ncx-gitbot
commented
2 years ago NCX response: The goal of climate mitigation is more about mitigating the damage caused by climate change, rather than the actual quantity of carbon in the atmosphere. The carbon in the atmosphere causes increased temperatures through climate forcing, which in turn lead to costly economic and social damages to our water, homes, businesses, and livelihoods. The long-standing research and implementation of the Social Cost of Carbon approximates the net present value of the perpetual stream of future costs and damages caused by climate change. For our methodology, we apply a similar economic framing and a net discount rate of 3.0% to identify the equivalence ratio between the benefits of delaying emissions for 1 year compared with 100 years. See Parisa et al. 2022 for a full explanation of how this economic model yields an economic equivalence between credits of different durations. In order to incentivize action today to avoid those future damages, it is appropriate to use a similar economic framework to calculate the benefits of near-term climate action. While a ratio does not signify a physical equivalence, it does appropriately value the future economic benefits of physical action today.
Commenter Organization: Carbon Direct, Inc.
Commenter: Bodie Cabiyo, Van Butsic, John Dees
2021 Deferred Harvest Methodology Section: Intro
Comment: This statement makes false equivalence between tonne-year accounting and physical permanence. It is not scientifically defensible to claim equivalence between a delayed emission and a permanent carbon removal/avoided emissions. Tonne-year accounting can be an expression of the value of “buying time”, e.g. through an economic framework, but should never claim physical equivalence with permanent removal/avoided emissions.
Proposed Change: Change: “incorporates tonne year accounting to determine and assure equivalent impact to permanent storage.” to: “incorporates tonne-year accounting, which approximates equivalent cumulative radiative forcing over a 100-year time horizon relative to permanent storage over the same period. This equivalence serves as a proxy for the cumulative benefits accrued from delaying emissions.” Similar changes may also be applied in Section 2, Paragraph 3.