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  • Perspective
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Climate change and the global distribution of wealth

Nature Climate Change volume 15, pages 364–374 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Wealth inequality dynamics influence economic and social outcomes and stability. While climate change and climate policies affect both physical capital and financial assets, their impacts on aggregate wealth and its distribution remain underexplored. Preliminary calculations suggest that climate change and climate investments could have substantial effects on wealth inequality, although the direction of these changes remains uncertain. This Perspective builds on numerical insights, outlines a conceptual framework and proposes a research agenda aimed at advancing the understanding of global wealth inequality under climate change, highlighting the need for interdisciplinary collaboration on the issue.

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Fig. 1: Projections of global wealth inequality under alternative climate investment scenarios.
Fig. 2: The impacts of climate change on income and wealth.
Fig. 3: The effects of climate change on the distribution of private wealth.

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Data availability

A detailed description of the underlying data sources of Fig. 1 is available in ref. 28.

Code availability

The code for Figs. 1 and 3 is available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to S. Hallegatte, T. Piketty, D. Rodrik, I. Weber and colleagues from the World Inequality Lab for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. Support from the Stone Program at Harvard Kennedy School is gratefully acknowledged, as well as from a European Union Horizon 2020 grant (WISE Horizons number 101095219). The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research on Social Inequalities, Sciences Po, Paris, France

    Lucas Chancel

  2. Department of Economics, Sciences Po, Paris, France

    Lucas Chancel & Cornelia Mohren

  3. World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics, Paris, France

    Lucas Chancel, Cornelia Mohren & Philipp Bothe

  4. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    Gregor Semieniuk

  5. World Bank, Washington DC, USA

    Gregor Semieniuk

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  1. Lucas Chancel
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Correspondence to Lucas Chancel.

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Chancel, L., Mohren, C., Bothe, P. et al. Climate change and the global distribution of wealth. Nat. Clim. Chang. 15, 364–374 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02268-3

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