The current climate emergency dictates that an immediate action is required to mitigate climate change, whichimpliesthatcarbonfluxesoccurring 20 or more years from now are too late to have any mitigative effect. Economic models discount monetized carbon fluxes, but do not include any discussion of physical carbon fluxes. To respond to a climate emergency, however, future physical carbon fluxes need to be discounted at a high rate to incentivize action today. Using the DICE model, this study demonstrates that physical discounting of carbon erodes the effectiveness of afforestation and bioenergy projects that reduce emissions over time. This analysis indicates that policymakers need to convert concerns about climate urgency into an actual policy variable, namely, a weighting scheme that discounts future physical carbon into a current value equivalent, thereby removing incentives to delay climate action. Certainly, some biomass burning and other activities related to forestry can help mitigate climate change, but not to the extent indicated by countries in their NDCs. Some 25 of targets are to be met through forestry and land-use activities. However, if there is some urgency to deal with climate change, countries should be dissuaded from relying on this approach. Likewise, unless physical carbon fluxes are discounted, the current approach encourages greater CO_2 emissions early on, favouring biomass over coal and gas in generating electricity, something that may be avoided by discounting future carbon.
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