Renewable energy will cost the super-wealthy, not the rest of us – new study finds

Read the full story at Science Focus.

The urgent need for solutions to the climate crisis was made clear in the IPCC climate report published earlier this year – but who will pay the price? Not most people, but the super wealthy, according to new research.

According to a recent study, published in journal Joule, a transition to renewable energy would have a low impact on the majority of the population – despite previous assumptions that moving away from fossil fuels would negatively impact retirement plans and savings.

Instead, the team of economists from Sciences Po university in Paris, France, and The University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, estimate that the biggest losses in high-income countries would be to the wealthiest citizens – and even then these losses would account for a small percentage of their total wealth.