The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions

Kristian S. Nielsen (), Kimberly A. Nicholas, Felix Creutzig, Thomas Dietz and Paul C. Stern
Additional contact information
Kristian S. Nielsen: University of Cambridge
Kimberly A. Nicholas: Lund University
Felix Creutzig: Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change
Thomas Dietz: Michigan State University
Paul C. Stern: Social and Environmental Research Institute

Nature Energy, 2021, vol. 6, issue 11, 1011-1016

Abstract: Abstract People with high socioeconomic status disproportionally affect energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions directly through their consumption and indirectly through their financial and social resources. However, few climate change mitigation initiatives have targeted this population segment, and the potential of such initiatives remains insufficiently researched. In this Perspective, we analyse key characteristics of high-socioeconomic-status people and explore five roles through which they have a disproportionate impact on energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions and potentially on climate change mitigation, namely as consumers, investors, role models, organizational participants and citizens. We examine what is known about their disproportionate impact via consumption and explore their potential influence on greenhouse gas emissions through all five roles. We suggest that future research should focus on strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by high-socioeconomic-status people and to align their investments, organizational choices and actions as social and political change agents with climate change mitigation goals.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00900-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:6:y:2021:i:11:d:10.1038_s41560-021-00900-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-021-00900-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().