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Approximate calculations of the net economic impact of global warming mitigation targets under heightened damage estimates
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 15, Iss 10, p e0239520 (2020), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2020.
-
Abstract
- Efforts to mitigate global warming are often justified through calculations of the economic damages that may occur absent mitigation. The earliest such damage estimates were speculative mathematical representations, but some more recent studies provide empirical estimates of damages on economic growth that accumulate over time and result in larger damages than those estimated previously. These heightened damage estimates have been used to suggest that limiting global warming this century to 1.5 °C avoids tens of trillions of 2010 US$ in damage to gross world product relative to limiting global warming to 2.0 °C. However, in order to estimate the net effect on gross world product, mitigation costs associated with decarbonizing the world's energy systems must be subtracted from the benefits of avoided damages. Here, we follow previous work to parameterize the aforementioned heightened damage estimates into a schematic global climate-economy model (DICE) so that they can be weighed against mainstream estimates of mitigation costs in a unified framework. We investigate the net effect of mitigation on gross world product through finite time horizons under a spectrum of exogenously defined levels of mitigation stringency. We find that even under heightened damage estimates, the additional mitigation costs of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C (relative to 2.0 °C) are higher than the additional avoided damages this century under most parameter combinations considered. Specifically, using our central parameter values, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C results in a net loss of gross world product of roughly forty trillion US$ relative to 2 °C and achieving either 1.5 °C or 2.0 °C require a net sacrifice of gross world product, relative to a no-mitigation case, though 2100 with a 3%/year discount rate. However, the benefits of more stringent mitigation accumulate over time and our calculations indicate that stabilizing warming at 1.5 °C or 2.0 °C by 2100 would eventually confer net benefits of thousands of trillions of US$ in gross world product by 2300. The results emphasize the temporal asymmetry between the costs of mitigation and benefits of avoided damages from climate change and thus the long timeframe for which climate change mitigation investment pays off.
- Subjects :
- Atmospheric Science
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Natural resource economics
Economics
Climate Change
Science
Climate change
Social Sciences
01 natural sciences
Global Warming
Greenhouse Gases
Development Economics
Economic Growth
0502 economics and business
Environmental Chemistry
Economic impact analysis
050207 economics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Climatology
Multidisciplinary
05 social sciences
Global warming
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Chemical Compounds
Carbon Dioxide
Models, Theoretical
Investment (macroeconomics)
Economic Analysis
Product (business)
Chemistry
Climate change mitigation
Economic Impact Analysis
Greenhouse gas
Atmospheric Chemistry
Physical Sciences
Damages
Earth Sciences
Environmental science
Medicine
Anthropogenic Climate Change
Social Welfare
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 15
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9d8c3fcb335ba0a0878d7b9dd08379bd