Inequality and the Environment Symposium for Early-Career Researchers

Organized by Sciences Po's Center for Research on social InequalitieS,
in partnership with the World Inequality Lab - Paris School of Economics
and the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy - Harvard Kennedy School
Thursday, 18 January 2024
Sciences Po, 1 Place Saint-Thomas d’Aquin 75007 Paris

Rising inequality and environmental degradation are two critical challenges of our time. The social sciences have increasingly focused on their interactions over the last two decades (Martinez Alier 2003, Laurent 2012, Chancel 2020). Nevertheless, our knowledge about the interplay between socio-economic inequality, environmental degradation, and environmental policies remains limited. The literature on inequality and the environment presents various conceptual, empirical, and theoretical gaps hindering societies’ ability to effectively address these issues.

Substantively, important questions remain unanswered, such as: How can governments address inequality while averting the exacerbation of climate and biodiversity crises, both domestically and internationally? Which welfare regimes could be compatible with deep decarbonization? What types of political coalitions can support these changes? What role have income and wealth inequality played in accelerating or slowing environmental degradation? How can public policies promote changes in citizens’ environmental behaviour while taking social inequalities into account? 

This symposium aims to present, discuss, and foster innovative approaches to social science research on environmental inequality across three broad research streams : (i) Inequalities in the impacts of environmental degradation; (ii) Inequalities in contributions to environmental damage; and (iii) Inequalities in capacities to act against pollution or to cope with environmental policies.

PROGRAM

• Welcome and introduction
• Session 1 Global Inequality of Contributions (9:10-11:10, plenary, location B108 Salon scientifique)

- Federica Cappelli - Unequal Contributions to CO2 Emissions along the Income Distribution Within and Between Countries

- Markus Nabernegg - Environmental Engel Curves with Predicted Consumption of High-Income Households, Applied to Ecuador

- Elisa Palagi - Revisiting the Emission-Inequality Nexus across Stages of Development

- Yannic Rehm - The Carbon Footprint of Capital – Evidence from France, Germany and the US based on Distributional Environmental Accounts

• Parallel session 2A: Inequality in Policy Impacts (11:30-13:30, location B108 Salon scientifique)

 - Philipp Bothe - Inequality in Exposure to Harmful Air Pollution

- Clara Dallaire-Fortier - A Balancing Act? Local Fiscal Resilience After Mine Closures

- Jacob Greenspon - Locally-tailored Policy Responses to the U.S. Decarbonization Job Transition

- Lena Kilian - Achieving Emission Reductions without Furthering Social Inequality: Lessons from the 2007 Economic Crisis and the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Parallel session 2B: Inequality of Impact: Climate Shocks (11:30-13:30, location CS16)

- Filippo Pavanello - Adapting to Heat Extremes with Unequal Access to Cooling: Evidence from India

- Risto Conte Keivabu - Temperature and School Absences: Evidence from England

- Matteo Coronese - Raided by the Storm: Impacts on Income and Wages from Three Decades of U.S. Thunderstorms

- Giulia Valenti - Temperature and Health Capital: Long-Term Consequences of Exposure in Early Childhood

• Parallel session 3A: Inequality of Capacity to Act and Political Representation (14:30 - 16:30, location B108 Salon scientifique)

- Mélusine Boon-Falleur - Leveraging social cognition to promote effective climate change mitigation

- Matthias Petel - Litigating for Future Generations... and for the Just Transition? The Unequal Integration of Climate Justice Dimensions by the Courts

- Laura Silva - Climate Extremes and Socio-Political Attitudes: A European Social Survey Analysis

- Nathalie Vigna - Who is ready to pay for protecting the environment? Social and spatial divides in Western countries

• Parallel session 3B: Climate Inequalities: Contributions, Impacts, Capacities (Urban segregation, elite strategies, policies) (14:30 - 16:30, location CS16)

- Jens Ergon - Inequality and Emissions: Managing the Interlinked Challenges of a Just Transformation

- Thomas Neier - The Green Divide: A Spatial Analysis of Segregation-Based Environmental Inequality

- Shay O’Brien - Parasite: The Relational Continuity of Extraction in a Settler Colonial Upper Class

- Martina Pardy - Climate Impacts and Wealth Inequality: Global Evidence from a Novel Subnational Dataset

• Session 4: Climate Inequalities and Poverty and Concluding Remarks (16:45-18:00 plenary, location B108 Salon scientifique)

- Thomas Bézy - The Incidence of Flood Risk

- Manisha Mukherjee - Scorching Heat and Shrinking Horizons: The Impact of Rising Temperatures on Marriages and Migration in Rural India

Organizing committee

Carlo Barone (co-chair), Lucas Chancel (co-chair), Eloi Laurent, Allison Rovny.

Registration for this event is closed. However, if you are interested in attending, please send us an email, and we will do our best to accommodate your request.