This article is part of the series Comprehensive Energy Monitor: India and the World According to the World Inequality Report 2022 (WIR 2022), India and Brazil are countries with ‘extreme’ inequality amongst low- and middle-income group countries. China is slightly better as it is characterised by only ‘high levels’ of inequality. India is also amongst countries that experienced ‘spectacular’ increase in inequality along with USA and Russia. Amongst countries in South and Southeast Asia, the ratio of the income of the top 10 percent to the bottom 50 percent is 22 for India which is much higher than 17 for Thailand, a military dictatorship. Globally, the entire drop in growth in the share of income going to the bottom 50 percent of the population due to COVID-19 in 2020 was because of South and Southeast Asia, particularly India. When India was removed from the data set, the share of income going to the bottom 50 percent was found to increase slightly in 2020. Carbon Inequality The inequality in income and wealth naturally translates into carbon inequality that arises from differences in consumption. Within India, the national average per person emission was about 2.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide (tCO 2 ). The middle 40 percent emitted about 2 tCO 2 per person, the bottom 50 percent about 1 tCO 2 and the top 10 percent about 8.8 tCO 2 per person in 2019. This pattern is not unique to India. Globally, on average each individual emitted just over 6.5 tCO 2 in 2021. In 2019, the bottom 50 percent of the world population emitted only 1.6 tCO 2 per person accounting for 12 percent of emissions while the middle 40 percent emitted 6.6 tCO 2 per person accounting for about 40 percent of total emissions. The top 10 percent emitting 31 tCO 2 per person accounted for 47.6 of total emissions and the top 1 percent or about 77.1 million people emitting 110 tCO2 accounted for 16.8 percent of emissions. The top 0.1 percent or just 7.7 million people emitted 467 tCO 2 per person and the top 0.01 percent or just 770,000 people emitted a staggering 2531 tCO 2 per person in 2019. Carbon inequality: Within and between countries In multilateral climate negotiating platforms, India has consistently upheld the principle of equity between countries. Just before COP 26, the Government of India welcomed the launch of climate equity monitor (CEM), an online dashboard for assessing, at the international level, equity in climate action, inequalities in emissions, energy and resource consumption across the world. According to the CEM, its objective is to counter messages from western sources that rely on or promote methodologies that pay no more than scarce attention to equity, differentiation, and historical responsibility, all guiding principles of the UNFCCC (United Nations framework convention on climate change). The CEM observes that even where the discourse claims to focus on equity, it privileges views from the Global North that seek to establish themselves as acting on behalf of the rest of the world. The CEM aims to address this disparity and promote a new narrative where the South looks out for the North and the rest of the world. As nations rather than individuals are the units of negotiation in multilateral climate negotiations, contesting ‘between country’ inequality is a perfectly legitimate position for India. However, this does not mean ‘within country’ inequalities can be ignored. According to WIR 2022, in 1990, 63 percent of the global carbon inequality was due to ‘between country’ inequality but in 2019, 63 percent of global carbon inequality was due to ‘within country’ inequality. Looking within to address carbon inequalities will strengthen India’s case for addressing between country carbon inequality in multilateral platforms. Most of the emission reduction in India to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement must come from the top 10 percent of India’s population whose emissions are higher than world average emissions. Compared to 2019 levels, Indian emissions can increase by 70 percent or by 1.5 tCO 2 per person until 2030. Emissions of the bottom 50 percent can increase by 281 percent to 2.7 tCO 2 per person by 2030 while emissions of the middle 40 percent can increase by 83 percent to 1.7 tCO 2 per person. However, emissions of the top 10 percent must fall by 58 percent to 5.1 tCO 2 per person to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement.
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