The Benefits of Climate Change Policies: Analytical and Framework Issues

Humans' effects on the earth's climate have potentially far-reaching impacts on society and nature. While there are trade-offs among policies that limit global warming, the benefits have so far received far less attention from policymakers than have the costs. The Benefits of Climate Change Policies provides a state-of-the-art assessment of the global benefits derived from climate change policies. It includes recent analyses and viewpoints from well-known scientists and policy analysts, including John Callaway (UNEP Risoe Centre), Henry Jacoby (MIT), Sam Hitz and Joel Smith (Stratus Consulting), Roger Jones (CSIRO, Australia), Michele Pittini and Mujaba Rahman (UK government), John Schellnhuber (and other coauthors from Tyndall Centre, UK), Stephen Schneider (Stanford University), and Tom Wigley (NCAR). The contributors address these important questions: • What is the nature of avoided impact benefits from policies that limit global warming and how do these vary by sector or region? • Can these benefits be quantified and monetized reliably? • How do adaptation and mitigation policies interact? • What is the nature of ancillary or nearer-term, local benefits of mitigation policies and how do they compare to other types of benefits? • How does the risk of abrupt climate change affect these benefits? • How might integrated assessment models help us to evaluate climate policy cost and benefit trade-offs? • Are there new ways to work with risk-based approaches to look at mitigation policy alternatives? The book also points the way to a more comprehensive approach for shedding light on the important topic of future mitigation policy benefits.