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$70 Trillion in Inherited Wealth Shows Global 'Inequality Emergency' Spiraling Out of Control
"Inequality is a crisis in need of concerted action," said Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Nov 04, 2025
A panel of experts convened by South Africa's president warned Tuesday that the world is facing an "inequality emergency" as the richest people on the planet capture a disproportionate share of new wealth and prepare to pass it down to their heirs—perpetuating the chasm between economic elites and everyone else.
The panel, led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, notes in a new report that over $70 trillion in wealth will be passed down to heirs over the next decade. In the next 30 years, the panel estimates, 1,000 billionaires will transfer more than $5.2 trillion to their heirs mostly untaxed.
"Inequality is one of the most urgent concerns in the world today, generating many other problems in economies, societies, polities and the environment," states the report, published ahead of the G20 meetings in Johannesburg at the end of the month.
Joining Stiglitz on the panel, formally called the Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality, were Adriana Abdenur of Brazil, Winnie Byanyima of Uganda, Jayati Ghosh of India, and Imraan Valodia and Wanga Zembe-Mkabile of South Africa.
"Inequality is not a given; combating it is necessary and possible," the experts wrote. "Inequality results from policy choices that reflect ethical attitudes and morals, as well as economic trade-offs. It is not just a matter of concern for individual countries, but a global concern that should be on the international agenda—and therefore the G20's."
Since 2000, the global 1% has captured more than 40% of all new wealth while the bottom half of humanity saw its wealth grow by just 1%, according to the new report. More than 80% of countries—accounting for roughly 90% of the global population—have high levels of income inequality, which undermines social cohesion, economic functioning, and democratic institutions nationally and worldwide.
The panel recommends a broad scope of policy changes to tackle runaway income and wealth inequality, from ensuring the fair taxation of multinational corporations and ultra-rich individuals, to antitrust policies that reduce corporate concentration, to major investments in public services.
The experts also called for the creation of an International Panel on Inequality—inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—"to support governments and multilateral agencies with authoritative assessments and analyses of inequality" that would "empower policymaking."
"The committee's work showed us that inequality is a crisis in need of concerted action," Stiglitz said Tuesday. "The necessary step to taking this action is for policymakers, political leaders, the private sector, journalists and academia to have accurate and timely information and analysis of the inequality crisis. This is why our recommendation above all is for a new International Panel on Inequality."
"It would learn from the remarkable job the IPCC has done for climate change, bringing together technical expertise worldwide to track inequality and assess what is driving it," he added.
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After COP29, the World Is Losing Faith in the UN Climate Process
Developed countries intentionally or unintentionally let dejection work its way through the conference for several reasons, the most obvious being that their home constituencies are turning against climate and environmental justice.
Dec 21, 2024
The United Nations Climate Summit (COP29), held in Baku, Azerbaijan last month, apparently lived up to its moniker: “The Finance COP.” Two weeks of semantic quibbling finally yielded an agreement that would triple climate finance to $300 billion a year by 2035. Developing countries were calling for $1.3 trillion instead, which would have been more than four times the amount agreed. Many pooh-poohed the promised $300 billion as “too little, too distant.” Even if one ignores “the too little part,” it is hard to overlook the redeeming of the pledge way off into the future, a fact that was obscured due to the linguistic jumble of U.N.-speak, legalese, and bureaucratese in the document.
Given that it won’t be realized for 11 years, the agreement raises a number of rhetorical questions. Will nature and its fury be put on pause till 2035? Will climate action (emissions reduction) and adaptation (to climate change) continue at no cost or on the cheap? Will the climate stop changing? Despite its appearance to the contrary, the tripling of climate finance was a pretend effort to leave Baku with a semblance of seriousness. Yet the U.N. Executive Secretary for Climate Change was unsure if the agreed finance would be delivered as promised. He grandly hailed the agreement as an “insurance policy for humanity,” but equally skeptically cautioned that an “insurance policy only works if premiums are paid in full and on time.”
In reality, agreements like climate finance or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are no different than New Year Resolutions that are only honored in intended or unintended breaches. What make the climate finance agreement even less resolute are three aspects.
The world’s largest and wealthiest nations seem to have concluded that they don’t need the rest of the world or their NDCs to reduce emissions.
First, it is neither obligatory nor enforceable. Pledges have been made on the part of developed countries like the European Union, the United States, and Japan—whose respective leaders ironically chose to abstain from the summit—that “agreed to help raise $300 billion a year by 2035.” They didn’t take it upon themselves to pay the promised amount but rather pledged to “help raise $300 billion,” which is akin to crowdfunding the whole effort.
