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The Trump administration's attitude to climate change is going to hit US citizens in their pockets, as well as the atmosphere.
Donald Trump's appointee as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has in the past made claims about climate change that have been publicly refuted by meteorologists.
Even more worryingly, during his first week in office, the president ordered the EPA to remove all data about climate change from its website.
More recently, in his first joint address to Congress the President pledged to increase defence spending, at the expense of other domestic programmes excluding Medicare.
This would involve a 70 per cent cut to the budget of the EPA.
Expert Market have produced research that shows how this stance will cost the American taxpayer.
They've achieved this by cross referencing the cost projections for four major impacts of climate change with the country's Gross Domestic Produce (GDP) growth.
By 2050, they predict climate change will have cost taxpayers $506 billion (USD).
According to Expert Market it's in the states who's electoral votes were awarded to Donald Trump that will suffer most from the decisions that their President is making now.
They also calculate the cost of climate change damages will be more than 100 times the GDP of 28 states.
CFO of Expert Market told indy100
Until now much of the discussion around climate change initiatives has focused on how much of a cost burden preventative programmes are to the taxpayer, without much consideration as to what the price tag will be if no action is taken.
Our findings show that if the US continues down the dangerous route of taking a ‘business as usual’ approach to curbing climate change, the bill could be economically crippling for many states who will have to compensate for everything from property damaged by natural disasters, to health issues arising from poor air quality or pollution.
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