This is a repository copy of Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories.

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Non-technical summary Global income inequality and energy consumption inequality are related. High-income households consume more energy than low-income ones, and for different purposes. Here, we explore the global household energy consumption implications of global income redistribution. We show that global income inequality shapes not only inequalities of energy consumption but the quantity and composition of overall energy demand. Our results call for the inclusion of income distribution into energy system models, as well as into energy and climate policy. Technical summary Despite a rapidly growing number of studies on the relationship between inequality and energy, there is little research estimating the effect of income redistribution on energy demand. We contribute to this debate by proposing a simple but granular and data-driven model of the global income distribution and of global household energy consumption. We isolate the effect of income distribution on household energy consumption and move beyond the assumption of aggregate income–energy elasticities. First, we model expenditure as a function of income. Second, we determine budget shares of expenditure for a variety of products and services by employing product-granular income elasticities of demand. Subsequently, we apply consumption-based final energy intensities to product and services to obtain energy footprint accounts. Testing variants of the global income distribution, we find that the ‘energy costs’ of equity are small. Equitable and inequitable distributions of income, however, entail distinct structural change in energy system terms. In an equitable world, fewer people live in energy poverty and more energy is consumed for subsistence and necessities, instead of luxury and transport. Social media summary Equality in global income shifts household energy footprints towards subsistence, while inequality shifts them towards transport and luxury.

Economic inequality and climate change are pressing issues that have climbed high up the political agenda, yet action to mitigate both remains slow. As income is a key determinant of ecological impacts, the Global North—and wealthier classes elsewhere—are the primary drivers of global carbon emissions, while the least well off have contributed the least yet are set to be hit hardest by climate impacts. These inequalities are clearly unjust, but the interrelations between economic inequality and ecological impacts are complex, leaving open the question of whether reducing the former would mitigate the latter, in the absence of reductions in total economic output. Here, we contribute to these debates by estimating the carbon-footprint implications of reducing income (and hence expenditure) inequalities within 32 countries of the Global North to the levels people consider to be fair; levels that are substantially smaller than currently exist. We find that realising these levels of economic inequality brings comparable reductions in carbon-footprint inequalities. However, in isolation, implementing fair inequalities has a negligible impact upon total emissions. In contrast, recomposing consumption—by reducing inequalities in household expenditure and the overall levels, then reallocating the reductions to public services—reduces carbon footprint by up to 30% in individual countries and 16% overall and, crucially, still allows the consumption of those at the bottom to rise. Such reductions could be significant on a global level, and they would be additional to the full range of conventional technological and demand-side measures to reduce carbon emissions.

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