DEVELOPMENT, INEQUALITY, AND THECARBON INTENSITY OF HUMAN WELL-BEING:

PATHWAYS TO SUSTAINABILITY?

Andrew JorgensonProfessor

Department of SociologyEnvironmental & Sustainability Studies Program

University of Utah

“Planetary Boundaries”The inner green shading represents the proposed safe operating space.

The red wedges represent an estimate of the current position for each variable.The boundaries in three systems have already been exceeded.

Sustainability Science

The Role of Sociology• Mazur and Rosa,

Science (1974)

Rockstrom et al., Nature (2009)

Impacts Attributed to Climate Change

newstimeafrica.com/kenya-drought-effects-of-climate-change

Differences in human vulnerability and exposure arise from non-climatic factors and from multidimensional inequalities often produced by uneven development processes. (IPCC 2014)

ASA Task Force on Climate Change Volunteers raising awareness of rising sea levels in Malaysiawww.350.org

Outline for Rest of Talk

1. Established, Narrower Areas of Research

2. Newer, Integrated Approach

3. CIWB: What is it?

4. Economic Development CIWB, Inequality CIWB

5. Concluding Remarks

Economic Development Human Well-Being– e.g., Brady, Kaya, and Beckfield SCID (2007)

Economic Development Environment– e.g., Jorgenson and Clark, AJS (2012)

Inequality Human Well-Being– e.g., Babones, SS&M (2008)

Inequality Environment– e.g., Jorgenson, Social Problems (2003)

EnvironmentEconomic Development -------------------------

Human Well-Being

EnvironmentInequality -------------------------

Human Well-Being

One potential pathway towards climate change mitigation and other sustainability efforts involves reducing the carbon intensity of human well-being (CIWB)

CIWB: the level of anthropogenic carbon emissions per unit of human well-being (an “adjusted” ratio)

– Numerator: anthropogenic CO2 emissions per capita– Denominator: average life expectancy at birth– Production-based emissions, consumption-based

emissions, EIWB

dot size is proportional to population; color shading by income

Roberts, Steinberger, Lamb, Dietz, Jorgenson, York, Givens, Baer, and Schor, under review

Jorgenson and Dietz, Sustainability Science (2015)

EIWB: blue boxplots are sample of developed nations; green boxplots are sample of developing nations

.4.6

.81

CIW

B

0 5 10 15 20Carbon Emissions Per Capita

the correlation is -.0443; includes sample of 106 Nations (954 total observations)

Jorgenson, Nature Climate Change (2014)

Economic Development CIWB ?Inequality CIWB ?

Multiple samples of nations (Overall, OECD, Non-OECD, Regional)

‒ allows for investigating broad-based human / environment relationships as well as those potentially situated within narrower socioeconomic and regional contexts…

Baseline two-way fixed effects elasticity models

𝐶𝐼𝑊𝐵𝑖𝑡 = 𝛽1𝐼𝑛𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡+ 𝛽2𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟1991𝑡 + ...+ 𝛽19𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟2008𝑡 + 𝛽20𝐼𝑛𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡∗𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟1991𝑡 + … + 𝛽37𝐼𝑛𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡 ∗𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟2008𝑡 + 𝛽38𝐺𝐷𝑃 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑡 + 𝑢𝑖 + 𝑒𝑖𝑡

𝐶𝐼𝑊𝐵𝑖𝑡 = 𝛽1𝐺𝐷𝑃 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑡+ 𝛽2𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟1991𝑡 + ...+ 𝛽19𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟2008𝑡 + 𝛽20𝐺𝐷𝑃 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑡∗𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟1991𝑡 + … + 𝛽37𝐺𝐷𝑃 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑡 ∗𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟2008𝑡 + 𝑢𝑖 + 𝑒𝑖𝑡

𝐶𝐼𝑊𝐵𝑖𝑡 = 𝛽1𝐺𝐷𝑃 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑡+ 𝛽2𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟1975𝑡 + ...+ 𝛽9𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟2009𝑡 + 𝛽10𝐺𝐷𝑃 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑡∗𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟1975𝑡 + … + 𝛽18𝐺𝐷𝑃 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑡 ∗𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟2009𝑡 + 𝑢𝑖+ 𝑒𝑖𝑡

-.08

-.04

0.0

4.0

8.1

2

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Africa Asia South and Central America North America, Europe, and Oceania

Estimated Effect of GDP per capita on the Carbon Intensity of Well-Being, 1970-2009(production-based emissions data)

Africa sample includes 36 nations; Asia sample includes 22 nations; South and Central Americasample includes 21 nations; North America, Europe, and Oceania sample includes 27 nations

Jorgenson, Nature Climate Change (2014)

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.1

2.1

4.1

6.1

0

1990 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 20081991 1992 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

All Nations OECD Non-OECD

Estimated Effect of GDP per capita on the Carbon Intensity of Well-Being, 1990-2008(consumption-based emissions data)

All sample includes 69 nations; OECD sample includes 25 nations; Non-OECD sample includes 44 nations

Jorgenson and Givens, under review

-.08

-.06

-.04

-.02

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.1

2.1

4.1

6.1

0

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 20081991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

OECD Non-OECD Africa Non-OECD Asia Non-OECD Latin America

OECD sample includes 25 nations; Non-OECD Africa sample includes 16 nations;Non-OECD Asia sample includes 15 nations; Non-OECD Latin America sample includes 13 nations

Jorgenson and Givens, under review

Estimated Effect of GDP per capita on the Carbon Intensity of Well-Being, 1990-2008(consumption-based emissions data)

-.05

0.0

5.1

.15

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

OECD OECD Lower Significance Threshold Non-OECD Non-OECD Lower Significance Threshold

Estimated Effect of Income Inequality on the Carbon Intensity of Well-Being, 1990-2008(consumption-based emissions data)

OECD sample includes 22 nations; Non-OECD sample includes 41 nations

Jorgenson, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (forthcoming)

Concluding Remarks

1. Sociology Sustainability Science

2. The Findings And Their Implications

3. Limitations

4. Next Steps?

5. Scaling Down

Thanks!

New Research

NSF Funded Project: The Effects of Organizational, World Economic, and World Society Factors on Power Plants CO2 Emissions

Over 25,000 power plants in almost 60 nations (multi-method)

Hypothesis: plants with high CO2 emission rates and levels share certain combinations of organizational, world economic, and world society structures and the effectiveness of national environmental policies will depend on plants’ structural “profiles.”

Country-Level

Plant-Level

Country-Level

Plant-Level Plant-Level Plant-LevelPlant-LevelPlant-Level

Country-Level