Nach unserer Berichterstattung: Datenschutzbehörde findet Verstöße bei Berliner Werbefirma
netzpolitik.org/2025/nach-unse…
KW 24: Die Woche, als wir Aberwitziges über Gesichter-Suchmaschinen lernten
netzpolitik.org/2025/kw-24-die…
Angriffe auf Journalisten: Melonis Überwachungsskandal weitet sich aus
netzpolitik.org/2025/angriffe-…
Reflections from the 34th Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Side Event at UNOV
Last month PPI’s United Nations Office at Vienna main representative Kay Schroeder attended a side event co-hosted by Interpol and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime during the 34th Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. The event focused on the use of neurotechnologies in criminal justice. PPI is closely monitoring these conversations out of our concern that overzealous institutions will use these technologies to infringe on civil liberties.
Neurotechnology includes everything from functional MRI scanners to brain stimulation devices. And the scary thing is that law enforcement have been adopting these technologies. While these capabilities promise new avenues for crime prevention, they also raise profound questions about privacy and social inequalities. The poor and weaker members of society are at risk, and we must defend them from being abused by these technologies. Unfortunately, many of the speakers at the event did not seem concerned about the negative consequences of unleashing these tools.
Several presenters cited pioneering studies that predict reoffending based on brain activity, showing that it is even more reliable than profiling demographic factors. We worry about the scientific rigor and transparency of these studies, as well as safeguards against discrimination. Neurodata should never be used to reinforce discrimination. A recurring theme was the tension between voluntary interventions and coercive mandates. Rather we believe funding should be allocated to community-led mental-health services, rather than cheap technological attempts to prevent crime.
Speakers touted next-generation wearable devices that can decode semantics from brain-wave patterns. This eerie technology brings to mind the Orwellian thought police. They suggested that within three years, such devices might achieve more than 95% accuracy in lie detection, surpassing polygraphs. Others on site raised immediate concerns about readings, whereby even a 5% error rate can unjustly convict or exonerate. Aside from this, the dystopian invasion of privacy cannot be ignored. What happens when a suspect refuses the test? Would such refusal be deemed noncooperation or proof of guilt? We recommend statutory prohibition on compulsory neural lie detection, judicial oversight, and defending the right to silence.
Several NGOs showcased pilot programs in which neurofeedback helped participants with PTSD, addiction, or impulse-control issues. Such programs that seek to help people might offer positive ways to use this technology. We can be optimistic about some uses of this technology, but we should be careful. We must require informed consent, future studies about long-term impacts before such technologies are implemented, and careful oversight about how these programs are funded. We worry about cases where prisoners and less developed countries will be used as guinea pigs.
A highlight of the side event was a panel on “Neurorights”. They proposed five core entitlements to counterbalance neurotech’s invasive potential: mental privacy, ensuring that personal identity is not reprogrammed to distort one’s sense of self, cognitive liberty, protection from bias, ensuring these technologies do not exacerbate socioeconomic divides.
We believe PPI should call for a ban on covert neural data collection. We also would emphasize that such a ban should be considered on using such technology, except for positive reasons that involve psychological treatments where the patients are fundamentally aware of their rights to participate or refuse treatment. Until rigorous long-term studies are conducted, we should consider banning this technology outright, as we have with chemical weapons and other atrocious tools. We also should be careful that informed consent is not coerced. If a prisoner’s early release hinges on compliance with a “neurorehabilitation” protocol, is consent truly voluntary? Side event speakers recounted cases where incarcerated individuals felt compelled to sign on for neurofeedback to avoid extended sentences.
The side event showed both the promise and the peril of integrating neurotechnology into criminal justice. We applaud technological developments. We do not want to say that we should limit technological development. This technology may have positive uses in psychology and other fields, which can dramatically improve the well-being of some individuals. However, in the context of crime prevention, the use of this technology is frightening. We risk eroding mental privacy, entrenching biases, and coercing vulnerable populations.
As a UN ECOSOC member NGO, we are committed to ensuring that our voice is heard at the UN on these issues.
