Robustifying Model-Based Climate Economy Assessment

In the absence of deep and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the overwhelming scientific consensus points to global warming of at least several degrees Celsius by 2100. Warming of this magnitude poses profound risks to both human society and natural ecosystems. In response to these risks, in late 2015 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference governments around the world committed to urgent reductions in human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, in order to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2° C relative to pre-industrial levels. To quantify the damages from anthropogenic emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, economists model the dynamics of climate--economy interactions using integrated assessment models (IAMs), which incorporate mathematical models of phenomena from both economics and geophysical science. A central role for IAMs is to estimate the social cost of carbon (SCC), defined as the dollar value of the economic damage caused by a one metric tonne increase in carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. The project, which is founded by a postdoctoral fellowship of the Daimler Benz Foundation aims at pushing forward the state-of-the-art in model-based climate economy assessment where the explicit consideration of uncertain model parameters will be a key concern.  

Contact:

Timm Faulwasser

Funding period:

03/2017 - 02/2019

Funding institution:

Daimler and Benz Foundation, Ladenburg, Germany