Collapsed houses lie on the beach after a storm surge in Hemsby, eastern England, 6 December 2013. Parts of England’s east coast, from Yorkshire to Essex are vulnerable to stronger storms and rising sea levels due to climate change.
Credit: Darren Staples/Reuters

The Trump administration faces likely legal challenges as it looks to exploit a crucial tool for evaluating the economic cost of climate change in an effort to justify plans to unravel environmental rules.

The idea behind the so-called “social cost of carbon” is that estimating the economic damages from every additional ton of greenhouse gas emissions allows regulators to more accurately assess the costs and benefits of public policies. Michael Greenstone, previously a chief economist for Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, has called it “the most important number that you’ve never heard of.”

But in late March, President Trump issued an executive order that called for disbanding President Obama’s social cost of carbon working group, withdrawing the documents underpinning the current estimates, and directing agencies to consult […]

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