If you would like to help PPI continue to send representatives to these meetings, please consider making a small donation to our organization or becoming a member. If you would like to be involved personally in the movement, by writing about these issues or attending events, please let us know.
pp-international.net/2025/06/c…
Neues Berliner Verfassungsschutzgesetz: Mehr Überwachung, weniger Kontrolle, erschwerte Auskünfte
netzpolitik.org/2025/neues-ber…
Brasilianisches Verfassungsgericht: Soziale Medien sollen für Postings von Nutzer:innen haften
netzpolitik.org/2025/brasilian…
Behörden schauen zu: KI-Suche für Gesichter breitet sich ungehindert aus
netzpolitik.org/2025/behoerden…
ICYMI: No Kings and Good Neighbors
This Saturday, June 14th, there will be nationwide “No Kings” protests, protesting the current administration and the overreach of federal powers.
In the United States of America, we have no kings.
While many Pirates have already expressed their desire to attend their local No Kings protest, which you could find here.
In addition to attending, representatives from the Arizona Pirate Party will be tabling at the No Kings protest at Reid Park in Tucson, AZ
Speaking of No Kings, check out the Illinois Pirate Party Captain’s speech from the 50501 “No Kings” protest from May 17th in Quincy, IL here.
Back on Pan-American Day weekend, members of the US Pirate Party held tabling events and passed out flyers promoting the need for the United States being a good neighbor. That flyer is now available on our website and is available to read, download and print here.
Vorratsdatenspeicherung: Keine Begründung für überlange Speicherfrist von drei Monaten
netzpolitik.org/2025/vorratsda…
Verfassungsschutzbericht: Alte Facebook-Linke statt junger TikTok-Nazis
netzpolitik.org/2025/verfassun…
Femizide: „Unverantwortlich, die Risikobewertung einem Algorithmus zu überlassen“
netzpolitik.org/2025/femizide-…
KW 23: Die Woche, in der Merz Statist in einem globalen Popcorn-Moment wurde
netzpolitik.org/2025/kw-23-die…
Telegram no sirve para comunicarte de forma anónima
Telegram da a algunas personas una falsa sensación de privacidad que no está en absoluto justificada. Esto ocurre principalmente por su publicidad engañosa: Telegram afirma ser de código abierto y estar cifrado de extremo a extremo. Incluso si estas afirmaciones engañosas fueran del todo ciertas, la popular aplicación de mensajería tiene otros problemas graves que comprometen tu privacidad.
Sin cifrado, privativo, centralizado: una pesadilla para la privacidad
Solo el código del cliente de Telegram es libre, pero ese código es inútil sin los programas y la infraestructura de código cerrado delback end. Esos componentes centrales son controlados por una única empresa, que puede ser fácilmente obligada a cumplir con requerimientos de las autoridades. En agosto de 2024, el jefe de Telegram fue arrestado por las autoridades francesas, que exigían información sobre los usuarios de la aplicación. Cedió, mostrando al mundo que tus conversaciones privadas, número de teléfono, dirección IP, fotos y demás no están a salvo.
La financiación de Telegram depende de suscripciones de pago y anuncios. ¿Quién puede asegurarte que en el futuro no ampliarán sus fuentes de ingresos ofreciéndote anuncios basados en las cosas que envías y recibes o entrenando a una IA?
¿Qué impide que empleados de Telegram, jáqueres o espías gubernamentales lean tus mensajes? Nada. Los mensajes en Telegram no están cifrados por defecto, así que los usuarios están expuestos. Claro, podrían iniciar un «chat secreto», pero esa función no está disponible ni en la versión web ni en la de escritorio, y seguramente levantaría sospechas por salirte del rebaño (la privacidad opcional no es lo mejor).
Te vigilarán
Olvídate de ser anónimo en Telegram. Antes de siquiera poder empezar a chatear debes proporcionar un número de teléfono,que puede ser fácilmente vinculado a tu identidad real. Como solución, podrías utilizar un teléfono desechable y usar Telegram en el ordenador. ¿Pero y si quieres utilizarlo en un móvil? Tendrías que tener suficientes conocimientos tecnológicos para instalar un sistema operativo para móviles respetuoso con la privacidad y evitar ser rastreado por redes de telefonía móvil.
Una manera de proteger tu identidad es pagar por una verificación remota por SMS con Monero(SMSpool ofrece ese servicio) y utilizar Telegram en un sistema operativo libre. Si temes que Telegram pueda pedirte la verificación de nuevo y quieres seguir usando la misma cuenta, puedes comprar o alquilar por largo tiempo un número de móvil que no esté relacionado con tu identidad.
