## Tackling Inequality

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**Canonical URL:** [Tackling Inequality](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/december/inequality-and-climate-change-walsh.pdf)

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### Overview
- Today’s world is an unequal place; standards of living vary massively both between and within countries. Life expectancy example: 84 and 49 years for someone born in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Swaziland, respectively.
- Recent decades have seen improvement in many global living-standard indicators:
  - Those living in extreme poverty dropped from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.
  - The proportion of undernourished people in low-income countries fell from 23 percent in 1990 to 13 percent in 2014.
  - Worldwide primary school enrollment has reached 90 percent.
- Climate change threatens to undo progress on inequality and may nullify most, if not all, gains if warming is not limited to 1.5 ̊C above preindustrial levels.

### Unequal impact
- Distribution of historical responsibility for greenhouse gases:
  - United States: 26 percent of global cumulative greenhouse gases.
  - Europe: 22 percent.
  - Africa (entire continent): 3.8 percent.
- Low- and middle-income countries will bear the brunt of impacts despite contributing a small share of emissions.
- Examples of current and projected impacts:
  - Cities such as Dakar in Senegal are flooded annually.
  - The semiarid Sahel region is encroaching on once-fertile farmland.
  - California experienced the deadliest wildfires in its history with record land burned.
  - Lake Chad has shrunk 90 percent in the past 50 years, affecting pastoral farmers in Chad.
  - In Madagascar, where over 70 percent of the population are rural farmers, drought-driven lower crop yields will be devastating.
- Within-country inequalities:
  - “Climate gentrification”: higher-elevation inland Miami properties are becoming more expensive because of flooding risks.
  - Those unable to “buy their way to safety” are left in at-risk areas.
- Knock-on effects for low-income countries include:
  - Increased spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and dysentery from damaged water provisioning services.
  - Rising malnutrition due to lower crop yields.
  - Reduced access to quality education, intensified gender inequalities, provoked conflict, destabilized governments, and forced migration.
- Migration and displacement projections and facts:
  - The World Bank predicts there may be up to 140 million “climate migrants” by 2050.
  - 84 percent of refugees are currently within low-income countries.
  - People in poorer countries are roughly five times more likely to be displaced by weather events.
- Adaptive capacity differences:
  - High-income countries can invest in costly infrastructure (example: Shanghai flood-defense projects since 2012; one such project is expected to cost £5 billion).
  - Low-income countries lack the capital and fiscal capacity to invest at similar scales.

### Mitigation, adaptation, and policy action
- Two main strategies: mitigation (reducing emissions) and adaptation (building resilience).
- Public opinion and mobilization:
  - A poll found that 73 percent of Americans now believe that climate change is occurring.
  - 72 percent said it was personally important to them.
  - Over 70,000 people marched in Brussels in January demanding better climate action.
  - Citizen groups globally are taking governments to court over lack of action on climate change.
- Role of the private sector:
  - CDP’s 2017 Carbon Majors Report found that just 100 companies have produced over 70 percent of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.
  - The private sector can bring systemic change through better practices and employment-generation, and can be a key climate leader amid rising nationalism.
- Role of governments and international cooperation:
  - Effective mitigation will require governmental cooperation through environmental policies such as carbon taxes, national adaptation plans, and participation in multilateral treaties.
  - Carbon taxation is highlighted as a mechanism to speed up development and adoption of alternative fuel sources.
  - Climate change is a transboundary issue requiring global collaboration to mitigate effects and assist lower-income countries with adaptation.
- Limitations:
  - Mitigation and adaptation are not a silver bullet for tackling existing inequalities; complementary policymaking and tax-system reform are needed.

### Projections, scenarios, and urgency
- Current trajectory:
  - We are not on track to limit atmospheric warming to 1.5 ̊ by the end of this century.
  - We are not even on track to limit warming to 3 ̊.
  - According to current estimates, we will reach 4 ̊ warming by 2100.
- Generational implications:
  - Babies born today in places like Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (but not Swaziland) will live to see 4 ̊ warming by 2100.
- Call to action:
  - Minimizing emissions sooner rather than later is imperative because it is ultimately the cheaper and easier option.
  - Mobilizing public pressure on governments and companies is pivotal.
  - There is hope in youth activism (example: Greta Thunberg), but immediate climate leadership and action are required now.

*Lyndsay Walsh, Finance & Development, December 2019*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/december/inequality-and-climate-change-walsh.pdf_