US, India and Saudi Arabia worst hit by climate change

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Europe

The US, India, and Saudi Arabia are likely to suffer the hardest impacts of climate change in the coming years, a new study claims.

Researchers have for the first time prepared a data set quantifying the country-specific contribution to the social cost of carbon (SCC). The data help in measuring the economic loss from carbon dioxide emissions.

The data will help around 169 countries understand the impact of emission on a country's economy. The data rank Brazil fourth in the list followed by China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The study found India's SCC is the highest at 86 US dollars per ton of carbon dioxide emission. In the US, it's at 48 dollars followed by Saudi Arabia at around 47 US dollars. Brazil, China, and the UAE's SCC are at 24 US dollars.

The study, titled "Country-level social cost of carbon" and published in Nature journal, maintains that nearly five billion metric tons of carbon dioxide the US emits each year is costing their economy about 250 billion US dollars.

"Evaluating the economic cost associated with climate is valuable on a number of fronts, as these estimates are used to inform US environmental regulation and rulemakings," said the lead author of the study, University of California San Diego assistant professor Kate Ricke.

Countries, for example, claim that carbon dioxide causes relatively little harm to the economy, which can more easily justify rollbacks to the public on environmental regulation.

Previous studies had focused on carbon dioxide as a global pollutant, and calculated the global social cost of carbon. The present research provides a country-by-country breakdown of the economic damage global warming is causing.

"Our analysis demonstrates that the argument that the primary beneficiaries of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions would be other countries is a total myth," Ricke said.

Northern Europe, Canada and Russia have negative cost of SCC values. This is because their current temperatures are below the economic optimum, the study found.

"We consistently find, through hundreds of uncertainty scenarios, that the US always has one of the highest country-level SCCs. It makes a lot of sense because the larger your economy is, the more you have to lose," Ricke explained.

"Still, it's surprising just how consistently the US is one of the biggest losers, even when compared to other large economies," she added.

(Smoke billows from the chimneys of Belchatow Power Station, Europe's biggest coal-fired power plant, May 7, 2009. /VCG Photo)