White House Announces Social Cost of Carbon Increase

More information is available here.

The White House’s Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) was $21.40 per ton when first developed in 2007. It recently increased to $33 due to updates that changed the way the SCC is calculated. Hospitals can use the SCC to inform their decision-making process by better quantifying the environmental benefits of reducing their energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The increased SCC was due to the following changes:

• Increased sea level rise damages;
• Revised adaptation assumptions;
• Revised to ensure damages are constrained by GDP;
• Updated regional scaling of damages;
• Revised treatment of potentially abrupt shifts in climate damages;
• Updated carbon cycle;
• Improved damage functions for the agricultural sector;
• Reduced space heating requirements;
• Revised transient response of temperature to GHG concentration buildup; and
• Included indirect effects of methane emissions.