Between social justice and ecological limits: the role of income, consumption and energy inequality in climate transition pathways in the uk

Ensuring a decent quality of life for all is an essential aim of any socially and ecologically sustainable future. At present, no country is achieving both high levels of social performance, whilst remaining within the boundaries of the biosphere’s resources (Fanning et al., 2021). Underpinning these eco-social goals of modern societies are material needs, requiring sufficient consumption of energy and materials to satisfy them (N. Rao and Min, 2018; Millward-Hopkins et al., 2020). However, given the unsustainability of present aggregate consumption levels and high levels of energy intensity, there is unlikely to be room to increase energy and resource use, without further degradation of the planet’s biosphere.

To address this problem, this PhD explores the relationship between the eco-social goals of inequality reduction and climate change mitigation, and their implications in the UK context, from three distinct but interrelated avenues of inquiry across three academic papers: (I) understanding the extent to which inequality reduction is contained within narratives of the climate transition, (II) modelling the impact of consumption inequality reduction in the UK on the climate transition, and (III) examining how inequality in energy service demands affects climate scenarios that rely on energy demand reduction.

First, the pervasiveness of these socio-ecological goals in economic narratives of the transition is analysed. Through a structured critical review of green growth, the Green New Deal, post growth, and degrowth narratives of climate change mitigation, the various rationales for and mechanisms through which inequality reduction is intended to be achieved are brought to light. Tensions between these two goals exist across all three narratives explored, particularly in green growth, where there is little discussion of limits on higher levels of consumption to ensure sufficient ecological space for the resources needed to meet minimum needs. Across all narratives, there is limited quantitative examination of the compatibility of these dual goals within the specific socioeconomic conditions each narrative describes.

Second, to examine the potential tensions between these two goals identified in Paper 1, redistributive consumption scenarios are developed using theories of sustainable consumption corridors, quantifying the energy and emissions footprints of varying extents and conditions of redistribution. Utilising the UK Multi-Regional Input-Output model, the impact of redistributive consumption corridors on 13 different household types is calculated, using the Minimum Income Standard as a baseline for minimum consumption levels (Hirsch et al., 2020) and applying a novel ‘affluence line’ (Medeiros, 2006; Concialdi, 2018) to define upper consumption limits.

The findings in this thesis indicate that reducing household consumption inequality can contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions and energy use. However, this is only feasible if the consumption of higher-income households is constrained to near-complete equality in expenditure, resulting in an exceptionally narrow consumption corridor between the highest and lowest consumers. These findings have implications for all narratives discussed in Paper 1, particularly regarding the scale of direct redistribution required to ensure a decent standard of living for all. Furthermore, the results highlight the need to integrate economic inequality into climate-energy-economy modelling processes to better understand how consumption inequality may impact efforts to secure minimally acceptable living standards within climate transitions

Third, this PhD highlights the importance of considering economic inequalities in household consumption for climate scenario modelling. Using the UK-based Positive Low Energy Futures scenarios as a case study (Barrett et al., 2022), income-disaggregated energy service demands are calculated for the housing and transport sectors in each scenario. This approach helps to identify how changes in service demand are distributed across income groups, informing strategies for aggregate demand reduction. The analysis pinpoints where inequalities in energy access may threaten minimum energy needs in demand reduction-led climate mitigation, while also highlighting the significantly greater responsibility of higher consumers towards reducing aggregate demand, implied by their higher levels of current demand. Income disaggregation of climate scenarios is therefore crucial not only for ensuring demand-led mitigation supports necessary levels of consumption but also for unlocking key policy insights, helping to identify the groups that need to be most directly targeted for effective demand reduction policies.