As we think about cutting emissions to reduce the rate of climate change, it raises the question of costs. What are the relative costs of prevention vs paying for the damages if we do nothing? Fortunately for us, the answers to these questions have been carefully calculated at the global level, but we do need answers at the local level as well.
On the global level, the frequency and intensity of storms, floods, droughts, and wildfire have been increasing around the world because of human-caused climate change. In 2017 climate disasters in the US cost us over $300 billion. Globally, the costs of climate disasters are now over $16 million per hour (Newman and Noy 2023). The EPA reports that each ton of CO2 we emit costs the world $204 in climate damages. So that comes to $12 trillion in climate damage costs every year. The IPCC* reports that human activities are now putting over 59 Gigatons of CO2 eq into the atmosphere annually.
Dr. Stefan Sommer is with the Center for Adaptable Western Landscapes at Northern Arizona University and the Northern Arizona Climate Change Alliance, .
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