Science Snippets: Wealthiest 10% Cause 2/3 of Global Heating

Draft script:

According to a headline on 2 May 2025 in The Guardian, Two-thirds of global heating caused by richest 10%, study suggests. Here’s the subhead: “Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes.”

The story in The Guardian begins with an overview: “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.”

The article in The Guardian then quotes the lead author of the peer-reviewed, open-access paper: “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. We found that wealthy emitters play a major role in driving climate extremes, which provides strong support for climate policies that target the reduction of their emissions.”

The following three paragraphs tell a compelling story: “It has been clearly established that wealthier individuals, through their consumption and investments, create more carbon emissions, while poorer countries located near the equator bear the brunt of the resulting extreme weather and rising temperatures.

The new research attempts to specifically quantify how much that inequality in emissions feeds into climate breakdown. 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.

By subtracting the emissions of the wealthiest 10%, 1% and 0.1%, they modelled the changes to the climate and frequency of extreme weather events that would have taken place without them.”

The article in The Guardian continues with surprisingly honest information: “In 2020, the global mean temperature was 0.61C higher than 1990. The researchers found that about 65% of that increase could be attributed to emissions from the global richest 10% …”

Wealthier groups bore more disproportionate responsibility still, with the richest 1% … responsible for 20% of global heating, and the richest 0.1% … responsible for 8%.”

One of the co-authors of the peer-reviewed paper is quoted in The Guardian: “‘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.”

Of course 12.2 C is “completely unsurvivable.” I suspect 2.9 C is also unsurvivable, considering the rapidity with which Earth is pointed in that direction. Again, the rate of environmental change is the primary factor controlling the continued survival of ecological entities, including populations, communities, and species.

The Guardian continues with wishful thinking: “The researchers said they hoped the analysis would inform policy interventions that recognise the unequal contributions to climate breakdown made by the world’s wealthiest, and foster social acceptance of climate action.

The research comes amid intense pushback from countries such as the US, and even cuts from the UK and other European countries, to providing finance for poorer countries to adapt to climate breakdown and mitigate its worst effects.”

Finally, the bottom line comes from the co-author of the peer-reviewed paper: “This is not an academic discussion – it’s about the real impacts of the climate crisis today. Climate action that doesn’t address the outsize responsibilities of the wealthiest members of society risks missing one of the most powerful levers we have to reduce future harm.”

That final comment perfectly matches my sentiments on this matter. It’s already far too late to make changes that matter, as pointed out by the designed-to-fail Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with their conclusions that Earth is already amid the most rapid change in planetary history, and that change is irreversible.

I now turn, briefly, to the peer-reviewed article. Published on 7 May 2025, the article was created by five scholars. It is titled High-income groups disproportionately contribute to climate extremes worldwide. The Abstract contains this information: “Climate injustice persists as those least responsible often bear the greatest impacts, both between and within countries. Here we show how … [greenhouse gas] 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 … of warming is attributable to the wealthiest 10% …, meaning that individual contributions are 6.5 … times the average per capita contribution. We find that one-fifth of warming is attributable to the wealthiest 1%, meaning that individual contributions are 20 times the average per capita contribution. For extreme events, the top 10% … contributed 7 … times the average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 6 … times more to Amazon droughts. Also, for [these] extreme events, the top 1% contributed 26 times the average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 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.”

Of course, “quantifying the link between wealth disparities and climate impacts can assist in the discourse on climate equity and justice.” I would love to believe it is long past time we moved beyond discourse and into the realm of action. However, I understand the concepts of abrupt and irreversible. There is no turning back the clock on this most important of issues.