{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,30]],"date-time":"2026-10-30T01:37:36Z","timestamp":1793324256857,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":62,"publisher":"National Academy of Sciences","issue":"52","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,12,17]],"date-time":"2024-12-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1734393600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001659","name":"Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["390683824"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["390683824"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001659","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.pnas.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,12,24]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Estimating the cost to society from a ton of CO\n                    <jats:sub>2<\/jats:sub>\n                    \u2014termed the social cost of carbon (SCC)\u2014requires connecting a model of the climate system with a representation of the economic and social effects of changes in climate, and the aggregation of diverse, uncertain impacts across both time and space. A growing literature has examined the effect of fundamental structural elements of the models supporting SCC calculations. This work has accumulated in a piecemeal fashion, leaving their relative importance unclear. Here, we perform a comprehensive synthesis of the evidence on the SCC, combining 1,823 estimates of the SCC from 147 studies with a survey of authors of these studies. The distribution of published 2020 SCC values is wide and substantially right-skewed, showing evidence of a heavy right tail (truncated mean of $132). ANOVA reveals important roles for the inclusion of persistent damages, the representation of the Earth system, and distributional weighting. However, our survey reveals that experts believe the literature underestimates the SCC due to an undersampling of model structures, incomplete characterization of damages, and high discount rates. To address this imbalance, we train a random forest model on variation in the literature and use it to generate a synthetic SCC distribution that more closely matches expert assessments of appropriate model structure and discounting. This synthetic distribution has a mean of $283 per ton CO\n                    <jats:sub>2<\/jats:sub>\n                    for a 2020 pulse year (5% to 95% range: $32 to $874), higher than most official government estimates, including a 2023 update from the U.S. EPA.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2410733121","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,12,17]],"date-time":"2024-12-17T13:59:50Z","timestamp":1734443990000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.cm10313","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":64,"title":["Synthesis of evidence yields high social cost of carbon due to structural model variation and uncertainties"],"prefix":"10.1073","volume":"121","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3866-9642","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Frances C.","family":"Moore","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Environmental Science and Policy","place":["Davis"]},{"name":"University of California","place":["Davis"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8981-0496","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Moritz A.","family":"Drupp","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics and Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability","place":["Hamburg, Germany"]},{"name":"University of Hamburg","place":["Hamburg, Germany"]},{"name":"Department Management, Technology, and Economics","place":["Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland"]},{"name":"ETH Z\u00fcrich","place":["Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland"]},{"name":"Department of Economics","place":["G\u00f6teborg, Sweden"]},{"name":"University of Gothenburg","place":["G\u00f6teborg, Sweden"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8514-4748","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"James","family":"Rising","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Marine Science and Policy","place":["Newark"]},{"name":"University of Delaware","place":["Newark"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5002-018X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Simon","family":"Dietz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and Department of Geography and Environment","place":["London, United Kingdom"]},{"name":"London School of Economics and Political Science","place":["London, United Kingdom"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4194-7279","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ivan","family":"Rudik","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management","place":["Ithaca"]},{"name":"Cornell University","place":["Ithaca"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6059-0688","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gernot","family":"Wagner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Columbia Business School","place":["New York"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"341","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,12,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_4_1_2","volume-title":"The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review","author":"Stern N.","year":"2006","unstructured":"N. Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2006)."},{"key":"e_1_3_4_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.abi7813"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41586-022-05224-9"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1257\/jel.51.3.838"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1257\/jel.51.3.860"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_6_2","volume-title":"Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide","author":"National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine","year":"2017","unstructured":"National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine , Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide (National Academies Press, 2017)."},{"key":"e_1_3_4_7_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-021-00441-0"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_8_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-9779.2011.01539.x"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_9_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1088\/1748-9326\/8\/2\/024032"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_10_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/713977"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41558-018-0282-y"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_12_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41558-020-0833-x"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_13_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/701890"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_14_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/nclimate2249"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_15_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1817444116"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_16_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/nclimate2902"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_17_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1503890112"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_18_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2103081118"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_19_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1814990116"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_20_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1257\/pol.20160541"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_21_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1257\/pol.6.1.137"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_22_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1287\/mnsc.2015.2365"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_23_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jebo.2016.03.009"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_24_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev-resource-100516-053516"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_25_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/nclimate2481"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_26_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/ecoj.12188"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_27_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/678140"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_28_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-017-00373-2"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_29_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41586-021-03883-8"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_30_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1513967112"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_31_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/701900"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_32_2","first-page":"493","article-title":"Intergenerational inequality aversion, growth, and the role of damages: Occam\u2019s rule for the global carbon tax","volume":"3","author":"Rezai A.","year":"2016","unstructured":"A. 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Gillingham , Modeling uncertainty in integrated assessment of climate change: A multimodel comparison. J. Assoc. Environ. Resour. Econ. 5, 791\u2013826 (2018).","journal-title":"J. Assoc. Environ. Resour. Econ."},{"key":"e_1_3_4_42_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1142\/S2010007817500099"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_43_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jeem.2019.02.003"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_44_2","first-page":"438","volume-title":"The Economic Climate: Establishing Expert Consensus on the Economics of Climate Change","author":"Howard P. H.","year":"2015","unstructured":"P. H. Howard, D. 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