[Image: Gencraft/AI]
The top 10% of the world’s wealthiest people have been throwing fuel on the climate crisis bonfire, literally. According to researchers, this top echelon of society is responsible for a staggering two-thirds of the global warming that’s happened since 1990.
And no, it’s not just because they like flying private and bathing in bottled glacier water. The way the rich consume, invest, and generally swan about has cranked up the chances of heatwaves and droughts across the globe, according to a new study published Wednesday in Nature Climate Change, a journal that doesn’t pull its punches, reported Al Jazeera.
This is the first time scientists have actually managed to put a number on just how much concentrated private wealth messes with the planet’s thermostat.
“We link the carbon footprints of the wealthiest individuals directly to real-world climate impacts,” lead author Sarah Schoengart, a scientist at the public university of ETH Zurich, told the AFP news agency.
“It’s a shift from carbon accounting toward climate accountability.”
No more hiding behind vague emissions charts. If you’re super rich and emitting like there’s no tomorrow, you might just be setting the planet on fire with your investment portfolio.
Need perspective? The study found the richest 1% have done 26 times more damage when it comes to once-in-a-century heatwaves than the average person, and 17 times more when it comes to droughts in the Amazon. Y
Over in the US and China, where the carbon party never stops, the richest 10% have caused a two-to-threefold increase in extreme heat events. That’s not a heatwave, that’s a heat onslaught.
“If everyone had emitted like the bottom 50 percent of the global population, the world would have seen minimal additional warming since 1990,” co-author Carl-Friedrich Schleussner said. “Addressing this imbalance is crucial for fair and effective climate action.”
No kidding. The bottom half of humanity has basically been sipping carbon-free cocktails while the rich were revving the engines of planetary doom.
Burning fossil fuels and deforestation have jacked up Earth’s average surface temperature by 1.3°C over the last three decades. That’s the difference between “scorching summer” and “unlivable hellscape.”
To get this data, Schoengart and her team connected economic activity with climate modelling to trace emissions from different income groups, and then linked those emissions to very real weather chaos.
And it’s not just the obvious stuff like SUVs and steak dinners. The emissions embedded in financial investments – think stock portfolios dripping in fossil fuels – are wreaking havoc, especially in tropical regions like the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa. AKA, the places contributing the least to the crisis and suffering the most.
“Our study shows that extreme climate impacts are not just the result of abstract global emissions. Instead we can directly link them to our lifestyle and investment choices, which in turn are linked to wealth,” Schoengart said. “We found that wealthy emitters play a major role in driving climate extremes, which provides strong support for climate policies that target the reduction of their emissions.”
At this rate, it’s personal. The authors suggest we stop tiptoeing around and go straight for the jugular – target the high-carbon investments of the wealthy.
“Climate action that doesn’t address the outsized responsibilities of the wealthiest members of society risk missing one of the most powerful levers we have to reduce future harm,” Schleussner said.
And that lever might just be the rich folks’ wallets. Schleussner says we could rein in climate damage by taxing the hell out of carbon-heavy investments and the mega-wealth they generate, then using that revenue to help the vulnerable cope with the fallout.
And before anyone cries foul, research shows taxing asset-related emissions is way fairer than slapping a flat carbon tax on everyone. Because let’s be real: a carbon tax on poor people just means higher bus fares and pricier bread.
But of course, every time someone suggests taxing the superrich, the wheels fall off. Since Trump waltzed back into the White House in January, efforts to raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy and big corporations have hit a wall.
Remember the global minimum corporate tax? In 2021, nearly 140 countries agreed to it, aiming for a modest 15%. That’s right, fifteen. And still, the talks have frozen harder than Arctic permafrost.
Meanwhile, the richest 1% have bagged a cool $42 trillion in new wealth over the past decade, according to Oxfam.
That’s more than the bottom 95% of humanity combined. Let that sink in.
[Source: Al Jazeera]