title: Disproportionality in Power Plants' Carbon Emissions: A Cross-National Study.
abstract: Past research on the disproportionality of pollution suggests a small subset of a sector's facilities often produces the lion's share of toxic emissions. Here we extend this idea to the world's electricity sectors by calculating national-level disproportionality Gini coefficients for plant-level carbon emissions in 161 nations based on data from 19,941 fossil-fuel burning power plants. We also evaluate if disproportionalities in plant-level emissions are associated with increased national carbon emissions from fossil-fuel based electricity production, while accounting for other well-established human drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. Results suggest that one potential pathway to decreasing nations' greenhouse gas emissions could involve reducing disproportionality among fossil-fuel power plants by targeting those plants in the upper end of the distribution that burn fuels more inefficiently to produce electricity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and the Environmental Studies Program, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jorgenson
authors.affiliation: Goizueta Business School, Emory University, 1300 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA.
authors.forename: Wesley
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Longhofer
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309 USA.
authors.forename: Don
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grant