Overview
- The Potsdam Institute study, published October 15–16, 2026 in Nature Sustainability, used linked energy, climate‑damage and land‑carbon models to assess 169 countries.
- Researchers grouped countries into five clusters and found 19 mostly fossil‑dependent states would face losses that together equal about 6 percent of global GDP.
- Three winner clusters of 81 countries—many in the Global South—stand to gain from avoided climate damages, renewables and land carbon storage but together account for only about 13 percent of global GDP and roughly 35 percent of the world population.
- A separate cluster of 69 large economies including the U.S., China and EU members would see only moderate changes in the four measured assets and thus have weaker per‑GDP incentives for rapid, deep decarbonization.
- The authors recommend package deals linking climate pledges to trade, R&D cooperation and direct compensation, while noting model limits such as missing data on critical raw materials, political power and implementation capacity so the results show patterns rather than definitive country rankings.