for - study - carbon inequality - A multi-model assessment of inequality and climate change - 2024

for - liberal blind spot - Chris Yates - book - liberalism and the challenge of climate change - adjacency - liberalism - individual liberty - progress - bond spot - political polarization - fuel for the right -hyperobjects

Summary - This short article contains some key insights that point to the right climate communication strategy to target and win over the working class - Currently, climate communications speak to elitist values and is having the opposite effect - The working class farmer protests spreading across the EU is a symptom of this miscommunication strategy - as is the increasing support and ascendency of right wing political parties - Researcher and author Chris Yates is in a unique position with one foot in each world - He articulates his insightful ideas and points is in the right direction to communicate in a way that reaches the working class

comment - the figure 4 graph is an example of carbon inequality

Example - carbon inequality - see figure 4

for - quote - Michael Mann - quote - 2024 U.S. elections - future of civilization - quote - existential threat of 2024 Trump win - polycrisis - politics - inequality - climate

quote - Michael Mann - date: May 11, 2023 - source: The Hill - Op Ed - https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4290467-trump-2-0-the-climate-cannot-survive-another-trump-term/ - (see below)

• It is not an overstatement to say, one year out, that
  • we face an American election unlike any other.
• It will determine
  • not only the course of the American experiment
  • but the path that civilization collectively follows.
    • On the left is democracy and environmental stewardship.
    • On the right is fascism and planetary devastation.
• Choose wisely.

Oxfam legt die bisher umfangreichste Studie zur weltweiten Klima-Ungleichheit vor. Sie wurde gemeinsam mit dem Guardian und dem Stockholm Institut erstellt. Sie ergibt unter anderem, dass das reichste Prozent der Weltbevölkerung für mehr Emissionen verantwortlich ist als die unteren 66%. Analysiert wird auch die Verbindung von wirtschaftlicher und politischer Macht der globalen Eliten und die Möglichkeit, eine just transition durch Besteuerung der Superreichen zu finanzieren https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says

Report: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/climate-equality-a-planet-for-the-99-621551/

• for: quote - Kevin Anderson, quote - elite positive feedback carbon inequality loop, climate crisis - societal aspirations, elites - societal aspirations, societal aspirations, key insight - societal aspirations

• quote

  • This 1% of humanity uses its awesome power to manipulate
    • societal aspirations and
    • the narratives around climate change.
  • These extend from
    • well-funded advertising to
    • pseudo-technical solutions,
    • and financialisation of carbon emissions (and increasingly, nature) to
    • labelling extreme any meaningful narrative that questions inequality and power.

• comment

• key insight - societal aspirations
  • it is the societal aspiration of the logic of capitalism and the free market that continues to create the next generation of the 1%
  • How can the luxury industry NOT BE high carbon intensity? It's an oxymoron. High carbon is baked into the definition of luxury, and it is luxury goods and services which accelerate climate breakdown.
  • The elites have a strong feeling of entitlement. They feel they DESERVE to reward themselves with a luxury lifestyle. That aspiration and reward structure multiplied by 80 million (1% of 8 billion) is a major variable driving the climate crisis

• for: climate crisis - elites, Kevin Anderson - elites, carbon emissions - elites, adjacency - elites - carbon inequality - incentives - luxury - capitalism

• title: A Habitable Earth Can No Longer Afford The Rich – And That Could Mean Me And You

• author: Kevin Anderson

• date: Nov. 29, 2023

• comment

• adjacency between
  • elites
  • capitalism
  • free market
  • incentives
  • double bind
  • wicked problem
  • inequality
  • carbon inequality
  • luxury industry
• adjacency statement
  • This article was pulled by "The Conversation" for being too controversial
  • It addresses the double-bind / wicked problems that we find ourselves in.
  • It's not just that the elites that are the highest per capita polluters, but
    • it is an indictment of the entire philosophy and worldview of capitalism and the market economy which produces winners and losers and
    • the winners reap enormous resource benefits, including being able to afford luxury items as rewards which constitute the largest ecological footprint of all
  • while at any one time, there is always a minority of the 1%, who hold the most outsized ecological footprint of all, the logic that produced that 1% also serves as the incentives for the majority of the 99%, who because of the inherent precarity created by capitalism, will fight and struggle to become part of that 1%
  • So while one generation of the 1% die off, a new generation is born and created by the incentive structure of scarcity and precarity.
  • In this sense, capitalism has its own self-reinforcing, positive feedback loop that keeps the masses of the disenfranchised aspiring to the same high resource and ecological footprint, luxury lifestyle
  • Look at the culture industry of sports, entertainment, movies, music, TV, etc. and of business in general. The leaders of these and ALL fields are celebrated as heros and they all reward themselves with an ultra-high carbon intensity, luxury lifestyle.
  • Unless we do more than simply demonize the current set of elites, and recognize the root cause and change the incentive structure itself, we will only ever deal with the symptom and not the problem, and continue to generate the next generation of elites
  • The luxury lifestyle industry is a important role-player in the self-reinforcing feedback loop

• for: Kevin Anderson, transition, climate equity, climate justice, climate justice - Kevin Anderson, carbon inequality - Kevin Anderson, life within planetary boundaries, lifestyle within planetary boundaries - elites, climate crisis - Kevin Anderson

• summary

  • Kevin offers a picture of what a world within the stable climate planetary boundary would look like for the wealthy of the planet.

