COP31: Universal affluent lifestyles would have caused 2.5-5°C warming; LDC lifestyles only 0.6°C

The news

COP31 opened this week in Antalya, Turkey, with policymakers tasked with implementing solutions to slow global warming and help countries adapt as the world nears the 1.5°C threshold. A new peer-reviewed framework, soon to be published in the journal Climate Policy, has reframed the debate on who bears the greatest responsibility for climate action, arguing that the focus on the US and Europe alone misses the full picture.

The research, by sustainability scientist Dhara at Krea University and research scholar Jalan at the Indian Institute of Science, calculates how much the Earth would have warmed by 2022 if all of humanity had historically lived the lifestyle of a single country. The actual warming by 2022 was about 1.3°C. But if the whole world had lived like the average American, warming would have reached 3.7°C; like a Qatari, over 5°C; and like a Luxembourger, nearly 4°C. In contrast, the historical lifestyles of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) would have caused only 0.6°C of warming, and India’s lifestyle about 0.8°C.

The authors argue that affluent countries have avoided climate collapse only because most of the world did not live as they do, meaning global inequality has inadvertently subsidised climate stability. This sharpens the injustice highlighted by Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah at the UN General Assembly in September, who noted that his country was hit by a climate it did not warm and wars it did not start, after a 'Himalayan tsunami' killed nearly 1,500 people. The framework implies that responsibility for climate solutions rests not only on large affluent countries but also on small, super-affluent ones whose universalised lifestyles would already have breached 1.5°C.

What is the UN Loss and Damage Fund?

The Loss and Damage Fund was established at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in 2022 to provide financial assistance to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Its operationalisation was agreed upon at COP28 in 2023, with the World Bank serving as its interim host and trustee for an initial four-year period. The fund addresses economic and non-economic losses caused by both extreme weather events and slow-onset events such as sea-level rise. The push for such a mechanism was led for decades by the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries group, and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage was created as an earlier step at COP19 in 2013.

How does the new framework assign responsibility?

The framework is a thought experiment that universalises the historical lifestyle of each country to the entire world population. It finds that the US lifestyle would have caused 3.7°C of warming, Qatar’s over 5°C, and Luxembourg’s nearly 4°C, while LDCs would have caused only 0.6°C. The authors argue that low-emission countries have inadvertently bought the world time to act, and that the obligation to pursue net-negative emissions, contribute to the UN Loss and Damage fund, ease intellectual-property rules, transfer green technologies, and accelerate grant-based climate finance falls on all countries whose universalised lifestyles breach 1.5°C.

What are the practical implications for COP31?

The authors state that countries with the most destabilising lifestyles must lead on implementation. They note that technological and financial limits may put net-negative emissions out of reach even for the world’s richest countries, but those countries can still contribute to the Loss and Damage fund, ease IP rules, and accelerate grant-based finance. The yardstick for judging COP31 outcomes, the authors argue, is whether the world can deliver fertiliser, finance, and technology to those in need with the same efficiency it delivers arms and ammunition across borders.