En resumen, usar Telegram con privacidad o anonimato es excesivamente complicado, por lo que no es un programa recomendable para esos fines. Si alguien te invita a a usar Telegram para hablar de temas delicados, evita entrar en la boca del lobo. Proponle hacerlo en persona o utilizar una alternativa libre, decentralizada y anónima (como SimpleX, Delta Chato Briar).
PPI Fundraiser for IGF
Dear Friends of the Pirate Community,
PPI is heading again to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), this time in Norway. The IGF is a UN event that brings together a large number of governments and non-profit organizations. PPI has attended the IGF for about 10 years now. As part of our effort to attend the event, we are conducting a fundraiser to collect up to 1500 euros to support our representatives. Donations can be made directly on our website or through the following crowdfunding campaign: fundrazr.com/b2Yiz8
PPI was accepted to organize a workshop entitled “Ethical Networking: Sustainability and Accountability” will be on June 23rd at 16:15 in Workshop Room 2, Hall C: intgovforum.org/en/content/igf…
We will also be presenting at a booth with the European Pirate Party.
We are attempting to fundraise some of the costs of our representatives who will be paying out of their own pocket to attend the event. Being in Norway this year, means that it will not be cheap. Any financial assistance would be greatly appreciated.
As a way to further motivate fundraising, we have also provided an incentive to include individual membership in PPI, which normally costs 10 euros, for those who provide at least a 15 euro donation.
The entire event is from June 23rd to 27th. Please review the IGF website as the date nears for information about participating online: intgovforum.org/en/content/igf…
All approved events can be seen here: intgovforum.org/en/content/igf…
Last year in Saudi Arabia we also organized a workshop on Autarchy, spearheaded by Alexander Isavnin: intgovforum.org/en/content/igf…
Two years ago we had a booth in Japan: pp-international.net/2023/10/i…
The year before that PPI had a booth in Poland: pp-international.net/2021/12/p…
At the moment PPI does not have any extra funding for this event. Every PPI representative is self-funded. By making a donation you will provide partial assistance for one of our representatives to attend.
pp-international.net/2025/06/i…
Fragen und Antworten: Das Sondervermögen, die Infrastruktur und die Digitalisierung
netzpolitik.org/2025/fragen-un…
Zensurheberrecht: Google schmeißt kritische Berichterstattung wegen Fake-Beschwerden aus der Suche
netzpolitik.org/2025/zensurheb…
Grundgesetzänderung für Digitalisierung: „Die Infrastruktur für föderale Lösungen soll einheitlich sein“
netzpolitik.org/2025/grundgese…
Alaa Abd el-Fattah: UN-Arbeitsgruppe erklärt Haft von ägyptischem Blogger für illegal
netzpolitik.org/2025/alaa-abd-…
Alaa Abd el-Fattah: UN-Arbeitsgruppe erklärt Haft von ägyptischen Blogger für illegal
netzpolitik.org/2025/alaa-abd-…
Digitale Souveränität: Wie das EU-Parlament Europa unabhängiger machen will
netzpolitik.org/2025/digitale-…
Justizministerkonferenz: Weniger Berichtspflichten beim Abhören und bei Staatstrojanern
netzpolitik.org/2025/justizmin…
Geschichten aus dem DSC-Beirat: Einreisebeschränkungen und Zugriffsschranken
netzpolitik.org/2025/geschicht…
Report highlights need for journalists to push back when stonewalled
Screenshot of a 2023 "roundtable" hosted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis where he and his guests aired their grievances with the press. DeSantis is one of many public officials who often disregards established norms regarding media access.
There has been a disturbing uptick in recent years of instances where journalists have been prevented from covering public business or having access to public officials, in ways that violate laws, long-standing norms, or both.
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Director of Advocacy Seth Stern was among a group of journalists, policy advocates, and others who joined a symposium last year — convened by the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at Poynter — to discuss the problem.
This week, Poynter issued its report summarizing the discussion, as well as a “Journalist’s Toolkit” summarizing its findings and recommendations.
Stern emphasized the need for journalists to use their platforms to report press freedom violations and explain how officials are depriving the public of news.
“Journalists are historically hesitant to make themselves the story and/or worried that admitting the government is stifling their ability to report the news is a confession of weakness. That needs to stop,” he said.
Stern added that editorials about press freedom, although helpful, are not enough, because readers of the stories impacted by officials’ stonewalling may not read the editorials. Journalists, he said, should “make clear in the story that you would’ve liked to attend the event yourself or speak to the official or their staff but you weren’t allowed to do so. If they believe the coverage is biased, they have themselves to blame, and perhaps they’ll reconsider for next time.”
