Persistent inequality in economically optimal climate policies

Paolo Gazzotti (), Johannes Emmerling, Giacomo Marangoni, Andrea Castelletti, Kaj-Ivar van der Wijst, Andries Hof and Massimo Tavoni ()
Additional contact information
Paolo Gazzotti: Politecnico di Milano
Giacomo Marangoni: Politecnico di Milano
Andrea Castelletti: Politecnico di Milano
Kaj-Ivar van der Wijst: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Andries Hof: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Massimo Tavoni: Politecnico di Milano

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Benefit-cost analyses of climate policies by integrated assessment models have generated conflicting assessments. Two critical issues affecting social welfare are regional heterogeneity and inequality. These have only partly been accounted for in existing frameworks. Here, we present a benefit-cost model with more than 50 regions, calibrated upon emissions and mitigation cost data from detailed-process IAMs, and featuring country-level economic damages. We compare countries’ self-interested and cooperative behaviour under a range of assumptions about socioeconomic development, climate impacts, and preferences over time and inequality. Results indicate that without international cooperation, global temperature rises, though less than in commonly-used reference scenarios. Cooperation stabilizes temperature within the Paris goals (1.80∘C [1.53∘C–2.31∘C] in 2100). Nevertheless, economic inequality persists: the ratio between top and bottom income deciles is 117% higher than without climate change impacts, even for economically optimal pathways.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23613-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
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:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-23613-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23613-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().