Making Some Green
Will Wealth Weaken Weather Wars?
Marshall Burke et al.
AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2024, Pages 65-69
Abstract:
This study estimates the moderating impact of economic development on climate-conflict linkages during 1989–2019 in Africa, the world region that in recent decades has experienced the most armed conflict. We build a spatially disaggregated dataset that merges multiple decades of georeferenced data on climate shocks and conflict events with both local- and national-level measures of economic development to help shed light on the relative importance of local opportunity costs versus state capacity. We find that higher national GDP per capita greatly dampens the conflict risk associated with higher temperatures, suggesting that enhanced state capacity is a key factor.
Empirical Tests of the Green Paradox for Climate Legislation
Maya Norman & Wolfram Schlenker
NBER Working Paper, May 2024
Abstract:
The Green Paradox posits that fossil fuel markets respond to changing expectations about climate legislation, which limits future consumption, by shifting consumption to the present through lower present-day prices. We demonstrate that oil futures responded negatively to daily changes in the prediction market's expectations that the Waxman-Markey bill -- the US climate bill discussed in 2009-2010 -- would pass. This effect is consistent across various maturities as the proposed legislation would reset the entire price and consumption path, unlike temporary supply or demand shocks that phase out over time. The bill’s passage would have increased current global oil consumption by 2-4%. Furthermore, a strengthening of climate policy, as measured by monthly variations in media salience regarding climate policy over the last four decades, and two court rulings signaling limited future fossil fuel use, were associated with negative abnormal oil future returns. Taken together, our findings confirm that restricting future fossil fuel use will accelerate current-day consumption.
The Selective Enforcement of Government Regulations: Battleground States, State Regulators, and the Environmental Protection Agency
Huseyin Gulen & Brett Myers
Journal of Law and Economics, February 2024, Pages 225–263
Abstract:
The Electoral College creates incentives for politicians and regulators to direct policy favors toward battleground or swing states. We examine whether this affects regulatory enforcement and find that facilities in battleground states are less likely to be found in violation of the Clean Water Act, partially because the permit limits for facilities in these states are less restrictive. Identification is obtained by analyzing violation rates of similar facilities located along the border between battleground and nonbattleground states.
Public opinion about solar radiation management: A cross-cultural study in 20 countries around the world
Nadja Contzen et al.
Climatic Change, forthcoming
Abstract:
Some argue that complementing climate change mitigation measures with solar radiation management (SRM) might prove a last resort to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. To make a socially responsible decision on whether to use SRM, it is important to consider also public opinion, across the globe and particularly in the Global South, which would face the greatest risks from both global warming and SRM. However, most research on public opinion about SRM stems from the Global North. We report findings from the first large-scale, cross-cultural study on the public opinion about SRM among the general public (N = 2,248) and students (N = 4,583) in 20 countries covering all inhabited continents, including five countries from the Global South and five ‘non-WEIRD’ (i.e. not Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) countries from the Global North. As public awareness of SRM is usually low, we provided participants with information on SRM, including key arguments in favour of and against SRM that appear in the scientific debate. On average, acceptability of SRM was significantly higher in the Global South than in the ‘non-WEIRD’ Global North, while acceptability in the ‘WEIRD’ Global North was in between. However, we found substantial variation within these clusters, especially in the ‘non-WEIRD’ Global North, suggesting that countries do not form homogenous clusters and should thus be considered individually. Moreover, the average participants’ views, while generally neither strong nor polarised, differed from some expert views in important ways, including that participants perceived SRM as only slightly effective in limiting global warming. Still, our data suggests overall a conditional, reluctant acceptance. That is, while on average, people think SRM would have mostly negative consequences, they may still be willing to tolerate it as a potential last resort to fight global warming, particularly if they think SRM has only minor negative (or even positive) impacts on humans and nature.
Unregulated contaminants in drinking water: Evidence from PFAS and housing prices
Michelle Marcus & Rosie Mueller
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, May 2024
Abstract:
Our understanding of individuals’ response to information about unregulated contaminants is limited. We leverage the highly publicized social discovery of unregulated PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) contamination in public drinking water to study the impact of information about unregulated contaminants on housing prices. Using residential property transaction data, we employ a difference-in-differences research design and show that high profile media coverage about PFAS contamination significantly decreased property values of affected homes. We also find suggestive evidence of residential sorting that may have worsened environmental inequality.
The Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs. Local Temperature
Adrien Bilal & Diego Känzig
NBER Working Paper, May 2024
Abstract:
This paper estimates that the macroeconomic damages from climate change are six times larger than previously thought. We exploit natural variability in global temperature and rely on time-series variation. A 1°C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world GDP. Global temperature shocks correlate much more strongly with extreme climatic events than the country-level temperature shocks commonly used in the panel literature, explaining why our estimate is substantially larger. We use our reduced-form evidence to estimate structural damage functions in a standard neoclassical growth model. Our results imply a Social Cost of Carbon of $1,056 per ton of carbon dioxide. A business-as-usual warming scenario leads to a present value welfare loss of 31%. Both are multiple orders of magnitude above previous estimates and imply that unilateral decarbonization policy is cost-effective for large countries such as the United States.
