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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.
Article originally appeared on Chicago Green HealthCare Initiative (http://www.chicagogreenhc.org/).
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