Corporate America’s Carbon Bill: $87 Trillion And Counting

The cost of climate inaction by U.S. companies could exceed $87 trillion by 2050, Mark Gongloff wrote in a Bloomberg Opinion column, citing new research from the University of Chicago’s Booth School and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Economists have long warned that the cost of ignoring climate change will dwarf the cost of mitigation, and this new study sharpens that point.

The figure—131% of current U.S. corporate equity value—is the estimated “social cost” of carbon emissions from American firms over the next quarter century. Economists have long warned that the cost of ignoring climate change will dwarf the cost of mitigation, and this new study sharpens that point.

Other recent research underscores the threat. The National Bureau of Economic Research projects a 12% global GDP loss for every 1°C of warming above pre-industrial levels.

And a separate study from Dartmouth and Stanford found that just 111 fossil fuel companies caused $28 trillion in global damages between 1991 and 2020—led by Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, and Chevron.

While Biden’s EPA set the carbon cost at $190 per ton for 2020 emissions, the Trump administration has consistently downplayed the figure, at times suggesting it was as low as $1—or eliminating it from policy discussions entirely.