Just the richest 1% are responsible for more than twice the emissions of the poorest 50%.

One intriguing estimate is that global emissions would be reduced by 30% if the emissions of the 1.1 billion richest were capped at those of the least polluting members of that group. Presumably those admirable rich people are still living very comfortably – not using private jets but also not exactly reduced to huddling around candles in their yurts.

Their high polluting activities are harder to abate. The increases in energy to achieve a much-needed improvement in the lives of the poorest involve sectors that are easiest to transition to green technologies, such as insulation, rooftop solar and batteries and getting off gas to go full electrification of homes. By contrast, luxury high polluting activities are amongst the hardest to abate, for example excessive use of flying, especially in private jets. It follows that substantial cuts to emissions would result from heavy taxes on the income and wealth of the top 10%, then using the proceeds to enable lower income households to get off gas, afford rooftop solar, batteries, full home electrification, insulation and homes better designed to maintain a comfortable temperature.

Extreme inequality gives the wealthy extreme power. Concentrated wealth leads to excessive influence over the media, politics and the production process. In our extremely unequal societies, the 1% now own most of the means of production. This gives them enormous power over investment decisions, especially since the post-1980s privatisation-mania, where shareholder power is everything – certainly dwarfing environmental concerns. They use their power to suppress community opposition to environmentally-damaging projects and their relationship with government can now most accurately be described as state capture. In WA, the relationship between wealthy gas company owners/investors and government is state capture on steroids.

Inequality breeds non-cooperation. Inequality erodes social trust and thus the social foundations of collective action, especially actions calling for common sacrifice. In the neoliberal decades of widening inequality, many working people have been forced to absorb reforms that reduce their wages, security and working conditions. This makes them fearful and wary of further change, including calls for everyone to share the costs and burdens of changes involved in the clean energy transition.

Public acceptance of carbon pricing is a particularly sharp example of this, as it asks everyone to accept the same increased cost of energy and related necessities. Of course these cost increases have negligible impacts on the budgets of higher income people, but can be harsh for lower-income people, because energy costs comprise a much higher share of their budgets and they often live in energy inefficient homes and are renters. So they are easily turned against the carbon price initiative by fear-mongering predictions of soaring costs to the family budget.

Piketty believes that most ecological parties have failed to put social justice at the heart of their climate design and messaging. Hence their climate change policies are resisted by working class people. Carbon taxes appear to them as just another neoliberal nasty regressive tax:

"Ecologism without massive redistribution of wealth and economic power seems like a trick on the working classes… In practice, these voters often feel stigmatised for their environmental responsibilities (e.g.: with their use of personal cars or detached houses), while the relatively favoured urban classes that stigmatise them are often responsible for much greater environmental damage (e.g.: through their use of planes, or more generally, their higher incomes)."

Piketty’s critique is aimed at environmental parties in France and Germany, but I think it has at least some resonance with Australia.

Inequality Solutions are Climate Crisis Solutions

So for starters, carbon price policies should include compensation directed particularly and generously at lower income households. And emission reduction programs more generally must be twinned with a raft of bold measures to reduce inequality.

There are two major categories of action here. Firstly, governments and a range of other non-market actors must deliver egalitarian universal services across much more of the economy, in competition with the private sector or even replacing it. Secondly, governments must enact strong progressive taxes on the wealth and incomes of wealthy individuals and corporations. These inequality-reduction reforms would enable people to embrace the inevitable transformations to a zero emissions economy without fearing for their economic security – in fact, actively supporting the changes for the obvious benefits they will deliver.

I’m proud that the Australian Greens have strong, well-researched and costed policies in both of these two categories. For example, we propose much increased investment to provide a wider range of non-market essential services free or at affordable rates in education, health (free dental and mental health care is urgently needed and has widespread support), expanded and much cheaper public transport, measures to enable low-income households to afford rooftop solar and batteries, and much more. I’m especially proud of our proposals around affordable housing for all, which are based on the state becoming a major player in the housing market, provid