Stern also emphasized the impact of abuses of public records laws, including agencies charging journalists exorbitant fees to fulfill records requests.
The toolkit incorporates several of his recommendations, advising journalists to “platform the problem: publish when sources won’t cooperate” and to “tell your audience details about records denials.”
You can read the full report here and review the toolkit here.
EEB: Commission’s 2023 Work Programme caves under chemical and farm industry pressures
The European Commission Work Programme (CWP) for 2023 scraps bold plans to protect Europeans from hazardous chemicals and transition to a nature-positive economy.
Read Here
The post EEB: Commission’s 2023 Work Programme caves under chemical and farm industry pressures appeared first on Brave New Europe.
Aleks Szczerbiak: Why has the Polish government raised the German war reparations issue?
As Poland nears its 2023 election, the governing party is stoking the embers of the German war reparations question
Cross-posted from The Polish Politics Blog
Poland’s right-wing ruling party is using the war reparations issue to undermine Germany’s moral narrative that it has come to terms with its Nazi past, and attack the liberal-centrist opposition for allegedly colluding with foreign powers to undermine the Polish government ahead of next year’s parliamentary election. The opposition appears to have defused the issue for now by offering the government critical support, but it could still provide an effective means of mobilising the ruling party’s core electorate.
Poland’s moral and legal case
On September 1st, the eighty-third anniversary of Nazi Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland, the Polish government, led since 2015 by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, officially launched a campaign to seek war reparations from Berlin for the devastation caused by the country’s 1939-45 occupation. The announcement was accompanied by the publication of a report completed in 2019 and prepared by experts for a Law and Justice parliamentary commission which presented detailed analysis supporting the Polish claim from a political and legal, as well as moral and historical, perspective. The report calculated that the war losses suffered by Poland as a result of the occupation amounted to a colossal 6.2 trillion złoties (as of 2021), three times Germany’s annual state budget. Poland as a state never received significant financial compensation for the destruction caused by Germany; only individuals, such as victims of forced slave labour and pseudo-medical experiments in concentration camps, were awarded small symbolic sums by Polish-German foundations.
However, despite Poland’s renewed efforts Germany responded by reiterating its long-standing position that the issue of reparations had been settled conclusively in 1953. The then-communist Polish government renounced its claim in exchange for East Germany accepting Warsaw’s takeover of former German territories. Germany argues that, until now, no Polish government has raised the issue, even after the collapse of communism in 1989. Law and Justice rejects this interpretation arguing that reparations are still due. Supporters of the Polish case argue that: the two countries never concluded any legally binding bilateral peace treaty or liquidation agreement on the effects of the Second World War; the 1953 renunciation was never officially ratified nor even published; and, as it was part of the Soviet bloc, communist Poland did not have international sovereignty at that time. At the beginning of October, Warsaw issued an official ‘diplomatic note’ to Berlin formally making its claim for compensation.
Undermining Germany’s moral narrative
However, while Law and Justice certainly hopes that Poland will receive reparations at some point there is broad agreement that Germany is extremely unlikely to agree to its demands, not least because of the precedent-setting consequences. Any campaign for financial compensation is only likely to bear fruit in the very long-term, if at all. So what is Law and Justice hoping to achieve by raising the issue at this time? In the foreign policy sphere, the party wants to undermine the German government’s moral narrative that it has fully come to terms with, and settled accounts for, its Nazi past. By ensuring that other countries understand the full scale of the tragedy wrought upon Poland during the Second World War, for which Germany has never undertaken a proper financial reckoning, the Polish government hopes to undermine Berlin’s claim to be an international ‘moral superpower’.
Law and Justice also hopes that, by putting Germany under pressure on this question, it can create its own moral narrative that could be used to strengthen Poland’s bargaining position in the international diplomatic arena on various other issues, notably in its ongoing ‘rule-of-law’ dispute with the EU political establishment. The European Commission has blocked 35 billion Euros of payments due to Warsaw from the EU’s coronavirus recovery fund. Law and Justice argues the EU political establishment is, in effect, synonymous with Germany which, it says, sees a strong and assertive Poland as an obstacle to its project of turning the Union into a federal bloc under its dominance.
