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.