Nordic emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution still cause great damage to the climate, the natural environment, public health and the wider economy. But there is a lack of knowledge about how large the damage costs are and may become in the future, and the climate damage costs of air pollution are still excluded in existing academic and governmental guideline values on damage costs. The calculation and use of damage cost is an important input for governments as well as companies when designing new environmental policies or more sustainable products and services. Incomplete damage costs can therefore lead to misguided decisions, and it is therefore important to strive for more complete damage costs than currently available.
In the project presented in this report we have made an effort to make current damage cost estimates of the air pollutants known as short-lived climate forcers (SLCF) more complete by adding their climate change damage costs on top of already established damage costs to calculate total and scenario-specific damage costs for the Nordic countries. We used publicly available data and projections on Nordic SLCF emissions, peer-reviewed data on climate impact of SLCF, as well as the latest updated data on climate change damage costs per tonne of methane-equivalent emissions. For the more short-lived emissions, we adjusted the climate change damage cost to better reflect the temporal profile of the damages. We also discussed key uncertainties related to our calculations. Finally, we compared our calculations with corresponding calculations for CO2 damage costs and calculated monetary benefits of reducing SLCF emissions further.
Our results show that climate damage costs of SLCFs are substantial and are likely to become higher in the future, despite projected emission reductions. By 2040, our scenario analysis show that SLCF climate damage costs will be ~600 million €2020 per year, ~250 million per year, ~600 million per year, and ~240 million per year for Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. These costs constitute some 15–25% of the total damage costs of SLCF emissions from these countries, the remaining 75–85% origins from damages to human health and the environment. Iceland is an interesting exception with high levels of cooling SO2 emissions. For Iceland the SLCF climate damage costs are therefore in 2040 negative (i.e. socio-economically beneficial). When comparing with remaining CO2 damage costs in ambitious national CO2 scenarios, CO2 emissions constitute 70% of the damage and SLCF emissions 30%. But if CO2 emissions will continue to go down as nationally projected by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden, the damage costs of SLCF emissions will be as important as remaining CO2 damage costs by 2050.