Pollution has a face, or rather, a bank account. According to a new Oxfam study, “Carbon Inequality Kills,” fifty of the world’s richest billionaires produce, on average, the same amount of CO2 in just 90 minutes as a person with an average income produce it over an entire lifetime.
Private jets, mega yachts and investments in highly polluting industries they are primarily responsible for this unsustainable ecological footprint, which is accelerating the climate crisis and fueling inequality, hunger and death around the world.
The report, released in view of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, is eloquent: if the world continued with current levels of emissions, the “carbon budget” – i.e. the quantity of CO2 that we can still afford to release into the atmosphere without exceeding the critical threshold of 1.5°C of global warming – it would run out in just four years. But if each of us polluted like the richest 1% of the planet does, this budget would be exhausted in less than five months.
“The super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playgroundsetting it on fire for pleasure and profit,” he said Amitabh Beharexecutive director of Oxfam International. “Their dirty investments and luxury toys are not just symbols of excess; they are a direct threat to people and the planet.”
The Oxfam study, the first to examine both the luxury transportation and polluting investments of billionaires, reveals data that leaves no room for doubt: on average, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took 184 flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air. This equates to a carbon emission equal to that of an average income person over 300 years.
Over the same period, their yachts emitted as much carbon as an average-income person would produce in 860 years. The two private jets of Jeff Bezos they spent nearly 25 days in the air in a 12-month period, emitting as much carbon as the average US Amazon employee in 207 years. Carlos Slim he made 92 trips with his private jet, equivalent to five trips around the globe. The Walton familyheir to Walmart retail chainowns three superyachts that produced as much carbon in one year as approximately 1,714 Walmart store employees.
But what’s even more disturbing is the impact of billionaires’ investments. The average emissions from their investments are around 340 times higher than those from private jets and superyachts combined.
Almost 40% of these investments are concentrated in highly polluting sectors such as 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 index. The consequences of this unsustainable development model are devastating, especially for the poorest countries: the emissions of the top 1% rich people have caused global economic output to decline by $2.9 trillion since 1990.
Low- and lower-middle-income states will be hardest hit, with significant GDP losses. Emissions from the richest 1% have caused crop losses that could have fed millions of people. This figure is expected to rise in the coming decades, with Latin America and the Caribbean among the most affected regions. 78% of heat-related deaths by 2120 will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
Oxfam launches an urgent appeal to governments ahead of COP29: Reduce emissions of the richest by introducing income and wealth taxes on the top 1%, ban or tax carbon-intensive luxury consumption, and regulate companies to reduce emissions. Make rich polluters pay by introducing a wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires and on investments in polluting businesses. Reinvent our economies by committing to greater equity in income distribution and abandoning the economic model based on the accumulation of wealth for a few.
