The climate change – inequality nexus: towards environmental and socio-ecological inequalities with a focus on human capabilities

ABSTRACT

The climate change – inequality nexus has become an increasingly important concept advanced by inequality and sustainability experts as well as international organisations like the United Nations. In this perspective paper, two arguments are made to further our understanding of the nexus and to promote action on SDG 10 (”Reducing inequalities within and among countries”) and SDG 13 (”Climate action”). First, climate change’s status as a “core” planetary boundary as well as its embeddedness in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, calls for a wider discussion on environmental and ecological degradation in the context of inequality. Second, the concept of inequalities of opportunity freedoms, under the guise of the influential human capabilities framework, is well suited to make sense of the complexity and multidimensionality of the climate change – inequality nexus. To this end, some (and by no means all) causal links between climate change, wider environmental and ecological degradations, and inequality are analysed. The paper concludes by arguing in favour of a framework that can aptly capture the full complexity and multidimensionality of the climate change – inequality nexus.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• inequality
• multidimensionality
• SDG 10
• SDG 13
• human capabilities

Acknowledgments

This perspective piece has been adapted from a 5,000-word unpublished essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at the University of Oxford. The two-year degree was completed between 2019-2021 with the generous support of “la Caixa” Foundation in Spain (reference LCF/BQ/EU19/11710033). The author would like to thank her supervisor, Professor Laura Rival, for her support during the degree.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

No data is available for this perspective paper other than the bibliography below.