Gutting a controversial method that federal agencies use to weigh climate change damages could come at a high legal price, analysts say. Under the Obama administration, agencies used a metric, known as the social cost of carbon, to estimate the hidden costs of carbon dioxide emissions. That is, they assigned a dollar value to asthma attacks exacerbated by poor air quality or damage wrought by rising seas. Billy Pizer, faculty fellow at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy, comments in ClimateWire.

In an interview with Public Radio International’s Living On Earth, Nicholas Institute faculty fellow Billy Pizer discussed recommended changes in the social cost of carbon—the subject of a recent report he co-authored—and why social cost evaluations are crucial to tackling carbon pollution. Pizer noted that such evaluations have been used in more than 100 government cost-benefit analyses, most notably for the Clean Power Plan. Asked about energy department transition leader Thomas Pyle’s suggestion that the incoming Trump administration might consider lowering the social cost value or getting rid of it completely, Pizer said, “I think it would be problematic. I mean, generally when we do cost-benefit analysis, the goal of government policy should be to try to improve welfare for the American people and for people around the world, and there needs to be a way to do that mechanically, and the social cost of carbon is the way that you do that. It's not a Republican or Democratic idea. It's an economic idea.”

To estimate the social cost of carbon dioxide for use in regulatory impact analyses, the federal government should use a new framework that would strengthen the scientific basis, provide greater transparency, and improve characterization of the uncertainties of the estimates, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report, which was put together by a committee that included Nicholas Institute faculty fellow Billy Pizer, also identifies a number of near- and longer-term improvements that should be made for calculating the social cost of carbon.

While there’s growing interest in the use of a federal carbon tax as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some uncertainty exists about how the economy would respond to such a tax, in particular, just how much emissions would be affected. A new policy brief by researchers at the Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions examines options for increasing emissions certainty under a carbon tax.

In a profile story for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Nicholas Institute Faculty Fellow Billy Pizer reflects on his career path, "If you had told me 25 years ago that I'd be working on climate change policy, and that I'd actually serve in the government doing this, I would have thought you were crazy. What I liked to do was solve math problems. I liked physics, I thought it was cool." 

For some years, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions’ staff have helped lead a course that immerses students in the process of negotiating a global climate agreement. The United Nations Climate Negotiations Practicum course not only teaches students about international climate negotiations and policies under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—it takes them across the world to witness and be involved in the negotiations at one of the U.N.’s annual climate conferences. At the most recent conference in late 2015, students in the practicum course were part of history.

The thousands of negotiators, reporters and observers at this winter's U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in France included a team of Duke University students there to observe the historic event and provide supporting information on climate issues. The students spent the fall semester taking the United Nations Climate Change Negotiations Practicum course taught by Nicholas Institute faculty fellow Billy Pizer and Jonathan Wiener, a professor in the Duke Law School. Eight of the practicum students attended the UNFCCC's 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) negotiations in Paris in November and December, traveling with financial and logistical support from the Energy Initiative, the Nicholas School of the Environment, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and the Sanford Innovation & Impact Fund. 

Billy Pizer, faculty fellow at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy, discusses new energy with China Central Television News Channel. 

At a forum moderated by Nicholas Institute director Tim Profeta and featuring Duke students and experts who attended climate negotiations in Paris in December, the Nicholas Institute’s Brian Murray said that the specific goal for limiting temperature rise “evolved from a bit of a pipedream—or a strong hope by environmental activists around the world—to an actual reality that was written in the text.” Billy Pizer, a faculty fellow at the Nicholas Institute, said that regular contributions to climate change mitigation by China and India are “a huge development.”

There would not be sufficient benefit to updating estimates of the social cost of carbon (SCC) within a year based only on the revision of a specific climate parameter in the existing framework used by the government's interagency group to measure the SCC, says a new interim report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The committee, which includes Billy Pizer, a faculty fellow of the Nicholas Institute and professor in the Sanford School, recommended ways to change federal technical support documents on the SCC to enhance the characterization of uncertainties associated with the estimates, including when used in regulatory impact analyses.