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The authors analyze the FUND model, which provided a significantly lower Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimate of $6 compared to other models like DICE ($28) and PAGE ($30). By disaggregating the model, they find that the low SCC is primarily driven by a large estimated net benefit in agriculture, largely due to CO2 fertilization. The paper identifies three technical issues in FUND's agricultural modeling: a risk of division by zero in the optimum temperature equation, the use of physically implausible temperature ranges in Monte Carlo analysis, and the use of truncated normal distributions that inflate the carbon fertilization effect. The authors argue that updating FUND with recent empirical research—which suggests smaller CO2 fertilization benefits and non-quadratic temperature impacts—would significantly increase the SCC estimate.

The study finds no general statistical relationship between forest resources and the onset or duration of civil wars at the national level. While some disaggregated results suggest that proximity to the coast may prolong conflicts in forested zones, the authors conclude that the perceived link between forests and conflict is largely driven by a few specific cases, such as Burma, rather than a global pattern.