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TWN Info Service
on Sustainable Agriculture Climate: Richest
1% emit as much carbon pollution as two-thirds of humanity Penang, 23 Nov (Kanaga Raja) -- The richest 1% of the world's population were responsible for 16% of global carbon emissions in 2019, which is the same as the emissions of the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity, according to a new report by Oxfam International. Released ahead of COP28 (Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), to be held in Dubai at the end of this month, the report said that these outsized emissions of the richest 1% will cause 1.3 million heat-related excess deaths, roughly equivalent to the population of Dublin, Ireland, with most of these deaths occurring between 2020 and 2030. The report said that a tax of 60% on the incomes of the super-rich 1% of earners globally would cut the carbon equivalent of more than the total emissions of the United Kingdom and raise US$6.4 trillion to fund renewable energy and a transition away from fossil fuels. Oxfam also called on governments to dramatically reduce inequality, get off fossil fuels quickly and fairly, and prioritize human and planetary well-being over endless profit, extraction and consumption. "The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction, leaving humanity choking on extreme heat, floods and drought," said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar. "For years we've fought to end the era of fossil fuels to save millions of lives and our planet. It's clearer than ever this will be impossible until we, too, end the era of extreme wealth," Behar added. SUPER-RICH BURNING THE WORLD The Oxfam report, titled "Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99%", draws on research by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and assesses the consumption emissions of different income groups in 2019, the most recent year for which data are available. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has clearly shown that rich, high-emitting countries and large polluting corporations bear an outsized responsibility for the growing climate crisis, it said. Global North countries' role in, and responsibility for, the climate crisis is well documented: countries classified by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as Annex 1 nations (i.e. most industrialized countries) have been found, because of their historical and often colonial past, to be responsible for 90% of excess emissions, and Global North countries specifically for 92%, it added. It said the role of corporations, and in particular fossil fuel corporations, in driving the climate crisis is also well documented, adding that one high-profile study found that 70% of industrial carbon emissions since 1998 come from only 100 oil, coal and gas producers. "The role of super-rich and rich people (the top 1% and 10% by income) in climate breakdown is far less well known and documented. Understanding their role is essential if we are to successfully stabilize our planet and guarantee a good life for all of humanity," Oxfam underlined. In particular, it said the super-rich 1% are key to the climate story in three ways: (1) through the carbon they emit in their daily lives from their consumption, including from their yachts, private jets and lavish lifestyles; (2) through their investments and shareholdings in heavily-polluting industries and their vested financial interest in the economic status quo; and (3) through the undue influence that they have over the media, the economy and politics and policymaking. Ultimately, Oxfam said, a fundamental transformation that includes an end to all carbon emissions is needed to avoid catastrophic consequences for the future of life on earth. "But as the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has shown, wealthy individuals, rich high-emitting countries and large polluting corporations bear an outsized responsibility for the growing climate crisis. Any transition to a more equal and sustainable world means they must cut emissions first, and fast." The report said that vast inequalities in emissions have long existed between countries, and it is widely accepted that rich nations bear the lion's share of historical responsibility for today's climate crisis. This is acknowledged by the Paris Agreement through the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. The evidence is stark, said the report, citing a study by Hickel that the Global North is responsible for 92% of excess global CO2 emissions. "Adding to the responsibility of rich countries is the fact that they have benefited from carbon-intensive growth that was enabled by colonial relationships, which facilitated significant resource extraction, labour exploitation and trade rules favouring former colonizing nations." The disparities in emissions between countries, both current and historical, demand differentiated responsibility for mitigating the effects of climate change. Rich countries should cut emissions first, and fast, said Oxfam. It said rich countries should also be leading the way in putting equity at the heart of their climate action plans, described in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). "However, based on current climate policies reported in NDCs, most of these disparities will remain unchanged by 2030. To date, only one-third of all plans mention the need for equity to permeate climate action, and these only come from non-historic emitters and low- and middle-income countries." The report said current IPCC climate-mitigation scenarios do not reflect equity considerations between countries. "Indeed, these scenarios do not account for countries' historical responsibility and the needs of the Global South to meet development goals." For example, the report said they tend to rely on land-based carbon removal, mostly on land in the Global