Private wealth ownership and emissions

Abstract

This paper estimates the distribution of wealth-related greenhouse gas emissions across the German population, assigning responsibility for emissions to the owners of different asset types. It combines macro-data on the emissions per asset type with micro-data on the asset ownership per individual in Germany in 2019, linking data from national accounts, air emission accounts, and survey data on wealth to capture both direct held assets and indirect ownership of corporations. The results show a distinct inequality in emission responsibilities along the net wealth distribution. The top 10% are responsible for 66% of total wealth-related emissions and hold 62% of the total net wealth in Germany in 2019. Simulations of sectoral differences in emission intensity show a band around these estimates ranging from 38% to 94% of total emissions, and a random sectoral portfolio allocation using bootstrapping finds an emissions share of the top 10% of 66.5%. Wealth-related emissions are thus not only substantially more unequally distributed than emissions distributed by income or consumption, but also even more unequally distributed than wealth.