3420 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA
Tel: ++01 800-313-3774
Description of model
MERGE was designed to estimate the regional and global economic impacts of greenhouse gas reductions. The model is sufficiently to flexible to explore alternative views on a wide range of issues, such as: costs of abatement, damages from climate change, valuation and discounting. MERGE is made up of four submodels:
domestic and international economy;
energy-related emissions of greenhouse gases;
non-energy emissions of GHG's;
global climate change – market and non-market damages.
Particular relevance
The MERGE model is relevant to analysing the socio-economic impacts of climate change mitigation policies, for example through taxation measures.
Coverage
World, split into 9 regions
Model applications
Scenario of greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations - As part of this project , MERGE was used to run different climate change policy scenarios. The scenarios explore the implications of alternative stabilization levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and they explicitly consider the economic and technological foundations of such response options (http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap2-1/finalreport/default.htm).