IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v154y2018icp99-106.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climatic Cost-benefit Analysis Under Uncertainty and Learning on Climate Sensitivity and Damages

Author

Listed:
  • Ekholm, Tommi

Abstract

Cost-benefit analyses on climate change have drawn considerable critique, primarily due to contestable choices of discounting and high uncertainties in climate sensitivity and climatic damages. Consequentially, it is argued that cost-benefit analysis can suggest mitigation rates that are nearly arbitrary. This article investigates how firm conclusions can be made from cost-benefit analysis if the main uncertainties are considered endogenously in the analysis and an extensive sensitivity analysis is carried out regarding the contestable assumptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ekholm, Tommi, 2018. "Climatic Cost-benefit Analysis Under Uncertainty and Learning on Climate Sensitivity and Damages," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 99-106.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:154:y:2018:i:c:p:99-106
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.07.024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800917316658
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.07.024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kolstad, Charles D., 1996. "Learning and Stock Effects in Environmental Regulation: The Case of Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-18, July.
    2. Joeri Rogelj & David L. McCollum & Andy Reisinger & Malte Meinshausen & Keywan Riahi, 2013. "Probabilistic cost estimates for climate change mitigation," Nature, Nature, vol. 493(7430), pages 79-83, January.
    3. Nordhaus, William D, 1991. "To Slow or Not to Slow: The Economics of the Greenhouse Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 920-937, July.
    4. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    5. Tommi Ekholm, 2014. "Hedging the climate sensitivity risks of a temperature target," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 153-167, November.
    6. Matthew Adler & David Anthoff & Valentina Bosetti & Greg Garner & Klaus Keller & Nicolas Treich, 2017. "Priority for the worse-off and the social cost of carbon," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(6), pages 443-449, June.
    7. Ackerman, Frank & Stanton, Elizabeth A. & Bueno, Ramón, 2010. "Fat tails, exponents, extreme uncertainty: Simulating catastrophe in DICE," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1657-1665, June.
    8. Yongyang Cai & Timothy M. Lenton & Thomas S. Lontzek, 2016. "Risk of multiple interacting tipping points should encourage rapid CO2 emission reduction," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(5), pages 520-525, May.
    9. Richard S. J. Tol, 2009. "The Economic Effects of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 29-51, Spring.
    10. Leach, Andrew J., 2007. "The climate change learning curve," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 1728-1752, May.
    11. Drew T. Shindell, 2014. "Inhomogeneous forcing and transient climate sensitivity," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(4), pages 274-277, April.
    12. Hwang, In Chang & Reynès, Frédéric & Tol, Richard S.J., 2017. "The effect of learning on climate policy under fat-tailed risk," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-18.
    13. Robert S. Pindyck, 2013. "Climate Change Policy: What Do the Models Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 860-872, September.
    14. Derek Lemoine & Christian P. Traeger, 2016. "Economics of tipping the climate dominoes," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(5), pages 514-519, May.
    15. Jim W. Hall & Robert J. Lempert & Klaus Keller & Andrew Hackbarth & Christophe Mijere & David J. McInerney, 2012. "Robust Climate Policies Under Uncertainty: A Comparison of Robust Decision Making and Info‐Gap Methods," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(10), pages 1657-1672, October.
    16. Richard Loulou, 2008. "ETSAP-TIAM: the TIMES integrated assessment model. part II: mathematical formulation," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 41-66, February.
    17. Benjamin Crost & Christian P. Traeger, 2014. "Optimal CO2 mitigation under damage risk valuation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(7), pages 631-636, July.
    18. Tommi Ekholm & Hannele Korhonen, 2016. "Climate change mitigation strategy under an uncertain Solar Radiation Management possibility," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 503-515, December.
    19. Martin L. Weitzman, 2009. "On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-19, February.
    20. Matthias Schmidt & Hermann Held & Elmar Kriegler & Alexander Lorenz, 2013. "Climate Policy Under Uncertain and Heterogeneous Climate Damages," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 54(1), pages 79-99, January.
    21. Plambeck, Erica L & Hope, Chris, 1996. "PAGE95 : An updated valuation of the impacts of global warming," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(9), pages 783-793, September.
    22. Marco Steinacher & Fortunat Joos & Thomas F. Stocker, 2013. "Allowable carbon emissions lowered by multiple climate targets," Nature, Nature, vol. 499(7457), pages 197-201, July.
    23. Crowards, Tom M., 1998. "Safe Minimum Standards: costs and opportunities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 303-314, June.
    24. Richard Loulou & Maryse Labriet, 2008. "ETSAP-TIAM: the TIMES integrated assessment model Part I: Model structure," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 7-40, February.
    25. Partha Dasgupta, 2008. "Discounting climate change," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 141-169, December.
    26. Kelly, David L. & Tan, Zhuo, 2015. "Learning and climate feedbacks: Optimal climate insurance and fat tails," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 98-122.
    27. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. David Anthoff & Richard S. J. Tol, 2022. "Testing the Dismal Theorem," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(5), pages 885-920.
    2. Andrea Mazzon & Peter Tankov, 2024. "Optimal stopping and divestment timing under scenario ambiguity and learning," Papers 2408.09349, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    3. Duan, Hongbo & Zhang, Gupeng & Wang, Shouyang & Fan, Ying, 2019. "Integrated benefit-cost analysis of China's optimal adaptation and targeted mitigation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 76-86.
    4. Tommi Ekholm & Erin Baker, 2022. "Multiple Beliefs, Dominance and Dynamic Consistency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 529-540, January.
    5. Milad Eghtedari Naeini & Benjamin D. Leibowicz & J. Eric Bickel, 2020. "Can you trust a model whose output keeps changing? Interpreting changes in the social cost of carbon produced by the DICE model," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 301-320, September.
    6. Tommi Ekholm, 2019. "Optimal forest rotation under carbon pricing and forest damage risk," Papers 1912.00269, arXiv.org.
    7. Gawith, David & Hodge, Ian & Morgan, Fraser & Daigneault, Adam, 2020. "Climate change costs more than we think because people adapt less than we assume," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    8. Ekholm, Tommi, 2020. "Optimal forest rotation under carbon pricing and forest damage risk," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    9. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    10. Richard S.J. Tol, 2020. "Kernel density decomposition with an application to the social cost of carbon," Working Paper Series 0720, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.

