3.4.1 The value of CO2 mitigation

Course subject(s) 3. Emissions reduction: potentials and costs

This video presents the ways of calculating the value of CO2 emission mitigation. Here, we cover the idea of externalities, the costs of CO2 emission related damage, the cost of CO2 related damage abatement and the different monetary values that can be assigned to CO2 emissions based on these concepts.

Key takeaways: 

  • Greenhouse gases have a value attached to them.
  • Avoiding CO2 has a value, thus it must be reflected in the decisions that we make.
  • A value of avoided emissions can be calculated by identifying the cost of damage it delivers, or by calculating the costs that need to be faced to reduce emissions to maintain the level of maximum one and a half degrees Celcius compared to pre-industrial levels.
  • There are different ways to assign values to emissions and there are certain limitations to those assessments.
  • Many countries and companies assigned values to emissions to operationalize mitigation of climate change.
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Designing a Climate-Neutral World: An Introduction by TU Delft OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://online-learning.tudelft.nl/courses/designing-a-climate-neutral-world-an-introduction//
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