Law and Justice believes that this is an opportune moment to raise the reparations issue because Germany and the other main EU powers have lost a great deal of political and diplomatic authority through their perceived weak response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Law and Justice has long criticised Germany for disregarding the interests of the former communist states of central and Eastern Europe through its over-conciliatory approach to Moscow, over-reliance on Russian energy (exemplified by the controversial ‘Nord Stream’ gas pipeline, which runs directly from Russia to Germany across the bed of the Baltic Sea by-passing Poland and Ukraine), and, following the outbreak of the war, slowness in providing Ukraine with military aid. Poland, on the other hand, has, for a long time, warned about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist designs on the region. Indeed, Warsaw has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, at the forefront of efforts to persuade the Western international community to develop a common, robust response to the Russian invasion and ensure that sanctions are maintained and extended.
Is the opposition colluding with foreign powers?
In terms of domestic politics, raising the German war reparations issue was expected to help Law and Justice regain the political initiative by putting pressure on its political opponents – especially the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s ruling party between 2007-15 and currently the main opposition grouping, led by former prime minister Donald Tusk. Although Law and Justice is still ahead in most opinion polls its edge over Civic Platform has narrowed in recent months. According to the ‘Pooling the Poles’ micro-blog that aggregates voting intention surveys, Law and Justice is currently averaging 35% support compared with 29% for Civic Platform. Moving the war reparations issue up the political agenda puts the government’s opponents in a difficult position because it resonates strongly with the Polish public. The opposition either has to back a Law and Justice administration, that it despises and harshly criticises at every turn, on this issue, or distance itself from the government’s restitution claims and risk being accused of kowtowing to Berlin and failing to defend the Polish national interest. Indeed, Law and Justice argues that Mr Tusk personifies the opposition’s pro-Berlin orientation and has, on numerous occasions, drawn attention to his strong ties to the German political establishment. Polish state TV, which is strongly supportive of the ruling party, frequently shows clips of Mr Tusk saying ‘Für Deutschland’ (‘For Germany’).
These two elements come together in one of Law and Justice’s main attack lines against the opposition: that it is colluding with Berlin and Brussels who are undermining Poland’s sovereignty and independence by interfering in the country’s domestic politics. The withholding of coronavirus funds by an allegedly German-dominated EU political establishment is thereby portrayed as being part of a politically motivated effort to help its opposition allies oust Law and Justice in the upcoming parliamentary election, scheduled for autumn 2023, and ensure the installation of a more co-operative pro-Berlin government. Germany is an easier target for Law and Justice than the EU in general because it evokes less instinctive sympathy among Poles. While Poles support their country’s continued EU membership overwhelmingly, a September survey conducted by the Ipsos polling agency for the liberal-left OKO.press portal found that 47% of respondents agreed that Germany was using the Union to subordinate Poland (49% disagreed). According to a February survey for the Institute of Public Affairs (ISP) think tank, since 2020 the number of Poles who evaluated Polish-German relations positively had fallen from 72% to 48% while those who viewed them negatively increased from 14% to 35%.
Has Civic Platform defused the issue?
All of this explains why the opposition, especially Civic Platform, reacted so nervously to the government’s moves and found it difficult to develop a clear line on the issue. Initially, Civic Platform simply argued that the government’s demands were not really about war reparations at all but part of a concerted anti-German campaign to shore up support for Law and Justice ahead of next year’s election. The fact that Law and Justice had waited more than three years to publish the parliamentary commission report and raise the issue with Germany in a significant way, in spite of the fact that it had been talking about war reparations since it came to office in 2015, showed, they said, that the government was instrumentalising the memory of Polish war victims as a political manouvre. It was an effort to distract the public from its other problems, such as: the economic slowdown, high energy prices and potential winter fuel shortages, and mounting criticisms of the government’s handling of surging inflation (now more than 17%). The opposition also warned that raising the issue in this way threatened to further undermine Poland’s relationship with Germany in the midst of the worst international crisis since the fall of communism in 1989. Indeed, one Civic Platform politician, ex-party leader Grzegorz Schetyna, actually appeared to echo the German narrative when he said that the question of war reparations was ‘closed’.
