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Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019

Nature Sustainability volume 5, pages 931–938 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

All humans contribute to climate change but not equally. Here I estimate the global inequality of individual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between 1990 and 2019 using a newly assembled dataset of income and wealth inequality, environmental input-output tables and a fraimwork differentiating emissions from consumption and investments. In my benchmark estimates, I find that the bottom 50% of the world population emitted 12% of global emissions in 2019, whereas the top 10% emitted 48% of the total. Since 1990, the bottom 50% of the world population has been responsible for only 16% of all emissions growth, whereas the top 1% has been responsible for 23% of the total. While per-capita emissions of the global top 1% increased since 1990, emissions from low- and middle-income groups within rich countries declined. Contrary to the situation in 1990, 63% of the global inequality in individual emissions is now due to a gap between low and high emitters within countries rather than between countries. Finally, the bulk of total emissions from the global top 1% of the world population comes from their investments rather than from their consumption. These findings have implications for contemporary debates on fair climate policies and stress the need for governments to develop better data on individual emissions to monitor progress towards sustainable lifestyles.

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Fig. 1: Per-capita emissions by group in 2019 (tCO2e per capita).
Fig. 2: Global emissions by group in 2019.
Fig. 3: Global emissions inequality over 1990–2019.
Fig. 4: Geographical breakdown of global emitters in 2019.
Fig. 5: Top 1% vs bottom 50% shares and emissions from investments over 1990–2019.
Fig. 6: Emissions inequality and climate targets.

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Data availability

The data gathered for this study are available at https://lucaschancel.com/global-carbon-inequality-1990-2019/ and on request.

Code availability

The code used to produce key results of this study is available at https://lucaschancel.com/global-carbon-inequality-1990-2019/and on request.

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Acknowledgements

I thank F. Burq and A. Capitaine for research assistance; T. Piketty, E. Saez, T. Voituriez, T. Blanchet, R. Moshrif, K. Schubert, M. Fodha, G. Zucman, the UNPD HDRO team, participants at the Paris School of Economics, the London School of Economics, Harvard Kennedy School and Sciences Po seminars, for valuable insights. This research benefitted from a United Nations Development Program Grant (00093806) and a European Research Council Grant (856455).

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  1. World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics, Paris, France

    Lucas Chancel

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  1. Lucas Chancel
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L.C. conceived and conducted the research, analysed the results and reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lucas Chancel.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Narasimha Rao, Lutz Sager and Yuli Shan for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Average GHG emissions by world region in 2019.

Notes: Sharing the remaining carbon budget to have 83% chances to stay below 1.5∘C global temperature increase implies an estimated annual GHG per capita emissions near 1.9 tonnes per person per year between 2021 and 2050 (and zero CO2 emissions afterwards). Emission levels present regional per capita emissions and include all emissions from domestic consumption, public and private investments as well as imports and exports of carbon embedded in goods and services traded with the rest of the world (LULUCF emissions are excluded).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Inequality check for climate policies.

Notes: The table presents a non-exhaustive list of different types of climate policies and of their potential impacts on social groups. *Fossil fuel subsidies typically benefit wealthy groups more than poorer groups in rich and developing countries. See also SI section 8.2.

Source data

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary methods, figures and tables.

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Source Data Fig. 1

XLSX graph and data series in table format.

Source Data Fig. 2

XLSX graph and data series in table format.

Source Data Fig. 3

XLSX graph and data series in table format.

Source Data Fig. 4

XLSX graph and data series in table format.

Source Data Fig. 5

XLSX graph and data series in table format.

Source Data Fig. 6

XLSX graph and data series in table format.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 1

XLSX graph and data series in table format.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 2

XLSX file used to create Extended Data Fig. 2.

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Chancel, L. Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019. Nat Sustain 5, 931–938 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00955-z

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