379
Biden Administration raises social cost of carbon (used in regulatory decisions) from $51/ton to $190/ton (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 11 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The higher the number, the greater the government’s justification for compelling polluters to reduce the emissions that are dangerously heating the planet. During the Obama administration, White House economists calculated the social cost of carbon at $42 a ton. The Trump administration lowered it to less than $5 a ton. Under President Biden, the cost was returned to Obama levels, adjusted for inflation and set at $51.

The new estimate of the social cost of carbon, making its debut in a legally binding federal regulation, is almost four times that amount: $190 a ton.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 45 points 11 months ago

Definitely, and still way below the numbers that have been showing up in the academic literature over the past couple years.

[-] Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works 16 points 11 months ago

It'll have to survive the next election. Republicans will of course only hammer the negative impacts on businesses.

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 13 points 11 months ago

Of course. Pretty much every positive action by the US government has this issue.

[-] PoisonedPrisonPanda@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 11 months ago

I thought 250 usd/ton was one of those numbers from literature?

Whats proposed nowadays?

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 10 points 11 months ago

Up to $525/ton

[-] PoisonedPrisonPanda@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 11 months ago

Ok. Still 200 is better than 50.

[-] assembly@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Considering Trump wants it at $5 I would consider the current progress fantastic.

[-] Coasting0942@reddthat.com 4 points 11 months ago

Got a source, and also how you go about keeping yourself updated on that number

[-] IlliteratiDomine@infosec.pub 7 points 11 months ago

The full article is paywalled, but the abstract of this meta-analysis states "In the past 10 years, estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased from US$9 per tCO2 to US$40 per tCO2 for a high discount rate and from US$122 per tCO2 to US$525 per tCO2 for a low discount rate." Published May 15 of this year.

this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
379 points (99.0% liked)

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

5186 readers
346 users here now

Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
silence7@slrpnk.net