Climate tipping points and solar geoengineering

Garth Heutel, Juan Moreno-Cruz and Soheil Shayegh

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2016, vol. 132, issue PB, 19-45

Abstract: We study optimal climate policy in the presence of climate tipping points and solar geoengineering. Solar geoengineering reduces temperatures without reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Climate tipping points are irreversible and uncertain events that can alter the dynamics of the climate system. We analyze three different rules related to the availability of solar geoengineering, and we model three distinct types of tipping points. Before reaching the tipping point, the introduction of solar geoengineering reduces the amount of mitigation, lowers temperatures and increases carbon concentrations. The capacity of solar geoengineering to deal with climate damages depends on the type of tipping point. Solar geoengineering is most effective at dealing with tipping points that affect the responsiveness of temperature to carbon, and it is least effective at dealing with tipping points that cause direct economic losses.

Keywords: Solar geoengineering; Climate tipping points; Climate policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C6 D6 D8 D9 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268116301317
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Climate Tipping Points and Solar Geoengineering (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:132:y:2016:i:pb:p:19-45

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2016.07.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().