Replication Data for: Climate Injustice, Off the Books

Government agencies need greenhouse gas accounting—inventories that track emissions over time—to design and implement climate policies. While virtually every law and policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions needs to account for those emissions in the first place, accounting itself has largely escaped public scrutiny, relegated to the margins while mitigation measures take center stage.

Policymakers and the public often mistakenly assume that greenhouse gas accounting is an inconsequential, passive bookkeeping activity. It is not: gaps in accounting adversely affect disadvantaged communities, primarily poor communities of color. Many governments systematically exclude certain greenhouse gas emissions from their inventories. These excluded sources emit co-pollutants that worsen air quality for nearby communities, exacerbating health burdens. At the same time, omissions also undercut efforts to slow climate change, disproportionately impacting those most vulnerable. This Article draws on original empirical analyses to demonstrate how these exclusions perpetuate environmental injustices. In particular, it highlights how maritime ports—whose emissions are often unaccounted for by governments—are overwhelmingly located near disadvantaged communities, compounding environmental and health harms.

Greenhouse gas accounting is anything but neutral. It is a powerful instrument that can either exacerbate environmental disparities or drive meaningful change. Recognizing the equity implications of greenhouse gas accounting, as this Article argues, is a pivotal yet underutilized strategy for environmental justice. Until governments fully account for their emissions, climate policy will remain incomplete, and the burdens of environmental harms will continue to disproportionately fall on those least responsible and most vulnerable to their devastating impacts.

政府机构需要温室气体核算（greenhouse gas accounting）——即追踪特定时段内排放情况的核算清单——来设计并实施气候政策。几乎所有旨在削减温室气体排放（greenhouse gas emissions）的法律法规与政策，最初都需对相关排放进行核算，但核算本身却长期游离于公众审视之外，被置于边缘地带，而减排措施则成为政策焦点。

政策制定者与公众往往错误地将温室气体核算视作无关紧要的被动簿记活动，实则不然。核算漏洞会对弱势社区，主要是有色人种贫困社区，造成不利影响。诸多政府系统性地将部分温室气体排放排除在核算清单之外，这些被遗漏的排放源会释放协同污染物，恶化周边社区的空气质量，加重当地居民的健康负担。与此同时，排放遗漏也会削弱减缓气候变化的努力，对弱势群体造成不成比例的冲击。本文依托原创实证分析，阐明此类排放排除如何持续加剧环境不公（environmental injustices）。具体而言，海港（maritime ports）的排放往往未被政府纳入核算范围，而这些海港绝大多数坐落于弱势社区周边，进一步加重了环境与健康损害。

温室气体核算绝非中立之举，而是兼具双重影响的强力工具：既可能加剧环境不平等，也可能推动有意义的变革。正如本文所主张的，认识到温室气体核算的公平性影响，是实现环境正义的关键却未得到充分利用的策略。在各国政府全面核算所有排放之前，气候政策仍将是不完整的，环境损害的负担也将继续不成比例地落在那些对排放责任最小、却最易受其破坏性影响的群体身上。