Second, COP29 cast its central objective as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), i.e., each developed country will pledge a specific amount of contribution to climate finance. No such quantification was agreed. All that was agreed was that developed countries would “help raise $300 billion a year by 2035.” Fundraising is not a quantified financial commitment.
Third, and above all, there was no agreement on what will count as climate finance: public finance, private finance, bank loans, philanthropy, investment, or all of it? These lacunae leave so big a hole in the climate finance agreement that it can let through even a Category-5 storm. Some delegates call the agreement a bad deal. Others cry foul that the only deal worse than no deal is a bad deal.
All parties to the agreement, thus, returned home unhappy. Developed countries were sticking together to keep their current commitment of $100 billion unchanged. Developing countries insisted on raising it to $1.3 trillion effective now. Hosts of COP29 were overrunning the conference schedule to get a deal acceptable to both developed and developing countries. Civil society organizations were dismissing the agreement as “a bad deal,” even a “joke.” As a result, everyone left the conference dejected.
Developed countries intentionally or unintentionally let this dejection work its way through the conference for several reasons, the most obvious being that their home constituencies are turning against climate and environmental justice. Western societies’ rightward lurch has left their governments unwilling and unable to make any commitment to finance climate action. It is no coincidence that leaders of major European nations such as Germany and France and even that of the European Union chose to sit out the Conference.
The leaders of the five-member BRICS were also no shows. Leaders of five of the G7 countries opted out of the Conference. Canada’s leader flew instead to Florida to spend a day with the U.S. president-elect to discuss reviving suspended oil and gas pipeline projects. Leaders of 13 of the G20 countries, a cluster of the world’s largest and wealthiest economies, too, voted with feet. The abstaining leaders’ nations represent “the World’s 13 Top Polluters.” For these reasons, the prime minister of Papua New Guinea called COP29 a “total waste of time” and pulled out of the conference. The president of Argentina, who called the climate crisis a “socialist lie,” pulled his country out of the conference altogether, a move that many fear threatens the viability of the Paris climate pact. The science-denying Argentine leader might have withdrawn from the summit in what historian Timothy Snyder calls “anticipatory obedience” to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Trump stands by his commitment to pull the United States out of the Paris climate pact and stop contributing to climate finance, just as he did during his first term.
The Paris climate pact is even more threatened by the G20 nations’ aversion to the U.N. process on climate change. The G20 held a pow-wow of its own in Brazil at the same time as the U.N. climate summit. The Brazilian leader, who is an ardent champion of climate justice, skipped COP29 “due to head injury,” but he happily made himself available to host and fete leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies at exactly the same time as the Baku summit was underway. The agenda at the G20 summit was dominated by economic growth that to most scientists and environmentalists is at the heart of climate change. In fact, the G20 summit stole the march on COP29. Even the U.N. secretary general, who was the official host of the Baku summit, left in the middle of the proceedings to fly to Brazil to attend the G20 summit instead.
The world’s largest and wealthiest nations seem to have concluded that they don’t need the rest of the world or their NDCs to reduce emissions. G20 countries account for 80% of the world’s emissions, while the least developed countries just 4% of them. If G20 nations decide to transition away from fossil fuel energy, it will dramatically reduce atmospheric carbon’s impact on soaring temperatures. In this picture, the rest of the 180 countries and their emissions hardly matter. It’s what environmental sociologist William Freudenburg called disproportionality: A handful of powerful actors account for the disproportionate amount of industrial pollution. The world’s largest and wealthiest economies have the financial means, technological resources, and alternative paths away from fossilized fuels.
The Club of Rome, a business group that jolted the world with its classic report on Limits to Growth in 1972, wrote an open letter expressing its dismay at what it calls the failed process of COPs and voiced a call for urgent reforms. Among the signatories were such luminaries as the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, and former U.N. Executive Secretary for Climate Change Christiana Figueres. This lack of confidence in U.N. processes is another bad omen for future U.N. climate summits and more importantly the Paris climate pact, especially once the Trump administration is seated in Washington early next year.
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COP29 Was a Missed Opportunity: Rethinking Our Path to a Just and Sustainable Future
COP30 must be the summit that moves beyond the transactional nature of past negotiations to embrace ideas that recognize the intrinsic value of nature and the need for global solidarity in protecting it.
