Climate economics support for the UN climate targets
Journal article, 2020
Under the UN Paris Agreement, countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 °C and to actively pursue a 1.5 °C limit. Yet, according to the 2018 Economics Nobel laureate William Nordhaus, these targets are economically suboptimal or unattainable and the world community should aim for 3.5 °C in 2100 instead. Here, we show that the UN climate targets may be optimal even in the Dynamic Integrated Climate–Economy (DICE) integrated assessment model, when appropriately updated. Changes to DICE include more accurate calibration of the carbon cycle and energy balance model, and updated climate damage estimates. To determine economically ‘optimal’ climate policy paths, we use the range of expert views on the ethics of intergenerational welfare. When updates from climate science and economics are considered jointly, we find that around three-quarters (or one-third) of expert views on intergenerational welfare translate into economically optimal climate policy paths that are consistent with the 2 °C (or 1.5 °C) target.
Author
Martin C. Hänsel
Leibniz-Gemeinschaft
Moritz A. Drupp
Münchener Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wirtschaftswissenschaft - CESifo GmbH
University of Hamburg
Daniel Johansson
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Physical Resource Theory
Frikk Nesje
University of Oslo
Heidelberg University
Christian Azar
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Physical Resource Theory
Mark C. Freeman
University of York
Ben Groom
London School of Economics and Political Science
University of Exeter
Thomas Sterner
University of Gothenburg
Nature Climate Change
1758-678X (ISSN) 1758-6798 (eISSN)
Vol. 10 8 781-789Subject Categories
Energy Systems
Physical Geography
Climate Research
DOI
10.1038/s41558-020-0833-x