Climate change emission valuation for transportation economic analysis

This paper describes climate change impacts and costs, presents methods for quantifying and monetizing (measuring in monetary units) these impacts, summarizes published unit cost estimates, and explains the values used in the report, Transportation Cost and Benefit Analysis. Climate change emission valuation depends on many factors including the range of impacts considered, the methods used to quantify impacts, and emission reduction targets. Recent studies predict that damage costs are potentially very high if atmospheric greenhouse gas levels exceed critical thresholds, while emission control costs are $20-50 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Some transportation emission reduction strategies have relatively low costs when co-benefits such as consumer savings, congestion reductions and safety are considered.