Global warming has increased global economic inequality
Open accessAbstract
Significance: We find that global warming has very likely exacerbated global economic inequality, including ∼25% increase in population-weighted between-country inequality over the past half century. This increase results from the impact of warming on annual economic growth, which over the course of decades has accumulated robust and substantial declines in economic output in hotter, poorer countries—and increases in many cooler, wealthier countries—relative to a world without anthropogenic warming. Thus, the global warming caused by fossil fuel use has likely exacerbated the economic inequality associated with historical disparities in energy consumption. Our results suggest that low-carbon energy sources have the potential to provide a substantial secondary development benefit, in addition to the primary benefits of increased energy access.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
References [101,187] use relatively simple local and polynomial regression techniques applied to extensive empirical data to estimate the past and future effects of temperature change on economic production.
“References [101,187] use relatively simple local and polynomial regression techniques but applied to extensive empirical data to estimate the past and future effects of temperature change on economic production.”
From Tackling climate change with machine learning (2023) · cites this paper as [187]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Design
Taylor, K. E., Stouffer, R. J., & Meehl, G. A. (2012) · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · doi:10.1175/bams-d-11-00094.1 · Cited by 14,052 · see citing works
Climate Change 2014 Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
(IPCC), I. P. O. C. C. (2014) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781107415379 · Cited by 11,271 · see citing works
(2007) · London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) · Cited by 9,690 · see citing works
Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change
Change, I. P. O. C. (2015) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781107415416 · Cited by 4,731 · see citing works
Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production
Burke, M., Hsiang, S. M., & Miguel, E. (2015) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature15725 · Cited by 2,913 · see citing works
Self-citationTemperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century
Dell, M., Jones, B. F., & Olken, B. A. (2012) · American Economic Journal Macroeconomics · doi:10.1257/mac.4.3.66 · Cited by 2,353 · see citing works
What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature
Dell, M., Jones, B. F., & Olken, B. A. (2014) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.52.3.740 · Cited by 2,300 · see citing works
Le Quéré, C., Andrew, R. M., Friedlingstein, P., Sitch, S., Hauck, J., Pongratz, J., Pickers, P. A., Korsbakken, J. I., Peters, G. P., Canadell, J. G., et al. (2018) · Earth System Science Data · doi:10.5194/essd-10-2141-2018 · Cited by 1,645 · see citing works
Milanović, B. (2016) · Harvard University Press eBooks · doi:10.4159/9780674969797 · Cited by 1,634 · see citing works
Social and economic impacts of climate
Carleton, T. A., & Hsiang, S. M. (2016) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aad9837 · Cited by 1,348 · see citing works
Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States
Hsiang, S., Kopp, R., Jina, A., Rising, J., Delgado, M., Mohan, S., Rasmussen, D. J., Muir-Wood, R., Wilson, P., Oppenheimer, M., et al. (2017) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aal4369 · Cited by 1,239 · see citing works
A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
Nordhaus, W. (2007) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.45.3.686 · Cited by 1,161 · see citing works
Piketty, T., & Saez, E. (2014) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1251936 · Cited by 960 · see citing works
Communication of the role of natural variability in future North American climate
Deser, C., Knutti, R., Solomon, S., & Phillips, A. S. (2012) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate1562 · Cited by 883 · see citing works
Geography and macroeconomics: New data and new findings
Nordhaus, W. D. (2006) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0509842103 · Cited by 847 · see citing works
Quantifying the influence of global warming on unprecedented extreme climate events
Diffenbaugh, N. S., Singh, D., Mankin, J., Horton, D. E., Swain, D. L., Touma, D., Charland, A., Liu, Y., Haugen, M. A., Tsiang, M., et al. (2017) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1618082114 · Cited by 777 · see citing works
Self-citationGlobal Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization
Milanović, B. (2016) · doi:10.48558/yxse-bd71 · Cited by 677 · see citing works
Climate change through a poverty lens
Hallegatte, S., & Rozenberg, J. (2017) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate3253 · Cited by 545 · see citing works
Carbon emissions and income inequality
Ravallion, M. D. (2000) · Oxford Economic Papers · doi:10.1093/oep/52.4.651 · Cited by 405 · see citing works
