Climate Damages to the U.S. Economy from U.S. Transportation Emissions

Summary/Abstract

This study uses an “end-to-end” climate damage attribution method to estimate climate damages to the U.S. economy that are attributable to the U.S. transportation sector. To estimate the damages, the authors relied on peer-reviewed methods to complete the multi-step analysis: “(1) simulate the contribution of U.S. transport sector emissions to global mean surface temperature (GMST) change via a ‘leave-one-out’ experimental design, and (2) estimate the U.S. economic damages incurred from that U.S. transport sector-driven warming.”

The study estimates the damages from the U.S. transportation sector to be $68.0 billion between 1973-2023 and concludes that “damages will continue to accrue from the warming attributable to those historical emissions.”