Apart from political and social distractions, domination and power gaining by elites also bring about economic inequalities. Out of these economic inequalities, this blog would like to point out one of contemporary political economy issues, environmental economics of how climate change and inequality are interlinked inside economic sphere.
According to Gore (2015), global inequalities especially income and wealth inequalities are also the major contributors for global warming and climate change that not all states and countries are equally responsible. Dossa et al. (2016) also pointed out that around 10 percent of the richest persons across the globe are liable for 50 per cent of world-wide carbon releases, although 50 percent of poorest population worldwide are only accountable for 10 percent of carbon emission.
In addition, as given by Stoddart and Prieg (2014), fossil fuel related multinational companies are some of the most profitable firms in the world. Also, the owners are super rich elite who have earned their wealth from these fossil fuel businesses (key culprits of climate change) and vulnerable people including the poorest have to pay the highest price for the products (Stoddart & Prieg, 2014). According to Forbes Billionaires List 2015, the figures of billionaires in oil and gas businesses has jumped to 88 in 2015 from 53 in 2010, a sign showing the rich become richer (Gore, 2015). There is another evidence that the elites from fossil fuel businesses have been trying to influence on the climate policy and rules of law for the benefit of their economic power and welfare. Stoddart and Prieg (2014) also reflected the fact that fossil fuel companies have been spending tons of dollars for lobbying activities in every single year to secure their revenues, and to persuade and interrupt the actions of government through purchasing extra years. It is evident that the companies operating in gas, oil and petroleum industries spent around €44 million on lobbying the European Union in Brussels and around $157 million in the United States for every year as stated by the Overseas Development Institute (Gore, 2015).
What happening to the poor people?
As reflected by Dossa et al. (2016), the slightest blameable for causing climate change and the utmost susceptible groups to the consequences are the poorest people. These inequalities came in different horizontal and vertical forms where women are fronting greater potential risks than men and rural areas are habitually more unprotected than urban ranges and groups are overlooked due to their ethnicity, religion, race or another features (Dossa et al., 2016).
Also, Hallegatte et al. (2016) revealed that countries where the poor people have to live in areas exposed to disasters like landslide, floods, droughts and heat wave (especially in Southeast Asia and Africa). This kind of distribution highlight that the biggest polluters in the word are the affluent nations, even though states mostly obstructed are typically developing ones, illustrating temperature and sea level rises in Bangladesh and massive landslide and drought in Myanmar (Hallegatte et al., 2016).
According to Oxfam International (2018), multinational companies in the United Kingdom were coped to avoid tax payment around £6 billion and, also highlighted that that amount of money can be spent to arrange for education services to 124 million kids from developing nations and have the funds for medical service which would inhibit the deceases of as a minimum six million children per annum. Due to these kinds of tax avoidance, the national governments are facing difficulties to generate the revenues aimed for public service and welfare programs which are closed related with income distribution and low- income families are not fully benefited to receive some public services which are leading to deprivation and social exclusion (Oxfam International, 2018).
By looking at these economic inequalities, it can be clearly seen that domination of elites over environmental economics also brings destructive actions and rich people become wealthy and better off while poor people have done less risky actions and worse off.