4 min readNov 11, 2026 06:33 AM IST First published on: Nov 11, 2026 at 06:33 AM IST“When a poor farmer in Nepal went to sow… seeds in the monsoon, fertilisers didn’t reach her on time … [Yet] Rifles and ammunition cross borders, clear every bottleneck, meet each deadline. We have built a world with flawless logistics for war and broken logistics for food … [We are] hit by the climate we did not warm and by the wars we did not start.” So said Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah at the UN General Assembly in September, barely a month after a “Himalayan tsunami” killed nearly 1,500 people in Nepal, with over 5000 still missing.Nepal’s was one of many major climate disasters this year. India’s summer monsoon was severely weakened by the Super El Niño, with vast parts of the country now reeling under drought. Through it all, the US war on Iran has broken global supply chains inflating household bills for the average consumer, even as US oil companies are reported to have made billions in wartime profits.AdvertisementAs we stand on the brink of overshooting 1.5oC of global warming, policymakers gather this week in Antalya, Turkey for COP31, whose goal is to implement solutions to slow warming, limit overshoot, and help countries adapt.But who should take the lead in implementing these solutions?The common view holds that the US and Europe bear the greatest responsibility but it misses the full picture.AdvertisementTo see why, imagine that all humanity had historically lived a European or American lifestyle. How much would the world have warmed already? What about the Indian or Nepalese lifestyle? In peer-reviewed research soon to appear in Climate Policy, we build a new framework to study this thought experiment.By 2022, the Earth’s actual warming was about 1.3°C. But, had the whole world historically lived like the average British citizen, the Earth would have already warmed about 2.5°C. And like the average American, about 3.7°C.But our most striking findings concern small, super-affluent countries. Had humanity lived as Singaporeans do, warming would have been about 2°C; as Luxembourgers do, nearly 4°C; and as Qataris do, a staggering 5+°C. In contrast, the historical lifestyles of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) would have led to a mere 0.6oC of warming, and about 0.8oC for India.Thus, affluent countries have avoided climate collapse only because most of the world did not live as they do. Global inequality has inadvertently subsidised climate stability.This sharpens Shah’s address in two ways. First, the injustice developing countries face is not merely that they bear the brunt of disasters they did not cause. Their low emissions have additionally helped stave off even higher levels of warming and bought the world valuable time to act. Second, responsibility for climate solutions rests not only on large affluent countries but also on small, super-affluent ones.you may likeWhat does this mean for COP31? Those with the most destabilising lifestyles must lead on implementation. Countries whose universalised lifestyles would already have breached 1.5°C face an obligation to pursue net-negative emissions today. Technological and financial limits may put this out of reach even for the world’s richest. But they can still contribute to the UN Loss and Damage fund, ease intellectual-property rules, transfer technologies for emissions reduction, and accelerate grant-based climate finance.If the world can deliver arms and ammunition across borders on schedule, it has the means to move fertiliser, finance, and technology to those in need. Surely, that is the yardstick by which the outcomes of any COP must be judged.Dhara is a sustainability scientist at Krea University. Jalan is research scholar at Indian Institute of Science. Views are personal