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ClimateFran

@climatefran.bsky.social

914 followers 197 following 156 posts

associate professor
@UCDavis, climate change economist / scientist / general nerd
franmoore.faculty.ucdavis.edu/

Reposted by ClimateFran

Kevin Rinz's avatar Kevin Rinz @kevinrinz.bsky.social
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We’ve been publishing Briefing Book for just over nine months, and we want your input to help make the coming months even better. Take our survey to let us know hours we’re doing and what you’d like to see! open.substack.com/pub/briefing...

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Thanks Richard! We are definitely building on your work - would value any thoughts.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Huge thank you to co-authors, the experts that answered our survey, and to the many researchers working on improving SCC estimates who's findings we draw on here. Paper is also released as a CESifoNetwork
working paper t.co/zxDg45xmzq

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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This "Synthetic SCC" distribution integrates both parametric and structural uncertainties in SCC estimates. Our 2020 SCC distribution has a median of $185 per ton CO2, a mean of $284 and a 95th percentile of $874. Mean values are higher than government estimates.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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This procedure is essentially a structured re-weighting of the 1823 SCC distributions from the literature. Papers integrating elements that are relatively under-sampled compared to expert assessment and that contribute meaningfully to SCC variance will receive greater weight

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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This motivates the final analysis in the paper, which integrates information from the literature review and expert survey. A random forest model is trained on the SCC literature, then queried using distributions over model structure and discount rate derived from expert surveys

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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We also ask experts about their confidence in studies using different model structures to estimate the SCC. Translating responses into probabilities, we see a substantial under-sampling of these alternate structures in the published literature, relative to expert assessment.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Experts attribute the perceived downward bias in published SCCs to a range of factors. Discounting parameters, underestimated damages, under-representation of growth rate damages, and limited substitutability of climate impacts with consumption are notable.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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The vast majority of respondents believe published SCC values to be downward biased. The average "best-guess" SCC ($142 per ton CO2) is more than twice their literature estimate ($60 per ton). Experts substantially underestimate published SCC, at least compared to our findings.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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The published SCC distribution is interesting but does not have a clear statistical interpretation. We therefore supplement the analysis with a survey of SCC authors, soliciting their perception of biases in published SCC values and quality of different model structures

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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We also analyze SCC variation in a multi-variate setting, looking at relative changes in the SCC as a function of model structure. This summarizes information from the large body of work adding richness to earlier SCC models in the Earth system, uncertainties, impacts and utility

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Our rich set of covariates allows us to illustrate how the SCC distribution shifts under different model structures and parameter values. Note important roles for persistent or growth-rate damages, Earth system modeling, and the discount rate.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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We collect 1823 SCC distributions from 147 papers published 2000-2020, along with >30 variables describing the model and parameters that produce them. Published 2020 SCC estimates are heavily right-skewed, with a mean ($132 per ton CO2) several times larger than the median ($39)

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Excited to announce a new NBER working paper on the distribution of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) with fantastic (and patient) coauthors James Rising, Moritz Drupp, Simon Dietz, Ivan Rudik and @gwagner.com
www.nber.org/papers/w32544

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Nice choice of tutorial example paper 😂

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Reposted by ClimateFran

Jeff Colgan's avatar Jeff Colgan @jeffcolgan.bsky.social
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I don't know, folks, almost four years in, maybe we should be giving the Biden administration a little bit of credit on the economy?

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Please consider submitting a paper and distributing to others that may be interested.
@IOPPublishing
is non-profit, open access, and there are currently no article publication charges iopscience.iop.org/collections/...

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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I'm hoping this issue will serve as a focal point for the many areas of research - climate science, engineering, economics, law and policy - relevant to the problem of characterizing, communicating, and using, information on near-term climate risks

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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A number of reports, notably this one from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, have described the need for more open, public hazard models informed by climate science to support adaptation. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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More and more institutions - from financial regulators to local governments - are looking to actively manage and plan for changing climate risks. But do we have the information they need to develop adaptation plans?

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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In addition, the economic reasoning given here is appalling. By discouraging unnecessary trips or those that could be done by public transit, congestion pricing makes room for the most essential vehicle trips. There is very reason to believe it would help rather than hurt the city economy.

