← Search

American Economic Review Vol. 110 No. 4 2020

Steering the Climate System: Using Inertia to Lower the Cost of Policy: Comment

Linus Mattauch1; H. Damon Matthews2; Richard Millar3; Armon Rezai4; Susan Solomon5; Frank Venmans6

1 University of Oxford and Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (email: ) · 2 Concordia University (email: ) · 3 University of Oxford, and Committee on Climate Change (email: ) · 4 Vienna University of Economics and Business and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (email: ) · 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (email: ) · 6 University of Mons and London School of Economics (email: )

open access

Abstract

Lemoine and Rudik (2017) argues that it is efficient to delay reducing carbon emissions, due to supposed inertia in the climate system’s response to emissions. This conclusion rests upon misunderstanding the relevant earth system modeling: there is no substantial lag between CO 2 emissions and warming. Applying a representation of the earth system that captures the range of responses seen in complex earth system models invalidates the original article’s implications for climate policy. The least-cost policy path that limits warming to 2°C implies that the carbon price starts high and increases at the interest rate. It cannot rely on climate inertia to delay reducing and allow greater cumulative emissions.

DOI
10.1257/aer.20190089
Volume
110
Issue
4
Pages
1231-1237
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite