Carbon inequality in 2030

Carbon inequality in 2030

Per capita consumption emissions and the 1.50C

goal

‘Over the past 25 years, the richest 10% of the global population has been responsible for more than half of all carbon emissions... Rank injustice and inequality on this scale is a cancer. If we don’t act now, this century may be our last.’

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General1
‘[The world’s rich] consume and consume and consume with no thought.’ Patricia Espinosa, UN Executive Secretary, UNFCCC2

The world’s richest 1% are set to have per capita consumption emissions in 2030 that are still 30 times higher than the global per capita level compatible with the 1.50C goal of the Paris Agreement, while the footprints of the poorest half of the world population are set to remain several times below that level. By 2030, the richest 1% are on course for an even greater share of total global emissions than when the Paris Agreement was signed. Tackling extreme inequality and targeting the excessive emissions linked to the consumption and investments of the world’s richest people is vital to keeping the 1.50C Paris goal alive.

INTRODUCTION

The climate and inequality crises are closely interwoven. In 2020, Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) estimated that between the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 1990 and the 2015 Paris Agreement, the consumption of the world’s richest 1% drove twice the carbon emissions of the poorest half of the global population combined.3

In that era of extreme carbon inequality in which the climate crisis accelerated, around a third of the global carbon budget for limiting global heating to the Paris Agreement’s 1.50C goal was squandered just to expand the consumption of the richest 10% of the world population.4

Now, at COP26 in Glasgow, the world is facing a looming gap between the level of expected global emissions in 2030 – based on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of emissions reductions made by countries under the Paris Agreement – and the level needed in 2030 to keep alive the chance of limiting global heating to 1.50C above pre-industrial levels.5

 

Joint agency briefing note

In this new briefing commissioned by Oxfam based on analysis by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and SEI, we provide estimates of the impact of the NDCs on the per capita consumption emissions of different global income groups in 2030 – revealing the stark inequality between the people whose carbon footprints are set to be compatible with the 1.50C Paris goal, and those whose are not. We estimate that:

• People in the richest 1% of the global population are set to have per capita consumption emissions footprints in 2030 that are still 25% higher than in 1990, 16 times higher than the global
  average, and 30 times higher than the global per capita level compatible with the
  1.50C goal, while the footprints of the poorest half of the global population are set

  to remain well below the 1.50C-compatible level.

• The share of total global emissions associated with the consumption of the richest 1% is set to continue to grow, from 13% in 1990, to 15% in 2015 and 16% in 2030.

• In 2015–30, the global ‘middle classes’8 are on course for per capita emissions cuts that are closest to (though still far from) the global 1.50C-compatible per capita level – which, given this global income group saw the fastest emissions growth rates in 1990–2015, is a sign of the so-called ‘Paris effect’9 in transforming the course of emissions trends.

• The geography of global carbon inequality is set to change, with an increasing share of the emissions of the world’s richest 1% linked to citizens in middle- income countries.

• At national level in each of the major emitting countries, the richest 10% of citizens are set to have per capita emissions in 2030 that are substantially higher than the global average per capita level compatible with the 1.50C goal.

  Carbon inequality is extreme, both globally and within most countries. If the 1.50C
  goal is to be kept alive, then carbon emissions must be cut far faster than currently
  proposed. But critically, these efforts must go hand-in-hand with measures to cut
  pervasive inequality and ensure that the world’s richest citizens – wherever they live – lead the way. Four of our key findings are further explored below.

  Box 1: Methodology for deriving 2030 consumption emissions estimates

  Our method for deriving a global distribution of per capita consumption emissions by income groups is set out in our work last year,10 and similar to recent work by Chancel.11

  To estimate per capita consumption emissions in 2030, we used national territorial emissions estimates based on unconditional NDCs and other national policies from Climate Action Tracker (CAT).12 We converted CO2e into CO2 based on the 2018 ratio for each country. We converted territorial into consumption emissions estimates (assuming no change in overall trade patterns) by adjusting countries’ net imported emissions by the global average emissions reductions for 2015–30, and net exported emissions by their national emissions reduction in their NDCs.

  We allocated these national consumption emissions estimates in 2030 to individuals within each country, based on the same method as previously, and assuming a change in national income distributions consistent with SSP2 (per Rao, et al. 2019), which are minimal through 2030, before sorting into a single global distribution by income. We scaled to 2030 income and population levels and gap-filled for countries without 2030 CAT estimates using the RCP1.9 scenario from our previous work modified by SSP2. More detail on the method, sensitivities and limitations is available at the SEI website.13

Per capita consumption emissions

Consumption-based accounting allocates emissions to the country of final consumption of the goods and services for which the emissions were produced. Per capita consumption emissions reflect an individual’s share of the total national consumption emissions of their country, including the emissions linked to their household consumption, capital investments and use of government services.

