As a society we are very vulnerable to climate extremes. The effects from climate change such as rising sea levels or more frequent and intense storms have disastrous effect on human lives, but also the cost of recovery and mitigation will get higher in the future.
When taking a look at the economic consequences of climate change, lowering CO2-emissions now is a lot cheaper than dealing with the effects of climate change in the future.
[The study] shows that the way in which society currently prices carbon (as a means of reducing its use and protecting future generations) is an order of magnitude too low.
out of nature, the social cost of inaction (source1 )
A study from Nature (source 2) calculated the social cost of carbon. These findings show that the cost varies highly per country , the global mean value is calculated to be $417 per tonne of CO2. This means that for every emitted tonne of CO2 the economic harm will be $417 from those impacts.
1: “social cost of inaction”. Nature 561, 433 (2018)
2: Ricke, Katharine, et al. “Country-level social cost of carbon.” Nature Climate Change 8.10 (2018): 895-900