However, realising the risks of appearing insensitive to the traumatic history of Polish-German relations – and concerned that, by rubbishing the call for reparations, it had fallen into Law and Justice’s trap – Civic Platform very quickly undertook something of a course correction, particularly as polling showed that most Poles supported the government’s approach. For example, a survey conducted by the IBRiS agency for the ‘Rzeczpospolita’ newspaper found that, by a margin of 51% to 42%, respondents agreed that Poland had the right to seek financial compensation from Germany. As a consequence – while still accusing Law and Justice of raising the issue primarily for electoral purposes, and criticising the ruling party for not having a schedule of diplomatic activities to take it forward – Civic Platform began to stress that it felt that the government’s call for reparations was justified. In the event, virtually all of the party’s deputies voted in favour of a parliamentary resolution supporting the government’s efforts. Indeed, Civic Platform even tried to outflank Law and Justice by saying that the government should also pursue financial compensation from Russia as the successor to the Soviet Union which invaded Poland along with Nazi Germany in 1939 (the ruling party responded that linking these two issues risked diluting the more clear-cut case for German reparations).
Mobilising Law and Justice’s core electorate
By announcing its intention to seek war reparations, Law and Justice looks set to make Polish-German relations central to its bid for re-election next year. One of its main lines of attack is that the opposition is colluding with Berlin and the EU political establishment to undermine the Polish government ahead of the forthcoming parliamentary poll. However, Civic Platform’s pivot on this issue has under-cut Law and Justice’s electoral strategy and defused German war reparations as a question of domestic political contestation sharply dividing the Polish political scene.
In fact, although the issue is likely to return to the political agenda with greater or lesser intensity between now and the election, it was never going to be a dominant one or a political game-changer. While most Poles may agree with Law and Justice’s stance on war reparations, they care more about, and their voting preferences are likely to be determined by, issues such as rising prices, falling living standards, and possible energy shortages. Nonetheless, some commentators argue that Law and Justice has lost ground in opinion polls mainly because its supporters are demoralised and, if an election were held today, rather than switching to other parties they would simply not turnout to vote. So the ruling party is likely to continue raising the reparations issue because, apart from continually setting a trap for the opposition to portray themselves up as the defenders of German interests, it is a highly emotive one and seen by Law and Justice primarily as an effective way of solidifying and mobilising its own, currently rather demotivated, electoral base.
Support us and become part of a media that takes responsibility for society
BRAVE NEW EUROPE is a not-for-profit educational platform for economics, politics, and climate change that brings authors at the cutting edge of progressive thought together with activists and others with articles like this. If you would like to support our work and want to see more writing free of state or corporate media bias and free of charge. To maintain the impetus and impartiality we need fresh funds every month. Three hundred donors, giving £5 or 5 euros a month would bring us close to £1,500 monthly, which is enough to keep us going.
The post Aleks Szczerbiak: Why has the Polish government raised the German war reparations issue? appeared first on Brave New Europe.
Ayesha Tandon – ‘Top 1%’ of emitters caused almost a quarter of global emissions since 1990
Just 1% of the world’s population was responsible for almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions over 1990-2019, new research finds
Ayesha Tandon holds an MSci in Natural Sciences, specialising in Climate Science, from The University of Exeter
Cross-posted from Carbon Brief
The study, published in Nature Sustainability, highlights the inequality in peoples’ greenhouse gas footprints – a cornerstone of the climate justice movement.
In 2019, people living in sub-Saharan Africa produced 1.6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) each on average, the study finds. In North America, average per capita was more than 10 times higher, while the top 10% of the continent’s emitters produced almost 70tCO2e.
To have a “high” chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures, average global per-capita emissions need to fall to 1.9 tCO2e by 2050, the study notes.
When assessing individual contributions to global warming, researchers often focus on emissions from goods and services that people consume. This study presents an update to this method by also including the emissions from a person’s investments in their greenhouse gas footprint. This allows the study to more accurately represent the emissions of the wealthy – which largely come from investments.
“Individuals can consume carbon, but they can also own [and invest in] firms that produce carbon,” the lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief, adding that his work “is proposing a method that is going to integrate these different bits of our carbon footprints together”.
Focusing on 1990-2019, the findings show that investment was the main source of emissions for the top 1% of emitters. And the per capita emissions of the top 1% grew by 26%, while the top 0.01% saw growth of 80%.
Wealth and emissions
Humans release billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. However, these emissions are disproportionately produced by wealthier people, who typically live more carbon-intensive lifestyles.
