Economics for people and the planet: inequality in the era of climate change

174 Pages·2019·5.849 MB·English

by  Boyce, James K

i
Economics for People and the Planet
ii
ANTHEM FRONTIERS OF GLOBAL
POLITICAL ECONOMY
The Anthem Frontiers of Global Political Economy series seeks to
trigger and attract new thinking in global political economy, with particular
reference to the prospects of emerging markets and developing countries.
Written by renowned scholars from different parts of the world, books in this
series provide historical, analytical and empirical perspectives on national
economic strategies and processes, the implications of global and regional
economic integration, the changing nature of the development project and
the diverse global- to- local forces that drive change. Scholars featured in the
series extend earlier economic insights to provide fresh interpretations that
allow new understandings of contemporary economic processes.
Series Editors
Kevin Gallagher – Boston University, USA
Jayati Ghosh – Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
Editorial Board
Stephanie Blankenburg – School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), UK
Ha- Joon Chang – University of Cambridge, UK
Wan- Wen Chu – RCHSS, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Alica Puyana Mutis – Facultad Latinoamericana de
Ciencias Sociales (FLASCO- México), Mexico
Léonce Ndikumana – University of Massachusetts- Amherst, USA
Matías Vernengo – Bucknell University, USA
Robert Wade – London School of Economics and
Political Science (LSE), UK
Yu Yongding – Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), China
iii
Economics for People and

the Planet
Inequality in the Era of
Climate Change
James K. Boyce
iv
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2019
by ANTHEM PRESS
75– 76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
© 2019 James K. Boyce
The moral right of the authors has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-i n-P ublication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 78308- 875- 1 (Hbk)
ISBN- 10: 1- 78308- 875- 3 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e- book.
v
CONTENTS

List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Part I. RETHINKING ECONOMICS AND THE
ENVIRONMENT
Chapter 1. Limits to Growth – of What? 3
Chapter 2. The Twin Tragedies of Open Access 7
Chapter 3. Pursuing Profits – or Power? 9
Chapter 4. Rent in a Warming World 13
Chapter 5. Universal Assets for Universal Income 17
Chapter 6. Universal Basic Income: Six Questions 21
Chapter 7. Environmentalism’s Original Sin 23
Chapter 8. Rethinking Extinction 27
Part II. ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE
Chapter 9. Inequality and the Environment 39
Chapter 10. Clean Air for All 49
Chapter 11. Letter from Flint 53
Chapter 12. Let Them Drink Pollution? 57
Chapter 13. Letter from Delhi 59
Chapter 14. Mapping the Environmental Riskscape 65
vi
vi ECONOMICS FOR PEOPLE AND THE PLANET
Chapter 15. Measuring Pollution Inequality 69
Chapter 16. Cleaning the Air and Cooling the Planet 75
Part III. CLIMATE POLICY
Chapter 17. Smart Climate Policy 79
Chapter 18. Investment in Disadvantaged Communities 87
Chapter 19. Dividends for All 95
Chapter 20. Truth Spill 103
Chapter 21. Four Pillars of Climate Justice 105
Chapter 22. The Perverse Logic of Offsets 107
Chapter 23. Climate Policy as Wealth Creation 109
Chapter 24. The Carbon Dividend 115
Chapter 25. Keeping the Government Whole 117
Chapter 26. Air Quality Co- benefits in Climate Policy 125
Chapter 27. Climate Adaptation: Protecting Money or People? 133
Chapter 28. Forging a Sustainable Climate Policy 135
Notes 143
Publication History 157
Index 159
vii
ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
1.1 National income: The good, the bad and the useless 4
3.1 The democracy- oligarchy and market- state continuums 11
4.1 Types of rent 14
10.1 Exposure to toxic air pollution in US metropolitan areas 50
14.1 Average exposure by income and minority status 67
14.2 Average exposure by race and income in the United States 67
19.1 Carbon footprint by expenditure category: Median
California household 98
Tables
19.1 Carbon footprint by income decile and expenditure
category in California 99
19.2 Impact of national cap- and- dividend policy on California
households by income decile 100
25.1 Government and private shares of US carbon emissions 119
25.2 Distributional impact of cap- and- dividend policy with
100 per cent of revenue paid as taxable dividends 122
25.3 Distributional impact of cap- and- dividend policy with
revenue set aside for government 123
26.1 Costs of outdoor pollution in China, India and OECD countries 126
26.2 Co- pollutant cost of carbon 128
viii