Just an extra thought for those following up on this analysis:
I was wondering if this analysis stacks the deck against global health.
The basic idea is that SCC estimates aim to include all the costs of CO2 – these are discounted, but many of the damages come ~100 years in the future.
On the other hand, the analyses of global health mainly try to quantify the immediate effects on health and income. They don’t include the idea that greater health and income now can lead to compounding economic benefits in the future.
Another way of seeing this is that the SCC estimates include ‘medium-term effects’, whereas the the global health ones might not.
Or another way of seeing it is that once we’re willing to include long-term benefits in the equation, we’re actually in the longtermist regime, and should focus mainly on existential risks.
In future attempts to compare climate change to global health, I think it would be useful to distinguish different worldviews used to make the assessment, which might be something like:
Just an extra thought for those following up on this analysis:
I was wondering if this analysis stacks the deck against global health.
The basic idea is that SCC estimates aim to include all the costs of CO2 – these are discounted, but many of the damages come ~100 years in the future.
On the other hand, the analyses of global health mainly try to quantify the immediate effects on health and income. They don’t include the idea that greater health and income now can lead to compounding economic benefits in the future.
Another way of seeing this is that the SCC estimates include ‘medium-term effects’, whereas the the global health ones might not.
Or another way of seeing it is that once we’re willing to include long-term benefits in the equation, we’re actually in the longtermist regime, and should focus mainly on existential risks.
In future attempts to compare climate change to global health, I think it would be useful to distinguish different worldviews used to make the assessment, which might be something like:
Near termist
Long termist
Conventional economic CBA