Towards a representative social cost of carbon

TL;DR

This paper assesses the global variation in the social cost of carbon by incorporating worldwide data on attitudes towards time and risk, revealing higher costs in the global north compared to the south.

Contribution

It introduces a globally representative approach to estimating the social cost of carbon, highlighting regional differences often overlooked in prior studies.

Findings

Higher social cost of carbon in the global north

Significant differences when counting individuals versus countries

Global attitudes influence cost estimates substantially

Abstract

The majority of estimates of the social cost of carbon use preference parameters calibrated to data for North America and Europe. We here use representative data for attitudes to time and risk across the world. The social cost of carbon is substantially higher in the global north than in the south. The difference is more pronounced if we count people rather than countries.