The U.S. Climate Alliance today announced they will be taking on the crucial effort to evaluate damages associated with carbon pollution. The Social Cost of Carbon was launched under Republican President George W. Bush and has helped ensure the pollution costs from new policies are evaluated at all levels of government. President Trump's administration has significantly weakened this program by reducing Social Cost of Carbon estimates and eliminating the working group responsible for the program. The rollback provisions were part of Trump's Executive Order repealing the Clean Power Plan.
"Because he can't beat us on science or fact, our president is doing everything he can to keep science and fact away from us. But science is on our side," said Gov. Jay Inslee. "We know that greenhouse gas emissions come with huge costs - to our health, to our quality of life, and to the safety of our communities. The U.S. Climate Alliance is proud to have the support of partners who will help make sure every state and local leader can continue making smart, data-driven decisions about how best to act on climate."
The release from the U.S. Climate Alliance is below.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Alex Barnum | alex.barnum@calepa.ca.gov | 916-324-9670
Dave Cohen | dcohen@rff.org | 301-518-0090
Hannah Hess | hhess@impactlab.org | 510-343-6579
U.S. Climate Alliance Partners with Resources for the Future and the Climate Impact Lab on Calculating the Cost of Climate Damages
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The U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 15 governors, announces intention to collaborate on the Social Cost of Carbon, a critical tool for assessing the damages associated with carbon pollution
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The Alliance declares support for independent work by RFF and the Climate Impact Lab to estimate how much greenhouse gas emissions and the damage they cause will cost society in the future
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The partners commit to working together to share information and promote opportunities to use the Social Cost of Carbon in crafting climate change policy
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Announcement follows recent moves by the Trump administration to weaken climate-related regulations by lowering estimates of the cost of carbon pollution
Speaking at international climate change talks in Germany, governors representing the U.S. Climate Alliance announced a new partnership today with Resources for the Future and the Climate Impact Lab. The Social Cost of Carbon is an economic tool that was first established under President George W. Bush nearly a decade ago, and standardized under President Barack Obama, that provides a dollar valuation of the damages caused by carbon pollution. It plays a vital role in climate change policymaking, and has been used to inform major climate regulations, hundreds of federal and state actions and rulemakings, and billions of dollars of investment decisions.
The Trump administration has sharply lowered these Social Cost of Carbon estimates, and disbanded efforts to update the metric in accordance with the most recent science. Undervaluing the impacts of climate pollution similarly undervalues the benefits from regulatory actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions and climate-smart investments, such as sea walls, to protect communities vulnerable to rising ocean levels.
Today’s announcement aligns the U.S. Climate Alliance with two complementary academic collaborations aimed at updating and improving the Social Cost of Carbon. In the absence of federal efforts, RFF and the Climate Impact Lab are working to implement recommendations provided by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to ensure that the Social Cost of Carbon estimates reflect the best available science and to enhance their transparency.
RFF’s Social Cost of Carbon Initiative will yield an updated set of estimates for the Social Cost of Carbon that are responsive to the full set of National Academies recommendations and that are generated through an open and transparent process, based upon fully open source and publicly available analysis. RFF is an independent, nonprofit research institution dedicated to improving environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement.
The Climate Impact Lab, a collaboration of economists, scientists, and risk analysts from some of the nation’s leading research institutions, is leveraging an evidence-based, data-driven approach to quantify climate impacts at a hyper-local scale to produce a first-of-its-kind empirically derived Social Cost of Carbon.
Today, the U.S. Climate Alliance, RFF and Climate Impact Lab are forming a partnership to advance the Social Cost of Carbon, share information related to scientific progress to update the metric, and promote opportunities to use the Social Cost of Carbon appropriately across a wide range of policy applications. The partners will also work collaboratively to identify policy needs and develop guidance for policymakers around the globe to inform the development of cost-effective actions to tackle climate change.
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RFF is an independent, nonprofit research institution dedicated to improving environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement.
The Climate Impact Lab is collaboration of more than 20 researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, Rhodium Group, and Rutgers University. Together, they are linking together state-of-the-art climate modeling, economic statistics, and big data analytics to build the world's most comprehensive body of research quantifying the impacts of climate change around the globe.
The U.S. Climate Alliance is a bipartisan coalition of 14 states and Puerto Rico committed to the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement, co-chaired by Governors Andrew Cuomo (New York), Jay Inslee (Washington), and Jerry Brown (California).