Abstract
The costs and benefits of climate change mitigation are known to be distributed unevenly across time and space, while their intergenerational distribution across nations has not been evaluated. Here, we analyze the lifetime costs and benefits of climate change mitigation by age cohorts across countries under the Paris Agreement. Our results show that the age cohorts born prior to 1960 generally experience a net reduction in lifetime gross domestic product per capita. Age cohorts born after 1990 will gain net benefits from climate change mitigation in most lower income countries. However, no age cohorts enjoy net benefits regardless of the birth year in many higher income countries. Furthermore, the cost-benefit disparity among old and young age cohorts is expected to widen over time. Particularly, lower income countries are expected to have much larger cost-benefit disparity between the young and the old. Our findings highlight the challenges in building consensus for equitable climate policy among nations and generations.
Highlights
The costs and benefits of climate change mitigation are known to be distributed unevenly across time and space, while their intergenerational distribution across nations has not been evaluated
Our results show that climate change mitigation incurs a net reduction in lifetime gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for age cohorts born prior to 1960 across most nations (Fig.1)
In low-income countries, the age cohorts born before 1960 incur the largest reduction of average lifetime GDP per capita compared to the same age cohorts in countries with higher income
Summary
In most of the lower-middle-income and low-income countries, age cohorts born after 1990 will start to have a net gain of lifetime GDP per capita in the course of climate change mitigation under the Paris Agreement. In high- and upper-middle-income countries, the trend of lifetime GDP per capita by age cohort is sensitive to the model specifications that measure the benefits of climate change mitigation. The age cohorts born in 1960 in high-income countries (Fig.1e), and the age cohorts born in 1980 in upper-middleincome countries (Fig. 1f) start to show net gains of average lifetime GDP per capita under climate change mitigation. In many high-income countries, the negative IDI indicates that the climate change mitigation under the Paris Agreement favors older age cohorts than younger age cohort in terms of lifetime GDP per capita. In lower-middle-income countries, upper-middle-income countries, and low-income countries, the median IDI increases from 0.05 to 0.31, 0.28, and 0.23 during 2020–2100
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