The super rich are “squandering the global carbon budget”

The richest 1% create more than double the carbon emissions of the poorest, finds a September report from Oxfam and the Stockholm Economic Institute. 

From 1990 to 2015, the wealthiest 10% of the world’s population – around 630 million people – were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions. They depleted the global carbon budget by nearly a third. (The richest 1% – 63 million people – were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget).

Whereas, the poorest 50% – around 3.1 billion people – were responsible for just 7% of cumulative emissions, according to the report ‘Confronting Carbon Equality’.

Another report out this week by Linnaeus University in Sweden found frequent-flyers* (see below), who represent only 1% of the world’s population caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018, according to a study. Astoundingly, only 11% of the world’s population took a flight in 2018 and 4% flew abroad it noted.

Squandering the global carbon budget

I spoke with Oxfam International’s head of climate policy, Time Gore and he summed up the findings rather bluntly.

“What it shows is it’s not the number of people [on the planet] that is the problem, but a minority of people on the planet using far beyond what they need for a decent standard of living,” he said. 

“We’ve been essentially squandering the global carbon budget to increase the consumption of a minority of very rich people, it’s the extreme inequality in carbon emissions that is pushing the planet to the brink of climate chaos,” he adds. 

Kim Kardashian and your private island 40^th birthday party, to which everyone arrived via private yet, I am looking at you. 

it’s the extreme inequality in carbon emissions that is pushing the planet to the brink of climate chaos.”

What’s particularly interesting

I personally didn’t think these findings were all that surprising. It stands to reason that an extremely wealthy person who takes several 5-star holidays a year, owns an SUV, and has a huge home to heat will have a bigger carbon footprint than a family with less spare money to spend. And this doesn’t even factor in all the business flying some higher earners often tend to do.

It does put to bed the ‘overpopulation is the cause of climate change’ argument, though. However, eventually, the hope is that one day poor families across the globe that lack access to energy and clean water will one day have it, just like us, and that will of course drive up overall global emissions if something does not change.

What to do about this imbalance of carbon consumption is the most interesting bit. 

What can be done? 

Gore says we need to continue shifting energy supply to renewables – of course – but also to reduce demand. This will require the rich to change their lifestyles (as well all should).

This could include companies asking excutives to travel less for business, people not using private jets, not owning several cars, and just simply buying less stuff.

But, of course, most likely this will only actually happen if forced by government policy or if people are incetivised to change their habits. 

Taxes: Gore says higher tax could be put on things associated with luxury carbon consumption, things that lower income households tend not to use at all. This could include frequent flying and SUV cars.  However, Gore says its critical revenues collected are recycled to the benefit of lower income households. This could be a straight dividend payment or it could be reinvested into measures such as energy efficiency in homes and public transport. 

I thought this suggestion was particularly interesting: Gore says government tax revenues could be made neutral by adding taxes to some carbon intensive activities [flying] and removing them from other areas, such as payroll taxes of the lowest earners. This he said would ‘encourage the expansion of jobs, without reducing the overall fiscal revenues for government.’ 

What are your thoughts?

*The frequent flyers identified in the study travelled about 35,000 miles (56,000km) a year. This is the, equivalent to three long-haul flights a year, one short-haul flight per month, or some combination of the two, as calculated by The Guardian.

The full version of my interview can be read here.