That the newly minted POTUS signed an executive order on Day 1 to begin the process of pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord certainly wasn’t a shock. In his first go round in office, President Donald Trump pulled the same stunt and his negative views on climate change are well known.Never mind that the planet just experienced its hottest year on record and Earth just experienced its warmest January ever. Never mind the horrific wildfires that raged in Southern California, brought on partly by weather whiplash. Never mind two devastating hurricanes – Helene and Milton – laying waste in their paths last year. Never mind that 2024 produced 18 named storms including five major hurricanes.All of this is lost on the President who will never be swayed that greenhouse gas is responsible for the warming of the planet.
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And among the piles of executive orders Trump has signed is one that could potentially do grave damage to world efforts to get a grip on rising temperatures across the planet.It has to do with something called “the social cost of carbon.” There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of it. The social cost of carbon attempts to estimate the financial economic damage of adding one ton of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Here in the U.S. the EPA is the primary number cruncher.Everybody uses SCC – local, state and federal governmental agencies – to make billions of dollars in policy decisions.And while there are ongoing disagreements about whether the social cost of carbon is too high or too low, just about everyone acknowledges the need to quantify climate change outcomes.Put another way: folks acknowledge climate change causes financial and social havoc and want to measure it.During the Obama administration, the SCC was about $50. During Donald Trump’s first presidency, it fell to $7 because the administration only considered the SCC of the U.S. rather than a global metric. The Biden Administration then shifted back to a global standard, estimating it at $190 a metric ton of carbon dioxide.But what if the social cost of carbon is set at zero?On Jan. 2, the President signed an executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy.” The oder attacks the validity of the social cost of carbon, saying it is:“…marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundati