HR: 08:20h
AN: U41D-02 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Technology, innovation and the economic costs of ambitious atmospheric stabilization: A modeler's view of the global carbon problem
AU: * Mignone, B K
EM: bmignone@brookings.edu
AF: The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036, United States
AB: Policies designed to avoid "dangerous anthropogenic interference" with the climate system often focus on targets for atmospheric carbon dioxide between 450 and 550 ppm. At the same time, economic analyses of policies designed to achieve these outcomes yield conflicting results, with the variability in global cost estimates in some recent comparisons spanning more than an order of magnitude. In this talk, I revisit the mitigation cost question in one well-documented integrated assessment model (MERGE), focusing on the sensitivity to the rate of energy efficiency improvements and the availability of future carbon-free energy supply technologies. By considering these effects in isolation, I control for many of the factors that prohibit mechanistic attribution in larger inter-model comparison studies. The results can be interpreted in one of two ways: as uncertainty analysis in which different combinations of parameters represent different possible future worlds outside the control of policy, or alternatively, as policy assessment, in which different collections of assumptions represent the endpoints of deliberate policy intervention. I discuss the latter interpretation in the context of recent political developments and highlight the implications of these results for the design of effective carbon control regimes.
DE: 6304 Benefit-cost analysis
DE: 6324 Legislation and regulations (6615)
DE: 6620 Science policy (0485)
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting