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AbstractStringent policies that significantly increase the cost of greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, are increasingly necessary for mitigating climate change. Yet while richer individuals in society generate the most CO2 emissions and thus will face the largest absolute cost burden, they also tend to be more supportive of stringent environmental policies. In this paper, we examine how information about the distribution of carbon emissions by income affects support for carbon taxation. While carbon taxation is widely advocated as the most efficient policy for mitigating climate change, it faces significant political hurdles due to its distributional costs. Using original survey data, with an embedded experiment, we find that providing information about the actual distribution of household CO2 emissions by income significantly changes individuals' support for carbon taxation. These effects are particularly pronounced at the bottom of the household income distribution, leading to increased support for costly climate policies. However, individuals who believe that carbon taxes will reduce their income continue to hold their level of support for carbon taxation. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the public's response to the distributional consequences of the green transitions and ultimately their political feasibility.

Introduction: climate change and the role of the richest -- The carbon footprint of luxury consumption -- The investment emissions of the polluter elite -- The polluter elite and moral responsibility -- The decisive political influence of the polluter elite -- Destabilising the polluter elite -- Conclusions.

AbstractThe importance of carbon emissions reduction notwithstanding, the issue of its inequality should also elicit the urgent attention of scholars. This paper first evaluates the carbon inequality between urban and rural areas based on a panel dataset of 30 provinces in China from 2006 to 2019. Then we quantitively investigate the role of digital economy development in reducing carbon inequality. We further explore the possible moderating role of residential disposable income in the rural areas and the impact channels in the nexus between digital economy development and carbon inequality. We find that (1) the relationship between digital economy development and carbon inequality is negative, and digital economy development exerts a significant mitigating impact on carbon inequality. (2) The nexus between digital economy development and carbon inequality is heterogeneous in terms of capital: provinces endowed with lower levels of social and human capital tend to exhibit a stronger connection between digital economy development and carbon inequality. (3) Rural residential disposable income can not only reduce carbon inequality, but can also show a synergistic effect with digital economy development, which means the interaction between rural residential disposable income and digital economy development also restricts carbon inequality significantly. (4) Digital economy development works on carbon inequality by increasing environmental regulation and technology innovation, and these two channels show a mitigating impact on carbon inequality. We propose several policy implications to accelerate the reduction of carbon inequality and the improvement of digital economy development.

The call for a decent life for all within planetary limits poses a dual challenge: provide all people with the essential resources needed to live well and, collectively, not exceed the source and sink capacity of the biosphere to sustain human societies. We examine the corridor of possible distributions of household energy and carbon footprints that satisfy both minimum energy use for a decent life and available energy supply compatible with the 1.5 °C target in 2050. We estimated household energy and carbon footprints for expenditure deciles for 28 European countries in 2015 by combining data from national household budget surveys with the environmentally-extended multi-regional input–output model EXIOBASE. We found a top-to-bottom decile ratio (90:10) of 7.2 for expenditure, 3.1 for net energy and 2.6 for carbon. The lower inequality of energy and carbon footprints is largely attributable to inefficient energy and heating technologies in the lower deciles (mostly Eastern Europe). Adopting best technology across Europe would save 11 EJ of net energy annually, but increase environmental footprint inequality. With such inequality, both targets can only be met through the use of CCS, large efficiency improvements, and an extremely low minimum final energy use of 28 GJ per adult equivalent. Assuming a more realistic minimum energy use of about 55 GJ ae−1 and no CCS deployment, the 1.5 °C target can only be achieved at near full equality. We conclude that achieving both stated goals is an immense and widely underestimated challenge, the successful management of which requires far greater room for maneuver in monetary and fiscal terms than is reflected in the current European political discourse. ; Peer Reviewed

The call for a decent life for all within planetary limits poses a dual challenge: Provide all people with the essential resources needed to live well and, collectively, not exceed the source and sink capacity of the biosphere to sustain human societies. We examine the corridor of possible distributions of household energy and carbon footprints that satisfy both minimum energy use for a decent life and available energy supply compatible with the 1.5°C target in 2050. We estimated household energy and carbon footprints for expenditure deciles for 28 European countries in 2015 by combining data from national household budget surveys with the Environmentally-Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output model EXIOBASE. We found a top-to-bottom decile ratio (90:10) of 7.2 for expenditure, 3.1 for net energy and 2.6 for carbon. The lower inequality of energy and carbon footprints is largely attributable to inefficient energy and heating technologies in the lower deciles (mostly Eastern Europe). Adopting best technology across Europe would save 11 EJ of net energy annually, but increase environmental footprint inequality. With such inequality, both targets can only be met through the use of CCS, large efficiency improvements, and an extremely low minimum final energy use of 28 GJ per adult equivalent. Assuming a more realistic minimum energy use of about 55 GJ/ae and no CCS deployment, the 1.5°C target can only be achieved at near full equality. We conclude that achieving both stated goals is an immense and widely underestimated challenge, the successful management of which requires far greater room for maneuver in monetary and fiscal terms than is reflected in the current European political discourse.