In order to meet the Paris agreements, significant financial resources must be incurred, which are evaluated here using a macroeconomic model combining a criterion of intergenerational distribution of the climate effort and assumptions on decarbonisation technologies. The results show that, for France, the current greenhouse gas emissions trajectory is unsustainable, in the sense that in order to reach the carbon neutrality commitment in 2050, the annual level of climate spending would have to increase very substantially, to 4.5% of GDP from the current 1.9%. These evaluations make it possible to deduce a social price of carbon or a value for climate action, which has been increased significantly compared to previous evaluations such as those of the Stiglitz-Stern commission, in line with the results of the Quinet Commission in 2019. Such evaluations of the emissions trajectory and the social price of carbon could be the entry point for environmental economic accounting that includes the degradation of natural assets caused by economic activities.

Citation: Germain, J. M. & Lellouch, T. (2020). The Social Cost of Global Warming and Sustainability Indicators: Lessons from an Application to France. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 517-518-519, 81–102. https://doi.org/10.24187/ecostat.2020.517t.2024