ABSTRACT

Climate change does not affect everyone on our planet in the same way. It is well known that the poorest people in the poorest countries – mainly in semitropical and tropical regions – bear by far the greatest risk from global warming. Most of the GHGs have been produced by the rich developed economies of the North, which may even benefit initially from climate change, and this raises important ethical considerations about the distribution of damages.1 The disproportionate burden of future warming on poorer regions (and poorer people within countries) is exacerbated by the current injustice of extreme poverty for much of the world’s population in the most threatened countries. This poverty is likely to persist, and suggests that affected populations will not have the resources to survive agricultural collapse or rapid sea-level rise resulting from climate change without outside help.