Climate change impacts increase economic inequality: evidence from a systematic literature review

Aurélie Méjean (), Peron Collins-Sowah, Céline Guivarch (), Franziska Piontek, Bjoern Soergel and Nicolas Taconet
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Aurélie Méjean: CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Céline Guivarch: CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Abstract While it is widely assumed that poor countries will suffer more from climate change, and that climate change will exacerbate inequalities within countries, systematic and large-scale evidence on this issue has been limited. In this systematic literature review, we examine and synthesize the evidence from the literature. Drawing from 127 individual papers, we find robust evidence that climate change impacts indeed increase economic inequality and disproportionately affect the poor, both globally and within countries on all continents. This result is valid across a wide range of physical impacts, types of economic inequality, economic sectors, and assessment methods. Furthermore, we highlight the channels through which climate change increases economic inequality. While the diversity of different approaches and metrics in the existing literature base precludes extracting a universal quantitative relation between climate change and economic inequality for use in future modelling, our systematic analysis provides an important stepping stone in that direction.

Date: 2024-04-09
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Published in Environmental Research Letters, 2024, 19 (4), pp.043003. ⟨10.1088/1748-9326/ad376e⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04637031

DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad376e

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