ABC - The fairest way to fight climate change is to base a country's emission targets on the number of wealthy individuals it has, argues an international team.
But some Australian experts are not so sure the plan will help towards a more equal sharing of responsibility for reducing emissions.
Dr Shoibal Chakravarty of the Princeton Environment Institute and colleagues lay out their argument in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Half the planet's climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its wealthiest people, say Chakravarty and colleagues.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting the emissions, while developing countries - including fast-growing China and India - are not required to curb greenhouse pollution.
Rich countries such as the US have complained this gives developing countries an unfair economic advantage.
The counter argument is that developed countries have historically released more climate-warming gases, and developing countries need time to catch up. Read more