South, which increases competition over agricultural land and endangers food security, biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples' land rights, driving up land inequality and landlessness. "The richest individuals are burning through the world's carbon budget, and in doing so, they are robbing the rest of humanity and future generations of a healthy and liveable planet," the report emphasized. It said new research by Oxfam and the SEI that examined the carbon emissions caused by the consumption of individuals across global income groups shows just how pronounced this carbon inequality is. According to the report, Oxfam's analysis revealed that: * In 2019, the super-rich 1% were responsible for 16% of carbon emissions, which is the same as the emissions of the poorest 66% of humanity (5 billion people). * Since the 1990s, the super-rich 1% have burned through twice as much carbon as the bottom half of humanity. * The emissions of the super-rich 1% are set to be over 22 times higher than the safe limit in 2030. * The annual global emissions of the super-rich 1% in 2019 cancel out the carbon savings of almost a million onshore wind turbines. * The emissions of the super-rich 1% in 2019 are enough to cause 1.3 million excess deaths due to heat. * A tax of 60% on the incomes of the super-rich 1% of earners globally would cut the carbon equivalent of more than the total emissions of the UK, and raise US$6.4 trillion to fund renewable energy and a transition away from fossil fuels. The report said that limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees C requires a 48% cut in global emissions by 2030 (compared to 2019 levels), adding that: "This is also essential to put us on the path to reach net zero in 2050." As we head into COP28 in Dubai, there remains a yawning gap between the level of global emissions expected in 2030 (based on the planned climate policies reported by countries in their NDCs) and the levels needed to keep 1.5 degrees C alive, it added. New projections based on work by the SEI and Oxfam reveal that, in 2030, the yearly per capita consumption emissions of the world's richest 1% are set to be over 22 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5 degrees C target in 2030, which is 2.8 tonnes of CO2 per capita, per year, said the report. In contrast, the emissions of the poorest half of the global population are set to remain at one-fifth of the 1.5 degrees C compatible level. "The flawed neoliberal economic model that has aggravated extreme inequality and extreme wealth goes a long way towards explaining these worrying trends. The model prioritizes the endless pursuit of growth at all costs, requires increasing levels of consumption to function and puts profit for the few before a sustainable future for the many." It thrives on the over-consumption of the rich and on irresponsible investments from the super-rich, both of which drive unsustainable carbon emissions, said the report. "It reflects deeply entrenched systems of patriarchy and colonialism, and exploits billions of hours of unpaid care work, done predominantly by women." According to Oxfam, Global North countries drain resources worth over US$10 trillion per year from the Global South, enough to end extreme poverty 70 times over. They exploit land and resources to fuel their consumption - and even their climate-mitigation plans. OVER-CONSUMPTION Globally, the report said, the richest 10% of individuals account for a disproportionate share of today's excessive carbon emissions: 50%. On average, they emit 24 tonnes of CO2 annually, which is 8.5 times the amount needed in 2030 to stay below the safe limit of 1.5 degrees C. To meet global climate targets and avoid ecological collapse, the lifestyles of the richest 10% must change. Over 60% of the richest 10% are from high-income countries, it added. It also said the super-rich have a taste for burning carbon excessively - be it in their private jets, super-yachts, mansions or spaceships. One study examining the consumption emissions of 20 billionaires found that each produced an average of over 8,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. Oxfam said that the major causes are their yachts and jets. A super-yacht alone, kept on permanent standby, generates around 7,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. "There is a clear story here about the intersection of social, gender and economic inequalities. Private jet owners are overwhelmingly white, older (over 55) men who work in banking, finance and real estate," it added. Greenpeace found that European private jets emitted a total of 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 between 2020 and 2023, with the number of flights multiplied by five during that time, reaching 573,000 in 2022. The report said the over-consumption of the super-rich also makes luxury goods and activities that fuel excessive carbon emissions desirable and aspirational to the wider population. "This plays a significant role in driving superfluous consumption in the rich 10% and desires in the middle 40%, putting the future of people and the planet at even greater risk. It also disincentivizes the many from changing their own lifestyle choices." The report also found that for the super-rich 1%, investments can account for between 50% and 70% of their emissions. "For an even smaller group of the rich, the world's billionaires, it is even more. An Oxfam study of 125 of the world's billionaires found that, on average, they emit the equivalent of 3 million tonnes of CO2 a year through their investments - over a million times more than someone in the bottom 90% by income." Only one of the billionaires in the study had invested in a renewable energy company; in contrast, the share of investments in polluting industries such as fossil fuels and cement was double that of the Standard & Poor 500 group of companies, it said. "The companies in