Dec 17, 2024
COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan has come and gone, leaving behind a sense of cautious reflection rather than the transformative shift many had hoped for. While the summit certainly brought some progress, it has left us with the bittersweet feeling that the climate crisis, with its urgent and pervasive impacts, still seems to be an issue addressed by small steps rather than bold, immediate action. In this sense, COP29 could be seen as both a missed opportunity and a call to rethink our approach to climate change.
A key discussion centered on mobilizing $300 billion annually by 2035 for climate mitigation efforts in vulnerable countries. While this figure might seem substantial, experts argue that at least $1.3 trillion is needed to address the crisis effectively. Even more concerning, however, is the lack of clarity about the sources of this funding; whether public or private, and how it will be allocated. While the commitments made are modest, they underscore a greater issue: the need for a radical shift in how climate finance is understood and structured.
Despite reservations, COP29 provided space for relevant debates about how to create a more inclusive and just financial system. The mobilisation of resources for the Global South is undoubtedly pressing, and the conversation is really just getting started. What is increasingly clear is that we must rethink the economic structures we have inherited, which often fail to address the systemic inequalities that underpin the climate crisis. Financial solutions must be holistic, incorporating the needs of vulnerable populations and the environment in ways that go beyond traditional market-driven approaches.
The environmental crisis cannot be solved by perpetuating existing power dynamics but requires finding solutions rooted in equity, justice, and a deep respect for the interconnectedness of all life.
Meanwhile, at the G20 summit, which ran in parallel to COP29, discussions on Universal Basic Income (UBI) for countries most affected by climate change gained traction. Countries in Latin America, including Brazil and Colombia, championed this idea, seeing it as a preventive measure against the growing polycrisis. UBI could offer a crucial safety net for populations already feeling the severe impacts of climate disruption. Despite its growing relevance and the goals set for COP30, UBI was sidelined at COP29, with market-based solutions taking center stage—solutions that largely overlook the root causes of the climate emergency.
The insistence on market-driven solutions, such as carbon credits, remains a central feature of international climate discussions. These mechanisms, which allow wealthy countries and corporations to offset emissions by purchasing credits from poorer nations, have yet to deliver the necessary reductions in global emissions. What is more concerning is that these market-based solutions reinforce a narrative of economic growth over environmental sustainability. Until the global conversation shifts away from this paradigm, meaningful progress will remain elusive.
The focus on market mechanisms at COP29 underscores the persistent power imbalances that shape climate action. Current international decision-making continues to rely on "realpolitik"—power dynamics that have failed to address both environmental and peace crises. This approach reinforces the dominance of wealthier nations and multinational corporations, while the voices of the Global South remain marginalized.
Although COP29 did not embrace the bold ideas needed to tackle the climate crisis, it has made one thing clear: The future of climate action lies in transforming how we relate to the planet and to each other. Climate change is a social justice issue that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, yet their voices continue to be overlooked in global decision-making. The environmental crisis cannot be solved by perpetuating existing power dynamics but requires finding solutions rooted in equity, justice, and a deep respect for the interconnectedness of all life.
One potential avenue for transformative action underrepresented at COP29 is the Cap and Share model. This proposal advocates for a carbon tax on the largest polluters, with the revenue redistributed to support vulnerable populations. By holding major emitters accountable and ensuring the most affected communities are supported, Cap and Share challenges the economic systems that have exacerbated both environmental degradation and social inequality. Such an approach would lay the foundations for a fairer and more sustainable global response to the climate crisis.
Looking ahead to COP30, there is an opportunity to break the cycle and center discussions on a more profound philosophical reimagining of our relationship with nature. It is time to ask ourselves: What does a "good life" mean in the context of the climate crisis, and how can we redefine it in a way that prioritizes ecological harmony over economic interests? COP30 could be the moment to rediscover the wisdom that reminds us that humanity is not separate from nature, but an integral part of the web of life that sustains the planet.
To make this shift a reality, we must draw inspiration from initiatives that can empower local communities, particularly in regions most affected by climate change. The principles of Cap and Share can materialise not just through international policy but by supporting initiatives in local territories that engage communities who have suffered the consequences of climate change while also playing a critical role in preserving biodiversity. These initiatives could provide the foundation for overcoming the structural inequalities that perpetuate social and environmental harm, giving rise to a more just and sustainable world.
COP30 must, therefore, be the summit that moves beyond the transactional nature of past negotiations. It should be the moment when we embrace ideas that recognize the intrinsic value of nature and the need for global solidarity in protecting it. But for that to happen, we must first ask: Are we prepared to rethink the way we relate to the planet and each other in order to build a more just and sustainable future?
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