Welcome to the Social Costs of Carbon web-site

The effects of global climate change from greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are diverse and potentially very large. Indeed, the potential impacts of climate change are probably the most serious environmental issue facing the world today.

Traditionally the policy debate on climate change has been dominated by assessments of the costs of mitigation, i.e. how much it will cost to avoid climate change (primarily measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions). However, in the policy context, it is also extremely valuable to examine the benefits of greenhouse gas abatement in the context of social costs, not least to examine the benefits of mitigation within a cost benefit analysis approach.
 
In 1996 the IPCC’s Working Group III published a range of $5 - $125 per tonne of carbon as a social cost estimate. A number of studies emerged in the subsequent years, and in early 2002 the UK Government Economic Service (GES) paper Estimating the Social Cost of Carbon Emissions (presented a review of the available literature on the social cost of carbon (SCC). The paper suggested £70/tC (within a range of £35 to £140/tC) as an illustrative estimate for the global damage cost of carbon emissions. It also suggested that these figures should be raised in real terms by £1/tC per year as the costs of climate change are likely to increase over time.
 
The GES paper clearly recommended periodic reviews of these illustrative figures as new evidence became available. It has become increasingly clear that a process of review was due.
 
In this context, Defra organised an International Seminar on the Social Costs of Carbon (SCC) on the 7th July 2003 to provide an opportunity for leading environmental economists, modellers and analysts to contribute to the evolving debate on the monetary valuation of the damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions and its application to policy assessment.
 
Following on from the seminar, A Defra-chaired Inter-departmental Group on the social cost of carbon (IGSCC) was set up in October 2003 to take forward the review of the social cost of carbon (SCC) following the international seminar of July 2003. In January 2004 the group commissioned two research projects aimed at improving the available SCC estimates, and to explore how they could be applied to policy assessment.
 
This web-site updates the progress on these two Defra projects.
 
‘The Social Costs of Carbon (SCC) Review - Methodological Approaches for Using SCC Estimates in Policy Assessment’ led by AEA Technology Environment.
 
‘The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) review – A closer look at the models, the estimates and the uncertainty’ led by the Oxford Office of the Stockholm Environment Institute.