Nearly $2 trillion in damage inflicted on other countries by US emissions

Cars on the 101 freeway in Los Angeles. Wealthy countries have dawdled on a promise to provide $100bn in climate aid to vulnerable countries. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

The US has inflicted more than $1.9tn in damage to other countries from the effects of its greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis that has provided the first measurement of nations’ liability in stoking the climate crisis.

The huge volume of planet-heating gases pumped out by the US, the largest historical emitter, has caused such harm to other, mostly poor, countries through heatwaves, crop failures and other consequences that the US is responsible for $1.91tn in lost global income since 1990, the study found.