Climate mitigation policy as a system solution: addressing the risk cost of carbon

Abstract

ABSTRACTGlobal 4C is a new international climate mitigation policy that adopts a risk management framework. Global 4C offers a financial reward for mitigation and aims to internalise a Risk Cost of Carbon (RCC) into the economy. Carbon taxes (i.e. carbon prices) are essential for internalising the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC), however a SCC-RCC duality is inferred with an epistemological method and is supported with a new hypothesis, called the Holistic Market Hypothesis. Based on the inferred SCC-RCC duality, a system of complementary market pricing is proposed as an effective response to emerging climate systemic risk and fat-tailed probability distributions for the Earth's climate sensitivity.The recommended policy instrument is a currency, called Complementary Currencies for Climate Change (4C). 4C should be priced in foreign exchange currency markets (Forex) to mirror the RCC and to incentivise a spectrum of mitigation services, including clean renewable energy and carbon sequestration. A public broadcast message for climate systemic risk should be made each year, in the form of a ‘100-year advance 4C price alert’, which is an assurance of reward prices for carbon mitigation (i.e. the 4C exchange rate) under a Carbon Exchange Standard (CES). The CES is a macro-prudential protocol for central banks to provide collective insurability against climate catastrophe and incentives for socio-ecological co-benefits.