MACCs: Marginal Abatement Cost Curve Reports

The document describes Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs) as tools for assessing the cost and abatement potential of mitigation options. It details three calculation approaches—Partial, Retrospective, and Integrated Systems—and specifies that LEAP supports the Partial and Retrospective methods. The guide provides technical instructions for configuring MACC reports in LEAP, including scenario selection, variable definition for social costs and global warming potential, and the process for refreshing and exporting results.

• Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs) visualize cumulative emissions reductions against the incremental cost per unit of reduction, allowing users to identify low or negative cost options and those with the highest mitigation potential.
• There are three primary methods for constructing MACCs: the Partial Approach, which evaluates options independently; the Retrospective Approach, which accounts for interdependence by iteratively calculating results relative to a no-policy baseline; and the Integrated Systems Approach, which uses a cost-minimizing optimization model to determine the least-cost solution for a total energy system.
• LEAP software implements MACCs using either the Partial Approach or the Retrospective Approach, but it does not currently support the Integrated Systems Approach for plotting MACC curves.
• Configuring MACC reports in LEAP requires selecting a counterfactual scenario, defining variables for social costs and impacts (defaulting to total system-wide social costs and 100-year global warming potential), and ensuring that selected scenarios are not packages of other included scenarios to avoid calculation errors.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). MACCs: Marginal Abatement Cost Curve Reports. https://leap.sei.org/Help24/Views/Marginal_Abatement_Cost_Curve_(MACC)_Reports.htm

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. MACCs: Marginal Abatement Cost Curve Reports. n.d. https://leap.sei.org/Help24/Views/Marginal_Abatement_Cost_Curve_(MACC)_Reports.htm.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=MACCs: Marginal Abatement Cost Curve Reports |url=https://leap.sei.org/Help24/Views/Marginal_Abatement_Cost_Curve_(MACC)_Reports.htm |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendmaccs, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{MACCs: Marginal Abatement Cost Curve Reports}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://leap.sei.org/Help24/Views/Marginal_Abatement_Cost_Curve_(MACC)_Reports.htm}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }