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Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update (2016)

Chapter: Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
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Appendix A
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff

MAUREEN L. CROPPER (Cochair) is a distinguished university professor and chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. She is also a senior fellow at Resources for the Future and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Previously, she was a lead economist at the World Bank. Her research has focused on valuing environmental amenities (especially environmental health effects), on the discounting of future health benefits, and on the tradeoffs implicit in environmental regulations. Her current research focuses on energy efficiency in India, on the impact of climate change on migration, and on the benefits of collective action in pandemic flu control. She has served as chair of the Economics Advisory Committee of the Science Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She has a B.A. in economics from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University.

RICHARD G. NEWELL (Cochair) is the Gendell professor of energy and environmental economics at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and director of the Duke University Energy Initiative. Previously, he served as the administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration and as the senior economist for energy and environment on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He is on the board of directors of Resources for the Future, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the North Carolina Energy Policy Council. His work has covered the economics of markets and policies for energy, the environment, and related technologies, including energy systems forecasting, market-based policy, energy efficiency, discounting, and incentives for technological innovation and adoption. He has a B.S. and a B.A. from Rutgers, an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

MYLES ALLEN is professor of geosystem science in the Environmental Change Institute in the School of Geography and the Environment and in the Department of Physics, both at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on how human and natural influences on climate contribute to observed climate change and extreme weather events. He founded climateprediction.net and weatherathome.org experiments, using volunteer computing for weather and climate research. His recent work has dealt with quantifying the cumulative impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global temperatures and on the implications of reframing climate change as a carbon stock problem. He has served on several working groups on the physical science assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and on the core writing team of the synthesis report in 2014. He was awarded the Appleton Medal from the Institute of Physics in 2010. He has a doctorate in physics from the University of Oxford.

MAXIMILIAN AUFFHAMMER is the George Pardee Jr. professor of international sustainable development and associate dean of interdisciplinary studies at the University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on environmental and resource economics, energy economics, and applied econometrics. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Energy and Environmental Economics group, a Humboldt Fellow, and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is a recipient of the Cozzarelli Prize awarded by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and of the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
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Campus Distinguished Teaching Award and the Sarlo Distinguished Mentoring Award from the University of California at Berkeley. He has a B.S. in environmental science and an M.S. in environmental and resource economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at San Diego.

CHRIS E. FOREST is associate professor of climate dynamics in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, an associate in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and associate director for the Network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management, all at Pennsylvania State University. He studies how to characterize uncertainties in climate projections from global to regional scales and understanding how these uncertainties should be included in climate change decision analyses. He served as a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chapter on the evaluation of climate models and as a lead author on a Climate Change Science Program synthesis and assessment report examining atmospheric and surface temperature trends. He serves on the leadership team for the Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has a B.S. in applied math, engineering, and physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

INEZ Y. FUNG is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of California at Berkeley. She is also a member of the science team for NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory. She studies the interactions between climate change and biogeochemical cycles, particularly the processes that maintain and alter the composition of the atmosphere. Her research emphasis is on using atmospheric transport models and a coupled carbon-climate model to examine how CO2 sources and sinks are changing. She is a recipient of the American Geophysical Union's Roger Revelle Medal. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She has a S.B. in applied mathematics and a Sc.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

JAMES K. HAMMITT is professor of economics and decision sciences at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Center for Risk Analysis, both at Harvard University, and an affiliate of the Toulouse School of Economics. His research concerns the development and application of quantitative methods—including benefit-cost, decision, and risk analysis—to health and environmental policy. Topics include management of long-term environmental issues with important scientific uncertainties, such as global climate change and stratospheric-ozone depletion, evaluation of ancillary benefits and countervailing risks associated with risk-control measures, and characterization of social preferences over health and environmental risks using revealed-preference, stated-preference, and health-utility methods. He has a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University.

HENRY D. JACOBY is the William F. Pounds professor of management (emeritus) in the Sloan School of Management and former codirector of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, both at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His work has focused on the integration of the natural and social sciences and policy analysis in application to the threat of global climate change. Previously, he served on the faculties of the Department of Economics and the Kennedy School of Government, both at Harvard University. He has also served as director of the Harvard Environmental Systems Program, director of the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
×

MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, associate director of the MIT Energy Laboratory, and chair of the MIT faculty. He has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

JENNIFER A. HEIMBERG (Study Director) is a senior program officer in the Division of Earth and Life Sciences (DELS) and the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. In her work for the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board in DELS, she has focused on nuclear security, nuclear detection capabilities, and environmental management issues, and she has directed studies and workshops related to nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and the management of nuclear wastes. Previously, she worked as a program manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where she established its nuclear security program with the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. She has a B.S. in physics from Georgetown University, a B.S.E.E. from Catholic University, and a Ph.D. in physics from Northwestern University.

