Equal distribution of wealth results in increased greenhouse gas emissions, while inequality is a boon for the climate, according to a new analysis. The findings upend tidy narratives about fighting climate change by reducing poverty, while pointing at the real culprit in increased emissions: wealth itself, not its distribution.
“Per capita wealth increases per capita emissions,” says study author Indra de Soysa, a political scientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, “thus, any leveling up is bound to increase, not decrease, total emissions.”
In the past, many scientists and economists have argued that political and economic inequality produces high carbon emissions. Democratic societies are better at reducing emissions, the argument goes, because when a few rich people hold all the power they tend to block climate action.
The idea that that democracy and economic equality are good for the climate is appealing – so much so that it’s baked into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which call for reducing absolute poverty and targeting inequality both between and within countries.
But this view is not universal. Others have pointed out that raising the living standards of the have-nots requires economic growth, and economic growth generates greenhouse gas emissions.
In the new study, de Soysa brings some numbers to settle this rhetorical fight by figuring out where the balance lies. He analyzes World Bank data on greenhouse gas emissions and adoption of green energy technology for about 170 countries between 1990 and 2020, placing this information against various measures of economic, political, and social equality.
The results of the analysis are stark. Countries with high economic, political, and even social inequality have lower emissions than countries with less inequality, de Soysa reports in the journal World Development.
But it’s not inequality itself that drives these green outcomes. Instead, it’s the fact that more unequal countries tend to be poorer, and overall wealth is the biggest driver of carbon emissions.
What democracy is really good for, then, is generating wealth. And when there is greater wealth and it’s more evenly distributed, there’s more consumption, and more consumption means more emissions.
“One hopeful result from my study is that increased inequality did not reduce the adoption of green energy technology,” de Soysa says. In fact, more unequal countries also have a slight edge in rolling out green energy technologies.
“One way out of the conundrum is more equitable use of resources—i.e., transferring wealth from rich to poor,” de Soysa says. For example, other researchers have calculated that global energy budgets consistent with meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement are sufficient to meeting everyone’s basic needs, but would require people in rich countries to consume less energy to leave more available for raising living standards in poorer countries.
This is similar to the idea of “degrowth,” meaning reducing consumption of the rich so that the poor could increase their consumption. “Planning such an enterprise is not the issue, but the will for such an enterprise is another thing,” says de Soysa. The inequitable global distribution of COVID vaccines suggests that the world’s rich are not willing to curtail their own consumption of resources for the sake of the poor, he points out.
Instead of wishing away human nature, de Soysa sees hope in “greener technologies that would allow us to both increase our consumption and reduce climate harming emissions at the same time,” he says.
Source: de Soysa I. “Green with envy? The effects of inequality and equity within and across social groups on greenhouse gas emissions, 1990-2020.” World Development 2024.
Image: © Anthropocene Magazine
Our work is available free of charge and advertising. We rely on readers like you to keep going. Donate Today