Geographical spread of global emissions: Within-country inequalities are large and increasing

In spite of the extensive literature on greenhouse gas emission inequalities at the world-wide level, most of the evidence so far has been based on country-level data. However, the within-country dimension matters for both the implementation and the policy formation of climate policies. As a prelimi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy policy 2016-02, Vol.89, p.138-149
Main Authors: Sauter, Caspar, Grether, Jean-Marie, Mathys, Nicole A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon dioxide
CH4
Climate change
Climate policy
CO2
Efficiency
Emissions
Energy efficiency
Environmental policy
Equity
Gases
Global spatial emission inequalities
Global warming
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Implementation
Inequalities
Inequality
Policy making
Studies
Sub-national emission inequalities
Theil index decomposition
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Summary:In spite of the extensive literature on greenhouse gas emission inequalities at the world-wide level, most of the evidence so far has been based on country-level data. However, the within-country dimension matters for both the implementation and the policy formation of climate policies. As a preliminary step towards a better understanding of within-country inequalities, this paper measures their extent for the two major greenhouse gases, CO2 and CH4, over the 1970–2008 period. Using Theil-index decompositions, we show that within-country inequalities account for the bulk of global inequality, and tend to increase over the sample period, in contrast with diminishing between-country inequalities. Including differences across sectors reveals that between-sector inequalities matter more than between-country inequalities, and between-sector inequalities become the dominant source of global inequality at the end of the sample period in the CO2 case. Finally, estimated social tensions arising from the disconnection between emissions and future damages turn out to be increasing as soon as within-country disparities are taken into account. These orders of magnitude should be kept in mind while discussing the efficiency and fairness of alternative paths in combating global warming. •We estimate global spatial CO2 and CH4 inequality using grid data for 1970–2008.•Overall spatial emission inequality is constant for CO2 and increasing for CH4.•Within-country inequality is rising and constitutes the main bulk of overall inequality.•An important part of within country inequality is due to differences among sectors.•The gap between emitters and victims is rising within countries.
ISSN:0301-4215
1873-6777
DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2015.11.024