Johnson M.M. and Lekshmi S. Kaimal
Abstract
The paper presents a historical sociology of carbon emissions that interrogates how modernityâs developmental trajectory has produced profound inequalities in the global carbon footprint. Tracing emissions from the Industrial Revolution onward, the analysis demonstrates that carbon dioxide output has increased tremendously with the vast majority attributed to industrialized nations and corporate elites rather than the global poor. The study argues that modernity, conceived as a socio-economic order centered on fossil-fuel-driven industrialization, consumerism and perpetual growth, has systematically concentrated both the benefits of development and the burden of ecological degradation along racial, colonial and class lines. Crucially, those who have emitted least suffer the most severe climate impacts creating an inverse relationship between responsibility and vulnerability that lies at the heart of climate justice debates. Thus, addressing climate inequality requires not merely technical decarbonization but transformative restructuring of the socio-economic relations underpinning modernity itself, including rapid decarbonization of global energy supply independent of carbon inequality reduction, as structural barriers prevent meaningful redistribution under current capitalist frameworks.