Shortly before COP28, a study shows how much the super-rich are contributing to the climate crisis. They emit a lot of CO2 themselves and also invest heavily in fossil fuel industries.
Climate justice is high on the agenda at the UN climate summit COP28 in Dubai. When it comes to this topic, people mostly disagree rich industrialized countries and poor developing countries; some as those who cause it, others as those who suffer from global warming. But shortly before the climate conference starting on Thursday, a study revealed another climate divide: between the wealthiest people in the world and the rest Study by the British aid organization Oxfam International It is the richest one percent of the world’s population who, through their lifestyle, are fueling global warming more than the bottom two thirds of humanity. This aspect has so far played little role in the climate debate.
It sounds like an envy cliché, but anyone who has a lot of money likes to spend it on the pleasant things in life; and large villas or private aircraft consume a lot of energy and therefore emit a particularly large amount of greenhouse gases. The Oxfam study provocatively calls the one percent the “polluting elite.” Accordingly, this group consists of 77 million billionaires, millionaires and people with an annual income of more than 140,000 US dollars (almost 128,000 euros). In 2019, it was responsible for the emission of 5.9 billion tons of CO2 and thus 16 percent of all global emissions. The authors calculated that this would be enough to cause the heat death of 1.3 million people using a formula based on US health data. The wealthy themselves turn on the air conditioning when it’s hot or cool off in the pool.
Ofxam study: Lifestyles of the super-rich cause extreme heat in the global south
The numbers in the study have explosive power that is quite impressive. Because Oxfam is a recognized organization; The paper is likely to make its mark before and at COP28, especially among the victims of the climate crisis. Especially since other studies also prove the problem. So calculated by US researchers Beatriz Barros and Richard Wilk the climate footprint of the richest billionaires in 2018, based on their known assets. The 20 richest men in the world – women are not among the top 20 – together emitted almost 164,000 tons of CO2 equivalent in 2018. This corresponds to 8200 tons per capita. According to Barros and Wilk’s findings, the Russian steel oligarch and owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich, caused by far the largest emissions at 31,000 tons.
For comparison: After Data from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) The “bottom” 99 percent of the world’s population emit an average of 4.1 tons per year per capita. Every German or Chinese emits an average of eight tons, every American 14 tons. “The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction,” criticized Oxfam interim director Amitabh Behar when presenting the study last week.
Super-rich people live all over the world: what do they do with their money?
However, the super-rich do not only live in the West, which has caused the most emissions since the beginning of industrialization, or in China, which currently emits more greenhouse gases than any other country in the world. There are also billionaires in the global south. Successful entrepreneurs have made it rich there too. But many developing countries are also ruled by corrupt political elites who have lined their own pockets with money.
And the climate debate is ultimately not about wealth itself or its origins – but about what the wealthy do with it. For example, many continue to invest their capital in fossil fuel industries. This is not forbidden, from the point of view of Climates at best undesirable. According to Oxfam, the one percent elite wields economic and political power at the same time, through which they indirectly cause further emissions: they control large corporations or influence politics through lobbying or media companies. In the USA, for example, many super-rich people from traditional industries donate a lot of money to the Republicans, whose politicians deny man-made climate change and do not want to change anything in the current economic structure.
When presenting the study, Oxfam not only called for an exit from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but also for a reduction in social inequality – including through higher taxes on the very richest. “Taxing extreme wealth improves our chances of tackling both inequality and the climate crisis,” Behar said. It’s about trillions of dollars “that we can invest in dynamic green governments of the 21st century.”
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