Another reminder from the world’s richest people about their carbon footprint is a new report that has highlighted the huge influence the richest people have on the economy and the unsustainable amount of carbon they emit. Around 50 to 70 percent of the emissions of the world’s richest people “are the result of their investments,” the study points out, adding: “They hold vast stakes in many of the world’s largest and most powerful corporations. – holdings large enough to influence the actions taken by these corporations.”
This is the latest report from the global non-profit organization Oxfam called “Carbon Billionaires”. Here are the five most important things:
1) The study analyzed the investments of the 125 richest billionaires in the world. It has been revealed that they emit an average of 3 million tons per year, more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90 percent of humanity.
2) “Billionaire investments in polluting industries such as fossil fuels and cement are double the Standard & Poor’s 500 average,” Oxfam noted. They have an average of about 14 percent of investments in polluting industries.
3) Compared to the average person, billionaires’ emissions are thousands of times higher due to their lifestyles – such as owning private jets and yachts.
4) If the richest people in the world consciously decided to shift their investments to higher ecological and social standards, the intensity of emissions could be reduced up to fourfold.
5) Citing a 2021 study, the report highlighted that only the richest 1 percent (around 63 million people) are responsible for 15 percent of cumulative emissions. “Another study drew on public records to estimate that in 2018, emissions from the private yachts, planes, helicopters and residences of 20 billionaires produced an average of about 8,194 tons of carbon dioxide,” he points out.
This is not the first time that Oxfam has raised this issue. In 2020, a report by the non-profit organization “Confronting Carbon Inequality” pointed out that between 1990 and 2015 (the 25 years in which humanity doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere), the richest 10 percent accounted for more than half (52 percent) emissions.
