Measuring carbon-energy inequality is important for assigning responsibility for climate change. At a global, regional, and within-country level, energy consumption and carbon emissions can be highly unequal across income groups. The reduction of carbon-energy inequality is not a meaningful goal by itself, however. With more nuance on carbon-energy inequality, when carbon-energy intensities of income groups can be estimated using information on different consumption baskets and technologies, we have seen that in Europe, just bringing carbon-energy intensities of all income groups in line with the top group would reduce the carbon-energy footprint but *increase* carbon-energy inequality. That lower-income groups tend to have higher carbon-energy intensities is an important finding from the environmental Kuznet's curve literature. This is the case for Europe as a whole (although not necessarily within each European country). Responsibility for climate change focuses on aggregate carbon-energy inequality, and thus tends to focus on reducing over-consumption at the top. Without differences in intensity included, where/what to target: aggregate consumption a problem at top, not at bottom, etc.
Measuring carbon-energy inequality is important for assigning responsibility for climate change. At a global, regional, and within-country level, energy consumption and carbon emissions can be highly unequal across income groups. The reduction of carbon-energy inequality is not a meaningful goal by itself, however. With more nuance on carbon-energy inequality, when carbon-energy intensities of income groups can be estimated using information on different consumption baskets and technologies, we have seen that in Europe, just bringing carbon-energy intensities of all income groups in line with the top group would reduce the carbon-energy footprint but *increase* carbon-energy inequality. That lower-income groups tend to have higher carbon-energy intensities is an important finding from the environmental Kuznet's curve literature [@berthe_mechanisms_2015 @scruggs_political_1998]. We find that this is the case for Europe as a whole (although not necessarily within each European country) [@sommer_carbon_2017]. Responsibility for climate change focuses on aggregate carbon-energy inequality, and thus tends to focus on reducing over-consumption at the top. Without differences in intensity included, where/what to target: aggregate consumption a problem at top, not at bottom, etc.
Understanding this relationship is important towards achieving two potentially conflicting goals in Europe: carbon-energy footprint reduction and providing minimum energy use for decent living to everyone. At a global level, achieving sweeping poverty reduction in many regions of the world could put at risk hitting global climate targets (Hubacek). In the European context, although less unequal than the globe as a whole, lower-income groups will look to increase income, consumption, energy use, and carbon emissions will increase if more efficient and cleaner technology is not adopted at the appropriate rate. Achieving an average per capita energy use and carbon footprint in Europe in scenarios that reach the Paris agreement goals, means either doing so at current inequality levels and keeping lower-income groups near or below minimum energy use levels for decent living, or reducing economic inequality. We have shown that achieving both scenario targets and minimum energy levels likely requires reduction in economic inequality (consumption inequality reduction measures in Europe) coupled with the appropriate targeted climate-energy measures for the various income groups and countries (expand on how it relates to 1st paragraph).
