Explaining Analytical Methods

CBO maintains a benchmark projection of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to estimate the effects of certain emissions policies. According to that projection, GHG emissions in the United States decline by about 8 percent from 2025 to 2034.

CBO provides information about the amount of damage that could be reduced through spending for flood adaptations—projects aimed at preventing damage from flooding.

CBO examines how the share of properties at risk of flooding that are covered by policies purchased through the National Flood Insurance Program varies across communities with different economic and demographic characteristics.

CBO estimates the flood damage homes with federally backed mortgages are expected to face in multiyear periods centered on 2020 and 2050, reflecting the effects of climate change. The agency also analyzes where that damage is concentrated.

CBO describes how imposing a charge for methane emissions generally affects emissions, companies’ costs, and natural gas prices and discusses how the agency analyzes such a charge.

CBO describes its recent update of parameters that characterize the relationship between emissions of carbon dioxide and changes in the price of those emissions.

This paper describes CBO’s method for measuring the distributional effects of a tax on carbon emissions and the agency’s rationale for choosing that method, while also comparing it with CBO’s prior method and methods used by other researchers.

CBO outlines the main channels by which climate change and policies intended to mitigate or adapt to it affect the federal budget. Climate change increases budget deficits; investments in mitigation or adaptation could reduce those costs.

This paper describes how CBO constructed its projection of the effect of climate change on U.S. output, how the projected effect should be interpreted, limitations of the analysis, and the central climate-change scenario that CBO used.

Expected annual economic losses from most types of damage caused by hurricane winds and storm-related flooding total $54 billion—$34 billion in losses to households, $9 billion to commercial businesses, and $12 billion to the public sector.