Download UMCP HONRS 229L, Fall 2015: Lecture 18

HONR 229L: Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Governance
The Economics of Climate Change, Part I
Your name here
2 November 2016
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As always, I suggest working the admission ticket questions into the presentation.
But you have plenty to choose from, since the reading ends with a nice set of discussion questions.
I suggest still working with the admission tickets, since most students will have thought of these questions
just before class.
Please note AT1, while involved numerically, is meant to build to a discussion of the last point.
My suggestion if you use AT1, would be to get through the numerical parts quickly and spend time on part
g), should you decide to use
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a) Using the information on Figure 2, what was the total global emission of CO2 in 2013?
b) What was the world population in year 2013?
c) What was the global per capita emission of CO2 in year 2013?
d) What was the per capita emission of CO2 in year 2013 by persons in the U.S.? And, by how much did we
exceed the global per capita emission?
e) What was the population of India in year 2013? (again, you will have to conduct internet search to find)
f) If the economy of India were to suddenly expand, such that that per-capita emission of CO2 from India
were to become equal to the per-capita emission of CO2 from Germany in year 2013, how much would the
total global emission of CO2 rise?
Please let me know if you need help with any of the numbers. FYI, the numbers
should support the statement that per-capita matters 
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g) Based on your numerical estimates given above, do you agree or disagree with the assertion that the
global imbalance in per capita emissions is a critical issue?
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HONR 229L: Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Governance
Here is Fig 2 as published, with some annotation
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HONR 229L: Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Governance
Here is Fig 2 with corrected units for y-axis
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Here is Fig 3, should you want to use
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I think this image, which appears in the 27 page Stern Review summary posted at
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~rjs/class/honr229L/readings/stern_long_executive_summary.pdf
is fantastic. You can use in many ways. Please note we have not yet covered the contributions of various
sectors to GHG emissions, at all. You could poll the class to see what percentage of total GHG emission they
think the power (i.e., electricity) constitutes. I suspect most would guess high. Then, you can poll as to what
second category would be, at least according to this report. To do this, you’d have to “cover up” the chart, like
I’ve done next page.
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Of course you would reverse the order of the slides . Now, if you do this, you’ll need to understand why Land
Use comes in second! Must be deforestation and perhaps urbanization … you could research this topic!
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If you’d like to work with Q2, here it is:
Parts of this reading (i.e., Box 2 Brief History of Climate Negotiations) are a precursor of material to be
discussed later (i.e., Lecture 20) whereas other parts (i.e., Table 1 Possible Effects of Climate Change) are a
repeat, albeit written in a different manner, of prior material (i.e., Lecture 12).
For this AT question, I would like you to either:
a) state in a sentence or two something NEW you learned from this reading, with regard to either the history of
climate negotiations *or* the possible effects of climate change:
*** OR ***
b) provide a URL to an image, on the web, illustrating either in a photo or a drawing the Possible Effects of
Climate Change that you think could be used as a rallying cry to get people to take action. If you choose to
answer b), in addition to providing the URL, please also state which Possible Effect of Climate Change (from the
reading!) that is related to your chosen image.
If you’d like to show any of the student submitted URLs, I could either email them
to you at approx. 2:15 pm, *or else* I could grab, place into your PPT, and you can
ask students to describe their image and why they selected. Please let me know if
you’d like to pursue either option.
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Here is Q3
Table 2 details the estimated annual damage to the US economy from global climate change, in units of billions
of 1990 dollars, from five independent studies. The estimates of the damage vary widely between the studies:
most interestingly, each study has a different category identified as most costly.
a) What entry in this Table 2 was most surprising? Please include a phrase or sentence stating why this was
most surprising?
b) As noted above, each study has a different category identified as most costly. Based on either your intuition,
other classes, perhaps prior detailed knowledge, which category do you believe will turn out to be most costly to
the US economy, over the course of your lifetime, if climate change is not addressed? Again, please include a
phrase, sentence, or perhaps a few sentences supporting this category.
Spend as much or as little time on this as you’d like!
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Here is Table 2
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Here is Table 3, should you also want to use. Your call!
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Only 4 questions, I must be slipping! Here is Q4:
The Stern Review, issued in 2007, was extraordinarily influential. I have posted links to both the 4 page and 27
page executive summaries in the auxiliary material column for Monday’s class. I hope everyone will be able to
read the 4 page PDF file prior to class (hey it’s only 4 pages and it is indeed a watershed report!)
The reading lists three differences between the Stern Review and prior work of Nordhaus.
a) What are these three differences?
b) Pick one of these differences and expound upon why it is important for society to consider, when deciding
what we shall do about climate change.
You could: a) ask students to raise their hand and name one difference per person,
until you get all three.
Then, ask students to expound upon whatever difference you have listed first.
After the students have had their say, you can them click and show them your
explanation. Then, click and repeat for Diff #2 & Diff #3
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If you feel up to it, perhaps you can make use of this plot and delve into the
importance of the discount rate for cost benefit analysis
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I think the 3 questions under #1, page 56 (page titled Discussion Question) are
excellent and can be used in part or in whole. Your call.
Finally, feel free to draw material from:
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~rjs/class/honr229L/readings/stern_short_executive_summary.pdf
(just words)
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~rjs/class/honr229L/readings/stern_long_executive_summary.pdf
(words, figs)
should you so desire. Fig 3 of the 27 page Stern Review (next page) could be worth introducing;
I’ll place on subsequent page
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Here is Fig 3 from the 27-page Stern Review
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As I write to all of the students:
a) truly your call on how to use the ~45 mins
b) I like using some AT questions, to facilitate discussion, but I can tell from
the feedback sheets that some students think this has been over done (if
so, my fault!)
c) If you send me a draft, I will gladly review and send comments
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This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch.
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