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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (938877)	6/8/2016 2:28:31 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1574849

The ‘social cost of carbon’ may have just gone negative Anthony Watts / 20 hours ago June 7, 2016 Estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon (from Jesse Jenkins, for illustration purposes only Values in 2012 US$ per ton CO2 Ross McKittrick writes on his personal web page: (h/t to David L. Hagen) I have just released a working paper with Kevin Dayaratna and David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC which recomputes standard Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates using updated empirical estimates of the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). Dayaratna, Kevin, Ross McKitrick and David Kreutzer (2016) Empirically-Constrained Climate Sensitivity and the Social Cost of Carbon. SSRN Discussion Paper 2759505. We applied the 2015 Lewis and Curry ECS distribution to the widely-used DICE and FUND Integrated Assessment Models. Previously the developers of these models (and others) have relied on model-simulated distribution of ECS values, especially from a 2007 paper by Roe and Baker. The Roe-Baker distribution underpins the US government’s current SCC values used for regulatory purposes. We critique this aspect of SCC computation, explaining why the Roe-Baker distribution is unsuitable. A major reason is that simulated ECS distributions have been superseded by a suite of empirically-estimated distributions. Using a recent, well-constrained empirical ECS distribution we find the estimated SCC drops substantially in both the DICE and FUND models, and in the latter there is a large probability it is no longer even positive. The paper: EMPIRICALLY-CONSTRAINED CLIMATE SENSITIVITY AND THE SOCIAL COST OF CARBON Kevin Dayaratna Heritage Foundation Washington DC Ross McKitrick Department of Economics, University of Guelph Frontier Centre for Public Policy David Kreutzer Heritage Foundation Washington DC Abstract: Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) require parameterization of both economic and climatic processes. The latter include Ocean Heat Uptake (OHU) efficiency, which represents the rate of heat exchange between the atmosphere and the deep ocean, and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), or the surface temperature response to doubling of CO2 levels after adjustment of the deep ocean. Due to a lack of adequate data, OHU and ECS parameter distributions in IAMs have been based on simulations from climate models. In recent years, new and sufficiently long observational data sets have emerged to support a growing body of empirical ECS estimates, but the results have not been applied in IAMs. We incorporate a recent observational estimate of the ECS distribution conditioned on observed OHU efficiency into two widely-used IAMs. The resulting Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates are much smaller than those from models based on simulated parameters. In the DICE model the average SCC falls by 30-50% depending on the discount rate, while in the FUND model the average SCC falls by over 80%. The span of estimates across discount rates also shrinks considerably, implying less sensitivity to this parameter choice” Draft copy: Empirically-Constrained Climate Sensitivity and the Social Cost of Carbon.SSRN-id2759505 (PDF) “Substituting an empirical ECS distribution from LC15 yields a mean 2020 SCC of $19.52, a drop of 48%. The same exercise for the FUND model yields a mean SCC estimate of $19.33 based on RB07 and $3.33 based on the LC15 parameters—an 83% decline. Furthermore the probability of a negative SCC (implying CO2 emissions are a positive externality) jumps dramatically using an empirical ECS distribution. Using the FUND model, under the RB07 parameterization at a 3% discount rate there is only about a ten percent chance of a negative SCC through 2050, but using the LC15 distribution, the probability of a negative SCC jumps to about 40%. Remarkably, replacing simulated climate sensitivity values with an empirical distribution calls into question whether CO2 is even a negative externality. The lower SCC values also cluster more closely together across difference discount rates, diminishing the importance of this parameter.” https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/07/the-social-cost-of-carbon-may-have-just-gone-negative/ edcaryl says: June 7, 2016 at 1:32 pm There is no social cost of carbon. All these calculation totally ignore the Gross Domestic Product gain by using fossil fuels. The gain also increases with increased emissions. See: http://notrickszone.com/2015/10/15/social-benefit-of-carbon-is-ten-to-a-hundred-times-the-estimated-social-cost/#sthash.YZOfuR5m.dpbs Shoshin says: June 7, 2016 at 3:19 pm The social costs of high CO2 may be incalculably beneficial. Flowering plants only evolved when CO2 levels were 4X higher than they are today. The argument can be made that our plants today are CO2 starved. No plants, no food. What is the social cost of mass starvation? I think we should tax all marijuana grown outdoors and give the money to coal companies. Arrhenius would have approved.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (938877)	6/8/2016 2:44:11 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574849

"Adding to the insult, it includes a carbon-pricing scheme in the form of cap and trade." But wait, there's more; the only good insult is a really good insult. \| Mon Apr 13, 2015 2:00pm EDT Ontario confirms it will join Quebec, California in carbon market reuters.com The Western Climate Initiative, or WCI, was started in February 2007 by the governors of five western states (AZ, CA, NM, OR, and WA) to evaluate and implement ways to reduce their states's emissions of greenhouse gases and achieve related co-benefits. [1] These states and future participants in the initiative (collectively known as WCI "partners") also committed to set an overall regional goal to reduce emissions (set in August 2007 as 15 percent below 2005 emission levels by 2020), [2] participate in a cross-border greenhouse gas registry to consistently measure and track emissions, and adopt clean tailpipe standards for passenger vehicles. By July 2008, the initiative had expanded to include two more U.S. states (MT and UT) and four Canadian provinces (BC, MB, ON, and QC). Together, these WCI partners comprised 20 percent of U.S. GDP and 76 percent of Canadian GDP. [3] en.wikipedia.org