Recent research suggests the average person living in sub-Saharan Africa produces 0.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide (tCO2) every year, while the average US citizen produces 14.5tCO2. Carbon Brief analysis has also shown that the US alone is responsible for one-fifth of all CO2 emissions since 1850.
The new paper uses an income and wealth inequality dataset from the World Inequality Database to track inequality over 1990-2019. It combines economic data with information on per-capita carbon footprints – calculated using “input-output” methodologies combined with data from the “distributional national accounts” project.
The paper assesses three components of a person’s greenhouse gas footprint. The first is private consumption – made up of emissions from the direct use of fuel and emissions embedded into goods and services. The second includes emissions from government spending in that person’s country – such as government administration, public roads or defence.
Glossary:CO2 equivalent: Greenhouse gases can be expressed in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2eq. For a given amount, different greenhouse gases trap different amounts of heat in the atmosphere, a quantity known as… Read More
The final component of a person’s carbon footprint is investment. Dr Lucas Chancel, from the Paris School of Economics, is the sole author of the new study. He tells Carbon Brief that when someone invests in a company, they are in part responsible for the emissions produced by the day-to-day activities of that firm.
Chancel highlights the global inequality between high and low emitters:
“I find that, in 2019, the bottom 50% of the world population emitted 12% of global emissions, whereas the top 10% emitted 48% of the total.”
Looking in more detail the 174 countries included in this study, he shows the inequality between high and low emitters in different regions. The plot below shows tonnes of CO2 equivalent emitted per person per year for the top 10% (red), middle 40% (dark blue) and bottom 50% (light blue) of emitters in different regions of the world.
Per-capita emissions (tCO2e) in 2019, for the top 10%, middle 40%, and bottom 50% of emitters, grouped by region. Data source: Chancel et al (2022). Chart by Tom Prater for Carbon Brief using Highcharts.
Sub-Saharan Africa has particularly low per-capita emissions. The bottom half of emitters are responsible for just 0.5tCO2e each year, while the top 10% emit around 7.5tCO2e.
In contrast, even the bottom 50% of emitters in North America have annual emissions above 10tCO2e. Meanwhile, the top 10% of the continent’s emitters are responsible for almost 70tCO2e every year.
Dr Anne Owen – a senior research fellow at the University of Leeds, who was not involved in the study – tells Carbon Brief that this is “an ambitious and impressive piece of work”, adding that the “robust” data and methods “allow for a consistent comparison between countries”.
Emissions inequality
The paper goes on to explore how per-capita emissions have changed over 1990-2019 for different emitting groups. It finds that, since 1990, average global per-capita emissions have grown by more than 2%, but that this growth was not uniform across emitting groups.
Chancel tells Carbon Brief that the broad trends in emissions inequality have not changed much over the study period, but notes that “at the very top of the distribution, you see quite a bit of action”.
He finds that per-capita emissions of the top 1% of emitters in the world grew by 26% over 1990-2019. The top 0.01% saw an even larger rise of 80%. Meanwhile, the bottom half of emitters saw a more modest 16% increase in per-capita emissions. And the “lower- and middle-income groups of the rich countries” saw a drop in per capita emissions of 5-15%.
This can be seen in the left-hand chart below, which shows the percentage change in per-capita emissions for different global emitter groups over 1990-2019 (blue line). In general, individuals in richer countries fall into the “higher emitting” groups, and are found on the right of the chart, while the lowest emitters are found on the left.
Percentage change in per capita emissions for different global emitter groups over 1990-2019 (left) and changes in emissions inequality between countries and within countries, based on an “index of inequality” (right). Source: Chancel et al (2022).
Dr Narasimha Rao – an associate professor of energy systems at the Yale School of Environment, who peer reviewed the study – tells Carbon Brief that it is “striking”, but “unsurprising” to see “the disproportionate growth in the emissions of the global elite around the world”.
Growing inequality within countries has also shaped global emissions over the past three decades, according to the paper.
It finds that, in 1990, while the average citizen of a rich country “polluted unequivocally more” than much of the rest of the world, the wealth gap between individuals within the same country was “on average lower across the globe than today”. However, “the situation has entirely reversed in 30 years”, the study says.
This is reflected in the right-hand chart above. It shows that, in 1990, the largest driver of global emission inequality was due to inequality between countries (red line). By 2019, this had shifted so that within-country emission inequality was the dominant driver (blue line).
