Carbon should cost 3.6 times more than US price, study says

BY DREW COSTLEY and MATTHEW BROWN

Each ton of carbon dioxide that exits a smokestack or tailpipe is doing far more damage than what governments take into account, researchers conclude in a scientific paper published Thursday. Researchers from around the United States collaborated on a new model for calculating the social cost of carbon, a metric for determining the damage from a warming planet, and published their findings in Nature on Thursday. Currently, the Biden administration is using a social cost of carbon of $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted and faces legal challenges from states over the figure. But researchers say carbon dioxide should be priced much higher — $185 per ton emitted.