TIME: "It's Crucial for the US to Figure out How Much Carbon Emissions Are Costing All of Us"
A story about the nuances of the social cost of carbon quotes Brian Prest, RFF fellow and director of RFF's Social Cost of Carbon Initiative.
The number is more important than ever after a Supreme Court ruling June 30, 2022, that curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to set emissions caps for power plants. That had been a key driver in cutting emissions over the last decade, says Brian Prest, an economist and fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Resources for the Future. So the social cost of carbon gives the agency a metric for assessing the costs and benefits of new and existing tools it uses to replace what the court struck down, he says.
