Abstract
To date, international diplomacy and policy development around emissions reduction focus largely on the difference between high-emitting and low-emitting countries. Overwhelming evidence across several countries shows a strong relationship between income, wealth, and emissions within countries. A nuanced exploration of emissions shows evidence of a great disparity across classes and income within high-, middle-, and low-income countries. As the window for opportunity to limit warming to 1.5°C closes, addressing luxury emissions may represent a high-impact mitigation strategy for two reasons: They represent a substantive proportion of emissions, and they serve as an aspirational model for other consumption classes, thus amplifying their destructive effect on emissions and the planet. However, there is limited understanding of the patterns of luxury consumption and thus the policies and regulations that can directly target these behaviors. This review leverages best available literature to explore the following questions: (a) What are the patterns of consumption between income classes within and across regions—are there commonalities in luxury consumption of the richest populations across regions? (b) Is there evidence of policies or instruments that have targeted reducing emissions-intensive consumption? (c) What are the initiatives or policies that shift such consumption toward less emission-intensive ones?
Here, we identify four types of actions: (a) economy-wide actions and policies, including ambitious taxes and pricing instruments that address emissions-intensive consumption and investments; (b) measures targeting specific luxury consumption associated with higher income and wealth, such as flights or meat consumption; (c) measures that educate and encourage behavior change among individuals that can influence change (as investors, individual consumers, or influencing role models); and (d) societal measures to reduce inequality and promote well-being. Constraints to adopting these include lack of political will due to fear of public resistance, power structures within society, and resistance of the elites to changing the status quo. Other barriers include cultural norms, ideology, and habits that can often supersede environmental concerns, making it difficult to achieve success in the short run. However, emerging evidence shows countries and organizations are implementing a range of measures, including taxes, bans, guidelines, and information instruments, toward addressing high-emissions activities. While it is early to comment on their success in reducing luxury emissions, some of these measures do seem to show evidence of a shift in consumption patterns.
