"The US has caused an eye-watering $10tn in global damages to the world over the past three decades through its vast planet-heating emissions, with a quarter of this economic pain inflicted upon itself, new research has found.
China, now the world’s largest emitter, is responsible for $9tn in GDP damage since 1990, according to the findings of the paper."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/25/us-climate-damage-research
"Developing countries have called for wealthier nations, which have emitted most of the greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution, to assist them financially to deal with loss and damage stemming from disastrous heatwaves, floods, droughts and crop failures worsened by escalating temperatures.
The US has long resisted the idea of being held legally liable for its planet-heating pollution."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/25/us-climate-damage-research
From the Nature paper:
"One tonne of CO2 emitted in 1990 caused US$180 in discounted global damages by 2020 ($40–530) and will cause an additional $1,840 through 2100 ($500–5,700). Thus, settling debts for past damages will not settle debts for past emissions.
In other illustrative estimates, a single long-haul flight per year over the past decade leads to about $25k ($6,000–77,000) in future damages by 2100."
A new framework links specific emissions to monetized, location-specific climate damages, showing that future harms from past CO2 emissions far exceed historical damages and that delayed carbon removal cannot fully offset these losses.
"The economic damage yet to come from carbon dioxide emitted decades ago far exceeds the harm it has wrought so far.
Emissions tied to the production and use of oil between 1988 and 2015 by Saudi Aramco, the world's single largest corporate emitter, resulted in $3 trillion in global damages by 2020, the study found. If those emissions remain in the atmosphere through the end of the century, the damage could rise more than 20-fold to $64 trillion."
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-co8322-emissions-bigger-future-economic.html
The economic damage yet to come from carbon dioxide emitted decades ago far exceeds the harm it has wrought so far, according to a new Stanford University study. The research, published in Nature, puts a dollar value on the harm done to individual nations and the world by carbon dioxide emitted over time by countries and major companies.
If I understand the Nature paper correctly, it seems to be saying that the social cost of carbon SO FAR is $ 180 per tonne (could be anywhere between $40 and $530).
But the longer-term social cost, to 2100) is $180 + $1840 = $2020 per tonne.
And the damage doesn't stop after 2100.
In a word: Yikes.
A new framework links specific emissions to monetized, location-specific climate damages, showing that future harms from past CO2 emissions far exceed historical damages and that delayed carbon removal cannot fully offset these losses.
Looking *beyond 2100* you find even more costs.
CelloMom On Cars