The jets of the 23 world’s ‘super-rich’ left in 2023 the carbon footprint equivalent to what any average citizen would leave in 300 years of life or in 2,000 years in the case of one of the poorest people on the planet. These planes emit an average of 2,074 tons of carbon, according to an analysis carried out by the Oxfam organization, which indicates that the richest 1% of the population is responsible for half of the emissions of the global aviation sector. Some European governments want to put a stop to private aviation, which has exploded in the last two decades, at the same time that the climate emergency has been wreaking havoc.
Oxfam analyzes the 23 jets declared by the 50 ‘super rich’, which on average flew 184 times, which amounted to 425 hours in the air throughout 2023. “This is equivalent to each of them flying around the globe ten times. ”, exemplifies the organization, which gives as an example the tycoon Elon Musk, who has two private planes. In his case, he emitted 5,497 tons of C02, which an average person will consume in 834 years and the figure increases to 5,437 years in the case of someone belonging to the poorest 50% of the population.
In addition to the air, the climate impact of yachts at sea, whose number has doubled since the year 2000, is even greater. The organization’s analysis has been carried out on the 23 ‘superyachts’ of 18 billionaires and concludes that they emitted an average of 5,672 tons of carbon.
Environmental ‘playground’
“Europe’s ‘super rich’ treat our planet as their personal playground. Their dirty investments, private jets and yachts are not just symbols of excess, but are fueling inequality, hunger and even death,” says Chiara Putaturo, EU tax expert at Oxfam.
The Oxfam report is published just before the start of the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), which will be held in Baku (Azerbaijan), and where the vast majority of the world’s governments will meet. to look for formulas with which to mitigate the climate emergency at a time when emissions do not stop growing, instead of reducing. UN Secretary General António Guterres recently warned that the planet is on a “tightrope” after greenhouse gases grew by 1.3% last year, reaching figures never before recorded.
But the UN itself warns that without just a cut led by the G20 (the most developed and emerging countries) it will allow global warming to be reduced. Oxfam also focuses on the 1% that has the most and that pollutes the most and accuses them of being in a kind of vicious circle by enriching themselves thanks to investments in the sectors that cause the greatest pollution. “Almost 40% of the multi-million dollar investments analyzed in Oxfam’s research are made in highly polluting sectors: oil, mining, shipping and cement. The total emissions from the investments of 36 of the richest billionaires in the EU are equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 4.5 million Europeans,” the organization states.
“If the world continues with its current emissions, the carbon budget (the amount of CO₂ that can still be added to the atmosphere without causing a rise in global temperature of more than 1.5°C) will be exhausted in about four years. However, if everyone’s emissions were equal to those of the richest 1%, the carbon budget would be exhausted in less than five months. And if everyone started emitting as much carbon as the average billionaire’s private jets and ‘superyachts’, it would run out in two days,” he warns.
Oxfam demands taxes on the rich, not only as a revenue measure but as a formula to reduce their emissions. “A 60% tax on the income of the world’s richest 1% would reduce emissions equivalent to more than the total emissions of the United Kingdom in 2019,” says the report, which also advocates “applying an additional tax rate higher level of wealth and income (individual and corporate) from polluting investments to specifically combat carbon pollution.”
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