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Two contingent valuation (CV) surveys were conducted in Kunming, China, to estimate households' willingness to pay (WTP) for the Panlong River rehabilitation project. The two surveys were conducted using the same procedures and questionnaires except for the payment schedule arrangements, which permitted a calculation of respondents' implicit discount rate. The surveys provided two estimates of WTP, one with a mean of 23 Yuan in monthly payment over 5 years and the other with a mean of 311 Yuan in a lump-sum payment that will cover all the expenses for a period of 5 years. The results produce an estimate of monthly discount rate of 7.6%–12.6% or annual discount rate of 141–315%. The estimates are higher than that reported from those studies conducted in the U.S., but are compatible with that of some other studies. This study also shows that both mean individual WTP and implicit individual discount rates are closely related to household demographic and economic characteristics and environment-related perceptions, as reported in the studies conducted in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social cost of carbon is a tool for assessing the appropriateness of emission reduction measures and climate policy, and is affected by socioeconomic and climatic factors. This study aimed to explore the impact of socioeconomic factors and climate on the social cost of carbon; to this end, this study considered Chinese provinces as the focus of research. This study constructed an integrated framework for carbon emissions considering socioeconomic and climatic factors, which consisted of shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs). Subsequently, social cost of the carbon estimation model was used to calculate the social cost of carbon for China's provinces from 2022 to 2100 under different carbon emission scenarios. The results show that: under most carbon emission scenarios, provinces with a high social cost of carbon are located in the eastern developed region. For instance, Jiangsu and Guangdong had the highest values of 6.31 $/tC. Second, SSPs that are highly dependent on fossil fuels have a high social cost of carbon, which is higher than 60 $/tC in 2022 in China. The social cost of carbon under other SSPs is at a fluctuating value of 40 $/tC. Third, in terms of RCPs, the social cost of carbon for the middle baseline emission scenario (RCP6.0) is considerably lower than that for the high baseline emission scenario (RCP8.0), and the difference between them is 3.7 times that of two medium emission scenarios (RCP6.0 and RCP4.5). Fourth, there is a substantial difference between the dynamic and fixed discount rates in the social cost of carbon in the same scenario. Studying the impact of socioeconomic and climatic factors on the social cost of carbon will help in its regulation and provide a scientific basis for Chinese provinces to optimize climate policies and emission reduction measures. [Display omitted] • Update the social cost of carbon based on a provincial perspective. • Analyze the social cost of carbon from socioeconomic and climatic aspects. • The Chinses eastern developed provinces have the high social cost of carbon. • The fossil-fuel and high emission scenario will increase the social cost of carbon. • Two types of discounts lead to various social cost of carbon in the same scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the Impact Pathway Approach (IPA) was used to calculate the external costs associated with indirect exposure, via topsoil ingestion, to atmospheric emissions of lead (Pb) from a waste-to-energy plant in Denmark. Three metal-specific models were combined to quantify the atmospheric dispersion of lead, its deposition and accumulation in topsoil, and the increase in blood lead concentration for children resulting from lead intake via topsoil ingestion. The neurotoxic impact of lead on children was estimated using a lead-specific concentration-response function that measures impaired cognitive development in terms of IQ points lost per each incremental μg/dl of lead in blood. Since IQ loss during childhood can be associated with a percent decrease in expected lifetime earnings, the monetary value of such an impact can be quantified and the external costs per kg of lead emitted from the plant were then calculated. The costs of indirect exposure calculated over a time horizon of 100 years, for the sub-population of children of 0–3 years, and discounted at 3%, were in the range of 15–30 €/kg. Despite the continued accumulation of lead in topsoil resulting in increasing future indirect exposure, the results indicate that costs associated with this exposure pathway are of the same order of magnitude as costs associated with direct exposure via inhalation, calculated at 45–91 €/kg. Moreover, when the monetary value of future impacts is discounted to the present, the differences between the two exposure pathways are diminished. Finally, setting a short time horizon reduces the uncertainties but excludes part of the costs of indirect exposure from the assessment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this study, we defined risk capital as the contingency fee or insurance premium that a brownfields redeveloper needs to set aside from the sale of each house in case they need to repurchase it at a later date because the indoor air has been detrimentally affected by subsurface contamination. The likelihood that indoor air concentrations will exceed a regulatory level subject to subsurface heterogeneity and source zone location uncertainty is simulated by a physics-based hydrogeological model using Monte Carlo realizations, yielding the probability of failure. The cost of failure is the future value of the house indexed to the stochastic US National Housing index. The risk capital is essentially the probability of failure times the cost of failure with a surcharge to compensate the developer against hydrogeological and financial uncertainty, with the surcharge acting as safety loading reflecting the developers'' level of risk aversion. We review five methodologies taken from the actuarial and financial literature to price the risk capital for a highly stylized brownfield redevelopment project, with each method specifically adapted to accommodate our notion of the probability of failure. The objective of this paper is to develop an actuarially consistent approach for combining the hydrogeological and financial uncertainty into a contingency fee that the brownfields developer should reserve (i.e. the risk capital) in order to hedge their risk exposure during the project. Results indicate that the price of the risk capital is much more sensitive to hydrogeological rather than financial uncertainty. We use the Capital Asset Pricing Model to estimate the risk-adjusted discount rate to depreciate all costs to present value for the brownfield redevelopment project. A key outcome of this work is that the presentation of our risk capital valuation methodology is sufficiently generalized for application to a wide variety of engineering projects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article used evidence from tourists' willingness to pay (WTP) for a set of climate change adaptation policies to estimate implicit discount rates under different discounting structures. A choice experiment with two different split samples framed at two different time horizons was used to analyse how WTP changes as a function of the timing of the expected benefits. Results confirm that individuals are time sensitive to different horizons and provide support for the use of a very low discount rate in the evaluation of policies having effects in the long and very long run and show that the social acceptability of climate change (CC) adaptation policies can be affected by the timing of the benefits and the use of one or another discounting model. • Tourists' WTP is used to estimate discount rates for the long and very long run. • Longer time horizons reduce today's WTP and lead to a lower discount rate. • Social acceptability of CC policies is sensitive to the choice of the discount rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]