What could justify a prohibition on the luxury emissions of the very rich?

Fausto Corvino

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2025, vol. 24, issue 4, 313-333

Abstract: In this article, I discuss whether, in addition to pricing emissions, we should prohibit a specific category of luxury emissions, those arising from goods and services that only the richest can afford. In the first part, I ask whether a justification for such a prohibition can be derived from emissions sufficientarianism. I argue that emissions sufficientarianism does not explain why we should prohibit only high-wealth emissions and not also the recursive production of emissions that are neither high-wealth nor subsistence. Moreover, it does not provide a reason why we should prevent the production of high-wealth emissions by those who have offset them ex ante. In the second part, I ask whether a justification for the prohibition of high-wealth emissions can be based on emissions limitarianism. I argue that emissions limitarianism can explain why we should prohibit only high-wealth emissions, but it cannot account for why high-wealth emissions are bad even if they are offset ex ante. In the third part, I use two arguments, positional consumption and moral disengagement, to explain why carbon offsetting cannot be used as a means of circumventing the emissions ceiling. I conclude with a brief overview of the policy implications of this normative discussion.

Keywords: Carbon offsets; emissions limitarianism; emissions sufficientarianism; moral disengagement; positional consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X241307048 (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:pophec:v:24:y:2025:i:4:p:313-333

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X241307048

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Politics, Philosophy & Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().