Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes

Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes

The world’s wealthiest 10% are responsible for two-thirds of global heating since 1990, driving droughts and heatwaves in the poorest parts of the world, according to a study.

While researchers have previously shown that higher income groups emit disproportionately large amounts of greenhouse gases, the latest survey is the first to try to pin down how that inequality translates into responsibility for climate breakdown. It offers a powerful argument for climate finance and wealth taxes by attempting to give an evidential basis for how many people in the developed world – including more than 50% of full-time employees in the UK – bear a heightened responsibility for the climate disasters affecting people who can least afford it.

“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,” said Sarah Schöngart, a climate modelling analyst and the study’s lead author.

    • piranhaconda@mander.xyzEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      I immediately started searching this up on seeing the article. Should’ve known someone in the comments already beat me to it. Thanks for the links!

  • Voyajer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1162·
    3 days ago

    The threshold to be in the top 10% is €42,980 or $49,000 (grossing from what I can tell).

    The top 1% and 0.1% for comparison are 20x and 76x.

      • LwL@lemmy.worldEnglish
        80·
        3 days ago

        Yeah, what people forget is that even average americans (and central/northern europeans and some other plaves) are quite wealthy from a global perspective. Many people on lemmy, self included, are in that global 10%.

        And many of those emissions aren’t something you can just avoid either, they often come as a result of being a user of local infrastructure etc.

          • sensiblepuffin@lemmy.funami.techEnglish
            11·
            3 days ago

            In fairness, what are they going to do about being born into a richer slice of the world pie? As shitty as it is, people won’t have much sympathy for those doing worse than them unless they’ve achieved a certain baseline. If they can’t conceive of how life could be worse (many issues in this fragment), they won’t accept or care that others are suffering.

            • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
              17·
              3 days ago

              At the very least, us 10%ers could be advocating for things that lower the carbon cost of our lifestyle, such as zoning reform.

              Note that I’m not talking about reducing the quality of our lifestyle. I’m talking about maintaining or improving the quality while making it more efficient.

              • sensiblepuffin@lemmy.funami.techEnglish
                5·
                3 days ago

                It’s true. And we should all be doing that. If you’re in the US, I promise you there are people in your community/local government who are desperate for any sort of support. Build bike lanes, build community gardens, help your neighbors. A lot of them need it.

                My previous statement was purely in reply to people getting mad when you point out that they’re in a certain percentile. Realistically, what do you expect people to do with that information? What you’re basically telling them is that in Sudan, they’d be the kings of the castle. But that’s kind of useless information to someone living in middle of nowhere Kentucky, for example.

        • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
          161·
          3 days ago

          If my taxes would go towards make that infrastructure sustainable, i would happily pay more taxes. As it stands my taxes mostly go to more Autobahn, upkeep of parking spots, subsidies for desastrous industries and cross-financing the retirement insurance, so the boomers can go on cruise vacations.

      • homoludens@feddit.orgEnglish
        16·
        3 days ago

        The article talks about income (the headline seems a bit confusing), the wiki about net worth?

    • PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      According to Wikipedia, citing the 2022 US census, median annual personal income is $48k, meaning the average american is right on that line.

      • BrightCandle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        143·
        3 days ago

        No most people in the developed nations earn less than this. It’s heavily biased towards Americans and high earners, the typical just above the minimum wage earner isn’t in this group.

        • taladar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          3 days ago

          Pretty sure that doesn’t even cover the “just above the average wage” earner in most western countries though I suppose it depends a bit on if you count the parts that directly go to the government without even counting as gross wages (employer parts of social security, health care,…).

  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
    381·
    3 days ago

    Nice to see the phrase “global heating” instead of the wimpy “global warming” or the even more milquetoasty “climate change”. I prefer the phrase “anthropogenic runaway global heating” because it makes clear the scale and severity of the problem as well as its origin, and also for the handy acronym.

  • Absaroka@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    3 days ago

    To produce their analysis, the researchers fed wealth-based greenhouse gas emissions inequality assessments into climate modelling frameworks, allowing them to systematically attribute the changes in global temperatures and the frequency of extreme weather events that have taken place between 1990 and 2019.

    I do take studies like this with a grain of salt. I don’t know this organization, but they certainly have a point of view, and it certainly is reasonable to think they could have run those computer simulations to say what they wanted it to say.

    Now with that said, I’d wager many of the folks in this thread are included in that 10%. The top 10% of the world makes like $50,000 a year. “Rich” is subjective and varies from country to country, region to region. Hell it can vary widely just in the US. And even in a single state (look at average wages for somebody in the NYC area versus Syracuse).

