UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : International Panel on Inequality (IPI), Founding Committee first meeting

Overcoming and I will be able to say for a few more minutes, but but not very long.

And it's not because you said something I didn't like, it's just that I had a previous commitment.

So it is with a great pleasure that I addressed you today on a subject that has been of growing concern around the world, our inequality crisis.

30 years ago or so, I was asked to become a lead author of the second assessment of the IPCC, which was the first meeting of the assessment of the IPCC that went into economic issues and to particular mitigation of climate change.

And I, I have to say it was an accelerating experience.

You, you had climate science scientists, economists who were interested in, in climate from all over the world volunteering their services.

If you actually valued how much was really spent, that was enormous.

But they were volunteering their services because they thought this is really an important issue that the international community needed to address.

And you know, we, we just had really interesting discussions and I think we, we made progress in understanding what was at the time, at very beginning of our understanding of, of climate change.

Our report published in 1995, I did do think had an enormous influence in helping guide public responses, A view shared by the Nobel Peace Prize.

Even though they haven't decided to award the Peace Prize to, we know the greatest peacemaker who is dropping bombs in various places around the world.

But they made a good decision then back in 2007.

And in in a way, you know, that was a, they gave it to the IPCC jointly with Al Gore.

And I have a little certificate from from that.

And I'm as proud of that as I am for the one I have in economics, because in some ways it really did make a, a, a difference for the world.

Today we we face a whole set of crisis, a climate crisis, a crisis of multilateralism and an inequality crisis.

And I'm very grateful to President Ramaphosa, who was serving then as the head of the G20, for recognising, following on the work of President Liu of Brazil, that the world did face the climate, an inequality crisis.

And it was something that the world could do about.

We didn't have to just sit, sit by and watch this inequality crisis.

He asked us to do a report.

And you know, we, we, we did a report which gave not the surprising results that inequality was getting worse and worse even beyond what we had thought.

But we thought our Commission committee thought that if we're going to have a sustained impact on inequality, it wasn't going to be solved by just another report.

We needed to create an institution that would deal with it and the IPCC was sort of a model in the back of our minds that that the IPCC, you know, the, the international community had recognised you have a problem like they had with the ozone destroying gases.

You begin by getting the science right and that guides the international community of how to respond.

So the first step was to get the science right, and we thought that creating something like the IPCC, in this case we called it the International Panel on Inequality.

IPI would help the world address the problem by understanding what was happening, that is to say, the the nature of of the changes of inequality and all the dimensions.

This is a really complex.

It's not only income and wealth, it's all the multidimensionality of inequality, the intersectionality, how it affects our our society, the politics, the drivers, the consequences, the costs and what can be done about it.

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It is a matter of choice.

You know, as I sometimes put it, it's not the laws of nature that create inequality.

It's the laws of man.

And we can change those.

So that was the and, and among the things and why it was particularly appropriate that this should be on the G20 or the international agenda is that some of the international rules like the global trade architecture, the global architecture for knowledge, global financial architecture affect inequality both within and between countries.

So it really is important for policy makers as they make decisions about all the range of things within countries and and internationally to understand what are the consequences of that.

So our Commission concluded that there, there ought to be this kind of IPI like the IPCC.

Now the reception to this our, our report exceeded our, our greatest hopes.

You know, I've been on a lot of commissions.

We put out our reports and we are lucky if there's one or two articles this just to give you one metric.

And I said there were 600 news items in 75 countries and, you know, major art editorials in support of the idea.

So it really did get a a very positive response.

And I think partly because there were some very startling numbers.

For instance, the richest 1% captured 41% of the new wealth since the year 2000.

So in the last 25 years, 41% of all the wealth that's been created in the world has gone to the top 1%, while the bottom 50% of humanity has gotten 1% of the total wealth that's been created.

And you know, you can translate that into U.S.

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It means the bottom increased their wealth by $585, whereas the top 1% saw their wealth increased by $1.3 million.

So that's an average of the top 1%.

Moreover, you know, we have this myth of the people at the top working very hard and getting their wealth.

The fact is we are becoming a world of inherited plutocracy.

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I don't know if you know, that's a billion billion.

It's a lot of money, $70 trillion of wealth is expected to be handed down to heirs over the next decade.

So those are people who have not earned their income except for doing one thing.

They chose the right parents.

And I always tell my students, choose the most important decision you can make in life is choosing the right parent.

If you mess that up, the game is over.

So this kind of data keeps trickling in the US Federal Reserve.

This was written after our report was done has recently reported that in the third quarter of 2025, the net worth of the top 1% of the United States had climbed to 32% of the total.

So the top 1% has almost a third of the total wealth of the United States, which is a record going back since the data started getting collected in 1989.

Well, the response to these kinds of numbers was understandable, given not only the magnitude of what has been happening, but the growing awareness of its consequent consequences.

Not just the adverse economic consequences that I've written about in my book, for instance The Price of Inequality, but the political consequences that we're seeing all around us.

While there may be many explanations of the backsliding of democracy, the growth of inequality in all its dimensions must be among them.

No, I have to say I I was really heartened by the response to our major proposed initiative, the International Panel on Inequality, by the academic community, including the people who've come here to help.

We've been consulting with on on how to design it.

Over 700 economists and other inequality experts worldwide expressed support.

Again, it's really phenomenal.

Some of the leading research institutions offered to link support to the work of the IPI, including the Southcenter for Inequality Studies and my colleague Imran Velodio, who is a a vital member of the founding committee, who is here today the lending School of Economics.

You're going to hear hear from Chico a little bit later.

I'm grateful for the input of Mike Savage, who is also here the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics, where Lucas Chancel has been giving us advice.

Multiple UN agencies working on inequality have extended their support.

We spoke to many of them this morning and I'm grateful with the Magdalena who I've been working with for many years for hosting us and for the Director General of the ILO for speaking today.

Of course, if the work of the IPI is to have the influence that we hope it will, it is essential that there be political support from policy makers who can do something to change our current direction.

I want to pay tribute to the leadership of South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Norway in putting the IPI on the global stage.

And I want to make notice those of you may not have followed this.

A recent African Union resolution in support tabled by South Africa has achieved the considerable step of allowing us to say the continent of Africa wants this panel to go forward.

Last week, Winnie and I had a chance to meet with the Secretary General in New York and he supported expressed his strong support for the IPI and we talked about working for AUN resolution, UNGA resolution to recognise and endorse the IPI this year.

I could go on, but I think I think the point should be clear.

We are serious about creating the IPI this year and I'm very proud to be able to open today's event and introduce the influential community in Geneva to our proposal.

I will conclude by trying to put the perspective of what we are doing.

This sounds a little bit academic, but I, I, I wanted to put it in this light.

A central idea of the Enlightenment was that we could construct better lives for ourselves and our children through science or through understanding nature and through reasoning.

That we could create institutions that enable us to work together better peacefully to solve common problems.

Democracy and the rule of law were one section set of institutions.

The IPCC was another more more recent institution.

We believe the IPI would be still another.

The establishment of the IPI at this moment is of special importance.

It would demonstrate clearly how countries can work together for a common purpose.

It would highlight the value of multilateralism at a time when it's being attacked like never before in my lifetime.

To the permanent missions, multilateral agencies, academic and civil society here today, I ask for your full support in our work.

International Panel on Inequality will not only help to alleviate the suffering of citizens living in unequal societies, but signal to the world that we can continue to work together to address the multiple crises faced by the globe today.

Now I'm invited, I'm pleased to invite representatives from founding governments to make a few remarks.

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International Panel on Inequality (IPI), Founding Committee first meeting - 16 March 2026