Climate injustice? It exists and still persists, since they are always the least responsible for the Climate Change To undergo the major impacts and the greenhouse gas emissions deriving from the consumption and investments attributable to restricted groups of the richest population have influenced the current climate change in an disproportionate way.
This is what emerges from a new study that confirms once again how much the super rich are the greatest responsible for the climatic crisis. An analysis published on Nature Climate Change for the first time the historical responsibility of those with higher income and the link between the concentration of private wealth and the alterations of the climate.
In particular, that the rich pollute most of all is not new.
This injustice is widely recognized, however there is no quantification of how the inequality of emissions translates into one responsibility unequal for global temperatures levels and extreme climatic events who follow – reads the study.
The authors managed to establish a direct bond Between income and climate change, with its fatal waves of extreme heat And the growing drought, supporting in conclusion that “the wealthiest groups have influenced the current climate change in an disproportionate way”.
The study
Since 1990, 10% of the population that has higher income has caused two thirds of climatic warming: 66% of the emissions related to greenhouse gases depend on them.
The two thirds (one fifth) of the heating is attributable to 10% richest (1%), which means that the individual contributions are 6.5 times the average per capita contribution. For extreme events, the richest 10% contributed 7 times the average to the increase in monthly heat extremes of 1 year out of 100 globally and 6 times more at drought in the Amazon.
Emissions by 10% richest in the United States and of the China They led to an increase of two to three times of the heat extremes in the vulnerable regions.
The clearest thing, underlines the study, is that if everyone polluted like that 10%, the land would suffocate with 2.9 degrees more or even +12.2 ° If the average emissions were those of the top 0.1%.
Instead 50% of the less well -off individuals have caused only one tenth of global emissions, but in front of the extreme climatic events pay the greater price, and will pay more and more: according to a previous study, for example, the increase in temperatures and CO2 could lead to a growth in the content of inorganic arsenic in rice, basic food for most of the planet.
In the last two decades, the extreme events attributable to climate change have led to an annual average of 143 billion dollars of damage – The scholars conclude. Not to mention the Costs in human livesalready high today but destined to grow by 2030 until they cause 250,000 more deaths per year, according to WHO. The issue of emissions is therefore priority.
