In the US, the richest 1% account for 17% of emissions – 08/17/2023 – Environment
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A new study points out that the richest 1% of the US population was responsible for 15% to 17% of the country’s total carbon emissions in 2019. The research also shows that the richest 0.1% had, on average, emissions up to 1,700 times higher than the poorest 10% in that year.
The conclusions were published this Thursday (17th) in the scientific journal PLOS Climate and show the link between income, especially from investments, and the greenhouse gases emitted to generate this income.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst analyzed 30 years of data, from 1990 to 2019. They used records of more than 2.8 billion cross-industry financial transfers, tracking carbon flow and revenue, as well as demographic and income data. detailed data of more than five million Americans.
The team found that more than 40% of US emissions are attributable to the income streams of the richest 10% and that, overall, white households (and those without Hispanic ancestry) have emissions 1.3 to 1.7 times higher than other groups such as blacks and white Hispanics. Emissions tend to increase with age, peaking in the 45-54 age group and then falling.
The results illustrate how inequality is tied to climate change, showing a huge disconnect between those facing the worst impacts of extreme events and those reaping the economic benefits that drive emissions.
To more easily measure this disparity, the leader of the study, Jared Starr, a scientist specializing in sustainability, makes an analogy.
“The poorest Americans generate less than 2 tons of carbon (tCO₂e) per year. If we measured that pollution, it would be the height of an average house. So, the carbon pollution created by the richest 1% (600 tCO₂e) would be equal to the height of 5 Empire State buildings stacked”, he illustrates, citing the skyscraper that is New York’s postcard.
“But if we look closer, just for the richest 0.1%, their annual carbon pollution (2,670 tCO₂e) would be higher than Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth.”
More than 130,000 families are part of this last group, called “super emitters” by the researchers.
In the case of super emitters, the scientists found that more than half of their emissions were tied to investment income. This group is most concentrated in the areas of finance, real estate and insurance, manufacturing and mining.
“Until today, no one had analyzed the responsibility [pela emissão de] carbon based on how much carbon is needed to generate income. So I think this is a new way of looking at this topic and offers new policy insights that maybe we should consider going beyond consumption-based taxes,” explains Starr.
He points out that taxing carbon at the consumption stage —creating an extra tax on fossil fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, for example— disproportionately impacts the poorest. This is because those with higher incomes save or reinvest most of what they earn and manage to absorb these extra costs, while the poorest do not have these reserves.
“Consumption-based carbon taxes tend to be regressive, as poorer groups spend much of their income just to meet their basic needs, while rich groups can save much of their income and buy things like stocks, which are not taxed under a consumer-focused taxation system.”
For this reason, the researcher proposes that public policies be developed that reach precisely those who profit from investments —and contribute much more to the emissions that cause global warming. One option would be to create a tax on these applications and the revenue generated by them.
“If you go after assets, if you think about taxing shareholders and shares, part of the value of those shares comes from emissions that occurred in the past. So I think this is also a more equitable way of doing that and it accounts for past emissions in a way that way that a tax based only on income, for example, does not do”, he suggests.
The scientist points out that the economic system is designed in such a way that companies do not create products and services for people, but rather to generate value for shareholders.
“[Produtos e serviços] they are merely the result of that”, he says. “So, in fact, these issues are taking place to create wealth for the shareholders”.
He also points out that the study does not individualize the investment portfolio of each family, because it would be impractical, but is based on the average of the American economy, which is strongly carbon-based —the country is the largest historical emitter in the world and, currently the second annual, second only to China.
A randomization algorithm was applied to these data, which allows adding the variability factor, considering that some investment portfolios are more polluting than others.
“[O estudo] reflects the fact that the US economy still relies heavily on fossil fuels to create wealth for the people,” says Starr.
In the historical series, the study also shows that while the poorest 99% had an increase in income, their absolute emissions fell. For the richest 1%, income growth resulted in stable or rising absolute emissions.
According to the article, these trends show that despite the decline in national average emissions and rising incomes for all groups, uneven income growth has created a significant and growing emissions gap between extremely high-income households and the rest of the population. american society.
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