Adopting electric school buses in the United States: Health and climate benefits
Ernani Choma, Lisa Robinson & Kari Nadeau
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 28 May 2024
Abstract:
Electric school buses have been proposed as an alternative to reduce the health and climate impacts of the current U.S. school bus fleet, of which a substantial share are highly polluting old diesel vehicles. However, the climate and health benefits of electric school buses are not well known. As they are substantially more costly than diesel buses, assessing their benefits is needed to inform policy decisions. We assess the health benefits of electric school buses in the United States from reduced adult mortality and childhood asthma onset risks due to exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5). We also evaluate climate benefits from reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. We find that replacing the average diesel bus in the U.S. fleet in 2017 with an electric bus yields $84,200 in total benefits. Climate benefits amount to $40,400/bus, whereas health benefits amount to $43,800/bus due to 4.42*10−3 fewer PM2.5-attributable deaths ($40,000 of total) and 7.42*10−3 fewer PM2.5-attributable new childhood asthma cases ($3,700 of total). However, health benefits of electric buses vary substantially by driving location and model year (MY) of the diesel buses they replace. Replacing old, MY 2005 diesel buses in large cities yields $207,200/bus in health benefits and is likely cost-beneficial, although other policies that accelerate fleet turnover in these areas deserve consideration. Electric school buses driven in rural areas achieve small health benefits from reduced exposure to ambient PM2.5. Further research assessing benefits of reduced exposure to in-cabin air pollution among children riding buses would be valuable to inform policy decisions.
Impact of electric vehicle charging demand on power distribution grid congestion
Yanning Li & Alan Jenn
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 30 April 2024
Abstract:
California, a pioneer in EV adoption, has enacted ambitious electric vehicle (EV) policies that will generate a large burden on the state’s electric distribution system. We investigate the statewide impact of uncontrolled EV charging on the electric distribution networks at a large scale and high granularity, by employing an EV charging profile projection that combines travel demand model, EV adoption model, and real-world EV charging data. We find a substantial need for infrastructure upgrades in 50% of feeders by 2035, and 67% of feeders by 2045. The distribution system across California must upgrade its capacity by 25 GW by 2045, corresponding to a cost between $6 and $20 billion. While the additional infrastructure cost drives the electricity price up, it is offset by the downward pressure from the growth of total electricity consumption and leads to a reduction in electricity rate between $0.01 and $0.06/kWh by 2045. We also find that overloading conditions are highly diverse spatially, with feeders in residential areas requiring twice as much upgrade compared to commercial areas. Our study provides a framework for evaluating EVs’ impact on the distribution grid and indicates the potential to reduce infrastructure upgrade costs by shifting home-charging demand. The imminent challenges confronting California serve as a microcosm of the forthcoming obstacles anticipated worldwide due to the prevailing global trend of EV adoption.
Asymmetric hysteresis response of mid-latitude storm tracks to CO2 removal
Jaeyoung Hwang et al.
Nature Climate Change, May 2024, Pages 496–503
Abstract:
In a warming climate, storm tracks are projected to intensify on their poleward side. Here we use large-ensemble CO2 ramp-up and ramp-down simulations to show that these changes are not reversed when CO2 concentrations are reduced. If CO2 is removed from the atmosphere following CO2 increase, the North Atlantic storm track keeps strengthening until the middle of the CO2 removal, while the recovery of the North Pacific storm track during ramp-down is stronger than its shift during ramp-up. By contrast, the Southern Hemisphere storm track weakens during ramp-down at a rate much faster than its strengthening in the warming period. Compared with the present climate, the Northern Hemisphere storm track becomes stronger and the Southern Hemisphere storm track becomes weaker at the end of CO2 removal. These hemispherically asymmetric storm-track responses are attributable to the weakened Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the delayed cooling of the Southern Ocean.
Farmer response to policy induced water reductions: Evidence from the Colorado River
Lena Harris
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, May 2024
Abstract:
Surface water supplies are becoming increasingly strained, pushing policy makers to find solutions to facilitate reductions in water use though there is limited evidence on how farmers respond to policy induced variation in surface water supplies. This paper uses a difference-in-differences framework to compare the response of farmers to a bundle of policies reducing deliveries from the Colorado River by 35%. I find that on average, farmers reduce the amount of land planted but plant more water intensive crops leading to a minimal reduction in total estimated water use compared to the counterfactual. Additionally, there is strong suggestive evidence that farmers are using groundwater to offset a significant amount of the surface water loss. These findings have important consequences for understanding the relative trade-offs policy makers face when implementing policies that protect surface water sources.