which these billionaires invested also performed badly when it came to reporting emissions and setting science-based and net-zero targets." The report said large investments are intrinsically linked to power over corporations, putting the world's richest behind the wheel of the corporate economy. For example, it said in the USA, the top 1% own 54% of stocks held by Americans; in South Africa, it is over 95%. This group owns a huge stake in the world's corporations, and where it decides to invest its vast wealth shapes the future of the economy and, therefore, the planet. Meeting the climate goals will be impossible without a rapid reduction of emissions by corporations, the report underscored. Currently, it said investments in low-carbon businesses represent less than 1% of oil and gas companies' capital expenditure. One high-profile study found that, since 1988, 70% of industrial carbon emissions come from only 100 oil, coal and gas producers. It noted that in 2022, a charity that runs a disclosure system on environmental impacts found that, of the 13,000- plus corporations that responded in 2021 - between them accounting for 64% of the global market capital - just one-third were developing a low-carbon transition plan. It said that less than 35% of corporations' emission-reduction targets were considered credible, and only 1,164 organizations had set validated, science-based targets. None of the G7 countries had a corporate sector that was aligned with the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C, the report added. INEQUALITY OF IMPACT The Oxfam report also said just as there is extreme inequality in who is responsible for the carbon emissions that have caused today's climate crisis, there is also vast inequality in how its impacts are felt. Everywhere, people living in poverty, and particularly women of colour, are hit hardest, and almost anyone who faces discrimination because of their gender, colour, religion, caste, class or age bears the brunt. "These same people have been denied the resources to respond to or recover from the impact of climate change, which increases their vulnerability to future climate and economic shocks, and further fuels a vicious cycle of inequality." Meanwhile, the richest people and those from dominant groups are most able to protect themselves. The world's super-rich are even preparing their escape in the event of climate breakdown. The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk, has even floated the idea of evacuating Earth for Mars, said the report. Countries with widespread poverty, particularly those in the Global South that bear the least responsibility for carbon emissions, are also facing a disproportionate impact, it added. Put simply, the damaging impact of climate change is being redistributed onto the poorest and most marginalized. Rich people and countries are driving the climate crisis, while people living in poverty, marginalized groups and low-income nations are paying the price, Oxfam emphasized. It said that a study by Chancel et al. found that the world's poorest 40% of people suffer climate-related income losses 70% higher than the average of those living in low- and middle-income countries. It said people living in poverty are hit hardest by the impact of climate change. And among the poorest people, it is women, people of colour and the poorest people in the Global South who are hit hardest of all. People with lower incomes often live in areas that are more prone to flooding, heavy rains, heat stress and storms, such as dry river-beds or poorly protected coastal areas. "They often live in temporary or poor-quality housing, which can lack basic building safety. They also tend to be less informed about climate change and upcoming weather-related events. And, crucially, they tend not to have savings and access to welfare, social protection schemes or insurance to help them cope with an emergency." The political exclusion of people living in poverty means that they are least able to demand their rights or call for action from governments, companies or the international community. It also means they are less likely to be able to access safety nets designed to help families cope with the impacts of climate change, said the report. It said that these often go to higher-income groups rather than those with lower incomes, status and power. For example, in Nepal in 2011, only 6% of the poorest people sought government support following extreme weather events, compared to 90% of the well off. "Those lacking support are more likely to fall back on coping strategies that increase their vulnerability, such as migration, selling land or relying on child labour." The countries that are least responsible for global warming - low-emitting nations, mainly in the Global South - are suffering the worst consequences of today's climate crisis and are also the least able to respond or recover, the report pointed out. The most vulnerable countries in the world are located in Africa, South Asia, Central and South America, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the Arctic. Between 2010 and 2020, human mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in these regions compared to wealthier parts of the world. The report also said across Africa, agricultural productivity has declined by 34% since 1961, in large part due to climate change. This is more than in any other region. "The impacts of climate change also include more gradual events, such as sea level rise, glacial retreat, forest degradation, loss of biodiversity and desertification. Around 30% of glaciers in the Andes have been lost since 1980 and nearly 50% of coastal wetlands have been lost in the past 100 years, with devastating effects on food crop production and access to drinking water." Low-income countries are also facing the greatest economic costs of the impacts of climate change. One study found that South Asia