Department of Environmental Sciences, Vytautas Magnus University, Vileikos st. 8, LT-44404, Kaunas, Lithuania.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Mar;27(9):8980-8990. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-08005-x. Epub 2020 Feb 10.
In recent decades, many authors have investigated possibility of simultaneous reduction of income inequality and pollution related to climate change. However, none of the previous researches reviewed the empirical studies of relationship between inequality and CO emissions. The authors of the selected papers, published from 2001 to 2019, found a diverse impact of income inequality on carbon dioxide (CO) emissions. It could depend on different trajectories of Kuznets curves. Furthermore, the majority of authors have provided theoretical analysis (even including human behaviour) of the influence of income inequality on CO emissions, considering only territorial (or production-based) emissions. However, this paper recommends to distinguish between the production-based and consumption-based emissions and suggests the revised approaches to the impact of income inequality on CO emissions with regard to the production-based and consumption-based emissions. Regarding the production-based emissions, the following approaches are proposed: (i) determination of environmental policies, which also could reveal and explain the leakage phenomenon, and the channels of EKC, i.e. (ii) scale, (iii) composition, (iv) technical and (v) globalization effects. The influence of income inequality on consumption-based emissions can be explained by applying two approaches, namely (i) inequality determined changes in working time (this approach is also related to "Veblen effect") and (ii) individual economic behaviours of households. Therefore, the present study provides a new insight into the subject of the relationship between income inequality and pollution related to climate change.
近几十年来，许多作者研究了同时减少收入不平等和与气候变化相关的污染的可能性。然而，以前的研究都没有审查收入不平等与二氧化碳排放之间关系的实证研究。从 2001 年到 2019 年发表的选定论文的作者发现，收入不平等对二氧化碳（CO）排放的影响多种多样。这可能取决于库兹涅茨曲线的不同轨迹。此外，大多数作者仅从领土（或生产性）排放的角度，对收入不平等对 CO 排放的影响进行了理论分析（甚至包括人类行为）。然而，本文建议区分基于生产和基于消费的排放，并建议在基于生产和基于消费的排放方面，对收入不平等对 CO 排放的影响进行修订。关于基于生产的排放，可以采用以下几种方法：（i）确定环境政策，这也可以揭示和解释泄漏现象以及 EKC 的渠道，即（ii）规模、（iii）组成、（iv）技术和（v）全球化效应。收入不平等对基于消费的排放的影响可以通过应用两种方法来解释，即（i）收入不平等导致工作时间变化（这种方法也与“凡勃伦效应”有关）和（ii）家庭的个人经济行为。因此，本研究为收入不平等与气候变化相关污染之间的关系这一主题提供了新的视角。
