report
Oxfam: Rich people’s lives are much more harmful to the climate than poor people
The marina in Monaco. photo
© Sebastien Nogier/EPA/dpa
Social inequality is also reflected in the climate crisis: rich and super-rich people contribute to global warming tens of times more than poorer people. An Oxfam report reveals the imbalance.
Extreme consumption by the rich and super-rich is accelerating, according to data analyzes by the development organization Oxfam promotes global warming in an obscene manner. In 2019, the richest one percent of the world’s population produced as many climate-damaging greenhouse gases as the five billion people who make up the poorer two-thirds, according to an Oxfam report.
The report “Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99 Percent” is based on the scientific knowledge that people’s greenhouse gas emissions increase with private income and wealth. The reasons include more frequent air travel, larger houses and more climate-damaging consumption overall – in extreme cases in the form of luxury villas, mega yachts and private jets. The basis is figures from the Stockholm Environment Institute, which is based on data from the Global Carbon Atlas, the World Inequality Database, the Penn World Tables on Income (PWT) and figures from the World Bank.
Oxfam speaker Manuel Schmitt said of the results: “Through their extreme consumption, the rich and super-rich are fueling the climate crisis, which is threatening the livelihoods of billions of people with heat waves, droughts and floods, especially in the low-income countries of the Global South.”
Some results:
– The consumption behavior of the richest percent (77 million people) caused 16 percent of global emissions in 2019 – more than twice as much as the consumption behavior of the poorer half of the world’s population, and more than the emissions from all road transport in the world.
– The richest ten percent of the world’s population were responsible for around half of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. Around 53 percent of Germans belong to this ten percent.
– The richest one percent in Germany was responsible for an average of 83.3 tons of CO2 emissions per capita per year in 2019 – more than fifteen times as much as a person from the poorer half of Germans (5.4 tons of CO2 per capita per year).
Annual income of over $280,000
In 2019, the richest percent of the world’s population included people with an annual income of over 140,000 US dollars, and the richest percent of the German population included people with an annual income of over 280,000 US dollars.
Oxfam explained that new taxes were now needed on climate-damaging corporations and the assets and income of the super-rich. This would significantly increase the financial scope for the transition to renewable energies. Ultimately, however, there is also a need to “overcome the current economic system and the fixation on profit-making, exploitation of natural resources and consumer-oriented lifestyles”.
The Oxfam data corresponds to a “taz” data analysis published in March. According to this, the richest people in Germany emit tens of times as many climate-damaging greenhouse gases as the average person. While the poorest emitted just over three tons of CO2 per year in 2019, the richest one percent emitted around 105 tons – almost 35 times as much, according to the newspaper, citing data from the World Inequality Lab, a think tank led by economist Thomas Piketty. reported.