Here is a link to Oxfam's methodology[1].

First, they only track emissions that they can directly tie with consumption. The statement "fifty percent of the world’s carbon emissions are produced by the world’s richest 10%" is not supported by the study because it makes no attempt to track all of the world's carbon emissions.

Second, they assume that income == consumption == carbon emissions, which is a very bad assumption. The world's richest people do not spend their entire income every year, so using that as the basis for consumption is inaccurate. Also, assuming that every dollar spent, no matter where or by whom, has the exact same emissions associated with it is incorrect. Wealthy people are the people who can afford to put solar panels on their roofs and buy new electric cars, but by this study they are penalized for such consumption.

In general, I find that oxfam optimizes their studies for the headlines. When you dig into it, there are so many qualifiers and assumptions made that it seems clear the study was authored with an specific outcome in mind. "The top 10% earn 5x more money than average" is not as outrageous a headline as we are used to seeing. But by multiplying by a carbon emission factor of 1, they get to write "Top 10% emits half of world's carbon", which generates way more clicks.

[1]https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10...

So are you saying the assertion that rich countries spend far more CO2 per capita than poorer countries is incorrect? What studies would you point to that offer a more accurate estimate?

> So are you saying the assertion that rich countries spend far more CO2 per capita than poorer countries is incorrect?

I made no statement one way or the other, _and neither did OP's study_. I'm just pointing out that the linked paper is bogus.

FWIW, your statement is factually correct - rich countries pollute more per capita than poor countries. I think a more useful metric is emissions per dollar GDP[1]. This measure how carbon efficient an economy is.

We could drop carbon emissions to nearly zero by reverting all of human society to be hunter-gatherers who haven't discovered fire yet. Building a more efficient economy lets us get closer to zero emissions without losing all of our modern quality of life improvements.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?most_...

I agree to an extent. But I don’t think carbon-per-dollar captures the full picture. You speak of quality of life improvements but the economy is largely measured in consumption not quality of life. If maximizing quality of life per unit of carbon is your goal it presupposes that all economic productivity/consumption contributes equally to quality of life. I think there’s an argument that the hedonic treadmill makes this an incorrect assumption

I agree. GDP is not a great measure of quality of life. I also don't think its controversial to say I would be less happy if I lived in a place without electricity, plumbing, or internet. GDP is a first degree approximation of those kinds of quality of life goods.

I only meant to say that the reason poor countries have a low per-capita emissions is because they are very poor. It is not a very instructive or useful metric to look at. Per GDP emissions lets us look at a "lifestyle adjusted" carbon emissions. There are countries in all four quadrants of the poor v rich, efficient v inefficient graph. That gives us a lot more insight into how to structure an economy.

My point (and where we may disagree) is that GDP is only informative to a point. As you point out, that point may be when certain essentials are met such as access to healthcare, clean water, and electricity. Beyond that point GDP as a maximization function may be counterproductive and only measuring marginal utility decreasing marginal utility per unit of carbon increase. Choosing the right metric matters - choosing GDP is at best a clunky approximation once a certain level of industrialization is achieved. After that, there are probably better metrics to measure quality of life. So if we’re trying to maximize quality of life, we should probably focus on those rather than a twisted economist view that productivity is the best measure of a society.

A less carbon intense life is possible, but much easier without the fear of a needy tomorrow...the consumer may be the biggest cause of so much CO2, but like in "Grapes of Wrath" when you are pushed into a place where you can't grow what you need, can't stay in a place for free so have to go out and work to buy your food and then have too much money so you buy useless stuff....also from that book (prescient in today's awaited ecological collapse) the idea that fruit prices were so low they built factories to put them in cans...to conclude imo the lifestyle that comes from the "western" world's slave mentality to work and growth is the main cause of climate change...that and the overabundance of never ending more printed money...

I wouldn’t go as far as blaming civilization.