ROBERT KOPP is associate director of Rutgers Energy Institute and an associate professor in the Rutgers University Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. His research focuses on understanding uncertainty in past and future climate change, with major emphases on sea level change and on the interactions between physical climate change and the economy. He is a contributing author to the working groups on physical science and on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is a Leopold Leadership fellow and a recipient of the Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal of the International Union for Quaternary Research and the William Gilbert Medal of the American Geophysical Union. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in geobiology from the California Institute of Technology.

WILLIAM PIZER is a professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy and faculty fellow at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. His current research examines how public policies to promote clean energy can effectively leverage private-sector investments, how environmental regulation and climate policy can affect production costs and competitiveness, and how the design of market-based environmental policies can be improved. Previously, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, overseeing the department’s role in the domestic and international environment and energy agenda of the United States. He was also a researcher at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. He has a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of North Caroling at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

STEVEN ROSE is a senior research economist in the Energy and Environmental Research Group at the Electric Power Research Institute. His research focuses on long-term modeling of energy systems and climate change drivers, mitigation, and potential climate risks and responses, as well as the economics of land use and bioenergy as they relate to climate change and energy policy. He serves on the U.S. government’s Carbon Cycle Scientific Steering Group and Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board panel on biogenic carbon dioxide emissions accounting. He was also a lead author for the Fifth and Fourth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and for the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
×

He has a B.A. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University.

RICHARD SCHMALENSEE is the Howard W. Johnson professor of management (emeritus) and professor of economics (emeritus) at MIT. Previously, at MIT, he was the John C. Head III dean of the Sloan School of Management, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, and a member of the Energy Council. He also previously served as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. His research and teaching have focused on industrial organization economics and its applications to business decision making and public policy. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served on the executive committee of the American Economic Association and as a director of several corporations, and he is currently chair of the board of Resources for the Future. He was a distinguished fellow of the Industrial Organization Society. He has an S.B. and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

JOHN P. WEYANT is professor of management science and engineering, director of the Energy Modeling Forum, and deputy director of the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, all at Stanford University. His current research focuses on analysis of global climate change policy options, energy efficiency analysis, energy technology assessment, and models for strategic planning. He has been a convening lead author or lead author for several chapters of the IPCC reports, and, most recently, as a review editor for the climate change mitigation working group of the IPCC’s Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports. He was also a founder and serves as chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium, a collaboration of 53 member institutions from around the world. He is a recipient of the Adelmann-Frankel award from the U.S. Association for Energy Economics for unique and innovative contributions to the field of energy economics. He has a B.S./M.S. in aeronautical engineering and astronautics and M.S. degrees in engineering management and in operations research and statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in management science with minors in economics, operations research, and organization theory from the University of California at Berkeley.

CASEY J. WICHMAN (Technical Consultant) is a fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. His research is concentrated at the intersection of environmental and public economics, with an emphasis on examining the ways individuals make decisions in response to environmental policies using quasi-experimental techniques. In particular, his work analyzes the effectiveness of price and nonprice interventions for water conservation, the role of information in the design of environmental policy, and the effect of water scarcity in the energy sector. He has a B.A. in economics from Ithaca College, an M.S. from North Carolina State University, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
×
Page 57
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
×
Page 58
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Assessment of Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon: Phase 1 Report on a Near-Term Update. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21898.
×
Page 60
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The social cost of carbon (SCC) for a given year is an estimate, in dollars, of the present discounted value of the damage caused by a 1-metric ton increase in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere in that year; or equivalently, the benefits of reducing CO2 emissions by the same amount in that given year. The SCC is intended to provide a comprehensive measure of the monetized value of the net damages from global climate change from an additional unit of CO2, including, but not limited to, changes in net agricultural productivity, energy use, human health effects, and property damages from increased flood risk. Federal agencies use the SCC to value the CO2 emissions impacts of various policies including emission and fuel economy standards for vehicles, regulations of industrial air pollutants from industrial manufacturing, emission standards for power plants and solid waste incineration, and appliance energy efficiency standards.

There are significant challenges to estimating a dollar value that reflects all the physical, human, ecological, and economic impacts of climate change. Recognizing that the models and scientific data underlying the SCC estimates evolve and improve over time, the federal government made a commitment to provide regular updates to the estimates. To assist with future revisions of the SCC, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon (IWG) requested the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine complete a study that assessed the merits and challenges of a limited near-term update to the SCC and of a comprehensive update of the SCC to ensure that the estimates reflect the best available science. This interim report focuses on near-term updates to the SCC estimates.

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