Climate concern elasticity of carbon footprint

Abstract

The income elasticity of carbon footprint is a summary variable often used to describe the relationship between income and carbon footprints. Previous studies primarily calculate this elasticity using emissions intensities per monetary unit. However, this study is based on a survey conducted in Nordic countries which allows us to directly calculate carbon footprints from responses about quantity and types of activities instead of from spending. As a result, we curtail an inbuilt relationship between income and carbon footprints. As a result, our method produces an income elasticity estimate that is approximately one-fourth of the highest estimates that exist, and 30% lower than the smallest current estimate. Furthermore, we introduce a new summary variable called the climate concern elasticity of carbon footprint. This variable provides a simple method to analyze the relationship between pro-climate attitudes, pro-climate behavior, and carbon footprints. This new parameter can serve as a framework that identifies key areas where the investigation of the relationship between people’s climate concern and their carbon footprint may be most useful. This framework and improved knowledge of income elasticities can guide policymakers and future research and provide new methods to estimate carbon footprint distributions.