CRED V.1.3 TECHNICAL REPORT

The CRED V.1.3 Technical Report describes the methodology of the Climate and Regional Economics of Development (CRED) model, an integrated assessment model designed to estimate the optimal pace of climate mitigation investment and its global cost distribution. Version 1.3, completed in June 2011, focuses on the distribution of climate damages and policy costs across nine global regions to inform international climate negotiations.

• CRED v.1.3 is an integrated assessment model that projects global climate and development scenarios over a 300-year period, starting from a 2005 base year, with calculations performed at 10-year intervals.
• The model divides the world into nine regions: three high-income (United States, Europe, and Other high-income) and six developing (Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East, Russia and non-EU Eastern Europe, Africa, China, and Other developing Asia).
• The climate module uses DICE 2007 equations for climate dynamics and is re-calibrated to match MAGICC model results for five WRE scenarios. It uses a default climate sensitivity parameter of 3.0°C, representing the temperature increase resulting from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
• The economy module employs a Cobb-Douglas production function where mitigation investment (green capital) is assumed to be half as productive of income as standard investment (s = 0.5). Total capital is constrained to be non-decreasing for the first 250 years of any scenario.
• CRED v.1.3 offers four damage function options based on different estimates for low and high temperatures, incorporating views from Nordhaus, Hanemann, and Weitzman. Global damages are then distributed among regions using a vulnerability index based on agriculture and tourism GDP share, coastal population (below 5 meters), and freshwater resources per person.
• Abatement costs and potentials are derived from McKinsey 2030 cost curves, modified to exclude negative-cost opportunities. The model assumes that technological progress will make 100 percent abatement of industrial emissions possible in every region by 2105.
• The model is an optimization tool using the GAMS non-linear solver to maximize a global utility function, which is the discounted sum of the logarithms of regional per capita consumption weighted by population. The default rate of pure time preference (ρ) is 0.1 percent per year.

APA

ACKERMAN, F., STANTON, E. A., & BUENO, R. (2012). CRED V.1.3 TECHNICAL REPORT. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate-mitigation-adaptation/Economics_of_climate_policy/SEI-CRED13-Tech-Report.pdf

Chicago

ACKERMAN, FRANK, ELIZABETH A. STANTON, and RAMÓN BUENO. CRED V.1.3 TECHNICAL REPORT. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2012. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate-mitigation-adaptation/Economics_of_climate_policy/SEI-CRED13-Tech-Report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=ACKERMAN |first1=FRANK |last2=STANTON |first2=ELIZABETH A. |last3=BUENO |first3=RAMÓN |title=CRED V.1.3 TECHNICAL REPORT |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=25 January 2012 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate-mitigation-adaptation/Economics_of_climate_policy/SEI-CRED13-Tech-Report.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ackerman2012cred, author = {ACKERMAN, FRANK and STANTON, ELIZABETH A. and BUENO, RAMÓN}, title = {{CRED V.1.3 TECHNICAL REPORT}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2012}, month = jan, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate-mitigation-adaptation/Economics_of_climate_policy/SEI-CRED13-Tech-Report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }