Our planet’s climate will change dramatically over the coming century, but it’s hard to say exactly how. A new study might give us a glimpse of who will pay the cost of it, however. A quartet of scientists has predicted the cost each country will have to pay due to the next century of climate change, and according to the data, the United States will have to foot one of the biggest bills.

The paper in question tries to calculate something called the ‘social cost of carbon’ for every country. The social cost of carbon is a number that attempts to quantify all the damages caused by climate change, including agricultural loss, damage from storms and flooding, and increased energy costs.

It’s impossible to know all of these numbers specifically and in advance, which is why the social cost of carbon is an estimate, not a fixed value. But that estimate is based on years of detailed models and predictions of the future effects of climate change, so the costs this group of researchers calculated are about as accurate as it gets.

The researchers calculated just how much money each country would have to pay per ton of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere, and they found that the U.S. ends up paying the second highest price, at around $48 per ton. The worst damage is done to India, which pays nearly twice as much per ton of CO2. Other sufferers include China and Saudi Arabia.

There are also other costs of climate change not taken into consideration by the calculations, such as costs incurred by incoming climate refugees and impacts due to trade. This means that the social cost of carbon is likely an underestimate for the amount that we’ll actually end up paying.

But even without taking those extra costs into account, this estimate suggests the United States could end up paying nearly a trillion dollars per year by 2100 if we do nothing about climate change. That’s a cost we simply can’t afford.

Source: Nature via Ars Technica

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