High-income groups disproportionately contribute to climate extremes worldwide

Schöngart, Sarah; Nicholls, Zebedee; Hoffmann, Roman; Pelz, Setu; Schleussner, Carl‐Friedrich

doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02325-x

articleNature Climate ChangeMay 7, 2025HYBRID OA

High-income groups disproportionately contribute to climate extremes worldwide

SSSarah Schöngart ZNZebedee Nicholls RHRoman Hoffmann SPSetu Pelz CSCarl‐Friedrich Schleussner

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis · ETH Zurich · +3 more institutions

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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…

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Topics

Keywords

Climate extremes
Climate change
Geography
Climatology
Development economics
Natural resource economics
Political science
Economics

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