This study aims to explore the effect of income inequality on CO2 emissions in Egypt during the period 1975–2017. " The analysis investigates the validity of the political economy approach compared to the Keynesian approach regarding the inequality-environment nexus. The study applies the novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lags approach (DARDL) to overcome the complications associated with the structure of the ARDL model. The findings showed that the relationship between inequality and CO2 emissions is not a trade-off relationship. Rather, inequality leads to environmental deterioration in the long term, which supports the political economy approach in explaining the inequality-environment nexus. Hence, the economic development policies adopted in Egypt during the past four decades have led to a negative impact on the environment.