Global inequalities in ownership-based carbon footprints over 2010-2022

Who owns the firms that produce global greenhouse gas emissions?

In this paper, Lucas Chancel and Yannic Rehm provide the first global estimates of ownership-based greenhouse gas emissions across and within 197 jurisdictions from 2010 to 2022. They link production-based emissions to owners using data on wealth distributions, portfolio compositions by wealth level, public capital stocks, and foreign investment positions.

KEY FINDINGS

• A large share of ownership-based emissions is tied to a small number of asset owners.

• Because top wealth groups hold portfolios that are, on average, more carbon-intensive, inequality in ownership-based emissions exceeds inequality in wealth.

• Net foreign ownership emissions play a growing role in shaping emission responsibility between countries and regions. For example, Western Europe’s production-based emissions declined between 2010 and 2022, but its foreign ownership-based emissions did not.

• Although recent policies have begun to reflect concerns raised by consumption-based accounting (such as quotas on the carbon content of imports), the emissions associated with ownership of foreign production remain largely unaccounted for.

AUTHORS

• Lucas Chancel, Sceinces Po Paris, World Inequality Lab
• Yannic Rehm, Paris School of Economics, World Inequality Lab

PRESS

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