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Reposted by ClimateFran

Costa Samaras's avatar Costa Samaras @costasamaras.bsky.social
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Climate world—this is the real deal. Congestion pricing is an oil demand reduction program. And an incredibly effective one. It will improve air quality for communities overburdened with deadly pollution. It will fund transit. It will make communities healthier. It’s a huge climate win, if we do it.

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Reposted by ClimateFran

Costa Samaras's avatar Costa Samaras @costasamaras.bsky.social
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If we can’t do big local climate policy (congestion pricing) on the most dense, most rich, most congested part of the country, we can’t do the big things needed for climate action. I choose to believe we can do big things.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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White House statement on principles for voluntary carbon markets - a careful balance between recognizing the potential role VCMs could play financing emissions cuts in some areas, while emphasizing the need to enforce and improve environmental integrity www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo...

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Natural disasters are terrible for those affected, but we should also keep the economic losses in perspective. Insured disaster losses in the US have averaged less than $50 billion per year since 1999. That is a rounding error in an economy of $27 trillion. This is a solvable problem.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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There are a number of possible policy solutions that could fix foundering insurance markets while vastly improving our disaster preparedness and response. Standing by as those with least forgo coverage is inefficient and inequitable
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Seems obvious to me that fair trading standards should apply to carbon offsets in the same way they apply to everything else we buy and sell. Providers and environmental groups should welcome regulation to drive spurious offsets out of the market and raise consumer confidence

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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It builds on my previous work about inferring the climate probability distribution from observations of weather, but extends to settings of skewed weather variables and highly non-linear damage functions that characterize cat risk pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Recent instability in property insurance in multiple states motivated this paper. I show how simply the *possibility* of climate change increases ambiguity in weather risks and could drive premium increases, volatility, and insurer exit - irrespective of actual climate change!

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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I'm excited to present some new work on learning, catastrophic risks, and climate change at the
@nberpubs
Energy and Environmental Policy conference this Thursday. Looks like a great set of policy-relevant papers - check them all out here: nber.org/conferences/...

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Reposted by ClimateFran

Ariel Ortiz-Bobea's avatar Ariel Ortiz-Bobea @arielob.bsky.social
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Excited to share a working paper where we estimate the public R&D funding needs for US agriculture under climate change.

arxiv.org/abs/2405.08159

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Satellite orbits are a classic case of a common pool resource problem on a global scale - so cool to see this paper formalizing this theory

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Huge day for the climate - EPA regulations are an essential complement to the IRA subsidies. These regulations will save thousands of lives from lower air pollution while also providing meaningful advances for US climate policy
Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/c...

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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When I was in DC I opted into a GEICO program that tracked my driving in return for several hundred dollars in premium savings. When I returned to CA my premiums went up, partly because the program isn't available due to the state's data privacy laws.

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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There's plenty of bad behavior by GM here, but my hot take is that we'd all be a lot better off if insurance rates could better reflect individual driving habits

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Its not obvious to me why 1 or 2 downscaled products are going to better capture relevant uncertainties compared to this approach. Particularly as I don't believe most downscaled products sample much internal variability at all and you drop almost all model AND ECS uncertainty

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Different approaches will be more or less appropriate for different problems - there are always tradeoffs and the best approach for certain climate science applications is likely going to be different for impact applications IMO

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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The problem is that dynamically downscaled data is typically only available for 1-2 models, so you have to throw out tons of model uncertainty in return for (maybe) better downscaling. This approach is trying to keep the full climate sensitivity distribution.

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Reposted by ClimateFran

NPR's avatar NPR @npr.org
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The recent deadly heat in West Africa is driven by human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels, particularly in the wealthy Northern Hemisphere, according to an international report.

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Reposted by ClimateFran

ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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yes! very high number (to be fair, that is the upper end of EPRI modeling). But given companies could be producing at negative cost with the credits, wed expect build out to happen very quickly, with correspondingly large expenditures

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ClimateFran's avatar ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social
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Wow! Thanks for letting me know - that's fantastic. Would love to see some if they're willing to share

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