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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 13/03/2026

Furthermore, California's gasoline prices are rising similarly to that of other U.S. regions, as shown in the plot below. This counters arguments that California's policies such as cap-and-invest are worsening the gas price impact of the Iran bombings. 3/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 19/09/2025

Governor Newsom just reauthorized California’s centerpiece climate policy - cap and invest - for the next two decades, reducing pollution and electricity prices in the world’s 4th biggest economy. This is now the US’ most important climate policy.

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 22/08/2025

#2: Extends C&T to 2045. Previous bills sets 10 year periods. And every 10 years the carbon price crashes because of reauthorization uncertainty (as happening now). Decarbonization investments are made over longer horizons and need more durable policy. AB 1207 extends C&T from 2030-2045. 4/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 22/08/2025

And it has worked to far. GHGs, air pollution & their disparities have fallen because of C&T, as my research shows. Moving forward, it is crucial to reaffirm C&T's foundational elements that ensure affordable GHG reductions and environmental integrity. This bill reauthorizes those pieces. 3/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 24/06/2025

What about US govt revenue? Authors' cite their calculation that FPFA raises $198B over 5 years. But their accounting exercise makes a crucial assumption: trade volumes don't change under carbon tariffs. FPFA increase tariffs on some goods by 100%! Will imports really not fall? 4/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 24/06/2025

Look at iron/steel. This scatter from my upcoming paper plots country GHG intensities vs U.S. import penetration for iron/steel. PRC imports serves <2% of U.S. consumption. And PRC consumes 94% of own iron/steel. So trade too little for U.S. carbon tariffs to have much leverage. 3/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 07/06/2025

Clever California legislation back during Trump 1. www.politico.com/story/2018/0...

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 06/06/2025

California electricity prices are too high, even accounting for GHG and air pollution damages from the power sector. Comparison from latest IEMAC report below. Climate policy costs itself plays a small role. Much of increased prices are from higher distribution costs, such as from wildfires. 2/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 19/05/2025

These price reductions would be larger with more funding, either from additional C&T permit revenue or other state funds. Figure shows reductions for any funding amount. Subsidies can also target different populations and times of year. 5/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 19/05/2025

California electricity prices are too high, even taking into account climate and pollution damages. This makes it harder for folks to afford their energy bills & discourage the switch to cleaner electric options like electric cars, heat pumps, and other appliances (Fig from latest IEMAC report). 2/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 02/05/2025

85% of countries experience lower GHGs as a result of this feedback. For a sense of magnitude, adaptation-induced GHG cuts lower what these countries must do to meet Paris GHG commitments by 20%. This "free" abatement suggests Paris commitments need to be more stringent. 4/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 02/05/2025

How could this be? Climate change increases summer demand for cooling & lowers winter demand for heating. Depending on a place's energy mix, GHGs can go up or down. After summing local impacts across the planet using high resolution data, we find total energy-based adaptation lowers GHGs. 3/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 02/05/2025

The answer? This feedback is actually negative. Energy-based adaptation around the planet lowers global temperatures by 0.07 to 0.12C in 2099. This adaptation-induced cooling avoids $0.6 to $1.8 trillion in damages between 2020-2099. 2/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 10/04/2025

Aggregate US prices rise by 5%. Sectors with >8% US price increase are metals, clothing, electronics, food, chemicals, and other industrial products. /n

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 10/04/2025

US imports from PRC fall by 82%, but still >10% drop from Canada, Mexico, Japan, and S. Korea because of 10% universal + 25% sectoral tariffs. US and Mexico GDP fall by 0.8%, followed by drop of 0.5% in Canada and 0.3% in PRC. 2/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 10/04/2025

Latest rapid GE trade modeling run: 145% PRC tariffs, 10% universal tariffs, 25% steel/alum/cars tariffs, 84% PRC retaliation Headline: US GDP falls 0.8%, US prices rise 5%, $220B revenue How are other countries affected? Which sectors see highest US price increases? 🧵 1/ #econsky

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 03/04/2025

(4) Let's dive deeper into price increases in the US. Left fig. shows distribution of US price increases by sector. Right fig. shows sectors with the highest increases. Note lots of intermediate goods which will translate onto higher final good prices (we don't model input-output linkages).

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 03/04/2025

(3) What about country prices and GDP? Prices fall everywhere except for the US, where the average price increase is 9.6%. GDP falls in most places with US GDP decreasing by 1%.

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 03/04/2025

(2) What happens to US imports? Country-level change in US imports correlated with tariff. We see large 20-40% drops. But some countries/regions with low or zero tariffs (e.g., Russia) will import more to the US.

