Accounting for Ecosystem Service Values in Climate Policy

In a comment for Nature Climate Change, RFF Fellow Hannah Druckenmiller reflects on the need to incorporate the ecosystem impacts of climate change into the social cost of carbon.

View Journal Article

Date

June 27, 2022

Authors

Hannah Druckenmiller

Publication

Journal Article in Nature Climate Change

Reading time

1 minute

Ecosystem services are often omitted from climate policy owing to difficulties in estimating the economic value of climate-driven ecosystem changes. However, recent advances in data and methods can help us overcome these challenges and move towards a more comprehensive accounting of climate impacts.

For the open-access article, click on the link above.

Topics

Authors

Hannah Druckenmiller

University Fellow

Hannah Druckenmiller is an environmental economist and fellow at RFF. er research aims to provide empirically based estimates for the environmental benefits and economic costs associated with natural resource protection.

Related Content

Working Paper — Dec 9, 2024

Accounting for Biodiversity Loss Raises the Social Cost of CO2

In this working paper, the authors examine how climate change contributes to biodiversity loss and incorporate its nonuse value into the Social Cost of Carbon, emphasizing its role in guiding more comprehensive climate policies.

Resources Radio — Nov 5, 2024

Building with Mass Timber, with Pat Layton

Pat Layton discusses the development and adoption of mass timber as a building material, along with the environmental and architectural benefits of integrating mass timber into construction projects.

Report — Sep 24, 2024

Challenges and Opportunities for Incorporating Climate Change’s Impacts on Ocean Systems into the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases

Journal Article — Aug 15, 2024

Equity Weighting Increases the Social Cost of Carbon

This article finds that using an “income weighting” approach would increase the social cost of carbon by a factor of eight by placing greater emphasis on climate’s impacts on the global poor.