Comparing greenhouse gases for policy purposes
Author(s)
Schmalensee, Richard
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Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In order to derive optimal policies for greenhouse gas emissions control, the discounted marginal damages of emissions of different gases must be compared. The greenhouse warming potential (GWP) index, which is most often used to compare greenhouse gases, is not based on such a damage comparison. This essay presents assumptions under which ratios of gas-specific discounted marginal damages reduce to ratios of discounted marginal contributions to radiative forcing, where the discount rate is the difference between the discount rate relevant to climate-related damages and the rate of growth of marginal climate-related damages over time. If there are important gas-specific costs or benefits not tied to radiative forcing, however, such as direct effects of carbon dioxide on plant growth, there is in general no shortcut around explicit comparison of discounted net marginal damages.
Date issued
1993Publisher
MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
Other identifiers
93004
Series/Report no.
MIT-CEEPR (Series) ; 93-004WP.