could suffer additional losses equivalent to 10-18% of the region's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050 due to climate vulnerability, said the report. "This is around 10 times the projected GDP loss of Europe (the least-affected region) and three times that of North America. The true economic inequality of impact is likely to be far greater given the systematic under- reporting by low-income countries." The report also said climate destruction is undermining food security and driving a food crisis that is hitting the poorest people and countries hardest. Climate change-related extreme weather events are already significantly hampering agricultural production, and this is likely to get much worse. For the approximately 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide - many of them women - who rely on agriculture as their main source of food and income, the impact will be nothing short of catastrophic, it added. "In the Horn of Africa, the unprecedented drought has already dramatically reduced the resilience and adaptive capacities of small-scale farmers." The report further said in both the Global South and North, the resulting soaring food prices spell out a future of hunger and malnutrition for people living in, or at risk of, poverty. "In the Global South, the lowest income groups spend up to 60% of their income on food, which is six times the proportion of higher-income groups. People on a lower income in the USA also spend an average of 30% of their income on food, four times more than rich people." While 783 million people today are unsure of where their next meal is coming from, in the food and agriculture sector, billionaires were able to raise their collective wealth by 45% in 2020 to 2021, said Oxfam. For example, it said global food giant Cargill posted a 63% increase in its profits worth US$4.93 billion for 2021, the best haul in its 158-year history. It said even when the richest countries do suffer the impact of climate change, racialized groups and those living in poverty are still more likely to pay the price. For example, the climate-related drought in California in the USA (between 2012 to 2016), the worst the country had suffered in 1,200 years, disproportionally affected low-income farm workers. Over 40,000 small-scale farm workers - mostly Latino - lost their jobs. There is also stark inequality in the mortality rate associated with climate change-related heat stress. By the end of the century, under a scenario of continued high emission growth, death rates due to heat stress are expected to increase by 106.7 per 100,000 in low-income countries, but to fall by 25.2 per 100,000 in high-income countries as a result of their significant spending to prevent more deaths, the report added. TAXING THE RICH Not all of humanity is equally responsible for the climate crisis. The responsibility is deeply unequal - it is the super-rich, the richest corporations and the richest nations who have by far the greatest responsibility, said the report. "It is rich white men, predominantly in the Global North, who have huge responsibility. They cause the highest emissions, and they have the greatest influence over our fossil fuel-driven world economy." The report said super-rich individuals, rich high-emitting countries and large polluting corporations must pay the highest price to avert total climate breakdown by meeting the costs of tackling climate change, and by drastically reducing emissions first, and fast. "They are also the ones that must be compelled to relinquish their excessive influence over politics and the economy. Without this, there can be no equal transition." In 2009, at COP15 in Copenhagen, the developed countries committed to increasing finance to support climate action in developing countries to US$100 billion a year by 2020. So far, they have resoundingly failed to keep this promise, reaching only US$83.3 billion in 2020, said Oxfam. What's more, Oxfam said its analysis finds that, in 2020, the net value of financial support specifically aimed at climate action only amounted to US$21 billion-US$24.5 billion, significantly lower than officially reported numbers suggest. There are incredible and record-breaking amounts of wealth in today's world - more than enough to fully fund the fight to stop further climate breakdown. Increasingly, this wealth is not in the hands of governments, but in the hands of rich individuals and large corporations. Using increased taxation to bring a significant proportion of this excessive wealth and profit back into public hands would be transformative, it added. It said trillions of dollars of this new tax revenue must flow to the Global South to fund a rapid and just energy transition, support communities to protect themselves from climate change and to provide compensation for the loss and damage caused by climate breakdown. "It must be used to cancel crippling debts, help rapidly reduce inequality, end poverty and deliver prosperity for all." Oxfam said that there are three taxes that, together, could raise more than US$9 trillion to build a green and equal world. Oxfam has calculated that a wealth tax on the world's millionaires and billionaires could generate over US$1.7 trillion per year. A top-up punitive wealth tax on investments in polluting activities could raise at least a further US$100 billion a year. It also said that an income tax of 60% on the top 1% of earners would generate US$6.4 trillion per year. It said together, 722 of the world's biggest corporations have raked in over US$1 trillion in windfall profits each year for the last two years (2022 to 2023). Of these, 45 energy corporations made on average US$237 billion a year in windfall profits. Oxfam and ActionAid analysis shows that a tax of 50-90% on the windfall profits of the 722 mega-corporations could have generated up to US$941 billion. +
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