Linking Climate and Inequality

In recent decades, global economic growth has lifted millions out of extreme poverty and reduced inequalities between countries. But unmanaged climate change threatens to set back that progress by damaging poverty eradication efforts worldwide, and disproportionately affecting the poorest regions and people.

The evidence is mounting: a World Bank report estimated that an additional 68 to 135 million people could be pushed into poverty by 2030 because of climate change. Our own research shows that if the most dire projections of future economic damages in the current scientific literature hold true, climate change would reverse the gains of the past few decades and cause inequality between countries to rise again. Within countries, the impacts of climate change also risk worsening inequality.