Abstract
A popular strategy for mitigating climate change is to persuade or incentivize individuals to limit behaviors associated with high greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, adults in the mid-Atlantic United States bid in an auction to receive compensation for eliminating beef consumption or limiting vehicle use. The auction incentivized participants to reveal their true costs of accepting these limits for periods ranging from one week to one year. Compliance with the conditions of the auction was confirmed via a random field audit of the behavioral changes. The estimated median abatement costs were greater than $600 per tCO2e for beef consumption and $1,300 per tCO2e for vehicle use, values much higher than the price of carbon offsets and most estimates of the social cost of carbon. Although these values may decline over time with experience or broader social adoption, they imply that policies that encourage innovations to reduce the costs of behavior change, such as meat alternatives or emission-free vehicles, may be a more fruitful than those that limit beef consumption or vehicle use.
Highlights
In a new book, Bill Gates advises the public about various sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions and how changes in consumption can help achieve zero emissions and limit anthropogenic climate change [1]
The results focus on plasticity of 50% for two reasons: (1) it corresponds to the median cost in our sample, a value that allows us to minimize the influence of outlier offers and to make comparisons with published estimates of average abatement costs of other behaviors and policies; and (2) it corresponds to a reasonable policy target for achieving substantial reductions in GHG emissions
64%, responded that climate change is mostly caused by human activities and 68% responded that climate change was either ‘very important’ or ‘extremely important.’
Summary
Bill Gates advises the public about various sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions and how changes in consumption can help achieve zero emissions and limit anthropogenic climate change [1]. Policy interventions are likely to provide the best return-on-investment when they target choices and behaviors for which abatement potential and plasticity are high enough to lead to meaningful reductions in GHG emissions. A non-hypothetical auction was used to Private costs of carbon emissions abatement incentivize participants to offer their level of compensation necessary to eliminate beef from their diets or limit vehicle miles traveled for each length of time. Combining the abatement potential of each behavior with elicited offers map out abatement cost curves These curves allow us to compare the estimated abatement costs associated with eliminating beef consumption and limiting vehicle travel, as well as to compare the costs of these behavior changes with the abatement costs of other actions (e.g., offsets) and the social cost of carbon. To provide insight into the variability of abatement costs associated with different plasticity targets, we consider plasticity targets of 25% and 75% which correspond to the offers within the 25th and 75th percentiles changing behavior
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