IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/esr/wpaper/wp324.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Counting Only the Hits? The Risk of Underestimating the Costs of Stringent Climate Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Tavoni, Massimo
  • Tol, Richard S. J.

Abstract

This paper warns against the risk of underestimating the costs -and the uncertainty about the costs- of achieving stringent stabilization targets. We argue that a straightforward review of integrated assessment models results produces biased estimates for the more ambitious climate objectives such as those compatible with the 2°C of the European Union and the G8. The magnitude and range of estimates are significantly reduced because only the most optimistic results are reported for such targets. We suggest a procedure that addresses this partiality. The results show highly variable costs for the most difficult scenarios.

Suggested Citation

  • Tavoni, Massimo & Tol, Richard S. J., 2009. "Counting Only the Hits? The Risk of Underestimating the Costs of Stringent Climate Policy," Papers WP324, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp324
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esri.ie/pubs/WP324.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferdinand A. Gul & Judy S. L. Tsui, 2004. "Introduction and overview," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Governance of East Asian Corporations, chapter 1, pages 1-26, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Richard S.J. Tol, 2007. "Biased Policy Advice from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," Energy & Environment, , vol. 18(7), pages 929-936, December.
    3. Weyant, John P., 2004. "Introduction and overview," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 501-515, July.
    4. Kuik, Onno & Brander, Luke & Tol, Richard S.J., 2009. "Marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions: A meta-analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1395-1403, April.
    5. Carolyn Fischer & Richard D. Morgenstern, 2006. "Carbon Abatement Costs: Why the Wide Range of Estimates?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 73-86.
    6. John P. Weyant, Francisco C. de la Chesnaye, and Geoff J. Blanford, 2006. "Overview of EMF-21: Multigas Mitigation and Climate Policy," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I), pages 1-32.
    7. Terry Barker & Jonathan Köhler & Marcelo Villena, 2002. "Costs of greenhouse gas abatement: meta-analysis of post-SRES mitigation scenarios," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 5(2), pages 135-166, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Environmental and Natural Resource Economics > Climate economics > Abatement costs

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valentina Bosetti & Carlo Carraro & Massimo Tavoni, 2012. "Timing of Mitigation and Technology Availability in Achieving a Low-Carbon World," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 51(3), pages 353-369, March.
    2. Valentina Bosetti & Jeffrey Frankel, 2014. "Sustainable Cooperation In Global Climate Policy: Specific Formulas And Emission Targets," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(03), pages 1-34.
    3. David I. Stern & John C. V. Pezzey & N. Ross Lambie, 2011. "Where in the World is it Cheapest to Cut Carbon Emissions? Ranking Countries by Total and Marginal Cost of Abatement," CCEP Working Papers 1111, Centre for Climate & Energy Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    4. Bosetti, Valentina & Frankel, Jeffrey, 2011. "Sustainable Cooperation in Global Climate Policy: Specific Formulas and Emission Targets to Build on Copenhagen and Cancun," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 115849, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    5. Alexander R. Barron & Allen A. Fawcett & Marc A. C. Hafstead & James R. Mcfarland & Adele C. Morris, 2018. "Policy Insights From The Emf 32 Study On U.S. Carbon Tax Scenarios," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(01), pages 1-47, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tol, Richard S.J., 2012. "A cost–benefit analysis of the EU 20/20/2020 package," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 288-295.
    2. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "Targets for global climate policy: An overview," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 911-928.
    3. Kuik, Onno & Brander, Luke & Tol, Richard S.J., 2009. "Marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions: A meta-analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1395-1403, April.
    4. Dai, Hancheng & Mischke, Peggy & Xie, Xuxuan & Xie, Yang & Masui, Toshihiko, 2016. "Closing the gap? Top-down versus bottom-up projections of China’s regional energy use and CO2 emissions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1355-1373.
    5. Ma, Chunbo & Hailu, Atakelty & You, Chaoying, 2019. "A critical review of distance function based economic research on China’s marginal abatement cost of carbon dioxide emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. Strachan, Neil, 2011. "Business-as-Unusual: Existing policies in energy model baselines," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 153-160, March.
    7. Timilsina, Govinda R., 2008. "Atmospheric stabilization of CO2 emissions: Near-term reductions and absolute versus intensity-based targets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1927-1936, June.
    8. Luca Gerotto & Paolo Pellizzari, 2021. "A replication of Pindyck’s willingness to pay: on the efforts required to obtain results," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(5), pages 1-25, May.
    9. Kazushi Hatase & Shunsuke Managi, 2015. "Increase in carbon prices: analysis of energy-economy modeling," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 17(2), pages 241-262, April.
    10. Wissema, Wiepke & Dellink, Rob, 2007. "AGE analysis of the impact of a carbon energy tax on the Irish economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(4), pages 671-683, March.
    11. Renaud Coulomb & Oskar Lecuyer & Adrien Vogt-Schilb, 2019. "Optimal Transition from Coal to Gas and Renewable Power Under Capacity Constraints and Adjustment Costs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(2), pages 557-590, June.
    12. Larson, Donald F. & Breustedt, Gunnar, 2007. "Will markets direct investments under the Kyoto Protocol ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4131, The World Bank.
    13. Kesicki, Fabian, 2013. "What are the key drivers of MAC curves? A partial-equilibrium modelling approach for the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 142-151.
    14. Rick Baker & Andrew Barker & Alan Johnston & Michael Kohlhaas, 2008. "The Stern Review: an assessment of its methodology," Staff Working Papers 0801, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia.
    15. Max Meulemann, 2017. "An Empirical Assessment Of Components Of Climate Architectures," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(04), pages 1-36, November.
    16. Johannes Ziesmer & Ding Jin & Sneha D Thube & Christian Henning, 2023. "A Dynamic Baseline Calibration Procedure for CGE models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 1331-1368, April.
    17. Dalton, Michael & O'Neill, Brian & Prskawetz, Alexia & Jiang, Leiwen & Pitkin, John, 2008. "Population aging and future carbon emissions in the United States," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 642-675, March.
    18. Oskar Lecuyer & Adrien Vogt-Schilb, 2013. "Assessing and ordering investments in polluting fossil-fueled and zero-carbon capital," CIRED Working Papers hal-00850680, HAL.
    19. Wiepke Wissema & Rob Dellink, 2010. "AGE assessment of interactions between climate change policy instruments and pre-existing taxes: the case of Ireland," International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(1/2), pages 46-62.
    20. Gillingham, Kenneth & Newell, Richard G. & Pizer, William A., 2008. "Modeling endogenous technological change for climate policy analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 2734-2753, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    risk/Policy/uncertainty/European Union;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp324. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Burns (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esriiie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.