Year: 2008
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: To assess climate policies in a cost-efficiency framework with constraints on the magnitude and rate of global climate change, we have built RESPONSE_ , an optimal control integrated assessment model.Our results show that the uncertainty about climate sensitivity leads to significant short-term mitigation efforts all the more as the arrival of information regarding this parameter is belated.There exists thus a high opportunity cost to know before 2030 the true value of this parameter, which is not totally granted so far.Given this uncertainty, a +2 °C objective could lead to rather stringent policy recommendations for the coming decades and might prove unacceptable.Furthermore, the uncertainty about climate sensitivity magnifies the influence of the rate constraint on short-term decision, leading to rather stringent policy recommendations for the coming decades.This result is particularly robust to the choice of discount rate and to the beliefs of the decision-maker about climate sensitivity.We finally show that the uncertainty about the rate constraint is even more important for short-term decision than the uncertainty about climate sensitivity or magnitude of warming.This means that the critical rate of climate change, i.e. a transient characteristic of climate risks, matters much more than the long-term objective of climate policy, i.e. the critical magnitude of climate change.Therefore, research should be aimed at better characterising climate change risks in view to help decision-makers in agreeing on a safe guardrail to limit the rate of global warming.
Source: The MIT Press eBooks
Parent work: The Design of Climate Policy
Author: Philippe Ambrosi
Institution: CIRED
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2244485947