The year 2021 will go down as one where varied segments of society tried everything under the sun to persuade the rich and the influential to commit to mitigating climate change. The runup to Glasgow has been relentless. Can we count on recency bias?

Yesterday, a massive study published by Japanese researchers attributed two million premature deaths every year to air pollution caused by consumption in the G20 nations. It’s the first time a study has quantified nation-t0-nation consumer responsibility for global mortality due to both primary and secondary PM2.5 particles.

G20 members met in Rome, Italy, over the weekend and will decide the fate of COP26 this week in Glasgow. These countries represent ~80% of the world’s economic output, two-thirds of the global population, and three-quarters of international trade.

They are the historical polluters, and they still have a massive impact. Now to hammer it home with a startling statistic: “G20 lifetime consumption of about 28 [24-33] people claims one life.”

A G20 country like India has a bigger problem at home. Out of its footprint of 493,000 premature air pollution deaths per year, 87% occur in India; 13% in foreign countries. In terms of  production-based emissions, India generated 549,000 deaths a year, 12% of which occurred in other countries.

On a bilateral basis, the US consumption has a significant impact on China, India, Mexico, and Russia, as well as on the US itself. But 62% of its PM2.5 premature death footprint is outside the country.

We understand why the timing of the study is important. Lead author Keisuke Nansai tells me that many climate change measures will reduce PM2.5, but if those measures are in countries which already have clean air, then it will not reduce global PM2.5 premature deaths significantly.

In short, the rich must pay to clean up the air in developing countries.

If the four million premature deaths that are caused every year by PM2.5 are blamed solely on the emitting countries, says Nansai, it is easy to predict that the high number of premature deaths (including infants) in developing countries will continue.

“By showing the reality that PM2.5 deaths in developing countries actually occur to support the consumption of other developed countries with technology and money, we hope to give the countries a rational responsibility to cooperate with each other and open up opportunities for international cooperation,” Nansai wrote in an email.

The pressure has been building up on the G20. Last week, a unique global survey’s results were released. Called the “G20 Peoples’ Climate Vote”, the survey polled 689,000 people, including over 302,000 people under the age of 18. In India, over 30,000 people were polled each in the adult and under-18 categories.

In all of the G20 countries surveyed, a majority of under-18s said they believed climate change is a global emergency, ranging from Argentina and Saudi Arabia (63%), to Italy and the UK (86%). In most countries, under-18s are more likely to believe this than adults, and often by large margins, such as Australia, the US, and India.

Interestingly, the three most popular climate policies among both adults and under-18s were conserving forests and land (56% vs 59%), promoting renewables (54% vs 57%), followed by climate friendly farming (53% vs 57%).

In September, climate protests by young people across the world got scientific validation.

Science published a unique perspective on intergenerational climate inequalities. It says that going by current global climate policy pledges, babies born in 2020 worldwide could expect to experience 2-7 times more extreme climate events—including heat waves, crop failures, droughts, floods, wildfires, and tropical storms—than someone born in 1960.

The disproportionate climate change burden gets starker if you factor in the declining population rate in high income countries.

The study says children born in the present and future are much more likely to be born in regions “facing the highest increase in lifetime extreme event exposure”. For instance, 64 million born in Europe and Central Asia between 2015 and 2020 will experience 3.8-4 times more extreme events under the current pledges, but 205 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa face a 5.4- to 5.9-fold increase in lifetime extreme event exposure. For heat waves, the lifetime exposure increases by a factor of 49 to 54.

These findings have implications for climate litigation, and international and intergenerational justice.

In 1930, at the peak of the Great Depression, British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote the famous essay: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930). (If you hadn’t guessed already, this edition’s headline riffs on that.)

Keynes wrote:

In 2021, social scientists argue that the world has “the last, best hope” to correct the imbalance and inequalities that have arisen out of the 200 years of unsustainable economic development.

Formerly a Harvard University professor and now a Columbia University economist Jefferey Sachs puts it aptly:

As countries play good COP, bad COP (pardon the pun) at Glasgow this week, they absolutely must keep the possibilities for countless generations on the negotiating table.

That’s it for this week. What did you think? Do write to us [email protected] with feedback and suggestions on what you’d like us to cover. 

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