In this Sustainable Energy Seminar, J. Paul Kelleher, Associate Professor of Medical History and Bioethics, will discuss the theory and use of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) as it applies to evaluating energy and climate policy.

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Abstract

The Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus has called the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) "the most important single concept in the economics of climate change." This talk will explicate the SCC concept, in part by distinguishing between two very different types of SCC. It will then explore the complicated role of ethics in the construction of SCC values and in the way those values are used by policymakers.