Full Title: Technical Support Document: Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866
Author(s): Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon, United States Government
Publisher(s): Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon, United States Government
Publication Date: February 1, 2010
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Under Executive Order 12866, agencies are required, to the extent permitted by law, “to assess both the costs and benefits of the intended regulation and, recognizing that some costs and benefits are difficult to quantify, proposed or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that the benefits of the intended regulation justify its costs.” The purpose of the “social cost of carbon” (SCC) estimates presented here is to allow agencies to incorporate the social benefits of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into cost-benefit analyses of regulatory actions that have small, or “marginal,” impacts on cumulative global emissions. The estimates are presented with an acknowledgement of the many uncertainties involved and with a clear understanding that they should be updated over time to reflect increasing knowledge of the science and economics of climate impacts.
The SCC is an estimate of the monetized damages associated with an incremental increase in carbon emissions in a given year. It is intended to include (but not limited to) changes in net agricultural productivity, human health, property damages from increased flood risk, and the value of ecosystem services due to climate change.
This document presents a summary of the interagency process that developed these SCC estimates. Technical experts from numerous agencies met on a regular basis to consider public comments, explore the technical literature in relevant fields, and discuss key model inputs and assumptions. The main objective of this process was to develop a range of SCC values using a defensive set o input assumptions grounded in the existing scientific and economic literatures. In this way, key uncertainties and model differences transparently and consistently inform the range of SCC estimates used in the rulemaking process.
The interagency group selected four SCC values for use in regulatory analyses. Three values are based on the average SCC from three integrated assessment models, at discount rates of 2.5, 3, and 5 percent. The fourth value, which represents the 95th percentile SCC estimate across all three models at a 3 percent discount rate, is included to represent higher-than-expected impacts from temperature change further out in the tails of the SCC distribution.