Surprise! Study Shows Economic Damage From Warming Far Higher Than US Govt Estimates - Nature
The economic toll of deadly heat waves, crop-killing droughts and rising seas that each additional ton of carbon dioxide levies on society is much higher than the U.S. government tallies when considering new regulations, according to a new analysis published Thursday. A sobering paper in the journal Nature on the damage caused by climate change brings into relief the threat that higher temperatures pose on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people at home and overseas.
The research team’s key finding: Each additional ton of carbon dioxide that cars, power plants and other sources add to the atmosphere costs society $185 — more than triple the federal government’s current figure.
The new study calculating climate change’s economic toll — known as the “social cost of carbon” — could renew pressure on President Biden to hike the federal government’s own estimate, a crucial number used by officials when assessing the potential costs and benefits of government regulations.
“The bottom line is that our results show that when you fully update the social cost of carbon methodology to the state of the science, it suggests that the existing estimates that are in use by the federal government are vastly underestimating the harm,” said Kevin Rennert, a research fellow at the think tank Resources for the Future and a co-author of the paper.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/01/costs-climate-change-far-surpass-government-estimates-study-says/
