The impact of climate risk valuation on the regional mitigation strategies

Different assumptions and methodologies prompt divergent policy implications towards climate change. Although climate scientists would like to be as precise as possible, policymakers with different attitudes towards climate change will always choose the result that matches their own value judgment. This paper discusses the impact of climate change attitudes on optimal mitigation in 15 regions. The climate change attitude is reflected by a meta-analysis of 27 climate damage estimations and fit into five damage functions. The optimal mitigation is calculated using the non-cooperative scenario of the regional integrated model of climate economy (RICE). The results show that the optimal mitigation in developing countries is more sensitive to climate change attitudes than it is in developed countries. In 2100, the range of optimal emissions divides the average of optimal emissions by 20% in developing countries, which is twice the value of that in developed countries. The average social carbon cost in developing countries is 20 times higher than that in developed countries. This large uncertainty may be the combined result of high shadow prices of capital and large amounts of future emissions in these developing countries