David Victor, UCSD
Meet: https://meet.google.com/niy-gtpk-sro
YouTube Stream: https://youtube.com/live/8PS8k3ITRj4
Join group to receive calendar invite: https://groups.google.com/a/modelingtalks.org/g/talks
Abstract:
The bread-and-butter of integrated assessment modeling has been the study of deep decarbonization needed to meet widely discussed climate policy goals such as stopping the rise in temperatures or cutting net emissions to zero. A troubling element of these models is their lack, to varying degrees, of proper representation of how policies are formulated and the impacts of policies and changes in technology on patterns of investment in clean technologies. In some ways, the models have yielded abundant elegant insights into deep decarbonization strategies that, increasingly, don’t reflect reality. This talk will outline some ways to improve the models and show suggestive results from a decade of collaboration with different modeling teams. The net effect of adding more realism is to increase pessimism about meeting global climate goals in the near term and more optimism about the long term. More realistic model assessments suggest that carbon removal technologies and climate resilience (and possibly geoengineering) need more policy priority. Realism also has implications for the geography of climate policy action and investment—with Europe occupying a more central role and the United States becoming less reliably relevant.
Bio:
David G. Victor is a distinguished professor of innovation and public policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego and also a professor in Climate, Atmospheric Science & Physical Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He directs the UCSD-wide Deep Decarbonization Initiative (D2I) where his research focuses on the engineering, economic and political challenges associated with slashing emissions of warming gases and removing the gases that have already accumulated in the atmosphere and oceans.