Michael Greenstone, the Milton Friedman professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, in a ... [+]
More people will die from climate-driven temperature changes in 2100 than the number who die today from all infectious diseases combined, a leading economist told members of Congress last week.
Michael Greenstone is the Milton Friedman Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and the co-director of the Climate Impact Lab (CIL), a collaboration of climate scientists, economists, computational experts, researchers and analysts at multiple universities who are working to establish a precise data-driven estimate of the impact of the climate crisis.
The lab’s work is not done, but Greenstone revealed some of what they’ve concluded so far.
“The main CIL finding to date is that the increase in the global mortality rate due to climate change-induced temperature changes in 2100 is larger than the current mortality rate due to all infectious diseases,” Greenstone said Dec. 19 to members of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Environment.
The lab used data from 40 countries and accounted for both costs and benefits of climate change and adaptation. It estimates “the full mortality risk due to climate change to be an additional 85 deaths per 100,000 in 2100,” he said. In 2018, according to his figures, all infectious diseases accounted for about 75 deaths per 100,000.
The lab also monetized this impact on society for its ongoing calculation of the social cost of carbon.
Mortality from temperature change makes up only a fraction of the total social cost of carbon, Greenstone said, yet that fraction alone will cost society $23.6 per metric ton of carbon emitted.
The Trump Administration estimates the total social cost of carbon at $1-$7 per ton.
Greenstone headed the Obama Administration panel that initially calculated a total social cost of carbon (SCC) of about $40. By the end of the Obama Administration, the SCC had risen to $51.
“What that means is that every time we emit a ton of carbon, we’re giving the world an unfortunate gift of about $51 in damages,” Greenstone said.
The Trump Administration gutted the federal calculation.
“A smaller SCC of approximately $1-$7, which is used by the Trump administration, is based on two faulty sets of assumptions,” Greenstone told the members. “First, it uses higher discount rates, which are likely inconsistent with the expected nature of real-life payoffs on climate mitigation. Second, it fails to account for damages incurred outside the US, and therefore discourages other countries from making CO2 reductions that benefit United States citizens.”
When the Climate Impact Lab completes its work, Greenstone suggested, the resulting figure will likely be higher than the Obama administration’s $51 estimate:
“This result suggests that the federal government may be systematically undervaluing the social costs of CO2 emissions. The mortality-partial SCC we compute is ten times larger than the partial mortality cost underlying the Obama-era SCC, almost half as large as the entire Obama-era estimate, and three to twenty times larger than the Trump administration’s estimate of the full social cost of carbon.”
The social cost of carbon is used by government agencies to estimate the economic impact of policies and activities. It may also be used as the basis for zero-emission credits or a carbon price.
Greenstone told the panel that the surest way to reduce carbon emissions today is through a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program, an approach that has been advocated by even conservative economists.
The Climate Impact Lab’s work was inspired by a sentiment at the National Academy of Sciences that even the Obama Administration’s higher SCC might be insufficient.
“Following recommendations in 2017 from the National Academy of Sciences,” he said, the lab “is calculating an updated, data-driven social cost of carbon. Our approach seeks to project changes in mortality, energy use, agricultural yields, labor productivity, and coastal vulnerability due to an additional ton of CO2; and then monetize those costs to society.”
Greenstone is also the director of the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. (I have occasionally hosted EPIC’s podcast.)
Watch Greenstone and other economists testify before Congress:
