Every year, air pollution kills 2,600 Australians. Australia’s new climate policy regime must account for this and other harms climate change wreaks on society.
The Capitol Power Plant, which uses fossil fuels.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
The social cost helps regulators factor in harm from climate change when they consider new rules and purchases, like buying electric- vs. gas-powered trucks for the Postal Service.
Economists have searched for the mythical balance between the cost of climate action, and the future cost of doing nothing.
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For decades, economists have pondered the ‘social cost of carbon’ - the price worth paying to avoid the future costs of greenhouse emissions. But a new analysis suggests this quest is impossibly complex.
Tighter emissions standards create costs for truck manufacturers yet provide health benefits for society. How should they be weighed?
Lesterman
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has proposed steps that would reduce economic benefits to society from new regulations. An economist who worked for Presidents Clinton and Obama calls this a strategy to justify deregulation.
Coal train in Missouri. Assigning a social cost to carbon emissions puts a price on activities that generate them, such as burning fossil fuels.
Scott Granneman/Flickr
To weigh the economic impact of climate change policies, we need to estimate the social cost of carbon. An economist explains how it’s done and why the Trump administration shouldn’t end the practice.
What would an environmental economist do?
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Environmental economists have long argued a carbon price is the best way to factor in the social cost of climate change. Did Obama effectively use a carbon price to nix the Keystone XL pipeline?
Hurricane Sandy pummeled cities along the east coast in 2012, causing billions of dollars of damage.
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Climate change is as much an economic problem as an environmental one. The effects of climate change, such as damage from more severe weather or health problems from higher temperatures, will impose a…