A quantitative approach to evaluating the GWP timescale through implicit discount rates

Sarofim, Marcus C.; Giordano, Michael R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1013-2018

Articles | Volume 9, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1013-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1013-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 3

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

17 Aug 2018

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 17 Aug 2018

A quantitative approach to evaluating the GWP timescale through implicit discount rates

Marcus C. Sarofim and Michael R. Giordano

Download

Final revised paper (published on 17 Aug 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 06 Feb 2018)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Sarofim and Giordano', William Collins, 02 Mar 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to William Collins', Marcus Sarofim, 19 Apr 2018
RC2: 'Review of "A quantitative approach to evaluating the GWP timescale through implicit discount rates"', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Mar 2018
- AC2: 'Reply to Referee 2', Marcus Sarofim, 19 Apr 2018
RC3: 'GWP of non-CO2 greenhouse gases', Anonymous Referee #3, 12 Mar 2018
- AC3: 'Reply to Referee 3', Marcus Sarofim, 19 Apr 2018
RC4: 'Review of Sarofim and Giordano, GWP and discount rates', Anonymous Referee #4, 12 Mar 2018
- AC4: 'Reply to Referee 4', Marcus Sarofim, 19 Apr 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (25 Apr 2018) by Daniel Kirk-Davidoff

AR by Marcus Sarofim on behalf of the Authors (04 Jun 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (25 Jun 2018) by Daniel Kirk-Davidoff

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (10 Jul 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (11 Jul 2018)

ED: Publish as is (20 Jul 2018) by Daniel Kirk-Davidoff

AR by Marcus Sarofim on behalf of the Authors (03 Aug 2018)

Download

Article (1274 KB)
Full-text XML

Short summary

The 100-year GWP is the most widely used metric for comparing the climate impact of different gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. However, there have been recent arguments for the use of different timescales. This paper uses straightforward estimates of future damages to quantitatively determine the appropriate timescale as a function of how society discounts the future and finds that the 100-year timescale is consistent with commonly used discount rates.