The benefits of climate change mitigation in integrated assessment models: the role of the carbon cycle and climate component

Climatic Change volume 113, pages 897–917 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are an important tool to compare the costs and benefits of different climate policies. Recently, attention has been given to the effect of different discounting methods and damage estimates on the results of IAMs. One aspect to which little attention has been paid is how the representation of the climate system may affect the estimated benefits of mitigation action. In that respect, we analyse several well-known IAMs, including the newest versions of FUND, DICE and PAGE. Given the role of IAMs in integrating information from different disciplines, they should ideally represent both best estimates and the ranges of anticipated climate system and carbon cycle behaviour (as e.g. synthesised in the IPCC Assessment reports). We show that in the longer term, beyond 2100, most IAM parameterisations of the carbon cycle imply lower CO2 concentrations compared to a model that captures IPCC AR4 knowledge more closely, e.g. the carbon-cycle climate model MAGICC6. With regard to the climate component, some IAMs lead to much lower benefits of mitigation than MAGICC6. The most important reason for the underestimation of the benefits of mitigation is the failure in capturing climate dynamics correctly, which implies this could be a potential development area to focus on.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Available at http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/

  2. 2.

    Available at http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/. Note that the DICE-2009 model is a beta-version.

  3. 3.

    Both FUND 2.8 and FUND 3.3 are available at http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/FUND.5679.0.html

  4. 4.

    MyM is an integrated environment for the development, visualization and application of simulations of dynamic systems. More information can be found on http://www.my-m.eu/

  5. 5.

    More specifically, the benefits of mitigation are presented in this paper as the discounted difference of climate change damages in the reference and mitigation scenario as share of the present value of GDP, over the time period 2010–2200

  6. 6.

    PAGE uses probability distributions to model climate change damage given the large uncertainties of the (shape of the) damage function.

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Acknowledgements

The contribution of DvV has been supported by the AMPERE project, co-funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme. The contribution of AH was supported by the COMBINE project under the same Framework Programme. JLs time on this project was supported by the AVOID programme, which is funded by DECC and Defra.

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Affiliations

  1. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, PO Box 303, 3729 AH, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

    Andries F. Hof & Detlef P. van Vuuren

  2. Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1AG, UK

    Chris W. Hope

  3. Met Office, Hadley Centre, Reading University, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6AH, UK

    Jason Lowe

  4. Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building 4205, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Michael D. Mastrandrea

  5. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), PO Box 60 12 03, Telegrafenberg A31, 14412, Potsdam, Germany

    Malte Meinshausen

  6. School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Malte Meinshausen

  7. Department of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Detlef P. van Vuuren

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  1. Andries F. Hof
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  2. Chris W. Hope
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  4. Michael D. Mastrandrea
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  5. Malte Meinshausen
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  6. Detlef P. van Vuuren
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Correspondence to Andries F. Hof.

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Hof, A.F., Hope, C.W., Lowe, J. et al. The benefits of climate change mitigation in integrated assessment models: the role of the carbon cycle and climate component. Climatic Change 113, 897–917 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0363-7

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Keywords

  • Discount Rate
  • Carbon Cycle
  • Climate Sensitivity
  • Damage Function
  • Mitigation Scenario