In other words, while global emissions inequality in 1990 was primarily driven by the difference in emissions between residents of richer and poorer countries, it is now increasingly driven by the difference in emissions of people living within each country, rich or poor.
“Economic inequality within countries continues to drive a lot of the dynamics that we observe in terms of pollution,” Chancel tells Carbon Brief. He adds that understanding these inequalities is “key” to understanding “how to solve the climate crisis”.
The top 1%
In February 2022, a group of researchers published a study on the global inequality in carbon emissions. It found that the average carbon footprint in the top 1% of emitters was more than 75-times higher than in the bottom 50%.
Dr Wiliam Lamb – a researcher at the Mercator Research Institute, who was not involved in the study – praised the paper. However, he told Carbon Brief that by focusing solely on consumption, the paper did not accurately capture the emissions of the “super-rich”, as “their earnings may be derived from investments while their expenditures can be shrouded in secrecy”.
Chancel tells Carbon Brief that “people who think about carbon footprints just from the point of view of consumption don’t have the entire picture”. By using a “systematic combination of tax data, household surveys and input-output tables” the new study is able to more fully represent the emissions of the very wealthy, it says.
Chancel adds:
“Individuals can consume carbon, but they can also own [and invest in] firms that produce carbon. So here the exercise is proposing a method that is going to integrate these different bits of our carbon footprints together in a consistent framework where I’m not counting the same tonne of carbon twice.”
The plot below shows the percentage of emissions from different emitter groups that come from investments – rather than consumption of goods and services or government spending.
For the top 1% of emitters, the majority of emissions can be traced back to investments, the study finds. It adds that while the share of emissions linked to investment has risen for the top 10% of emitters over the past decade, it has dropped for the bottom 50%.
Chancel explains that this change in investing patterns is driven by the rising wealth gaps within countries.
Dr Klaus Hubacek – a professor of science, technology and society at the University of Groningen, and author of the study published earlier this year – tells Carbon Brief that he is “excited” about the inclusion of investments in this study and that “more effort needs to go into that direction”.
Warming targets
To put these results into context, Chancel compares present-day emissions to those needed to limit warming to 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels.
The plot below shows average carbon footprints in different regions of the world in 2019 and the average global emissions needed to limit warming to 1.5C or 2C – assuming that emissions are split evenly across the global population.
The plot shows that to limit warming to 1.5C, average per-capita emissions need to drop by more than two-thirds from their 2019 value of 6tCO2e. This would require all regions except sub-Saharan Africa to reduce emissions, the paper says, and citizens of North America would need to slash its emissions more than 10-fold to meet the target.
In addition, a “large part of the population in rich countries already appears to be near 2030 national climate targets when these are expressed in per-capita terms”, the paper notes.
For example, it says, “nationally determined contributions (NDCs) established under the rubric of the Paris Agreement imply a per-capita target of around 10t of CO2e in the US”. The chart below shows 2019 per-capita emissions by income group (left) and how much these would need to change to meet the 10tCO2e target (right) for the US (top) and China (bottom) for 2030.
In the US, the richest 10% of the population would have to reduce its emissions by nearly 90% to reach the 2030 target. However, the bottom 50% of emitters would need to make little change.
In China, the difference between emitter groups is even more noticeable. All but the top 10% of the population could stay below their personal greenhouse gas allowances, even if their emissions rise considerably between today and 2030, the study finds. However, the top 10% of the country’s emitters would need to slash emissions by around three-quarters.
“Much is written about the emissions-intensive growth of people buying new appliances and cars as they rise out of poverty”, Rao tells Carbon Brief. However, he says this study “starkly reveals the need to focus on luxury emissions”.
Chancel tells Carbon Brief that he would like to see governments keeping track of how emissions are distributed across their countries, as they do with wealth and GDP data. “There is a lot of work ahead,” he says.
Support us and become part of a media that takes responsibility for society
BRAVE NEW EUROPE is a not-for-profit educational platform for economics, politics, and climate change that brings authors at the cutting edge of progressive thought together with activists and others with articles like this. If you would like to support our work and want to see more writing free of state or corporate media bias and free of charge. To maintain the impetus and impartiality we need fresh funds every month. Three hundred donors, giving £5 or 5 euros a month would bring us close to £1,500 monthly, which is enough to keep us going.
The post Ayesha Tandon – ‘Top 1%’ of emitters caused almost a quarter of global emissions since 1990 appeared first on Brave New Europe.