Much is made here and elsewhere of the extreme concentration of wealth in the top 1% of the world’s population (63 million people) and perhaps most excessively in the top 0.1%. Now, we must also recognize that these very same people, the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires, contribute in similar excessive proportions to CO2 emissions. Oxfam’s 10.28.2024 report, “Carbon Inequality Kills: Why curbing the excessive emissions of an elite few can create a sustainable planet for all,” provides the latest guidance here.
Before continuing with comments about these elite polluters, we must take note of the fact that half of the world’s CO2 emissions come from the richest 10% of the world’s population. This population lives predominantly in North America and the European Union. It is the so-called advanced economies that produce the bulk of emissions. In a very real sense, the richest 10% are externalizing the environmental costs of their lifestyles to the rest of humanity.
Mega yachts, private airplanes and helicopters
“The wealthiest 1% by income account for 16% of emissions, which is more than the poorest two-thirds of people in the world”1 “On average, these 23 billionaires[the billionaires Oxfam could track since many hide their airplanes or rent airplanes[/note] each took 184 flights – spending 425 hours in the air – over a 12-month period. That is equivalent to each of them circumnavigating the globe ten times. The carbon emissions of their private jets are also huge. On average, the private jets of these 23 super-rich individuals emitted 2,074 tonnes of carbon a year. This is equivalent to 300 years’ worth of emissions for the average person in the world, or over 2,000 years’ worth for someone in the global poorest 50%.”
Evan Osnos, in his July 25, 2022, New Yorker article,”The Haves and the Have-Yachts,” pointed out: “Since 1990, the United States supply of billionaires has increased from sixty-six to more than seven hundred, even as the median hourly wage has risen only twenty percent. In that time, the number of truly giant yachts—those longer than two hundred and fifty feet—has climbed from less than ten to more than a hundred and seventy. Raphael Sauleau, the C.E.O. of Fraser Yachts, told me bluntly, “covid and wealth—a perfect storm for us.”1
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