Inequalities Harm the Environment
    Reporterre.net

    Monday 21 May 2007

The greater the social inequalities in a country, the fewer efforts the country devotes to the environment: That's what CNRS [(French) National Center for Social Research] economists observe. Similarly, policies more attentive to redistribution should be less harmful to the environment.
- The CNRS Journal, May 2007

    Why, in spite of climatic emergency, has the United States not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty that is supposed to lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions? If pressure from industrial lobbies - and notably Texan oil companies - has often been advanced as an explanation, Hubert Kempf and Stéphane Rossignol, researchers at the Sorbonne's Center for the Economy, bring an unprecedented perspective to the question: According to them, the greater the social inequalities in a country - as is the case in the United States - the less effort that country devotes to the environment.

    More concretely, the Center's economists demonstrated that a country's spending on the environment is correlated to an indicator of its social inequality: the gap between average income and median income (average income is the sum of a total population's income divided by the number in the population's workforce, while median income is the level that divides society into two equal parts - 50% of agents earn less than the median and 50% earn more). So the economists have established that when that gap is big, the share of resources devoted to the environment will be limited. How can that be explained?

    In fact, in democratic systems, political actors (voters, pressure groups, politicians, etc.) act according to the allocation of public spending. The redistribution of resources (sums collected through taxes and contributions) is determined by the social situation. "As a public good managed by a collective effort, the environment does not go unnoticed." In other words, the greater the inequality, the more public spending tends toward the creation of public goods (roads...) useful for production and consequently for growth.

    In that respect, it would be harmful to the environment. "One should not generalize," Hubert Kempf nuances, however. "We can think of other mechanisms by which growth can support the environment. But, in any event, our work shows that it is illusory to conceive of environmental policy as independent of its redistributive effects. The political acceptance of pro-environmental measures depends upon it."

    An international extension of this research is underway. "At present, we hope to show how inequalities between two countries condition the result of international environmental negotiations." The first results are conclusive: "one country less egalitarian than the other can lead to the failure of an agreement."

    Source: Le journal du CNRS: www.cnrs.fr/presse/journal/. Reference: "Is Inequality Harmful for the Environment in a Growing Economy?" by Hubert Kempf and Stéphane Rossignol, Economics and Politics, vol. 19, n. 1, pp. 53-71, March 2007.