Global warming is exacerbating global economic inequality: Study

(Mongabay News, 10 May 2019) New research finds that global warming has exacerbated global economic inequality, making already-wealthy nations even richer while slowing economic growth in poorer countries.

  • According to the study, published in PNAS late last month, between 1961 and 2010 rising temperatures led to a 17 to 30 percent decrease in per-capita wealth in the world’s poorest countries. Meanwhile, the wealthy countries that are the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters have seen their per-capita GDP grow about 10 percent higher today than they would have in a world without warming.
  • Poor countries that, by and large, have not enjoyed the benefits of fossil fuel energy have been made relatively poorer by the energy consumption of wealthy countries — but renewable energy sources might offer a partial solution to both the climate crisis and global inequality.

New research finds that global warming has exacerbated global economic inequality, making already-wealthy nations even richer while slowing economic growth in poorer countries.

According to the study, published in PNAS late last month, between 1961 and 2010 rising temperatures led to a 17 to 30 percent decrease in per-capita wealth in the world’s poorest countries.

Economic inequality has actually decreased in recent decades, but the research suggests that the gap between rich and poor countries would have shrunk even more quickly without global warming. The advantage that countries with the highest economic output per-person have over countries with the lowest economic output per-person grew approximately 25 percent more since the 1960s than it would have in the absence of global climate change and its impacts, per the study.

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Mongabay News, 10 May 2019: Global warming is exacerbating global economic inequality: Study