LONDON (The Guardian) - The U.S. has inflicted more than $1.9tn in damage to other countries from the effects of its greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis that has provided the first measurement of nations’ liability in stoking the climate crisis.
The huge volume of planet-heating gases pumped out by the U.S., the largest historical emitter, has caused such harm to other, mostly poor, countries through heatwaves, crop failures and other consequences that the U.S. is responsible for $1.91tn in lost global income since 1990, the study found.
This puts the U.S. ahead of China, currently the world’s leading emitter, Russian, India and Brazil as the next largest contributors to global economic damage through their emissions. Combined, these five leading culprits have caused a total of $6tn in losses worldwide, or about 11% of annual global GDP, since 1990 by fueling climate breakdown.
The Dartmouth researchers combined a number of different models, showing factors such as emissions, local climate conditions and economic changes, to ascertain the precise impact of an individual country’s contribution to the climate crisis. They looked for these links over a period spanning 1990 to 2014, with the research published in the journal Climatic Change.
Developing countries and climate activists have pushed for “loss and damage” payments to be made to those who are suffering the most from global heating through heatwaves, floods and drought. But the US, which is responsible for around a quarter of all emissions to date, has resisted setting up such a fund, citing fears that it would be held legally liable for the damages caused by its voracious appetite for fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas.