Inequality and class are at the heart of the climate crisis, says Piketty

Questions of social and economic class must be at the centre of our response to the climate crisis, to address the huge inequalities between the carbon footprints of the rich and poor and prevent resistance to climate policies, the economist Thomas Piketty has said.

- Fiona Harvey

Regulations will be needed to outlaw goods and services that have unnecessarily high greenhouse gas emissions, such as private jets, outsized vehicles and flights over short distances, he told the Guardian.

Rich countries must also put in place financially progressive carbon taxes that take into account people's incomes and how well they are able to reduce their emissions.

"We have to put class and the studies of inequality between social classes right at the centre of our analyses of environmental challenges in general," Piketty said.

"If you don't, you will just not be able to get a majority [of people in favour of strong action] and will not be able to make it."

The prominent French economist is the author of the seminal work Capital in the Twenty-First Century and one of the world's leading thinkers on inequality. His work was highly influential after the financial crisis of 2008, and he is increasingly turning his attention to the climate crisis as a co-director of the World Inequality Lab.