Carbon emissions and deprivation

Kerry McCarthy reports on a piece of research which compares carbon emissions by postcode area. It finds, unsurprisingly, that the wealthier an area, the higher the level of carbon emissions. Two thoughts on this:

1. Firstly, it would be good to compare this data with the information from the indices of multiple deprivation - to find out how strong the link is between deprivation and carbon emissions. That would make a great (if slightly tedious in terms of number-crunching) research project.

2. One idea could be to link the amount of funding that local areas get from their council or from central government to their levels of household emissions - "rewarding" communities which are emitting less while at the same time helping to close the gap between rich and poor. Over time, this could both build links between the environmental and anti-poverty movements, and also provide an incentive for people who want to improve their local area to figure out ways of reducing carbon emissions in their neighbourhood.