The USA, China, Russia, India and Brazil, combined have caused a total of $6tn in losses worldwide, or about 11% of annual global GDP, since 1990 by fueling climate breakdown. The research didn’t factor things not included in GDP, such as biodiversity loss, cultural harm and deaths from disasters, meaning the damage is in reality far greater.
The USA alone has inflicted more than $1.9tn in damage to other countries from the effects of its greenhouse gas emissions. The huge volume of planet-heating gases pumped out by the US, the largest historical emitter, has caused harm to other, mostly poor, countries through heatwaves, crop failures and other consequences. Poorer countries, such as those found in the tropics or low-lying Pacific islands, have done the least to harm other nations and yet are suffering the brunt of the economic damage from climate change.
Justin Mankin, a geographer at Dartmouth and co-author of the paper explained, “There is this huge inequity. Countries like the US have disproportionately damaged low-income countries in the global south and disproportionately benefited cooler, higher income countries in the global north.”
“In places that are already hot you are seeing it becoming harder to work outside, mortality from the heat is on the rise, it’s harder to grow crops,” said Justin Mankin
The climate crisis has “escalated humanitarian crises disproportionately affecting the poor countries in the global south”, the letter states, noting that the UN estimates that as many as 3.6 billion people around the world now live in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate disasters.
Nearly $2tn of damage inflicted on other countries by US emissions | Climate crisis | The Guardian
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