The world’s eyes are on Brazil this week as leaders, scientists, and activists from across the globe gather for the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), popularly known as COP30. This biggest global climate meeting of the year is being held in Belém from November 10 to November 21.
From the Amazon’s heartland, where the stakes couldn’t be higher, debates over cutting carbon emissions, funding clean energy, and protecting forests are heating up.
One of the key focus areas of COP30 is to transform the global financial system so that all forms of finance support green, inclusive, and resilient economies, with a focus on ensuring funds reach most vulnerable countries and communities. Hopes are high that COP30 will deliver bold commitments to phase out fossil fuels faster, safeguard vulnerable communities, and breathe real life into promises made in past summits.
India, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and a key voice for the Global South, is expected to play a crucial role at COP30. With rising heatwaves, erratic monsoons and extreme weather events threatening millions of lives and livelihoods, especially of the marginalised and vulnerable communities in the country. New Delhi is pushing for fairer climate finance commitments and more support for sustainable technology, arguing that developing nations should not be forced to choose between growth and green goals.
Triple Inequality Climate Crisis
Just ahead of COP30, two major reports have underscored the urgent challenges posed by climate change. The Climate Inequality Report 2025, released by World Inequality Lab, reveals how wealth drives the climate crisis, and the world is at present facing the dual challenges of the climate crisis and wealth inequality. Meanwhile, the 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change delivers a stark health warning: climate inaction is resulting in millions of deaths every year across the globe.
Climate change is advancing faster than ever while the world is marked by extreme wealth inequality. The remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C is nearly exhausted, with disastrous consequences for ecosystems and human health and livelihoods, warn both the reports.
The world is facing a triple inequality climate crisis. First, the distribution of climate damage is highly unequal. The poorest half of the global population is projected to bear around 74 per cent of relative income losses by 2050, while the top 10 per cent will face only about 3 per cent, as they are generally less exposed and far less vulnerable to climate impacts.
Second, richer households are disproportionately responsible for environmental degradation. The global bottom 50 per cent account for just 10 per cent of global emissions through their consumption, whereas the top 10 per cent accounts for nearly 47 per cent.
Third, the capacity to finance climate action is deeply unequal. As of today, the bottom half of the world’s population owns only about 3 per cent of global wealth—leaving them with virtually no means to invest in mitigation or adaptation. In contrast, the top 10 per cent hold roughly 74 per cent of global wealth and, consequently, exert substantial influence over the trajectory of future climate investments.
Thus, the climate crisis and wealth inequality are deeply interconnected.
The Rich Are Fueling Climate Crisis
According to the Climate Inequality Report 2025, wealthy individuals not only generate disproportionate emissions through their consumption and the capital they control, but also have the financial, corporate, and political power to determine the trajectory of energy systems.
The recent report points out that globally the top 1 per cent represent 15 per cent of global consumption-based emissions, while they account for 41 per cent of global emissions associated with private capital ownership (see Figure 1.1). This report builds on the 2023 edition of the Climate Inequality Report and two years of pioneering research conducted by the World Inequality Lab, a global research laboratory focused on the study of inequality, and research institutions worldwide.
The 2025 report goes on to warn that climate change can deepen wealth inequality if ownership of low-carbon assets remains concentrated among the rich. For instance, the researchers have estimated that the top 1 per cent could see their share of world wealth jump from 38 per cent to 46 per cent by 2050 if they own tomorrow’s low-carbon assets (see Figure 2.4).
Despite the Paris Agreement’s call to halt new fossil fuel projects, more than 200 new or expanded oil and gas projects and over 850 coal mines are currently under development or have received approval, backed by capital linked to institutional investors and wealthy individuals often (though not only) based in the Global North.
The Climate Inequality Report 2025 report urges governments to connect emission accountability with wealth inequality for a fairer and more effective climate transition, recommending policies such as a global ban on new fossil fuel investments, taxation of polluting assets, and large-scale public investment in low-carbon infrastructure.
It suggests three policy options: A global ban on new fossil fuel investments; a tax on the carbon content of assets; and a public investment shock in low-carbon infrastructure is critical to a faster and "fair transition".
