The energy policy relevance of the 2014 IPCC Working Group III report on the macro-economics of mitigating climate change

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Research which attempted to determine the macroeconomic importance of mitigating climate change through 2100 was presented primarily in Chapter 6 of the 2014 IPCC Working Group III report. Some of the findings of this chapter were then summarized in the Summary for Policy Makers (SPMs) of both the Synthesis Report, and the WGIII report. Unfortunately, these SPMs omitted key aspects of what the overall macroeconomic results for the costs and benefits of mitigating climate change actually did and did not include, how they were produced, and a careful assessment of their uncertainty and scientific validity. Yet, many of the major omissions were acknowledged deep in the text of Chapter 6, but were not revealed to the public. We conclude, therefore, that neither of these SPMs was useful for energy policy makers and energy managers, and they were misleading due to their many key omissions. Finally, we recommend several improvements that can be made to integrated assessment modeling methodologies so that the macroeconomic analysis of mitigating climate change resulting from the use of such models can be more relevant and useful to energy policy makers in the future, and can be communicated to them better.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)330-334
Number of pages5
JournalEnergy policy
Volume93
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2016
Peer-reviewedYes

Keywords

Keywords

  • Climate change, Cost/benefit analysis, Energy policy, IPCC WGIII Report, Macroeconomics, Mitigation