Trump Team's Wonky CO2 Calculation Is a Big Deal
View on ClimateWire website"But the new administration's revised calculations involve methods that largely ignore those recommendations, according to Richard Newell, co-chair of the committee that released that report and president and CEO of think tank Resources for the Future.
For one thing, the lowest value presented in EPA's report relies on the use of a higher discount rate than was applied in the Obama-era calculations. In simple terms, a higher discount rate results in a lower social cost of carbon and vice versa, and there's been considerable debate about what rate is appropriate. The previous estimate of $42 relied on a rate of 3 percent, while the revised calculations' lower estimate of $1 uses a rate of 7 percent, which some experts say is too high.
'There are good reasons to think that such a high discount rate is inappropriate for use in estimating the SCC,' Newell wrote in a blog post."
