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G Cornelis van Kooten, University of Victoria: Climate Urgency and the Role of Forestry
Nordhaus’ Dynamic Integrated Climate and Economics (DICE) model will be used to examine society’s optimal response to climate change. A policy variable determined from DICE is the path of marginal damages caused by CO2, which is used to guide policy regarding carbon taxes. While the DICE model allows society to adjust industrial CO2 emissions, emissions from land use are exogenously determined. The proposed research focuses on the economic and climate impacts of policy related to agricultural and forest lands. The main objective is to investigate how the DICE model might include decisions pertaining to carbon fluxes associated with Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU). In effect, the objective is to estimate the effect that endogenization of carbon fluxes associated with AFOLU will have on efforts to mitigate climate change.