The Birth Cohorts Most Responsible for Carbon Emissions

Rarely are those most impacted by climate change the same as those most responsible for global carbon emissions. Assignment of responsibility for carbon emissions typically differentiates emissions across space and time but not birth cohort. Including young birth cohorts complicates assessments as they have yet to emit as much as older cohorts. Using formal demographic methods, we develop an approach to estimate carbon emissions across space, across time, and across the life course, creating a unified carbon emissions identity, comparable to other well-known carbon identities. We estimate the birth cohorts born between 1850 and 2020 with the highest lifetime carbon emissions. We show that globally, cohorts born between 1970 and 1990 have the highest lifetime emissions under a moderate carbon emissions pathway and those born since 2000 under a high emissions pathway. Our results suggest that carbon emissions pathways play the strongest role in determining which cohorts will be associated with the highest lifetime carbon emissions, with lower pathways suggesting earlier cohorts and higher pathways suggesting later cohorts.