1) the word “tax” In carbon-tax terrifies people, especially in America. So we get a tragedy of the commons situation with the cost of carbon made into an externality.

2) massive FUD and manipulation of media and environmental efforts to stop awareness of climate change for decades.

Fox News destroyed scientists on TV to discredit global warming.

People have made this happen, and they have gleefully lived without any repercussions - which is why the model has been copied around the world.

Hilariously the oil firms are rebranding themselves as eco firms.

Many pushing a carbon tax have far too high an expectation of how the impact of a tax would fall. Without a lot of other systemic changes and programs implemented in concert with a carbon tax, the market would allocate much like it it has as already - only optimizing profit with a carbon constraint without regard to anything else - likely increasing inequality.

> 1) the word “tax” In carbon-tax terrifies people, especially in America. So we get a tragedy of the commons situation with the cost of carbon made into an externality.

Reducing their quality of life and expectations is what terrifies people. People want their vacations to Tahiti, their SUV, their detached single family homes with backyards and front yards, more children etc.

People know the only way out of this is to reduce consumption - of everything. But obviously few want to, especially when they don’t believe others will chip in and reduce also.

Which is a non sequitur, peoples quality of life was much worse with the loss of breathable air, drinkable water or houses lost to wildfires (Jan 2019 Australia for example). Its not like people want a high quality of life which excludes those things.

Your final point is describing a collective action problem, but that is solved by simply exposing the full cost of a goods to people.

That is what markets do, very very well. Expose costs via pricing, and let people respond to that information.

If your skin care product packaged by X company is 30% more expensive because its cost of carbon is included, then people will buy the less expensive option and go on their merry way.

>Which is a non sequitur, peoples quality of life was much worse with the loss of breathable air, drinkable water or houses lost to wildfires (Jan 2019 Australia for example). Its not like people want a high quality of life which excludes those things.

“People” meaning as a whole, with sufficient cooperation to enact political change, on a global level, such that the cost of pollution can be priced into products.

But that pricing in will also cause the cost of everything we use to go up, causing a decrease in the amount of consumption (which is the intended effect), but that is an immediate and easily visible “loss” to people.

> But obviously few want to, especially when they don’t believe others will chip in and reduce also.

That last part there is very important. I feel much like this, me personally going ascetic, while all my fellow humans don't give a damn, doesn't help anything. This needs to come from the top, the politicians, with rules, regulations, fees and fines. Thus, I vote for the greenest and most ascetic party there is. But I have little hope left.

Interesting idea. It reminds me of the fact I'd like to work full time on climate breakdown, but don't because those jobs pay a lot less. After all, trying to buy a house!

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, the other bidder would _also_ prefer to work doing good in the world, but takes the highest paying job instead, so they can outbid me.

And that house is what is causing the climate breakdown in the first place, since it is a detached single family home with a garage, reducing population density and magnifying the amount of energy required to push all the mass people want to live (water, sewer, gas, people, groceries, vehicles, trash, etc).

Growth is also about efficiency, not just expansion.

Efficiency fuels growth only by creating more output with the equivalent input. GDP doesn’t go up with “less input” it goes up with “more output”

Of course, although I'm assuming you meant that as a rebuttal? Keep in mind that output does not always need to be physical. In fact, the history of capitalism shows that growth is coupled with more people doing less physical work and that countries with greater wealth and resources (e.g. the ability to make more stuff more efficiently) will move towards a service oriented economy.

Yes, I agree that the more advanced an economy gets the less coupled GDP is to physical labor. But efficiency is not a 1:1 relationship with GDP unless the work input is equal. Meaning, just because there is an increase in efficiency does not guarantee there is an increase in productivity so efficiency shouldn’t be used as a perfect corollary to GDP, just one aspect that helps drive it.

It’s like saying “my per hour pay rate went up” and assuming your annual take has also increased. That’s only true if your total hours didn’t drop enough to erode those rate gains.

To your point, GDP and efficiency are both increasing but hours per worker are generally decreasing.