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 climate extremes such as heat waves and droughts.

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,"

  • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
    51·
    3 days ago

    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.