Inequality fuels the climate emergency

By: Tim den Dekker
On: 2022-06-21

Jason Hickel in his book Less is More writes devastatingly about the links between wealth, carbon emissions and resource use. If the worst of the climate breakdown is to be mitigated the rich must decarbonise and cut the virgin materials use in their spending.

South Africa has the dishonour of the world’s highest wealth disparity. Despite being ranked 70th by GDP per capita it has the 31st highest per capita carbon emissions, which supports Hickel’s charge against the world’s rich.

The end of our holiday visiting family and friends there earlier this year was marred by a robbery. For our three-day wait for replacement passports, we rented a house in the wonderfully eccentric Bo-Kaap district in central Cape Town.

Urban Strategy Lab - Inequality fuels the climate emergency - bo-kaap — Illustration – The Bo-Kaap neighbourhood on the periphery of Cape Town’s CBD

We did a lot of walking locally because everything we needed was close by. People said we were crazy to walk given the risk of street crime: we should have driven, like everyone else with a car does.

The climate emergency colours most things in life these days, so the well-intended reprimands for walking anywhere got me thinking more broadly about how socioeconomic factors – in particular inequality-driven crime – have pushed wealthy South Africans into a high-carbon way of life, and what could be done about that.

South Africa has the third-highest crime index after Venezuela and Papua New Guinea. To this rich South Africans have responded resolutely: many live in gated development, communities or even cities with their own private security forces; those living outside these developments have fortified their homes, shops and and businesses with concrete and steel; and those with the means have eschewed public transport, walking, or cycling for the private car, even for short hops to the proverbial corner shop.

urban strategy lab - inequality fuels the climate emergency - century city — Illustration – Century City in Cape Town – a private walled city

The hefty environmental price tag of these changes to buildings, infrastructure and mobility includes increased energy and materials use and emissions. It also means South Africa’s economy and cities are less resilient against the new era of energy price inflation. Spatial segregation of different economic segments from each other and from residential areas makes it harder to grow local economies that are more sustainable by reducing frequency and lengths of journeys.

Wealth disparity and poverty are not just bad for people’s livelihoods: they also fuel the climate emergency. It follows that greater economic equity through redistributive policies will help reduce carbon emissions – lawmakers take note.