IPCC SR1.5 Carbon Tax Math

Over the past few days, I’ve posted a couple of articles by Michael Bastasch of the Daily Caller on the IPCC’s demands for a $240/gal tax on gasoline and $122 trillion to fight the Global War on Weather. Many commentators questioned the math behind the $240/gal gasoline tax. So, I thought I would put together a post showing the math.

This is from page 2-79 of chapter 2 of SR 1.5:

Based on data available for this special report, the price of carbon varies substantially across models and scenarios, and their value increase with mitigation efforts (see Figure 2.26) (high confidence). For instance, undiscounted values under a Higher-2˚C pathway range from 10–200 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2030, 45–960 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2050, 120–1000 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2070 and 160–2125 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2100. On the contrary, estimates for a Below-1.5˚C pathway range from 135–5500 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2030, 245– 13000 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2050, 420–17500 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2070 and 690–27000 USD2010 tCO2-eq^–1 in 2100.

SR15 Chapter 2 Page 2-79

The IPCC presented fairly broad cost ranges for the 1.5˚C and 2˚C pathways… So broad, they are almost meaningless. However, whenever a government agency says a program will cost between $690 and $27,000 per unit, it’s a good bet that it will cost at least $27,000. The IPCC being an intergovernmental agency cannot be expected to be better at economics than a single government agency. Mr. Bastasch and I both focused on the high-end estimates, So, here is a table of the full ranges for both pathways:

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