Abstract This paper provides an overview on literature dealing with an economic assessment of expected global warming damage. While a relatively large body of literature exists on other economic aspects of global warming, in particular the costs of carbon abatement, the question of greenhouse damage valuation has gained little attention so far. The first part of the paper surveys the results of existing analyses on the costs of global warming. The second part discusses the main shortcomings of these studies and the main problems faced by researchers in this area.