The Biden Administration Increases The Social Cost Of Carbon
To turn the tide against climate change, on the day of his inauguration President Joe Biden signed an executive order instituting a raft of policy changes and initiatives. One directed his team to reassess the social cost of carbon. This seemingly obscure concept puts a number on how much damage a metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted today will do in the future, in order to show how much a given climate policy would benefit the economy in the long run.
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The CLEAN Future Act would achieve net zero greenhouse gas pollution no later than 2050, with an interim target of reducing pollution by 50 percent from 2005 levels no later than 2030. The targets come from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has said we must cut carbon pollution to net zero by 2050 to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. The bill presents both sector-specific and economy-wide solutions to meet those targets, offering a sweeping set of policy proposals that will put the United States on the path to a cleaner and more economically prosperous future.
March 4, 2021
To turn the tide against climate change, on the day of his inauguration US president Joe Biden signed an executive order instituting a raft of policy changes and initiatives. One directed his team to reassess the social cost of carbon. This seemingly obscure concept puts a number on how much damage a metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted today will do in the future, in order to show how much a given climate policy would benefit the economy in the long run. More than in previous assessments, Biden’s team explicitly called for considerations of environmental justice and intergenerational equity, referring to the perils of climate change to future generations.