Toward inverting environmental injustice in Delhi

Rohit Azad and Shouvik Chakraborty
Additional contact information
Shouvik Chakraborty: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2021, vol. 32, issue 2, 209-229

Abstract: We propose a carbon tax policy for Delhi—the most polluted capital globally—which will fundamentally change the energy mix of Delhi’s economy toward clean, green energy and guarantee universal access to electricity, transport, and food, up to a certain amount. Any carbon mitigation strategy needs to alter our dependence on fossil fuels, requiring a systemic overhaul of its energy mix. Implementing a carbon tax will mitigate emissions and mobilise revenue for our proposed redistributive program: Right to Food, Energy, and Travel (RFET). The policy is designed to advocate for the ‘poor over the rich’ to compensate for the ‘rich hiding behind’ the poor by emitting the majority of carbon and pollutants. Using input–output analysis, we estimate the class-wise distribution of carbon emissions in Delhi. We find that the necessary tax would be US$112.5 per metric ton of carbon dioxide in order for this program to work. The free entitlement of fuel and electricity per household comes out to be 2040 kWh per annum, and there is an annual universal travel pass of US$75 per person for use in public transport and an annual per capita availability of food of US$205. JEL Codes: Q43, Q48, Q52, Q58

Keywords: Asia; carbon tax; climate change; Delhi; energy policy; inequality; right to energy; urban pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10353046211017621 (text/html)

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:sae:ecolab:v:32:y:2021:i:2:p:209-229

DOI: 10.1177/10353046211017621

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Economic and Labour Relations Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().