Cropper on damage caused by climate change
Brad Plumer, writing for the New York Times, reports that the so-called “social cost of carbon”, a figure estimate of the harm that can be caused by the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, is under revision by the Trump administration. Based on federal agencies’ cost-benefit analysis, “if the Trump administration can successfully claim that carbon dioxide causes relatively little harm to the economy, then it can more easily justify moves like replacing the Clean Power Plan, an ambitious Obama-era program to cut pollution from coal plants,” the analysis stated.
The government claims that the Environmental Protection Agency should solely focus on climate change damages caused within the borders of the United States and not across the globe. In addition, the calculations used put less weight on the tentative harm that climate change could cause on future generations. Faculty Associate and researcher Maureen Cropper stated that, “If you use a rate above 5 percent, you’re essentially saying that we shouldn’t worry today about anything that happens 100 years from now.” Finally, the court will decide which path to rely on.