After running an independent analysis, USA’s Economics for Equity and Environment (E3), the network of economists that published the report ‘Climate Risks and Carbon Prices: Revising the Social Cost of Carbon‘, found that in 2010, one ton of CO2 in the atmosphere did up to US$893 in economic damage—more than 12 times the US Government’s highest estimate.
By 2050, the group says, these costs could rise up to US$1,550 per ton of CO2 emitted. (A ton of CO2 is approximately what you release into the atmosphere by driving a car for two-and-a-half months.) While the government agencies acknowledge that their estimates are “imperfect and incomplete,” E3 says they also omit “many of the biggest risks associated with climate change” and downplay “the impact of our current emissions on future generations.”