Editor’s choice
Editor’s choice
Ahead of COP30, a new report from Oxfam International uses data from SEI’s Emissions Inequality Dashboard, to highlight the disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions generated by upper-income populations.
“Climate plunder: How a powerful few are locking the world into disaster” draws on research by SEI. The dataset, its methodology and the assumptions behind it are available at the Emissions Inequality Dashboard. Oxfam is solely responsible for the report and its conclusions.
An Oxfam report relying upon SEI research finds that a person from the richest 0.1% of the world’s population produces more carbon pollution in a day than someone in the bottom 50% produces all year.
The Emissions Inequality Dashboard – which provided the underlying data for this report – examines the global emissions distribution across income groups for 1990 through 2023, the latest date for which such data is available. The Dashboard combines global and national income inequality data with national consumption-based emissions from 193 countries.
The Dashboard also provides possible scenarios for the future of emissions inequality through the year 2100 based on possible trajectories of inequality and carbon emissions.
Read the FAQ below for more on the data SEI supplied for this report.
Feature / SEI researcher Emily Ghosh explains how SEI experts calculated the "emissions inequality" that informs a new Oxfam report.
Project / This project explores the link between social and economic inequality and the unsustainable carbon dioxide emissions that fuel human-caused climate change.
Tool / This tool allows you to explore the inequalities in carbon dioxide emissions across the world, by linking emissions to income levels.
Other publication / This paper draws on new data examining the starkly different global distribution of carbon consumption emissions among individuals from 1990 to 2015 and beyond.
Other publication / A new report from Oxfam draws upon SEI research which highlights the disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions generated by upper-income populations.
Feature / SEI Scientist Emily Ghosh discusses the continued disparity in carbon emissions between the poor and everyone else.
