Temperature Rise Amplifies Environmental Inequities? Europe’s North-South Divide

Evidence shows that global warming does not affect all geographical areas and social groups equally. In this line, various previous studies analysed inequality and overexposure of socioeconomic groups to land surface temperature (LST) as a proxy for heat exposure. However, the previous studies did not offer insight into whether inequality perpetuates, increases or decreases in the event of a vast increase in LST and whether such association differs from one geographic context to another. This study seeks answers to a core research question: Does higher LST trigger higher inequality in Europe? This study measures the magnitude (population-weighted average) and inequality (population-weighted Gini) of exposure to LST in different areas of Europe. It adapts local and global Moran’s I and the Local Bivariate Relationship analyses. The results show that high magnitudes of LST are clustered in southern Europe and low values in the northern. High values of inequality are less clustered and can be found anywhere across Europe. In the north of Europe, there is a convex (U-shaped) relationship between LST magnitude and inequality, i.e. the highest inequality occurs at the highest and lowest magnitudes. Oppositely, the relationship is concave (⋂-shaped) in the south of Europe. Ultimately, the results are discussed.