    • Coreidan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      2 days ago

      You realize you’re talking about yourself in this context right?

      If you live in the US you are the rich.

      • iamjackflack@lemm.eeEnglish
        11·
        2 days ago

        I’m not sure why your direction is misplaced at me but whatever. Remove me too. My intent to get rid of the richest would be intending to help you but you may be too stupid to realize the goal is to help all of humanity.

        • untakenusername@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          Remove me too

          the solution isn’t to kill yourself to help the climate, its to find carbon neutral alternatives to what we have now. like data centers would be fine if the electricity they used came from solar, and driving cars is fine if their electric

      • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
        158·
        3 days ago

        It’s like calling a high school gym teacher a “professional athlete” or someone with an associate degree 'Highly educated."

        I know a nurse who flies ten times a year. All her trips combined don’t add up to the fuel a private jet burns on one trip.

        Moreover, she’d happliy use high speed rail if that were an option.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          331·
          3 days ago

          Flying once very likely puts you in that top 10%. Remember, the bottom 50% are subsistence farmers from Africa etc. living on like $1000/year.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1319·
        3 days ago

        That’s not as true as it used to be…

        Co-author Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, said: “If everyone had emitted like the bottom 50% of the global population, the world would have seen minimal additional warming since 1990.” On the other hand, if the whole world population had emitted as the top 10%, 1% or 0.1% had, the temperature increase would have been 2.9C, 6.7C or a completely unsurvivable 12.2C.

        And that shows that even the top 10% isn’t a problem.

        It’s not like any group is perfect, the poorest in India and China still use very inefficient coal stoves/heaters, some even use dung. That has an oversized effect on glacier melt due to particulate deposit which goes on to exacerbate climate change.

        It makes zero sense to try and start with normal first world citizens while ignoring it still literally doesn’t matter because the wealthiest are doing so much.

        Like, putting it the average first world citizen to make them feel like that could fix it is literally fossil fuel propaganda…

        Did you know that when you repeated it?

        Not just with emissions but plastic recycling too:

        https://climateintegrity.org/news/view/not-just-climate-big-oil-lied-about-plastic-recycling-too-and-must-be-held-accountable

        Best case scenario here. You’ve fallen head over heels for corporate propaganda…

        • Voyajer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          211·
          3 days ago

          2.9C is still really bad though, so I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
            610·
            3 days ago

            That it’s less than half of the 1% and less that a fourth of the 0.1%…

            What I didn’t go I to was a lot of what’s counting against the top 50% is global shipping, which these days they have no control over.

            People in the first world buying cheap plastic junk made in the third world aren’t doing it because it’s cheaper, these days it’s still expensive and often the only available option.

            Like, why are people having difficulty in 2025 understanding that this shit is just so the 99% fight each other instead of uniting against the people who are actually the problem?

            • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
              71·
              3 days ago

              You misunderstand these values. The say “if everyone would pollute, like the top …” But when you have 10 people emitting 1% of all emissions and 1000 people emitting 10% of all emissions, you wont get the emissions down to a sustainable level, unless you also address the emissions of the 1000 people.

              It doesn’t matter for the climate change, who or how many people emit, just how much it is in total. I agree that those who emit disproportionately also need to pay more to fix it.

        • zarathustra0@lemmy.worldEnglish
          61·
          3 days ago

          Kthnx but what I said is factually correct w.r.t. the article.

          If you have a problem with the use of the 10% grouping then take it up with the authors of the paper.

    • Voyajer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      64·
      3 days ago

      If it’s any consolation, idling nets more wear on your vehicle’s drivetrain than just driving it from cold.

      • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        True for modern fuel injected engines, although 30 seconds before heavy engine engagement is preferable. In cold weather, hybrid engines do need time to warm up the oil though.

        • Harriet_Porber@lemmy.worldEnglish
          112·
          3 days ago

          have you actually read your owners manual?

          this isn’t worth fighting some rando on the internet over. nothing I say I going to change your mind, and that’s fine, not my car not my problem.

          for others that see these arguments - don’t listen to the armchair mechanics online, read your car’s fucking manual. typically the goal is to get your car to operating temp as fast as possible, and most modern cars are designed to heat up as fast as possible under motion. heating your car at idle takes forever and spends more time operating with parts not at their optimal tolerance.

          but don’t just listen to me, read your car’s manual.