The newly released Global Justice Report sets out a new vision for global progress in the 21st century: grounding human development and equality in planetary habitability. It explores the conditions under which the world could move toward this horizon and traces an economically and ecologically consistent transition path from 2026 to 2100.
Its central finding is both urgent and hopeful: reconciling planetary habitability with high well-being for all is possible, but only if the transformation is built on three interconnected pillars. First, rapid decarbonization of energy systems is essential. However, the report makes clear that decarbonization alone is insufficient. Second, a major shift toward sufficiency—defined as a sharp reduction in labor hours and material footprint, alongside profound changes in consumption patterns, food habits, land use, and forest cover—is also required. Finally, neither decarbonization nor sufficiency can be financed or politically sustained without a drastic reduction in inequality of income, wealth, and power, both between and within countries. The compression of global inequality is not only compatible with deep decarbonization, it is a necessary condition for shared prosperity on a finite planet.
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Support independent eco journalism that drives real change.The Global Justice Report is the first attempt to propose a fully quantified plan combining four dimensions that are often treated separately in contemporary debates:
- redistribution at the world scale;
- deep reform of the international financial and economic order;
- radical transformation of energy systems;
- and substantial shifts in consumption patterns.
Compared with most climate scenarios, including those developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the report’s main novelty lies in modeling all four dimensions together while placing inequality and sufficiency at the center of the analysis.
Concretely, by 2100, the Global Justice Platform aims to:
- Achieve convergence in per capita monthly national income at €5,000 across all countries, closing today’s 16-fold global income gap.
- Increase the bottom half’s share of global wealth from 2% to 30% while reducing the billionaire class’s share from 6% to 0.05%.
- Enable nearly 90% of the world’s population to double their income while working roughly half of today’s labour hours.
- Limit global warming to 1.8°C through a sustainable convergence pathway combining rapid decarbonization with a major shift toward “sufficiency,” including reduced labour hours and material consumption, as well as profound changes in consumption patterns, food systems, land use, and forest cover — compared with more than 4.5°C under current policies.
- Establish a new Global Justice Fund to support massive global investment averaging 10.3% of world GDP annually between 2030 and 2060 — compared with less than 0.4% currently allocated to development aid and international organizations — financed through a combination of a global wealth tax, a world sovereign wealth fund, and a global income tax targeting the world’s richest individuals.
- Drive a broader transformation and democratization of the international economic and monetary system.
The report situates itself within a broader international agenda focused on planetary habitability, social justice, and reform of the global financial architecture. It builds on initiatives such as the Bridgetown Initiative, which combines proposals on international monetary reform, global wealth taxation, and climate finance, as well as the recent Sevilla Commitment on development finance, the UN Tax Convention process, and initiatives led by the G20 presidencies of Brazil and South Africa on global inequality and the rebalancing of wealth and power within planetary limits.
By placing these proposals within a quantified institutional framework, the Global Justice Report models socioeconomic convergence, distributional change, and temperature trajectories through the end of the century.
Thomas Piketty, co-director of the World Inequality Lab and coordinator of the report said:
“The dystopian, technology-driven visions of tech-autocrats make a radically new vision for global progress in the 21st century urgently necessary. Our report argues that it is time to put the reduction of inequalities at the heart of climate scenarios. Otherwise, we risk a world warming by 4°C or more. The good news is that a different future is possible—but only if we simultaneously reduce inequality and move toward sufficiency, with profound changes in consumption patterns, food systems, land use, forest cover, and a major shift toward less material-intensive sectors.”
Cornelia Mohren, environmental coordinator at the World Inequality and coordinator of the report said:
“The Global Justice Report is the first fully quantified plan for a future that keeps global warming below 2°C while achieving a high standard of living for all people worldwide. It brings together four dimensions that current debates tend to treat separately: redistribution at a global scale, a deep reform of the international financial and economic order, a radical transformation of energy systems (100% low carbon electricity by 2050), and significant shifts in consumption patterns.”
Lucas Chancel, co-director of the World Inequality Lab and coordinator of the report said:
“The path to global justice does not founder on technical feasibility, but on the absence of a concrete and at the same time ambitious vision for social progress. What we need now is political will and the building of coalitions across national borders.
The Global Justice Fund is a very concrete proposal to finance climate adaptation and mitigation. It would be funded through progressive global taxes on the wealthiest individuals, that could go up to 20% per year on billionaires – and 90% for top incomes. The revenues would flow into a Global Justice Fund with two main objectives: providing country dividends to support development and climate action, and building a Global Sovereign Fund to finance long-term investments for future generations.”
