English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
  The economically optimal warming limit of the planet

Ueckerdt, F., Frieler, K., Lange, S., Wenz, L., Luderer, G., Levermann, A. (2019): The economically optimal warming limit of the planet. - Earth System Dynamics, 10, 4, 741-763.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-741-2019

Item is

Files

show Files
hide Files
:
8349oa.pdf (Publisher version), 4MB
Name:
8349oa.pdf
Description:
-
Visibility:
Public
MIME-Type / Checksum:
application/pdf / [MD5]
Technical Metadata:
Copyright Date:
-
Copyright Info:
-

Locators

show

Creators

show
hide
 Creators:
Ueckerdt, Falko1, Author              
Frieler, Katja1, Author              
Lange, Stefan1, Author              
Wenz, Leonie1, Author              
Luderer, Gunnar1, Author              
Levermann, Anders1, Author              
Affiliations:
1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, ou_persistent13              

Content

show
hide
Free keywords: -
 Abstract: Both climate-change damages and climate-change mitigation will incur economic costs. While the risk of severe damages increases with the level of global warming (Dell et al., 2014; IPCC, 2014b, 2018; Lenton et al., 2008), mitigating costs increase steeply with more stringent warming limits (IPCC, 2014a; Luderer et al., 2013; Rogelj et al., 2015). Here, we show that the global warming limit that minimizes this century's total economic costs of climate change lies between 1.9 and 2 ∘C, if temperature changes continue to impact national economic growth rates as observed in the past and if instantaneous growth effects are neither compensated nor amplified by additional growth effects in the following years. The result is robust across a wide range of normative assumptions on the valuation of future welfare and inequality aversion. We combine estimates of climate-change impacts on economic growth for 186 countries (applying an empirical damage function from Burke et al., 2015) with mitigation costs derived from a state-of-the-art energy–economy–climate model with a wide range of highly resolved mitigation options (Kriegler et al., 2017; Luderer et al., 2013, 2015). Our purely economic assessment, even though it omits non-market damages, provides support for the international Paris Agreement on climate change. The political goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2 degrees” is thus also an economically optimal goal given above assumptions on adaptation and damage persistence.

Details

show
hide
Language(s):
 Dates: 2019
 Publication Status: Finally published
 Pages: -
 Publishing info: -
 Table of Contents: -
 Rev. Type: Peer
 Identifiers: DOI: 10.5194/esd-10-741-2019
PIKDOMAIN: RD3 - Transformation Pathways
PIKDOMAIN: RD4 - Complexity Science
Research topic keyword: 1.5/2°C limit
Research topic keyword: Economics
Research topic keyword: Decarbonization  
Research topic keyword: Mitigation
Model / method: REMIND
Regional keyword: Global
Organisational keyword: RD3 - Transformation Pathways
Organisational keyword: RD4 - Complexity Science
eDoc: 8349
Working Group: Data-Centric Modeling of Cross-Sectoral Impacts
Working Group: Energy Systems
Working Group: Data-based analysis of climate decisions
 Degree: -

Event

show

Legal Case

show

Project information

show

Source 1

show
hide
Title: Earth System Dynamics
Source Genre: Journal, SCI, Scopus, p3, oa
 Creator(s):
Affiliations:
Publ. Info: -
Pages: - Volume / Issue: 10 (4) Sequence Number: - Start / End Page: 741 - 763 Identifier: CoNE: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/cone/journals/resource/1402282