Climate Damage Is ‘Locked In’. The Bill for Carbon Is Rising Faster Than India’s Price for It.
AI generated image
Past emissions have already locked in a measure of future climate damage, but how much more depends on what governments do now. That is the central message of the 10 New Insights in Climate Science 2026, published on 6 October by Future Earth, The Earth League and the World Climate Research Programme. More than 70 scientists from nearly 30 countries contributed, and it is timed to reach negotiators before COP31 in Türkiye.
What the science now says
Overshooting the 1.5°C limit, the authors warn, carries rapidly escalating risks of irreversible change in oceans, glaciers and permafrost, and some sea-level rise is already beyond reversal. The oceans are absorbing record amounts of heat: Euronews, reporting on the findings, noted that global sea surface temperatures reached a record 21.1°C in August.
Freshwater is also under strain. The report describes continental drying, in which climate change and growing water use are cutting freshwater availability across continents, and it calls for integrated water management and the restoration of wetlands, rivers and forests.
The most consequential finding for policy is economic. Using more realistic, up-to-date climate models, the report says, produces a social cost of carbon up to four times higher than earlier estimates, so each additional tonne of CO2 carries added risk. The authors add that attribution science can now link a single large emitter to warming and potentially to specific losses, which could strengthen climate litigation and compensation claims.
A higher social cost of carbon widens the gap between what emissions cost society and what they cost the emitter.
Where India sits
The report backs ‘climate clubs’: groups of countries aligning climate and trade policy, often through carbon border taxes meant to stop firms relocating to weaker jurisdictions. It also cautions that such clubs can penalise developing countries that lack the money, technology or tools to cut emissions, and suggests richer nations pair tougher rules with support.
For India, that is not hypothetical. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase in January 2026. According to the Observer Research Foundation, EU importers of Indian steel, aluminium and fertilisers now bear a cost priced off the EU carbon market, which stood at around €75 a tonne in March.
India’s own price is far lower. ORF estimates prices under the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme at roughly $11 to $15 a tonne, against a CBAM certificate price of €75.28, about $87, in the second quarter of 2026. It judges the gap too wide for domestic credits to offset the border charge, and reports that India’s iron and steel exports to the EU had fallen 13 per cent between the January rollout and April.
The social-cost debate adds a domestic dimension. Earlier country-level research by Ricke and colleagues, published in Nature Climate Change in 2018, ranked India first among countries bearing the highest cost from each tonne of CO2 emitted globally. If the new estimates hold, India has more to lose from under-priced carbon worldwide than any other economy in that ranking, and a stronger case for the finance and technology support the report says climate clubs require.
What to watch
Three threads are worth following into COP31. The first is whether negotiators fold the higher social cost into climate finance discussions. The second is whether Brussels treats Indian carbon pricing as creditable against CBAM, which would narrow the gap ORF describes. The third is the water finding, which lands hardest in a country that leans heavily on groundwater for irrigation and has few cheap substitutes.
The report also warns that conflict is making the transition more unequal. Energy security shocks such as the war on Iran and the war in Ukraine have prompted some countries to invest in renewables as a buffer and others to expand fossil fuel supply, and the authors see a risk of blocs walling off politically unstable economies. For India, the practical question is whether its carbon price can rise fast enough to keep exporters competitive.
