SOURCE: Inside Climate News
DATE: September 24, 2018
SNIP: The United States stands to lose a lot more from climate change than it realizes.
In a study published Monday, scientists estimate for the first time how much each country around the world will suffer in future economic damage from each new ton of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere. What they found may come as a surprise: the future economic costs within the U.S. borders are the second-highest in the world, behind only India.
The results suggest that the U.S. has been underestimating how much it benefits from reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and that the country has far more to gain from international climate agreements than the Trump administration is willing to admit.
“Our analysis demonstrates that the argument that the primary beneficiaries of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions would be other countries is a total myth,” said lead author Kate Ricke, an assistant professor at the University of San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.