The 2030 per capita emissions level consistent with the 1.50C goal reflects the total global emissions in 2030 compatible with a global emissions pathway that can limit global heating to 1.50C divided by the projected global population in 2030.6 In this sense, it is an alternative way of looking at the total global ‘emissions gap’, such as that presented in UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report.7 See also Box 2 on ‘fair shares’ and the 1.50C goal.

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ANALYSIS

1. In 2030, the emissions of the richest 1% are set to be 30 times the 1.50C-compatible per capita level, while the emissions of the poorest 50% are set to remain well beneath it

The current NDCs14 will result in only marginal cuts in total global emissions, leaving a total emissions gap between expected emissions in 2030 and the level needed compatible with limiting global heating to 1.50C of at least 17Gt CO2.15 On a per capita basis – based on the projected global population in 2030 – this translates into a gap of approximately 2.2t CO2/capita.16 But behind this global average lies stark inequality between the expected per capita consumption emissions in 2030 of richer and poorer people around the world.

Based on the NDCs and other national policies, we estimate that by 2030, the richest 1% of the world population (c.80 million people) will have emissions footprints that are still 25% higher than in 1990, 16 times above the global per capita average in 2030, and some 30 times higher than the global 1.50C-compatible per capita level. The footprint of the richest 10% (c.800 million people) is set to be nine times the 1.50C per capita level, and of the middle 40% (c.3.2 billion people) to be around twice that level. By contrast, the average footprint of the poorest half of the world population (c.4 billion people) is set to remain substantially below that level (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Per capita consumption emissions of global income groups 1990–2030 and the 2030 1.50C- compatible global per capita goal

Per capita emissions gap in 2030:
67.7t CO2/ capita

The per capita emissions of the richest 10% in 2030 are set to be nearly 10 times higher than the global 1.50C-compatible per capita level, while the per capita emissions of the poorest 50% will still be far below that level

Based on current national emissions reduction policies and pledges, the per capita consumption emissions of the richest 1% are set to be 25% higher in 2030 than in 1990, and still 30 times higher than the global per capita level compatible with the 1.50C Paris Agreement goal.

CONCLUSIONS

The extreme difference between the expected carbon footprints of a small minority of the world’s population in 2030 and the global average level needed to keep the Paris Agreement’s 1.50C goal alive is not tenable. Maintaining such high carbon footprints among the world’s richest people either requires far deeper emissions cuts by the rest of the world’s population, or it entails global heating in excess of 1.50C above pre-industrial levels. There is no other alternative.

At COP26, governments must commit to a timetable to strengthen near-term NDCs in line with the 1.50C goal, and critically to do so on the basis of equity. That means the world’s richest, highest-emitting countries must finally commit to their fair share: leading the way in cutting emissions far faster by the end of this decade, and providing the substantial, new and additional finance needed by low- and middle-income countries to further limit their

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emissions too. In view of the decades of delay in cutting emissions sufficiently, substantially scaled-up finance for adaptation and loss and damage are also vital.

At the national and regional level, analysis of carbon inequality must move urgently to the heart of government efforts to implement strengthened NDCs, with a far clearer focus than has been the case to date on measures to reduce inequality and address the excessive emissions of the richest, while supporting those on the lowest incomes. Our work last year set out a number of public policy options available.34

Undoubtedly – as argued by several others35 – it is time for governments to raise major taxes on or to outright ban highly carbon-intensive luxury consumption, from SUVs to mega yachts, private jets and space tourism, that represent a morally unjustified depletion of the world’s scarce remaining carbon budget.

But as discussed in Box 3, the emissions of the world’s richest people linked to their capital investments are likely even greater than those associated with their direct consumption.36 With wealth inequality likely further widening in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, coordinated and substantial taxation of wealth is urgently required to reduce inequality and at the same time curb the emissions of the richest. It is time to use regulation and taxation to end extreme wealth altogether, to protect people and the planet.

Such measures alongside wider progressive tax reforms are critical to reduce the wealth of the richest substantially, to shift the behaviour of the polluter elite and to generate the revenues needed to fund the wider fight against the climate and inequality crises. The climate crisis has been driven by extreme inequality to this point. But now governments must urgently reach for solutions which address both.

Further Reading: https://www.oxfamnovib.nl/Files/rapporten/2021/bn-carbon-inequality-2030-051121-en.pdf