[updated] Global development interventions are generally more effective than climate change interventions

Abstract

Does climate change deserve more attention within the effective altruism community?[1] What is more effective: climate change interventions to avert emissions per tonne or single recipient global development interventions such as cash transfers? Are targeted interventions to more fundamentally transform the lives of the poorest more effective than supplying broad global public goods such as a stable climate with comparatively small benefits to everyone on the planet? To answer these questions, the following question is crucial: “What value should we use for the social cost of carbon to adequately reflect the greater marginal utility of consumption for low-income people?”[2] Here, I tried to answer this question. Surprisingly, I find that global development interventions are generally more effective than climate change interventions. My spreadsheet model below shows that climate change interventions are only more effective than global development interventions, if and only if: Money is worth only 100 times as much to the global poor than people in high-income countries (i.e. if utility to consumption is logarithmic) and not moreAND climate change interventions are very effective (less than $1 per tonne of carbon averted) AND/ORunder quite pessimistic assumptions about climate change (if the social cost of carbon is higher than $1000 per tonne of carbon).