“What is the relationship between emissions,
inequality and poverty? Growing wealth
supposedly correlates with increasing emissions. Rich countries are historically
high in per capita emissions, whereas poor
countries have low per capita emissions.
African and Latin American non-Annex I
countries rank high in the statistics of
emissions intensity (IPCC 2007b). Where are the highly unequal middle-income countries in this puzzle? This paper provides some
answers to this question and outlines
future research on mitigation and inequality.
The question is relevant, because developing
countries have come under growing pressure
to introduce mitigation actions that help
to reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions.
These mitigation actions need to be
‘nationally appropriate’ (UNFCCC 2007) and
different from those in the developed countries, taking the economic structures,
poverty and inequalities into account. Mitigating emissions and reducing poverty
at the same time sharpens the trade-off. Governments need to decide on expenditure
of limited resources on poverty or mitigation. According to previous research
the need for such a trade-off decreases
when countries become richer (Ravallion et
al.2000). This implies that governments have
a growing option to achieve both ends.”
