November 13, 2024

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Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime: Oxfam

Fifty of the world’s richest billionaires on average produce more carbon through their investments, private jets, and yachts in just over an hour and a half than the average person does in their entire lifetime, a new Oxfam report reveals today. The first-of-its-kind study, “Carbon Inequality Kills,” tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts, and polluting investments and details how the super-rich are fueling inequality, hunger, and death across the world. The report comes ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, amidst growing fears that climate breakdown is accelerating, driven largely by the emissions of the richest people.

If the world continues its current emissions, the carbon budget (the amount of CO2 that can still be added to the atmosphere without causing global temperatures to rise above 1.5°C) will be depleted in about four years. However, if everyone’s emissions matched those of the richest 1 percent, the carbon budget would be used up in under five months. And if everyone started emitting as much carbon as the private jets and superyachts of the average billionaire in Oxfam’s study, it would be gone in two days.

“The super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playground, setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit. Their dirty investments and luxury toys —private jets and yachts— aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

“Oxfam’s research makes it painfully clear: the extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fueling inequality, hunger, and —make no mistake— threatening lives. It’s not just unfair that their reckless pollution and unbridled greed is fueling the very crisis threatening our collective future —it’s lethal,” said Behar.

The report, the first-ever study to look at both the luxury transport and polluting investments of billionaires, presents detailed new evidence of how their outsized emissions are accelerating climate breakdown and wreaking havoc on lives and economies. The world’s poorest countries and communities have done the least to cause the climate crisis, yet they experience its most dangerous consequences.

Oxfam found that, on average, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took 184 flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air —producing as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years. In the same period, their yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years.

Jeff Bezos’ two private jets spent nearly 25 days in the air over 12 months and emitted as much carbon as the average US Amazon employee would in 207 years. Carlos Slim took 92 trips in his private jet, equivalent to circling the globe five times.

The Walton family, heirs of the Walmart retail chain, own three superyachts that in one year produced as much carbon as around 1,714 Walmart shop workers.

Billionaires’ lifestyle emissions dwarf those of ordinary people, but the emissions from their investments are dramatically higher still —the average investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires are around 340 times their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined. Through these investments, billionaires have huge influence over some of the world’s biggest corporations and are driving us over the edge of climate disaster.

Nearly 40 percent of billionaire investments analyzed in Oxfam’s research are in highly polluting industries: oil, mining, shipping and cement. On average, a billionaire’s investment portfolio is almost twice as polluting as an investment in the S&P 500. However, if their investments were in a low-carbon-intensity investment fund, their investment emissions would be 13 times lower.

Oxfam’s report details three critical areas, providing national and regional breakdowns, where the emissions of the world’s richest 1 percent since 1990 are already having —and are projected to have— devastating consequences:

  • Global inequality. The emissions of the richest 1 percent have caused global economic output to drop by $2.9 trillion since 1990. The biggest impact will be in countries least responsible for climate breakdown. Low- and lower-middle-income countries will lose about 2.5 percent of their cumulative GDP between 1990 and 2050. Southern Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa will lose 3 percent, 2.4 percent, and 2.4 percent, respectively. High-income countries, on the other hand, will accrue economic gains.
     
  • Hunger. The emissions of the richest 1 percent have caused crop losses that could have provided enough calories to feed 14.5 million people a year between 1990 and 2023. This will rise to 46 million people annually between 2023 and 2050, with Latin America and the Caribbean especially affected (9 million a year by 2050).
     
  • Death. 78 percent of excess deaths due to heat through 2120 will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

Rich countries have failed to keep their $100 billion climate finance promise, and heading into COP29, there is no indication that they will set a new climate finance goal that adequately addresses the climate financing needs of Global South countries. Oxfam warns that the cost of global warming will continue to rise unless the richest drastically reduce their emissions.

Ahead of COP29, Oxfam has called on governments to reduce emissions of the rich by introducing permanent income and wealth taxes on the top 1 percent, banning carbon-intensive luxury consumptions, and regulating corporations and investors to reduce emissions. They also urge governments to make rich polluters pay for their actions, as climate finance needs are escalating, especially in Global South countries. A wealth tax on millionaires and billionaires could raise at least $1.7 trillion annually, while a tax on investments in polluting activities could bring in another $100 billion. The current economic system, designed to accumulate wealth for the rich, has undermined a sustainable and equitable future for all.

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