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Climate sensitivity: should the climate tail wag the policy dog?

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  • Gerard Roe
  • Yoram Bauman

Abstract

The small but stubbornly unyielding possibility of a very large long-term response of global temperature to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide can be termed the fat tail of high climate sensitivity. Recent economic analyses suggest that the fat tail should dominate a rational policy strategy if the damages associated with such high temperatures are large enough. The conclusions of such analyses, however, depend on how economic growth, temperature changes, and climate damages unfold and interact over time. In this paper we focus on the role of two robust physical properties of the climate system: the enormous thermal inertia of the ocean, and the long timescales associated with high climate sensitivity. Economic models that include a climate component, and particularly those that focus on the tails of the probability distributions, should properly represent the physics of this slow response to high climate sensitivity, including the correlated uncertainty between present forcing and climate sensitivity, and the global energetics of the present climate state. If climate sensitivity in fact proves to be high, these considerations prevent the high temperatures in the fat tail from being reached for many centuries. A failure to include these factors risks distorting the resulting economic analyses. For example, we conclude that fat-tail considerations will not strongly influence economic analyses when these analyses follow the common—albeit controversial—practices of assigning large damages only to outcomes with very high temperature changes and of assuming a significant baseline level of economic growth. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

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  • Gerard Roe & Yoram Bauman, 2013. "Climate sensitivity: should the climate tail wag the policy dog?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 117(4), pages 647-662, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:117:y:2013:i:4:p:647-662
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-012-0582-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Reto Knutti & Thomas F. Stocker & Fortunat Joos & Gian-Kasper Plattner, 2002. "Constraints on radiative forcing and future climate change from observations and climate model ensembles," Nature, Nature, vol. 416(6882), pages 719-723, April.
    2. Martin L. Weitzman, 2012. "GHG Targets as Insurance Against Catastrophic Climate Damages," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 14(2), pages 221-244, March.
    3. Millner, Antony, 2013. "On welfare frameworks and catastrophic climate risks," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 310-325.
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    Cited by:

    1. Aliakbari, Elmira & McKitrick, Ross, 2018. "Information aggregation in a prediction market for climate outcomes," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 97-106.
    2. Kevin D. Dayaratna & Ross McKitrick & Patrick J. Michaels, 2020. "Climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in FUND," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 22(3), pages 433-448, July.
    3. Brock, W. A. & Xepapadeas, A., 2015. "Modeling Coupled Climate, Ecosystems, and Economic Systems," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 206837, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    4. KEVIN DAYARATNA & ROSS McKITRICK & DAVID KREUTZER, 2017. "Empirically Constrained Climate Sensitivity And The Social Cost Of Carbon," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(02), pages 1-12, May.
    5. Philip Meyer, 2023. "Comment on ‘Climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in FUND’," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 25(2), pages 285-290, April.
    6. 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).
    7. Terrence Iverson & Scott Denning & Sammy Zahran, 2015. "When the long run matters," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 57-72, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Kevin Dayaratna & Ross McKitrick, 2023. "Reply to comment on “climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in fund” by Philip Meyer," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 25(2), pages 291-298, April.

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