IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v117y2013i4p933-941.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emission metrics under the 2 °C climate stabilization target

Author

Listed:
  • Katsumasa Tanaka
  • Daniel Johansson
  • Brian O’Neill
  • Jan Fuglestvedt

Abstract

In multi-gas climate policies such as the Kyoto Protocol one has to decide how to compare the emissions of different greenhouse gases. The choice of metric could have significant implications for mitigation priorities considered under the prospective negotiations for climate mitigation agreements. Several metrics have been proposed for this task with the Global Warming Potential (GWP) being the most common. However, these metrics have not been systematically compared to each other in the context of the 2 °C climate stabilization target. Based on a single unified modeling framework, we demonstrate that metric values span a wide range, depending on the metric structure and the treatment of the time dimension. Our finding confirms the basic salient point that metrics designed to represent different aspects of the climate and socio-economic system behave differently. Our result also reflects a complex interface between science and policy surrounding metrics. Thus, it is important to select or design a metric suitable for climate stabilization based on an interaction among practitioners, policymakers, and scientists. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Katsumasa Tanaka & Daniel Johansson & Brian O’Neill & Jan Fuglestvedt, 2013. "Emission metrics under the 2 °C climate stabilization target," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 117(4), pages 933-941, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:117:y:2013:i:4:p:933-941
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-013-0693-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0693-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-013-0693-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Johansson, 2012. "Economics- and physical-based metrics for comparing greenhouse gases," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 123-141, January.
    2. Asbjorn Aaheim, Jan S. Fuglestvedt and Odd Godal, 2006. "Costs Savings of a Flexible Multi-Gas Climate Policy," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I), pages 485-502.
    3. Alan S. Manne & Richard G. Richels, 2001. "An alternative approach to establishing trade-offs among greenhouse gases," Nature, Nature, vol. 410(6829), pages 675-677, April.
    4. Marten, Alex L. & Newbold, Stephen C., 2012. "Estimating the social cost of non-CO2 GHG emissions: Methane and nitrous oxide," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 957-972.
    5. Malte Meinshausen & Nicolai Meinshausen & William Hare & Sarah C. B. Raper & Katja Frieler & Reto Knutti & David J. Frame & Myles R. Allen, 2009. "Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C," Nature, Nature, vol. 458(7242), pages 1158-1162, April.
    6. Daniel Johansson, 2011. "Temperature stabilization, ocean heat uptake and radiative forcing overshoot profiles," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 107-134, September.
    7. Samuel Fankhauser, 1994. "The Social Costs of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Expected Value Approach," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 157-184.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jessica Strefler & Gunnar Luderer & Tino Aboumahboub & Elmar Kriegler, 2014. "Economic impacts of alternative greenhouse gas emission metrics: a model-based assessment," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 319-331, August.
    2. Lelde Timma & Elina Dace & Marie Trydeman Knudsen, 2020. "Temporal Aspects in Emission Accounting—Case Study of Agriculture Sector," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-21, February.
    3. Weiwei Xiong & Katsumasa Tanaka & Philippe Ciais & Daniel J. A. Johansson & Mariliis Lehtveer, 2022. "emIAM v1.0: an emulator for Integrated Assessment Models using marginal abatement cost curves," Papers 2212.12060, arXiv.org.
    4. Silva Herran, Diego & Tachiiri, Kaoru & Matsumoto, Ken'ichi, 2019. "Global energy system transformations in mitigation scenarios considering climate uncertainties," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 243(C), pages 119-131.
    5. Dharik S. Mallapragada & Bryan K. Mignone, 2020. "A theoretical basis for the equivalence between physical and economic climate metrics and implications for the choice of Global Warming Potential time horizon," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 107-124, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jessica Strefler & Gunnar Luderer & Tino Aboumahboub & Elmar Kriegler, 2014. "Economic impacts of alternative greenhouse gas emission metrics: a model-based assessment," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 319-331, August.
    2. Erik Sterner & Daniel Johansson & Christian Azar, 2014. "Emission metrics and sea level rise," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 335-351, November.
    3. Steven Smith & Joseph Karas & Jae Edmonds & Jiyong Eom & Andrew Mizrahi, 2013. "Sensitivity of multi-gas climate policy to emission metrics," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 117(4), pages 663-675, April.
    4. Christian Azar & Daniel Johansson, 2012. "Valuing the non-CO 2 climate impacts of aviation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 111(3), pages 559-579, April.
    5. Aaheim, Asbjørn & Mideksa, Torben, 2017. "Requirements to metrics of greenhouse gas emissions, given a cap on temperature," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 460-467.
    6. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    7. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Janda, Karel & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Selective reporting and the social cost of carbon," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 394-406.
    8. Richard S. J. Tol & Seán Lyons, 2008. "Incorporating GHG Emission Costs in the Economic Appraisal of Projects Supported by State Development Agencies," Papers WP247, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    9. Morgan R. Edwards & Jessika E. Trancik, 2022. "Consequences of equivalency metric design for energy transitions and climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 175(1), pages 1-27, November.
    10. Richard S J Tol, 2018. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 4-25.
    11. Daniel Johansson, 2011. "Temperature stabilization, ocean heat uptake and radiative forcing overshoot profiles," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 107-134, September.
    12. Krupnick, Alan & Darmstadter, Joel & Richardson, Nathan & McLaughlin, Katrina, 2015. "Putting a Carbon Charge on Federal Coal: Legal and Economic Issues," RFF Working Paper Series dp-15-13, Resources for the Future.
    13. Christian Azar & Jorge García Martín & Daniel JA. Johansson & Thomas Sterner, 2023. "The social cost of methane," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(6), pages 1-22, June.
    14. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "Targets for global climate policy: An overview," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 911-928.
    15. Marten, Alex L. & Newbold, Stephen C., 2012. "Estimating the social cost of non-CO2 GHG emissions: Methane and nitrous oxide," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 957-972.
    16. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    17. Alex L. Marten & Elizabeth A. Kopits & Charles W. Griffiths & Stephen C. Newbold & Ann Wolverton, 2015. "Incremental CH 4 and N 2 O mitigation benefits consistent with the US Government's SC-CO 2 estimates," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 272-298, March.
    18. Linda Sygna & Jan Fuglestvedt & H. Aaheim, 2002. "The adequacy of GWPs as indicators of damage costsincurred by global warming," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 45-62, March.
    19. Dharik S. Mallapragada & Bryan K. Mignone, 2020. "A theoretical basis for the equivalence between physical and economic climate metrics and implications for the choice of Global Warming Potential time horizon," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 107-124, January.
    20. Simon Levin & Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2021. "On the Coevolution of Economic and Ecological Systems," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 355-377, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:117:y:2013:i:4:p:933-941. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.