World's wealthiest 10% have contributed to two-thirds of global warming since 1990, study finds
World's wealthiest 10% have contributed to two-thirds of global warming since 1990, study finds
Wealthy individuals have a higher carbon footprint. A new study published in Nature Climate Change quantifies the climate outcomes of these inequalities. It finds that the world's wealthiest 10% are responsible for two-thirds of observed global warming since 1990 and the resulting increases in clima...
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21822936
"If everyone had emitted like the bottom 50% of the global population, the world would have seen minimal additional warming since 1990,"
The study assesses the contribution of the highest emitting groups within societies and finds that the top 1% of the wealthiest individuals globally contributed 26 times the global average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 17 times more to Amazon droughts.
The research sheds new light on the links between income-based emissions inequality and climate injustice, illustrating how the consumption and investments of wealthy individuals have had disproportionate impacts on extreme weather events
Our study shows that extreme climate impacts are not just the result of abstract global emissions, instead we can directly link them to our lifestyle and investment choices, which in turn are linked to wealth,"
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For anyone wondering, the wealthiest top 1% alone accounts for one-fifth of warming.
Link to original study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02325-x
Full abstract:
Spoiler
Climate injustice persists as those least responsible often bear the greatest impacts, both between and within countries. Here we show how GHG emissions from consumption and investments attributable to the wealthiest population groups have disproportionately influenced present-day climate change. We link emissions inequality over the period 1990–2020 to regional climate extremes using an emulator-based framework. We find that two-thirds (one-fifth) of warming is attributable to the wealthiest 10% (1%), meaning that individual contributions are 6.5 (20) times the average per capita contribution. For extreme events, the top 10% (1%) contributed 7 (26) times the average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 6 (17) times more to Amazon droughts. Emissions from the wealthiest 10% in the United States and China led to a two- to threefold increase in heat extremes across vulnerable regions. Quantifying the link between wealth disparities and climate impacts can assist in the discourse on climate equity and justice.
That's huge. That means that if you're in the tenth percentile of income/emissions, you might well be emitting less than the global average.
I say this because it's true if you make the assumption of exponential decay. Their data isn't accurate enough to check that assumption, but it's the most parsimonious one, and in this case the function that fits would be:
E = 29.5 e^(-P*0.36)Where E is the emission fraction and P is the percentile as an integer. This results in the table below, with the numbers in bold the ones that the function is fit to.
Percentile Emissions fraction Cumulative emissions fraction 1st 20.6% 20.6% 2nd 14.4% 35.0% 3rd 10.0% 45.0% 4th 7.0% 52.0% 5th 4.9% 56.9% 6th 3.4% 60.3% 7th 2.4% 62.7% 8th 1.7% 64.4% 9th 1.2% 65.6% 10th 0.8% 66.4% Since a percentile is 1% wide, an emission fraction of 0.8% is below the global average.
This assumption doesn't fit with the remaining 90% of the population, but it makes sense that the exponential relationship would slow down as people maintain a "poverty line" minimum footprint. If this consideration already affects the 10th percentile, it's possible the 10th percentile still emits more than the global average.
(fig.3)