Overview
- The peer-reviewed analysis published on Friday finds the top decile’s consumption generated annual damages of $1.7 to $5.7 trillion using 2017 spending data and the Environmental Prices Handbook.
- About 47–56% of the estimated harm is linked to biodiversity loss and 36–45% to greenhouse gas emissions with smaller shares from nitrogen, phosphorus and freshwater impacts.
- Per-person costs for those in the richest ten percent average roughly $2,300–$7,500 a year with far higher per-capita losses in the United States than in India.
- The authors highlight large uncertainty from valuing biodiversity and note the study excludes environmental harms tied to financial investments, so total impacts are likely higher than their estimates.
- Researchers recommend applying polluter‑pays approaches such as environmental taxes or wealth-type levies and tighter regulation because recovered funds could exceed current global needs for climate and biodiversity finance.