Regional inequity in top-tier climate change research

Abstract Climate change research published in top-tier journals can influence subsequent scholarship and decision-making. It is therefore crucial that research on countries disproportionately impacted by climate change appears in these journals. We evaluate to what extent select top-tier journals feature the most vulnerable countries, and these countries’ scientific institutions, by compiling a dataset of climate change research articles spanning 2010-2023 and applying data mining, natural language processing, and geotagging techniques to these articles’ metadata and text. Of studies featuring UN classified countries, we find ~65% featured 27 Annex I countries and ~62% featured 75 non-Annex I countries. ~27% of these studies featured the USA, while Least Developed Countries comprised 16% of the dataset. Furthermore, ~93% of authors were affiliated with Annex I institutions. Although publications and citations increased for non-Annex-I studies, substantial geographic inequalities persist that are essential to rectify to address climate change risks in the most vulnerable countries.