{
  "title": "Lyndsay Walsh: Address Global Inequality by Tackling Climate Change",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/12/inequality-and-climate-change-walsh",
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  "summary": "F&D essay contest winner Lyndsay Walsh writes about addressing global inequality by tackling climate change",
  "authors": [
    "LYNDSAY WALSH"
  ],
  "publishDate": "2019-12-01",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Overview",
      "content": "- Premise: Climate change is central to addressing 21st-century global inequality; without limiting warming, past gains reducing inequality could be nullified.\n- Author: LYNDsAY WALSH, graduate in natural sciences of Trinity College Dublin, studying for a master’s in development practice.\n- Framing: Climate change both creates new inequalities and exacerbates existing ones across and within countries, affecting health, livelihoods, displacement, infrastructure, and governance."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Evidence of inequality impacts",
      "content": "- Climate-driven disruptions disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries:\n  - Examples include annual flooding in Dakar, Senegal; encroaching semiarid Sahel on former fertile farmland; California’s deadliest wildfires with record land burnt to ash.\n  - Lake Chad has shrunk 90 percent in the past 50 years.\n  - In Madagascar, over 70 percent of the population are rural farmers, making drought-induced crop losses especially devastating.\n- Health and social consequences:\n  - Increased flooding will spread waterborne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.\n  - Cases of malnutrition are expected to rise dramatically as droughts reduce crop yields.\n  - Predicted expansion of diseases such as malaria with warming.\n- Displacement and conflict:\n  - The World Bank predicts there may be up to 140 million \"climate migrants\" by 2050.\n  - People in poorer countries are roughly five times more likely to be displaced by weather events.\n  - Currently, 84 percent of refugees are within low-income countries."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Climate responsibility and distribution of emissions",
      "content": "- Historical and current emissions burden:\n  - The United States is responsible for 26 percent of global cumulative greenhouse gases.\n  - Europe is responsible for an additional 22 percent.\n  - The entire continent of Africa contributes just 3.8 percent.\n- Within-country inequality examples:\n  - \"Climate gentrification\": properties at higher elevations in inland Miami becoming more expensive due to flooding risks, leaving those unable to buy safety in riskier areas.\n- Capacity differences:\n  - High-income countries have greater fiscal capacity to invest in adaptation (example: Shanghai flood-defense project expected to cost £5 billion).\n  - Low-income countries lack capital to invest in similar protective infrastructure."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Mitigation and adaptation: roles and actors",
      "content": "- Two primary responses: mitigation (reducing emissions) and adaptation (preparing for impacts).\n- Public opinion as leverage:\n  - A recent poll found that 73 percent of Americans now believe that climate change is occurring.\n  - 72 percent said it was personally important to them.\n  - Large citizen protests (over 70,000 in Brussels in January) and legal actions by citizens in multiple countries indicate growing public pressure.\n- Role of private sector:\n  - The 2017 Carbon Majors Report found that just 100 companies have produced over 70 percent of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.\n  - The private sector can drive systemic change, mitigate emissions, and reduce poverty through employment.\n- Role of governments and multilateral cooperation:\n  - Environmental policies cited include carbon taxes, national adaptation plans, and participation in multilateral treaties.\n  - Carbon taxation is framed as a mechanism to speed development and adoption of alternative fuel sources.\n  - Climate change is a transboundary issue requiring global collaboration to both mitigate effects and assist lower-income countries with adaptation."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy recommendations and urgency",
      "content": "- Priority actions:\n  - High-income countries, being responsible for the majority of emissions, must minimize theirs and support low-income countries’ adaptation.\n  - Mobilize public pressure on governments and corporations to act in citizens’ interests.\n  - Implement environmental policies such as carbon taxes and national adaptation plans.\n  - Demand better practices from major historical emitters identified by the Carbon Majors Report.\n- Integration with broader inequality policy:\n  - Mitigation and adaptation alone are not sufficient; tackling inequality also requires policymaking and reform of tax systems in conjunction with climate action.\n- Urgency and trajectories:\n  - Current trajectory: not on track to limit atmospheric warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of this century; not on track to limit it to 3 degrees.\n  - According to current estimates we will reach 4 degrees warming by 2100.\n  - Call for immediate leadership: young activists cited as hope, but climate leaders are needed now."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Key statistics and figures (preserved exactly as in source)",
