Zeroing Out Climate Change: A 'Hard Look' at Trump's Social Cost of Carbon

• Date: 01 June 2018

6-2018 NEWS & ANALYSIS 48 ELR 10479

ARTICLES

Zeroing Out

Climate Change:

A “Hard Look” at

Trump’s Social

Cost of Carbon

by Doyle Elizabeth Canning

Doyle Elizabeth Canning is a second-year law fellow at

the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics and a third-

year fellow at the Environmental and Natural Resources

Law Center at the University of Oregon School of Law.

Summary

President Donald Trump has referred to climate

change as a “hoax,” and in March 2017 issued Exec-

utive Order No. 13783, Promoting Energy Inde-

pendence and Economic Growth. Section 5 of this

Order directs federal agencies to discontinue use of

the social cost of carbon (SCC), a protocol devel-

oped under the Barack Obama Administration to

monetize the impacts of climate-related disasters and

disruption. is directive sets up a conict with the

requirements of NEPA, and likely will be challenged

in the courts. is Article argues that, under exist-

ing NEPA case law, discontinuation and/or drastic

reduction of the SCC by the Trump Administration

is likely legally actionable. It examines possible liti-

gation strategies to challenge the expansion of fos-

sil fuels, presents a thorough analysis of Executive

Order No. 13783, and oers precedent for NEPA

challenges to the SCC rollback.

Climate change has costs. A 2017 study by the U.S.

Government Ac countabil ity Oce (GAO) found

that the U.S. federal government spent $350 billion

on climate change disa sters since 2007.1 GAO predicted

those costs could go as hig h as $35 billion a year by 2050,

with the Southeast facing the highest costs due to coasta l

property loss.2 Despite this ana lysis, and the growing con-

sensus within the U.S. government about the urgency of

climate change mitigation and adaptation,3 the Donald

Trump Administration associates with cl imate denialists, 4

and in March 2017, issued the pro-fossil fuels Executive

Order “Promoting E nergy Independence a nd Economic

Growth” (Climate EO).5 e president also announced

the Administration’s intent to withdraw the United States

from the Paris Agreement.6

Global temperatures are higher today tha n at any time

in the past 800,000 ye ars.7 e scientic community agrees

that this rise is due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

from industrial-scale huma n activity—notably, land use

and the combustion of carbon-based fuels.8  is carbon

pollution has tremendous social costs: more frequent and

severe weather-related disasters, the public health eects of

excess heat and smog, the displacement of entire cities due

to rising seas, water shortage, and famine—a nd increased

political volatility, as economies are disrupted, and life-

sustaining resources run dry.9

1. U.S. GAO, C C: I  P E

E C H G F E  R F E-

 (2017) (GAO-17-720), https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/687466.pdf.

2. Id.

3. E.g., D W  ., U.S. G C R P-

, C S S R: A S A A-

   U.S. G C R P (2017), https://

assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3920195/Final-Draft-of-the-Cli-

mate-Science-Special-Report.pdf.

4. See, e.g., Katie Worth, Amid U.N. Climate Talks, Trump Ocials Attend

Event Hosted by Skeptics, PBS F, Nov. 10, 2017, https://www.pbs.

org/wgbh/frontline/article/amid-u-n-climate-talks-trump-ocials-attend-

event-hosted-by-skeptics/.

5. Exec. Order No. 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic

Growth, 82 Fed. Reg. 16093 (Mar. 31, 2017) [hereinafter Climate EO],

available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-oce/2017/03/28/pres-

idential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-and-economi-1.

6. Remarks Announcing United States Withdrawal From the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement, D C.

P. D. 201700373 (June 1, 2017), https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/

DCPD-201700373/pdf/DCPD-201700373.pdf.

7. E.g., I P  C C, C C

2014, S R, C  W G I, II, 

III   F A R   I P

 C C (Rajendra K. Pachauri et al. eds., 2014), http://www.

ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/.

8. See, e.g., Andrew Grin, 15,000 Scientists Give Catastrophic Warning About

the Fate of the World in New “Letter to Humanity,” I, No v.

13, 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/letter-to-humanity-

warning-climate-change-global-warming-scientists-union-concerned-

a8052481.html.

9. E.g., Craig Welch, Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says,

N’ G, Mar. 2, 2015, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

news/2015/03/150302-syria-war-climate-change-drought/.

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