In the introduction to its series on climate inequality, The Guardian wrote that the richest 10% of humanity are responsible for 50% of all climate-heating greenhouse gas emissions; the middle 40% for about 43%, and the bottom 50% for about 8%.
Oxfam International’s interim executive director, Amitabh Behar, said in a news release Monday:
“The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction, leaving humanity choking on extreme heat, floods and drought. For years we’ve fought to end the era of fossil fuels to save millions of lives and our planet. It’s clearer than ever this will be impossible until we, too, end the era of extreme wealth.”.
Introducing an Oxfam report, Climate Equality: A planet for the 99%, Ashfaq Khalfan, Oxfam America's Director of Climate Justice, said:
Right now we are facing twin crises: a climate crisis and runaway inequality. But these two major issues of our time are not happening in isolation. They are fueled together and driving one another, The fact is, the climate crisis makes global inequality worse, and global inequality in return fuels the climate crisis.
So who is responsible? The richest people, large corporations and wealthy countries have made the world unsafe with their huge carbon emissions. These top carbon polluters have the resources, the power and the influence to protect themselves from the consequences of climate change. Meanwhile the people who’ve done the least to cause the climate crisis are the ones the hardest hit. It’s an injustice that we must right and we can do this in three ways.
One, increasing equality by driving down the gap between the rich and poor. Two, investing in a rapid, just transition to renewable energy paid for by billionaires and big corporations. Three, redesigning our economic system to promote equity and end wasteful consumption.
We have the power to save the planet and ensure everyone’s well-being if we invest in a new radical increase in equity and transformative climate action. Join us. (www.Oxf.am/Make PollutersPay)
The Dubai U.N. climate conference is taking place after the planet reached an ominous milestone on Nov. 19.
The Washington Post reported that for the first time ever “preliminary data show global temperatures averaged more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above a historic norm, from a time before humans started consuming fossil fuels and emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases.” Scientists have warned that crossing that threshold could have calamitous consequences.
The Guardian, citing the Oxfam report, said “one of the less discussed but faster growing problems is inequality within countries” caused by the lavish lifestyles of billionaires and multi-millionaires in the top 0.1%.
In another article in its series on climate inequality, The Guardian wrote:
Twelve of the world’s wealthiest billionaires produce more greenhouse gas emissions from their yachts, private jets, mansions and financial investments than the annual energy emissions of 2m homes, research shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals.
The tycoons include the Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, the tech billionaires Bill Gates, Larry Page and Michael Dell, the inventor and social media company owner Elon Musk and the Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim.
And Oxfam noted that the impact of the super-rich is amplified by the fact that 125 of the world’s richest billionaires have invested so much money in polluting companies that they are responsible for emitting an average of 3 million carbon tons each a year.
“Billionaires generate obscene amounts of carbon pollution with their yachts and private jets – but this is dwarfed by the pollution caused by their investments,” said Oxfam International’s inequality policy adviser Alex Maitland, as quoted by The Guardian.
Oxfam said that emissions of the richest 1% globally will cause 1.3 million heat-related deaths between 2020 and 2030, roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Dallas.
The ultra-wealthy have the resources to protect themselves from climate change, but most of the world’s population do not.
While the ultra-wealthy continue to release high-carbon emissions, their vast resources protect them from climate change, like extreme heat events. Meanwhile, people who do not have the means to protect themselves are left to deal with extreme heat, increased flooding, and forest fires.
With 2023 on track to be the hottest year on record, The Guardian reported that their are numerous victims of global heating and extreme weather: poor Central American migrants who died from heatstroke trying to cross the desert into the U.S.; north Africans who burned to death attempting to pass through Greek forests engulfed in flames; thousands of Hebei villagers who lost their homes when the Chinese government diverted flood waters from wealthy Beijing; and the Mexican fishing community of El Bosque, which is being eroded due to more frequent storms battering its coastline.
The Guardian quoted Guadalupe Cobos Pacheco, a resident of El Bosque who fled the flooding, as saying that she felt resentment toward the oil companies that operated platforms within sight of her disappearing village. “We are living in a total climate breakdown. It is a constant worry … we don’t know what to do,” she said. “All this oil exploitation has consequences yet it is we who are paying.”
Oxfam’s report also included other key findings:
— Since 1990, the richest 1% have used up more than twice as much of the carbon budget as 50% of the world’s lowest-income population.
The way the richest people in the world burn through carbon is threatening the survival of millions of people. The international community has determined that the Earth should not be allowed to warm beyond 1.5°C (2.7°F) if we want the planet to remain livable for most of humanity. To prevent catastrophic warming beyond this point, global emissions have to be cut by 48% by 2030. Thanks in large part to the super-rich, we are not on track to reach that goal.
The emissions of half the global population with the lowest-income make up just one-fifth of the carbon budget. Meanwhile, the super-rich are projected to emit more than 23 times the amount of carbon it will take to stay under that 1.5°C in 2030, blowing the budget out of the water.
— Twenty years of carbon emissions form the richest 1% alone is equivalent to destroying the 2021 harvests of EU corn, U.S. wheat, Bangladeshi rice, and Chinese soybean.
Right now, 783 million people are unsure where their next meal will come from. Across Africa, agricultural productivity has declined by 34% since 1961, in large part due to climate change. Meanwhile, from 2020 to 2021, billionaires in the food and agriculture industry were able to raise their collective wealth by 45%.
Renewable energy can counteract some of the consumption of the ultra-rich, but it’s extremely difficult to keep up. The carbon emissions from billionaires cancel out the benefits of 1 million wind turbines every year. To put that into perspective, it took over 40 years for the U.S. to make almost 80,000 turbines. The only solution is for wasteful consumption, such as private jets, to end.
