Economic Modeling in UK Climate Policy
At the request of two British environmental NGOs, Synapse reviewed the HMRC CGE model, an economic model developed to analyze tax policies that has been applied to British climate policy proposals. The model has reportedly found that these proposals would be quite expensive. Synapse identified omissions and biases that lead to exaggeration of the costs and dismissal of the benefits of climate protection measures. The model assumes there can never be any net job creation benefits from climate policy; it ignores the health benefits of reduced air emissions under low-carbon scenarios; and it analyzes the UK in isolation, despite the global nature of the climate problem. Better analyses show that there are enormous economic and environmental benefits from rapid reduction in carbon emissions. Project completed April 2014.