How the Wealthy Are Driving Climate Crisis Higher

By Peter Ngari

A groundbreaking report by Oxfam International, ” Carbon Inequality Kills, ” shows that the high carbon emissions of the world’s 50 richest people are worsening hunger, poverty, and deaths.

The report says that the consumption of the 1% richest persons is also making it increasingly difficult to limit global heating to 1.5C owing to their use of luxury yachts, private jets and investments in polluting industries.

According to Oxfam, if everyone on Earth emitted planet-warming gases at the same rate as the average billionaire, the remaining carbon budget to stay within 1.5C would be gone in less than two days. The organization calls on governments to tax the super-rich in order to curtail excessive consumption and generate revenue for the transition to clean energy, and to compensate those worst affected by global heating.

Oxfam’s research found that 50 of the world’s richest billionaires produce on average more carbon emissions in under three hours than the average person does in their entire lifetime. On average, they take 184 private jet flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air. This produced as much carbon as the average person in the world would in 300 years. Their luxury yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years.

These ultra-rich persons are further engaging in destruction from greenhouse gas emissions from their investments, which are 340 times higher than the CO2 from their yachts and jets.

The report underscores the urgent need to address the excessive carbon emissions of the world’s richest individuals to create a sustainable planet for all. ​ The report reveals the catastrophic climate impacts driven by the super-rich and proposes immediate actions to protect both people and the planet: “As global temperatures continue to rise, risking the lives and livelihoods of people living in poverty and precarity, we must act now move to curb the emissions of the super-rich, and make rich polluters pay.”

The core message of the report is that climate breakdown is intrinsically linked to inequality, where the excessive carbon emissions of the world’s wealthiest individuals are causing immense pain and suffering to the poorest, while also putting the entire planet at risk. ​

The report introduces the concept of “pollutocrats,” highlighting that the finite amount of carbon dioxide humanity can safely emit is being rapidly depleted by the super-rich. ​ At the current rate, the remaining carbon budget will be exhausted in just four years. ​

To address these crises, the report calls for urgent action to reduce the emissions of the richest, make rich polluters pay, and create new systems that prioritize human and planetary flourishing. ​ Recommendations include implementing progressive taxes on the income and wealth of the richest individuals, banning or heavily taxing carbon-intensive luxury consumptions, and regulating corporations and investors to reduce their carbon emissions.

The revelation coincides with another report released on Monday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which shows that CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time in human history: “The current atmospheric CO2 is already 51% above that of the pre-industrial (1750) era. The reason behind this increase in CO2 is historically large fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the 2010s and 2020s.”

The latest analysis of observations from the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) shows that the globally averaged surface concentrations for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) reached new highs in 2023.

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