts students embark on a university assignment about the natural environment, no one could have quite prepared them for the bewildering array of questions and provocations to confront them in their task. What starts out as an earnest attempt to understand nature in the modern world, turns into a philosophical and practical tangle that only a good transdisciplinary education can provide. Can anyone save the day and actually start to value 'nature'? And if they can't, then what's stopping them? The idea of 'valuing nature' harmonises diverse areas of natural resource management and is an important dimension of scientific and practical work concerned with managing ecosystems and habitats for sustainability. This graphic book takes the reader on an exploration of the issues that arise from this growing interest and concern in the valuation of nature. Set around the premise of a 'motley' group of undergraduates endeavouring to complete a university assignment on 'nature in the modern world', the book explores: the many and diverse meanings people assign to nature the different ways the relationship between people and nature might be characterised the many values systems people hold for the natural world the options and approaches society can deploy to manage it the extent to which we need entirely new economic systems to protect and sustain nature. This highly interdisciplinary book invites consideration of a range of philosophical and applied debates and questions. Written in an accessible style, it is an ideal undergraduate text in the fields of ecology, human and physical geography, conservation science, environment, social science and spatial planning, as well as a general primer for graduate natural and social scientists embarking on interdisciplinary research in the natural resource management arena.

Climate change threatens the economy of the United States in myriad ways, including increased flooding and storm damage, altered crop yields, lost labor productivity, higher crime, reshaped public-health patterns, and strained energy systems, among many other effects. Combining the latest climate models, state-of-the-art econometric research on human responses to climate, and cutting-edge private-sector risk-assessment tools, Economic Risks of Climate Change: An American Prospectus crafts a game-changing profile of the economic risks of climate change in the United States. This prospectus is based on a critically acclaimed independent assessment of the economic risks posed by climate change commissioned by the Risky Business Project. With new contributions from Karen Fisher-Vanden, Michael Greenstone, Geoffrey Heal, Michael Oppenheimer, and Nicholas Stern and Bob Ward, as well as a foreword from Risky Business cochairs Michael Bloomberg, Henry Paulson, and Thomas Steyer, the book speaks to scientists, researchers, scholars, activists, and policy makers. It depicts the distribution of escalating climate-change risk across the country and assesses its effects on aspects of the economy as varied as hurricane damages and violent crime. Beautifully illustrated and accessibly written, this book is an essential tool for helping businesses and governments prepare for the future.