future value. In other words, policy action induces technological change.[1] Although a full treatment of the literature on technological change is beyond the scope of this report, providing the private sector with the certainty needed to invest in low-carbon technologies and produce such technological change is a benefit of adopting meaningful mitigation policies now.
Finally, because this report examines the economic costs of delay, it focuses on actions or consequences that have a market price. But the total costs of climate change include much that does not trade in the market and to which it is difficult to assign a monetary value, such as the loss of habitat preservation, decreased value of ecosystem goods and services, and mass extinctions. Although some studies have attempted to quantify these costs, including all relevant climate impacts is infeasible. Accordingly, the monetized economic costs of delay analyzed in this report understate the true total cost of delaying action to mitigate climate change.
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- ↑ For example, Popp (2003) provides empirical evidence that Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) led to innovations that reduced the cost of the environmental technologies that reduced SO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. Other literature shows evidence linking environmental regulation more broadly to innovation (e.g., Popp 2006, Jaffe and Palmer 1997, Lanjouw and Mody 1996).