    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. Tommi Ekholm, 2014. "Hedging the climate sensitivity risks of a temperature target," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 153-167, November.
    2. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Samuel Jovan Okullo, 2020. "Determining the Social Cost of Carbon: Under Damage and Climate Sensitivity Uncertainty," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(1), pages 79-103, January.
    4. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    5. Kent D. Daniel & Robert B. Litterman & Gernot Wagner, 2016. "Applying Asset Pricing Theory to Calibrate the Price of Climate Risk," NBER Working Papers 22795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Wonjun Chang & Thomas F. Rutherford, 2017. "Catastrophic Thresholds, Bayesian Learning And The Robustness Of Climate Policy Recommendations," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(04), pages 1-23, November.
    7. Richard S J Tol, 2018. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 4-25.
    8. Stephen Keen & Timothy M. Lenton & Antoine Godin & Devrim Yilmaz & Matheus Grasselli & Timothy J. Garrett, 2021. "Economists' erroneous estimates of damages from climate change," Papers 2108.07847, arXiv.org.
    9. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.t., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114941, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.T., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    11. Aliakbari, Elmira & McKitrick, Ross, 2018. "Information aggregation in a prediction market for climate outcomes," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 97-106.
    12. Peter H. Howard & Thomas Sterner, 2017. "Few and Not So Far Between: A Meta-analysis of Climate Damage Estimates," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(1), pages 197-225, September.
    13. van der Ploeg, Frederick & ,, 2018. "Pricing Carbon Under Economic and Climactic Risks: Leading-Order Results from Asymptotic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 12642, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    15. 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.
    16. In Chang Hwang & Richard S. J. Tol & Marjan W. Hofkes, 2019. "Active Learning and Optimal Climate Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1264, August.
    17. Yongyang Cai, 2020. "The Role of Uncertainty in Controlling Climate Change," Papers 2003.01615, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.
    18. Pindyck, Robert S., 2012. "Uncertain outcomes and climate change policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 289-303.
    19. Nordhaus, William, 2013. "Integrated Economic and Climate Modeling," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1069-1131, Elsevier.
    20. Pezzey, John C.V. & Burke, Paul J., 2014. "Towards a more inclusive and precautionary indicator of global sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 141-154.

    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:eee:ecolec:v:154:y:2018:i:c:p:99-106. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    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.