World’s richest 10% caused two thirds of global warming: study

PARIS: The world´s wealthiest 10 percent of individuals are responsible for two thirds of global warming since 1990, researchers said on Wednesday.

How the rich consume and invest has substantially increased the risk of deadly heatwaves and drought, they reported in the first study to quantify the impact of concentrated private wealth on extreme climate events.

“We link the carbon footprints of the wealthiest individuals directly to real-world climate impacts,” lead author Sarah Schoengart, a scientist at ETH Zurich, told AFP. “It´s a shift from carbon accounting toward climate accountability.”

Compared to the global average, for example, the richest one percent contributed 26 times more to once-a-century heatwaves, and 17 times more to droughts in the Amazon, according to the findings, published in Nature Climate Change.

Emissions from the wealthiest 10 percent in China and the United States -- which together account for nearly half of global carbon pollution -- each led to a two-to-threefold rise in heat extremes.

Burning fossil fuels and deforestation have heated Earth´s average surface by 1.3 degrees Celsius, mostly during the last 30 years. Schoengart and colleagues combined economic data and climate simulations to trace emissions from different global income groups and assess their impact on specific types of climate-enhance extreme weather.

The researchers also emphasised the role of emissions embedded in financial investment rather than just lifestyle and personal consumption.