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 03/04/2025

(1) Rapid GE trade modeling returns for April 2nd tariffs. We model: April 2nd tariffs + 25% on CAN/MEX imports + 20% on PRC imports + 25% on iron/steel/alum/cars. Fig. shows total tariff by country. Avg. is 20.4%, about 10X pre-Trump rates. What are US and foreign country impacts?

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 03/04/2025

Here is actual recent ad-valorem tariffs on US exports by partner country from WITS (2.4=2.4%). Shown are simple averages across sectors for AHS and MFN rates. Actual rates are an order of magnitude smaller than Trump claims. Adding other trade barriers and manipulation won't increase much. 2/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 03/04/2025

Puzzled by where Trump's numbers on tariffs charged on US exports come from? Do they seem oddly high? Especially given all this talk about how trade is too liberalized? What are actual tariffs charged on US exports? 1/ @econsky

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 25/03/2025

Seen alongside Las Vegas highway. A message from Canada. Is this service trade itself tariffed?

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

But CT also did something very smart during the drought. It introduced income-varying fixed charges! Fixed charges, which economists have long argued for efficiency reasons, led to more equal cost sharing after the drought. 9/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

Exhibit 4: Groundwater depths We also see groundwater tables falling much faster during the drought in richer neighborhoods. This drop of about 1 meter/year in groundwater levels rivals that of some of the fastest depleting aquifers in the world. 8/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

Exhibit 3: Groundwater drilling What we do see is a large increase in groundwater drilling permits. And much more so from richer households. 7/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

Exhibit 2: Remotely-sensed measures of outdoor water use Most likely cut to water use would come from outdoor watering. Satellite-based measures of outdoor "greenness" (ie NDVI) should show a similar convergence during drought by income. But we don't see that. 6/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

Exhibit 1: Piped water use by income. Before drought, richer households used more piped water. During drought, everyone used less piped water, but usage by richer households fell a lot more. Amazingly, convergence in piped water use persisted even after the drought and its policies ended. 5/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

Yet, incredibly, Cape Town, through a combination of higher prices, restrictions and social campaigns, eventually avoided Day Zero. Reservoir levels started recovering in 2018. Our paper is about what happened. And the longer-term consequences. A story in 4 figures... 4/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

98% of the city's water comes from reservoirs. Here's what the largest reservoir looked like at normal times and at the height of the drought. 3/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 18/02/2025

In the mid-2010s following a decade of low rain, Cape Town, a city of 4M people and one of the most unequal in the world, announced it may soon run out of piped water. This started the countdown to "Day Zero" in 2017. 2/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 10/02/2025

What about alum output elsewhere? Top shows cntry/region's import as share of U.S. consumption before 25% tariffs. US import mostly from CAN and EU. Bot. shows cntry/region's pct change in output after tariffs. CAN, MEX hit hardest. Disparity from top b/c of differing access to other markets. 5/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 10/02/2025

What about iron/steel output elsewhere? Top shows cntry/region's import as share of U.S. consumption before 25% tariffs. US import mostly from CAN, EU, MEX, Asia, BRA. Bot. shows cntry/region's pct change in output after tariffs. CAN, MEX hit hardest. 3/

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 22/01/2025

@ezrakleinbot.bsky.social on the new political system we've just entered. Two possible worlds: either actual laws don't matter or they do but it is politically sufficient to pretend they don't matter. I don't like either worlds. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/o...

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 21/01/2025

On Trump and EVs, helpful reporting distinguishing EO bluster vs. challenges of actually rolling back policies. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/b...

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 08/01/2025

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 05/12/2024

From EIA using data from Wards Intelligence. EV share of new car sales continues to fall. Oh dear...

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 26/11/2024

Previous chart showed only products with price increases >2%. Model actually produces US price increases across all products given broadness of Trump tariffs. Here's the histogram of price changes across the model's ~200 products. Lots of stuff get more expensive.

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 26/11/2024

Model solves for new U.S. consumer prices for all products. Here are products with US price increases >2%, up to 13%. Lots of industrial inputs & food products, unsurprisingly given CAN/MEX/PRC imports. Model doesn't have input-output linkages, so prices for downstream products may rise more. 2/3

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 14/11/2024

Hmmm... shall we take a look at where Tesla's plants are vs. where other OEM plants are?

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 31/10/2024

Today is my last day as Senior Climate Economist at the White House CEA. It has been the privilege of my career to serve my country with such dedicated & talented USG colleagues on all things climate, energy, & environment. Returning to @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social and starting anew on BlueSky.

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