Back in 1991, climate science was settled enough that fossil fuel giant Shell felt compelled to produce a 28-minute film on how climate change posed a severe risk to humanity, a pair of Guardian stories show.
Now, did that stop Shell from then spending over $20 million on lobbying against climate action in 2015 alone? No, unfortunately not.
But the science remains strong enough that Shell operates with a shadow price on carbon. For its internal budgeting, the company assumes a $40 per ton price on carbon.
Yesterday, the House held a hearing on the federal Social Cost of Carbon (SCC)- an estimate of the monetary cost to society of damage from climate change, to facilitate good decision-making. Like Shell’s shadow price, the SCC sits right around $40 per ton. The GOP representatives at the hearing were keen to try to pick and poke and pretend there are major problems with the calculation. Dr. Michael Greenstone, a central figure in implementing the SCC, did a great job of pointing out how his industry-friendly fellow witnesses were cherry picking aspects of the SCC’s calculation to complain about. Still, the entire event could have been called off, given that even a fossil fuel company accepts that CO2 burning costs society big league.
Dana Nuccitelli at the Guardian has a post on the SCC, which touches on some of the ridiculous testimony. The hearing focused on two main points: the SCC calculations use a 2.5, 3 or 5% discount rate instead of the much higher 7%, and it includes global benefits, not just those enjoyed by the United States. These two points were justified at length by Dr. Greenstone- we look at global benefits because climate change is a global problem and Americans benefit from global emissions reductions, and we use the lower discount rate because of the uncertainty and risk of major impacts to future generations.
In other words, the deniers were arguing that the only people who matter are Americans who are currently alive. In effect, we should cede global leadership and let future generations fend for themselves. It wasn’t said aloud, but the unspoken subtext was that we shouldn’t think of anyone else, because oil companies need profits today!
But as Shell demonstrates, even oil companies can acknowledge the costs of climate change. This makes the Heritage Foundation’s Dr. Dayaratna’s admonishment that the SCC is “a broken tool” pretty laughable.
With all due respect to the good doctor, if you’re even worse on climate than a fossil fuel company, odds are that YOU are the broken tool.
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