Is EPA fudging numbers on social cost of emissions?

“Social cost” of carbon – the economic impact of carbon emissions on a society– is reflective of how a menace comes back to sting its creators. A new study, published in Nature Climate Change, estimates that a ton of carbon dioxide emitted by the U.S. costs it $48, which is nearly eight times the figures approximated by the Trump administration’s EPA.

The study gives another reason to the developed economies like the U.S. to curtail carbon emissions, simply in self-interest, if not in empathy for the environment or the rest of the world, notes Earther.

The study ranks the U.S., India and Saudi Arabia as the top three countries based on the scale of economic damage that climate change would inflict, reports Science Daily. The findings debunk a common perception that reductions in carbon emissions in major emitters have bigger incentives for other countries.