Stanford-EPRI Public Educational Webcast Series

The Stanford-EPRI public educational webcast series explores options for modeling the global economic impacts of climate change and the social cost of carbon module-by-module, as well as overall.

Federal and state governments, as well as international negotiators and others, are interested in understanding the global economic costs of a changing climate. This information is important for estimating the benefits of limiting global warming to well below 2ᵒC, evaluating macroeconomic climate risks to economies, and estimating the social costs of carbon, methane, and other greenhouse gases (SC-GHGs) to value the climate benefits of policies that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. SC-GHGs are estimates of the discounted future economic cost to society from the climate change caused by emitting one unit of a GHG into the atmosphere.

Recent IPCC reports, as well as new SC-GHG methodology developments, have facilitated and forced assessment of current underlying scientific knowledge and translation of that information into global economic impacts of climate change modeling. With governments and stakeholders needing reliable information to inform decisions with significant national and global ramifications, broad public, and scientific engagement, understanding, assessment, and dialogue are essential.

The Stanford-EPRI Educational Webcast Series is designed to improve the state of understanding regarding the science, facilitate scientific and public dialogue on approaches, alternatives, and opportunities, and inform the development of the scientifically reliable estimates needed for robust decisions and public confidence. Estimating the global economic impacts of climate change, however, is technically and scientifically challenging, requiring characterization and projection of potential global economic and physical systems for centuries. Methodologies include some representation of linked modules projecting global socioeconomic and emissions conditions, climate and other earth system responses, economic impacts to future climate change, and discounting to compute the net present value of economic impacts.

This webcast series convenes panels of leading experts on the science related to each of the modules associated with estimation, and overall. Thus, the series deconstructs the overall problem of estimating the global economic impacts of climate change into its modules to allow for tractable and focused disciplinary conversations about the state of knowledge and how best to use it. Each expert panel is asked to share its thoughts on the available science, options, technical issues, and opportunities. The series set of topics includes the following:

• Projecting economies and emissions for estimating the global economic impacts of climate change – Series Webcast #1 on January 11, 2024 
• Modeling global climate change and earth system responses to greenhouse gas emissions
• Options for estimating the global economic impacts response to a future climate – Series Webcast #2 on February 26, 2024
• Discounting future global economic impacts of climate change
• If not the social cost of carbon, what else or what in addition to it?
• Is module-by-module modeling of the global economic impacts of climate change credible?

See series website  for details and links to publicly available materials.