In a survey of thousands of people, respondents underestimated the massive difference between the carbon footprints of the wealthiest and poorest individuals – and that’s bad for climate policy.
People consistently underestimate the personal carbon footprints of the top 1 per cent of the world’s wealthiest individuals while overestimating the carbon emissions of low-income people. This could negatively impact climate justice efforts and support for the most effective policies for mitigating climate change.
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| Private jet use increases an individual’s carbon footprint Michael Edwards/Getty Images |
“What we find is that people underestimate the footprint of high-income groups [by] quite a lot,” says Kristian Nielsen at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. “And we also know that the wealthy generally have disproportionate influence on which policies are being promoted, talked about in the media and politically advanced or prioritized – so they have special interests, and part of that could be to also protect their own lifestyle.”
Previous research by Jared Starr at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his colleagues has shown that the richest 1 per cent of the US population is responsible for more carbon emissions than the entire bottom 50 per cent. “If people don’t know who is actually creating emissions, it complicates our ability to build public support for policies that would address climate change,” he says.
Nielsen and his colleagues surveyed approximately 4000 people across Denmark, India, Nigeria and the US about their perceptions of individuals’ carbon footprints and their support for various climate policies. Despite news headlines about celebrities taking 17-minute private jet flights, more than half of survey respondents in the US underestimate the average carbon footprint of the top 1 per cent by a factor of 10. The misperception also exists to varying degrees in other countries: in Denmark, people underestimate the carbon emissions of their country’s wealthiest individuals by a factor of six, in India by a factor of more than 14 and in Nigeria by merely 1.3. Meanwhile, survey respondents overestimated the carbon footprints of their countries’ general population.
Public misperceptions of carbon footprints persisted across all socioeconomic groups surveyed. But reactions differed when participants were provided with the real carbon footprints of different economic classes. The wealthiest people, participants with a more right-leaning political orientation, younger people and male participants were more likely to say the inequality between the carbon emissions of the wealthy and the poor was fair. And people’s underestimations of carbon footprint inequality in Denmark and Nigeria corresponded with lower support for climate policies such as implementing a carbon tax or subsidising renewable energy.
One unexpected twist in the survey’s findings came from India’s top 10 per cent income group, which reported stronger support for climate policies. But this probably reflects that higher income Indians have more access to information about climate change. There is a “huge lack of climate awareness” across India’s general population, says Ramit Debnath at the California Institute of Technology, also a coauthor of the study.
More effective climate policies could target the largest emissions producers. Such interventions might include inheritance and wealth taxes, updated building codes and land use regulations and emissions-monitoring programs for both private and public organisations, says Ilona Otto at the University of Graz in Austria, who did not participate in this research.
“I hope the results of this study will help to motivate such privileged individuals to lower their carbon footprints as well as… motivate decision makers to design policies targeting high emitters,” says Otto.
Journal reference
Nature Climate Change DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-02130-y
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