High-income groups disproportionately contribute to climate extremes worldwide

Sarah Schöngart (), Zebedee Nicholls, Roman Hoffmann, Setu Pelz and Carl-Friedrich Schleussner
Additional contact information
Sarah Schöngart: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Zebedee Nicholls: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Roman Hoffmann: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Setu Pelz: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Carl-Friedrich Schleussner: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Nature Climate Change, 2025, vol. 15, issue 6, 627-633

Abstract: Abstract 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.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02325-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:15:y:2025:i:6:d:10.1038_s41558-025-02325-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02325-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().