      "content": "- Life expectancy: Hong Kong 84 and Swaziland 49 years.\n- Extreme poverty: dropped from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.\n- Undernourished in low-income countries: fell from 23 percent in 1990 to 13 percent in 2014.\n- Worldwide primary school enrollment: has reached 90 percent.\n- United States responsible for 26 percent of global cumulative greenhouse gases.\n- Europe responsible for an additional 22 percent.\n- Africa contributes just 3.8 percent.\n- Lake Chad has shrunk 90 percent in the past 50 years.\n- In Madagascar, over 70 percent of the population are rural farmers.\n- World Bank prediction: there may be up to 140 million climate migrants by 2050.\n- 84 percent of refugees are currently within low-income countries.\n- People in poorer countries are roughly five times more likely to be displaced by weather events.\n- Shanghai flood-defense project expected to cost £5 billion.\n- Poll: 73 percent of Americans now believe that climate change is occurring; 72 percent said it was personally important to them.\n- Over 70,000 people marched in Brussels in January.\n- The 2017 Carbon Majors Report found that just 100 companies have produced over 70 percent of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.\n- Current estimates: we will reach 4 degrees warming by 2100.\n\nLyndsay Walsh, \"Address Global Inequality by Tackling Climate Change,\" F&D Magazine, December 2019.\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- معالجة عدم المساواة\n  - معالجة عدم المساواة (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - معالجة عدم المساواة (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Atacar la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2019\n  - Atacar la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2019 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Atacar la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2019 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- S’attaquer à l’inégalité\n  - S’attaquer à l’inégalité (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - S’attaquer à l’inégalité (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Lyndsay Walsh: Address Global Inequality by Tackling Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019\n  - Lyndsay Walsh: Address Global Inequality by Tackling Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Lyndsay Walsh: Address Global Inequality by Tackling Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Решение проблемы неравенства – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2019 года\n  - Решение проблемы неравенства – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2019 года (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Решение проблемы неравенства – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2019 года (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/12/inequality-and-climate-change-walsh"
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    "Authors: LYNDSAY WALSH",
    "Published: December 1, 2019",
    "Premise: Climate change is central to addressing 21st-century global inequality; without limiting warming, past gains reducing inequality could be nullified.",
    "Author: LYNDsAY WALSH, graduate in natural sciences of Trinity College Dublin, studying for a master’s in development practice.",
    "Framing: Climate change both creates new inequalities and exacerbates existing ones across and within countries, affecting health, livelihoods, displacement, infrastructure, and governance.",
    "Climate-driven disruptions disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries:",
    "Health and social consequences:",
    "Displacement and conflict:",
    "Historical and current emissions burden:",
    "Within-country inequality examples:",
    "Capacity differences:",
    "Two primary responses: mitigation (reducing emissions) and adaptation (preparing for impacts).",
    "Public opinion as leverage:",
    "Role of private sector:",
    "Role of governments and multilateral cooperation:",
    "Priority actions:",
    "Integration with broader inequality policy:",
    "Urgency and trajectories:",
    "Life expectancy: Hong Kong 84 and Swaziland 49 years.",
    "Extreme poverty: dropped from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.",
    "Undernourished in low-income countries: fell from 23 percent in 1990 to 13 percent in 2014.",
    "Worldwide primary school enrollment: has reached 90 percent.",
    "United States responsible for 26 percent of global cumulative greenhouse gases.",
    "Europe responsible for an additional 22 percent.",
    "Africa contributes just 3.8 percent.",
    "Lake Chad has shrunk 90 percent in the past 50 years.",
    "In Madagascar, over 70 percent of the population are rural farmers.",
    "World Bank prediction: 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.",
    "Shanghai flood-defense project expected to cost £5 billion.",
    "Poll: 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.",
    "The 2017 Carbon Majors Report found that just 100 companies have produced over 70 percent of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.",
    "Current estimates: we will reach 4 degrees warming by 2100.",
    "**معالجة عدم المساواة**",
    "**Atacar la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2019**",
    "**S’attaquer à l’inégalité**",
    "**Lyndsay Walsh: Address Global Inequality by Tackling Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019**",
    "**Решение проблемы неравенства – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2019 года**"
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