Climate inequality driven by transport practices
Energy footprints have been shown to grow with expenditure, and are unequally distributed – both within countries and between them
The richest 10 per cent of people consume around 20 times more energy than the bottom 10 per cent, an international study from the University of Leeds has found.
The research, which covered 86 countries, including all of Europe, looked at how different income classes tend to spend their money.
Unsurprisingly, it found that the richer people become, the more energy they tended to use. But it also showed that rich people are more likely to splash the cash on the highest carbon activities – in particular, transport.
“All over the world, the trend is that richer households spend their extra money on energy intensive goods and services related to transport,” said Julia Steinberger, co-author and professor ecological economics at the University of Leeds. “This inequality and the
overuse of transport by richer income classes was a surprise.”
The disproportionally high transport energy used by rich people is due to them taking more
flights DWying more and larger
cars and driving longer distances in them, shows the paper, which
Yas pWDlished in the scientific
journal Nature Energy.
“Even within countries like Germany or the UK, richer households tend to be responsible for the kilometres driven,” said Steinberger. “Not necessarily the number of trips, but the super long trips where people are crisscrossing the country with their large cars tend to be richer households.”
6he finding that transport and especially flying is the most unequal form of energy use is the most striking part of the new study, said Tim Gore, head of policy on climate, food and land rights at Oxfam. “Across the 86 countries studied, the poorest 50 per cent of people are responsible for less than 5 per cent of energy used in aviation, while the top 10 per cent richest are responsible for 75 per cent,” he said.
The research could help to shed light on which climate policies are best placed to cut emissions in different areas, says Steinberger.
For example, taxing high consumption of vehicle fuel and
flights coWld cWt emissions and
energy use because they are luxury products of which richer people tend to consume a lot.
“Policies that target those high consumers through monetary means and taxation make absolute sense,” said Steinberger.
On the other hand, taxing home heating would make little sense for cutting emissions from energy, since heating is an essential service that everyone needs.
p6he findings confirm that
governments should avoid taxing energy used for essential purposes like heating homes, and instead invest public funds in retro
fitting hoWses and DWildings as
such measures are unlikely to be affordable to all,” said Gore.
“The research could help to shed light on which climate policies are best placed to cut emissions in different areas”