• for: Kevin Anderson - carbon inequality, climate crisis - carbon inequality climate crisis - carbon inequality, carbon inequality

• for: carbon tax, tax the rich, carbon inequality

• comment

  • an obvious and logical strategy because
    • the elites are few in number, but hold much wealth
    • the disenfranchised are many in number but hold little wealth
      • but the disenfranchised exist in larger numbers
      • so when it comes to voting, they are a strategic cohort to win over
  • this is in effect the same logic as the Paris Agreement and climate justice
  • climate justice requires us to protect the poor and give them the remaining carbon budget whilst those who already have enough must cut back

• for: inequality, poverty, W2W, Jane Goodall, socio-ecological system, climate justice, emptiness - example, entanglement - inequality and climate crisis
• key insight
  • if you're very poor and you're living in some kind of Wilderness Area
    • you're going to destroy the environment in order to survive
    • example: Gumby Street National Park
      • in 1960 it was part of the Great Forest
      • but by the late 1980s was a tiny Islander forest and all the hills around were bare
      • more people living there than the land could support
      • too poor to buy food elsewhere
        • struggling to survive
        • cutting down the trees to make money from charcoal or Timber
        • or to make more land grow more food and
      • that's when it hit me
        • if we don't help these people these local communities find ways of living without destroying the environment
        • we can't save chimpanzees forests or anything else so we need to alleviate poverty
• comment
  • This is why the inequality crisis is entangled with the climate crisis

• for: high-SES, 1%, W2W, inequality, carbon inequality, elites, billionaires, millionaires, leverage point
• five high carbon emission areas of high-SES, HNWI, VHNWI
  • consumption
  • investor
  • role model within social networks
  • participants in organizations
  • citizens seeking to influence public policies or corporate behavior

• for: high-SES, 1%, W2W, inequality, carbon inequality, elites, billionaires, millionaires, leverage point
• definition
  • high-SES
    • high socioeconomic status
    • equivalent to high net worth individual (HNWI) or
    • very high net worth individual (VHNWI)

• for: carbon inequality, w2w, leverage point - climate change, 1%, inequality, wealth tax
• title
  • The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions
• authors
  • Kristian S. Nielsen
  • Kimberly A. Nicholas
  • Felix Creutzig
  • Thomas Dietz
  • Paul C. Stern
• date
  • Sept 30, 2021 -source
  • https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00900-y
• abstract
  • People with high socioeconomic status disproportionally affect energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions directly
    • through their consumption and
    • indirectly through their financial and social resources.
  • However, few climate change mitigation initiatives have targeted this population segment,
    • and the potential of such initiatives remains insufficiently researched.
  • In this Perspective, we analyse key characteristics of high-socioeconomic-status people and explore five roles through which they have a disproportionate impact on energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions and potentially on climate change mitigation, namely as:
    • consumers,
    • investors,
    • role models,
    • organizational participants and
    • citizens.
  • We examine what is known about their disproportionate impact via consumption and
    • explore their potential influence on greenhouse gas emissions through all five roles.
  • We suggest that future research should focus on strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by high-socioeconomic-status people and to align their
    • investments,
    • organizational choices and
    • actions as social and political change agents
  • with climate change mitigation goals.

• for: inequality, climate justice, wealth tax
• policy paper
• title
  • survival of the richest
• date
  • Jan 16, 2023
• executive summary
  • Since 2020, the richest 1% have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth
    • nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population.
  • Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7bn a day,
    • even as inflation outpaces the wages of at least 1.7 billion workers, more than the population of India.7
  • Food and energy companies more than doubled their profits in 2022,
    • paying out $257bn to wealthy shareholders,
    • while over 800 million people went to bed hungry
  • Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue comes from wealth taxes and
    • half the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children.
  • A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year,
    • enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.

• for: inequality, wealth tax, climate justice, earth system justice
• policy paper
• title
  • Survival of the Richest
• source
  • Oxfam

• date

  • Jan 2023

• Executive Summary

  • Since 2020, the richest 1% have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth
    • nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population.
  • Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7bn a day,
    • even as inflation outpaces the wages of at least 1.7 billion workers, more than the population of India.7
  • Food and energy companies more than doubled their profits in 2022,
    • paying out $257bn to wealthy shareholders,
    • while over 800 million people went to bed hungry
  • Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue comes from wealth taxes and
    • half the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children.
  • A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year,
    • enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.

• for: inequality, 1%, elites, carbon inequality, leverage point, leverage point - climate change, oxfam
• quote
  • Richest 1% Took 2/3rds of Global Wealth Since 2020
  • Richest 1% increased wealth in 2020 and 2021 twice as much as 99% of Population Earned

• for: carbon inequality, W2W, leverage point

• five leverage points

  • consumer.
  • investors
  • lobbyist
  • influencer
  • citizen

• question
  • how to we split the burden of collectively staying within the PBs?
  • To know if e.g. a person or a company is absolute environmentally sustainable,
    • we need to know that person’s or the company’s assigned SoSOS.
  • How to determine a person’s or a company’s assigned SoSOS is not only normative,
    • but essentially a question of distributive justice.

• Title
  • Cap top 20% of energy users to reduce carbon emissions

• Publication

  • https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717175940.htm

• Summary -Consumers in the richer, developed nations will have to accept restrictions on their energy use

  • if international climate change targets are to be met, warn researchers.
  • The big challenge is to identify the fairest and most equitable way
  • that governments can curtail energy use,
    • a process known as energy demand reduction. -The research team analyzed several scenarios to identify a potential solution.

• They are currently programmed by minority power holders to serve their interest.
• Many individuals and projects are trying to do this
• Climate change is a classic example of power holders dictating the agenda

Time. ‘The Great Reset: How to Build a Better World Post-COVID-19’. Accessed 19 February 2021. https://time.com/collection/great-reset/.

About. (n.d.). Our World in Data. Retrieved May 25, 2020, from https://ourworldindata.org/about