Nondogmatic Climate Policy

Disagreements about normative aspects of social time preferences have led to estimates of the social cost of carbon (SCC) that differ by orders of magnitude. We investigate how disagreements about the SCC change if planners are nondogmatic, that is, they admit the possibility of a change in their normative views and internalize the preferences of future selves. Although nondogmatic planners may disagree about all the contentious aspects of social time preferences, disagreements about the SCC reduce dramatically. Admitting the possibility of a change in views once every 40 years results in a fivefold reduction in the range of recommended SCCs.