Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update (2016) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 3-8
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From page 3... ...
In an effort to standardize SCC estimates across the federal government, in 2009 the Obama Administration assembled the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon (IWG) of technical experts from across the government to develop a single set of estimates.4 Interim values for the SCC from the IWG were first used in a regulatory impact analysis for an August 2009 Department of Energy energy efficiency standard for beverage vending machines (74 Federal Register 44914)
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From page 4... ...
that are capable of estimating the SCC, which this report refers to as "SCC-IAMs." Although the three SCC-IAMs were not developed solely to estimate the SCC, they are among the very few models that calculate net economic damages from CO2 emissions. Since there are many IAMs in use in the climate change research community for multiple purposes, this report refers to these three models specifically as SCC-IAMs.6 The IWG retained most of the SCC-IAMs developers' default assumptions for the parameters and functional forms in the models, but with some important exceptions, and also a harmonized approach to discounting the results in future time periods across the models.
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From page 5... ...
Accordingly, the committee will recommend approaches that warrant consideration in future updates of the SCC estimates, as well as recommendations for research to advance the science in areas that are particularly useful for estimating the SCC. The committee will examine the merits and challenges of potential approaches for both a near-term limited update and longerterm comprehensive updates to ensure that the SCC estimates reflect the best available science and methods.
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From page 6... ...
Committee expertise spans the issues relevant to the study task: environmental economics, climate science, energy economics, integrated assessment modeling, decision science, climate impacts, statistical modeling, and public policy and regulation. In composing the committee, care was taken to ensure that the membership possessed the necessary balance between research and practice by including academic scientists and other professionals, that members have the relevant disciplinary expertise, and to ensure there are no current connections that might constitute a conflict of interest with the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, or other regulatory agency members of the IWG.
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From page 7... ...
Chapters 3 and 4 present the technical details that underlie the committee's conclusions and recommendations. Chapter 3 describes the role of the ECS in determining temperature changes and discusses several additional relevant climate metrics that reflect the state of the climate literature.
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