**1. Introduction**

The persistent international community's attention and urgency towards reducing carbon impact on the environment have prompted various efforts from countries in the form of green policies, green financing, green investments, recycling, upcycling, and even the promotion of a circular economy. These efforts were briefly thwarted by the sudden COVID-19 outbreak. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns in various parts of the world saw a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and factories. But this is only for a short-lived period. As vaccine rollout continues, economic activities begin to move towards full force albeit with major changes in the working mechanisms to comply with the new norms. In 2022, the Russian-Ukraine war disrupted the supply chain in the region, coupled with the rise in oil and commodity prices, the stock market bull-run, crypto winter, and inflation, recovery is further challenged [1–5]. As most countries pave their way towards recovery along with these challenges, the green agenda needs to align with the current situation such that policymakers could deploy bold measures to ensure sustainability in both the economy and the environment.

One of the major concerns is the possibility of inequality worsening as countries continue to recover. Some countries are rebounding faster than others although uncertainties are high due to the recurrence of pandemic waves and newfound COVID-19 variants. On one hand, the pandemic drove 120 million people to poverty as part of the consequences of the global recession. On a different note, the pandemic saw an increase in the wealth of billionaires and the emergence of post-COVID-19 billionaires and millionaires which illustrates the unequal effect of the pandemic on different groups of people. To partially cushion the impact of the recession and to reduce inequalities, governments have responded by introducing various policies, programs, grants, and subsidies for the marginalized groups and all sectors affected by the pandemic. Rescue packages along with vaccination rollouts are the main economic recovery agenda for all countries. Whether the green agenda will remain imperative or be temporarily put aside to focus more on economic recovery would depend on how inequalities affect expenditures on environmental protection. Thus, understanding the nature of how income inequality affects environmental pollution based on experience and historical data would assist future economic planning. As such, this study examines the impact of income inequality on environmental pollution in a sample of 120 countries.

The contribution of this study is twofold. First, the sample is disaggregated according to the level of income to better understand how income inequalities in countries with similar income thresholds affect environmental pollution. Second, to capture the possible indirect effects of inequality on environmental pollution, three multiplicative interactive interaction terms between income inequality vis-àvis GDP, trade, and government environment expenditures. If income inequality is the product of economic growth or trade, then policies should be coordinated accordingly to account for such interactions. Therefore, understanding these issues is vital to ensure appropriate policy formulation to cope with post-pandemic development.

This study is organized in the following manner. The next section briefly reviews selected literature on environmental pollution and income inequalities. The third section narrates the theoretical consideration for this study, the estimation method, and discusses the nature of the data. The penultimate section provides the results and discussion, and the final section concludes.
