Professor Kevin Anderson:

If you look at the emissions across different income groups, there are certain areas where the emissions differences are not so great. They are often called Lorenz curves. Housing is a good example because poor people often live in much more inefficient homes that are often rented. Such homes are very inefficient and hard to heat. Actually, there is quite high energy use in poorer homes, and the emissions from them are often not much less than the average or slightly wealthier home. There is not a huge difference. That is because, of course, they are living in poor quality houses. In transport, there is a huge difference between wealthy and poorer people, and even average people in society. In some areas of society, there were significant differences in the emissions. In other areas, there were fewer differences. In particular, transport is dominated by people who fly a lot, drive larger cars and drive further. We say it is not good because the poor people are driving around in inefficient cars, but they do not drive very far. There are clear distinctions in the income groups for how far people drive, what vehicles they drive and also, of course, how often they fly. There is a big difference in emissions from transport, but the difference is less when it comes to housing.