People hugely underestimate the carbon footprints of the 1 per cent

People consistently underestimate the personal carbon footprints of the top 1 per cent of the world’s wealthiest individuals while overestimating the carbon emissions of low-income people. This could negatively impact climate justice efforts and support for the most effective policies for mitigating climate change.

“What we find is that people underestimate the footprint of high-income groups [by] quite a lot,” says Kristian Nielsen at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. “And we also know that the wealthy generally have disproportionate influence on which policies are being promoted,…