Climate Inaction is Killing Millions
The 2025 Report of the Lancet Countdown Report on Health and Climate Change, released on October 29, delivers a stark health warning: climate change is increasingly destabilising the planetary systems and the health threats of climate change have reached “unprecedented levels”.
Authored by 128 multidisciplinary experts worldwide, the 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change is the ninth—and most comprehensive— assessment of the links between climate change and health. The report highlights that the higher temperatures and the increasing size of vulnerable populations have led to a 63 per cent increase in heat-related deaths since the 1990s, reaching an estimated 546 000 yearly deaths on average in 2012–21.
As per the Lancet report, infants younger than 1 year and adults older than 65 years (the most vulnerable age groups) were exposed to a record high number of heatwave days in 2024, with infants younger than 1 year being exposed to 389 per cent more heatwave days each on average, and adults older than 65 years being exposed to 304 per cent more heatwaves days each on average, compared with the average exposure in 1986–2005.
The impacts of heat exposure on an individual’s ability to work or exercise outdoors, and on sleep quality have also reached concerning levels, affecting physical and mental health, warns the recent report.
The incidence of extreme precipitation days (which affect health and can trigger flash floods and landslides), increased in 64 per cent of the world’s land surface between 1961–90 and 2015–24. Meanwhile, a record-breaking 61 per cent of the global land area was affected by extreme drought in 2024, which is 299 per cent above the 1950s average, further threatening food and water security, sanitation, and causing downstream economic losses.
These extremes of heat, precipitation, and droughts can affect crop productivity, disrupt supply chains, hamper the work of agricultural workers, and affect income, further threatening food security, warns the Lancet report. Additionally, the hotter and drier weather is increasing the risk of wildfires, and 2024 had a record-high 154,000 deaths from wildfire smoke-derived small particulate matter (PM2·5) air pollution.
The changing climatic conditions are also affecting the risk of transmission of deadly infectious diseases. The average climate-defined transmission potential of dengue by Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti increased by 48·5 per cent and 11·6 per cent, respectively, from 1951–60 to 2015–24, at least partially contributing to the 7·6 million dengue cases reported globally in early 2024.
This has a direct impact on the global economy. The multiple health impacts of climate change are increasingly straining the economy, reducing labour productivity, increasing worker absenteeism, and burdening health systems, which, in turn, affect the socioeconomic conditions that support health and wellbeing.
For instance, the Lancet report points out that heat exposure resulted in a record-high 639 billion potential work hours being lost in 2024, 98 per cent above the 1990–99 average. The hours lost in 2024 resulted in potential losses worth US$1·09 trillion: almost 1 per cent of global domestic product. Additionally, weather-related extreme events in 2024 caused $304 billion in global economic losses—a 58·9 per cent increase from the 2010–14 annual average.
The Climate Paradox
Despite decades of scientific warnings, the world is currently heading towards a potentially catastrophic 2·7°C of heating by the end of the century—if not more—and emissions keep rising, says the Lancet report.
It also points out the climate paradox. As the need for decisive health-protective action grows, some world leaders are disregarding the growing body of scientific evidence on health and climate change, often in favour of short-sighted economic and political interests.
“The new US administration withdrew the country from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and dismantled world-leading research in the field, as well as key health, climate, and environmental agencies,” reads the Lancet report. It goes on to note that some countries (eg, Argentina and Hungary) have taken similar obstructive stances, while others have dropped crucial climate commitments. The USA’s withdrawal from WHO compounds climate threats, exacerbating health risks globally, lashes out the Lancet report.
The science is unequivocal. Concrete and meaningful actions are urgently needed to protect the world’s populations from the climatic changes. It remains to be seen if the world leaders will finally move from talking about climate change to taking urgent climate actions that align with climate justice.
The final verdict on COP30 will hinge on whether the world’s leaders finally match their words with action; or whether this summit, like so many before it, becomes another missed chance to deliver on the promise to save the planet and protect the most vulnerable communities in a world facing rising inequality.
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