Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/s25/3/c/solution

Equating marginal mitigation cost to the previous marginal damage gives
Using from the cumulative-emissions approximation,
Thus at late times and . Warming slows but never stops, and cumulative emissions remain unbounded. This follows from a cost model in which zero emissions is infinitely costly and from a marginal-damage rule with constant positive .
The approximation eventually fails if cumulative emissions leave the range of constant TCRE, if large damages suppress economic growth, if technological change alters , or if fossil resources and mitigation options impose different limits. The slowly varying-temperature approximation also needs . Thresholds, adaptation, uncertainty and unequal impacts are omitted; the formula is a property of this model rather than a universal policy trajectory.

New to topics? Read the docs here!