Social scientist Ilona Otto sees the lifestyle of the wealthy as the primary driver of climate change. She has some unconventional proposals for changing that.
The poorer half of the world's population is responsible for only ten per cent of global CO₂ emissions. How much higher would that figure be if the world's poorer people were able to secure a basic livelihood?
Otto: If the 700 million poorest people had an income above the poverty line, CO2 emissions could rise by up to 26 per cent. That's what we calculated in a joint study…
Read the full interview at rp-online.de!
Professor Ilona Otto is a sociologist, climate researcher and head of the Research Group "Social Complexity and Systems Transformation" as well as Deputy Director of the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change at the University of Graz. Previously, she worked at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change. She is regarded as one of the leading researchers in the study of the impacts of climate change on poverty.