Mastrandrea, M. D., Mach, K. J., Plattner, G.-K., Edenhofer, O., Stocker, T. F., Field, C. B., Ebi, K. L., & Matschoss, P. R. (2011) · Climatic Change · doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0178-6 · Cited by 368 · see citing works
Large potential reduction in economic damages under UN mitigation targets
Burke, M., Davis, W. M., & Diffenbaugh, N. S. (2018) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0071-9 · Cited by 351 · see citing works
Self-citationEarly onset of significant local warming in low latitude countries
Mahlstein, I., Knutti, R., Solomon, S., & Portmann, R. W. (2011) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/6/3/034009 · Cited by 300 · see citing works
Climate volatility deepens poverty vulnerability in developing countries
Ahmed, S. A., Diffenbaugh, N. S., & Hertel, T. W. (2009) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/3/034004 · Cited by 289 · see citing works
Self-citationInternational inequalities in per capita CO2 emissions: A decomposition methodology by Kaya factors
Duro, J. A., & Padilla, E. (2006) · Energy Economics · doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2005.12.004 · Cited by 254 · see citing works
Inequality in the distribution of personal income in the world: How it is changing and why
Schultz, T. (1998) · Journal of Population Economics · doi:10.1007/s001480050072 · Cited by 246 · see citing works
The Inequality of Climate Change From 1.5 to 2°C of Global Warming
King, A. D., & Harrington, L. J. (2018) · Geophysical Research Letters · doi:10.1029/2018gl078430 · Cited by 208 · see citing works
Poorest countries experience earlier anthropogenic emergence of daily temperature extremes
Harrington, L. J., Frame, D. J., Fischer, E. M., Hawkins, E., Joshi, M., & JONES, C. D. (2016) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/055007 · Cited by 191 · see citing works
Regional climate change and national responsibilities
Hansen, J., & Sato, M. (2016) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034009 · Cited by 133 · see citing works
Economic carbon cycle feedbacks may offset additional warming from natural feedbacks
Woodard, D., Davis, S. J., & Randerson, J. T. (2018) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1805187115 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Strengthened scientific support for the Endangerment Finding for atmospheric greenhouse gases
Duffy, P. B., Field, C. B., Diffenbaugh, N. S., Doney, S. C., Dutton, Z., Goodman, S. W., Heinzerling, L., Hsiang, S., Lobell, D. B., Mickley, L. J., et al. (2018) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aat5982 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Self-citationDislocated interests and climate change
Davis, S. J., & Diffenbaugh, N. S. (2016) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/6/061001 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Lawrance, E. L., Thompson, R., Newberry Le Vay, J., Page, L., & Jennings, N. (2022) · International Review of Psychiatry · doi:10.1080/09540261.2022.2128725 · Cited by 500 · see citing works
Tackling climate change with machine learning
Rolnick, D., Donti, P. L., Kaack, L. H., Kochanski, K., Lacoste, A., Sankaran, K., Ross, A. S., Milojevic-Dupont, N., Jaques, N., Waldman-Brown, A., et al. (2023) · ACM Computing Surveys · doi:10.1145/3485128 · Cited by 336 · see citing works
ATTRICI v1.1 – counterfactual climate for impact attribution
Mengel, M., Treu, S., Lange, S., & Frieler, K. (2021) · Geoscientific Model Development · doi:10.5194/gmd-14-5269-2021 · Cited by 119 · see citing works
Global priorities for climate change and mental health research
Charlson, F., Ali, S., Augustinavicius, J., Benmarhnia, T., Birch, S., Clayton, S., Fielding, K., Jones, L., Juma, D., Snider, L., et al. (2022) · Environment International · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2021.106984 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Making nature-based solutions climate-ready for the 50 °C world
Ossola, A., & Lin, B. B. (2021) · Environmental Science & Policy · doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2021.05.026 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Gupta, T. D., Carneiro, B., Schapendonk, F., Pacillo, G., Suza, M., & Läderach, P. (2023) · International Development Planning Review · doi:10.3828/idpr.2023.5 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Diffenbaugh, N. S., & Burke, M.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- Corresponding author
- Diffenbaugh, Noah S.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2019-04-22
- Volume
- 116
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 9808-9813
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC6525504
- OpenAlex
- W2939349760
- Cited by
- 927
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 125 · 2025: 155 · 2024: 150 · 2023: 167 · 2022: 117 · 2021: 132 · 2020: 56 · 2019: 24 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 102.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Stanford University (NONE)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Energy, Environment, Economic Growth
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Productivity
- Keywords
- global warming, economic inequality, anthropogenic forcing, climate-growth relationships, GDP per capita, between-country inequality, fossil fuel consumption, global climate models
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
