Top 1 per cent wealthiest responsible for same amount of carbon emissions as bottom 66 per cent

A new report has found that the top one per cent of earners are disproportionately driving the climate crisis, and researchers are calling for substantially higher taxes on income, wealth and corporate profits to fix it.

After five months of consecutive global temperature records, climate scientists say global warming has become an equity issue as much as an environmental crisis.

“We looked at just the top one per cent and found the carbon heating emissions of that group was enough to lead to another 1.3 million deaths over the course of this century,” Ian Thomson, Policy Manager at Oxfam Canada, said in an exclusive interview with CTV National News.

“The super rich are really the cause of the climate crisis.”

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A new Oxfam report shared with CTV News highlights the disparities in who is driving global warming and the disproportionate impact it is having on the global south.

The report, titled ‘Climate Equality: A planet for the 99 per cent’, includes data curated with the Stockholm Environment Institute and argues not only that the super-rich are driving the climate crisis, but that the financial burden of resolving it should also fall at their feet.

The report found that in 2019, the top one per cent of earners worldwide, defined as those with a minimum income of US$140,000, contributed 16 per cent of global carbon emissions.

This is the same amount of emissions contributed by the poorest 66 per cent of humanity, which covers roughly 5 billion people.

Annual emissions from the top one per cent alone cancels out the equivalent carbon savings of nearly a million onshore wind turbines when compared to coal energy, according to the report.

The push for climate action comes as new data from the European Space Agency (ESA) shows 2023 is “virtually certain” to be the warmest year ever recorded.

October set a global temperature record, averaging 1.7 C higher than the pre-industrial reference period.

Data since January shows the yearly average is 1.43 C above the baseline, less than a tenth of a degree below the Paris Agreement threshold. This means 2023 is almost certain to be the hottest year ever.

“This is a wake up sign to all of us that this issue is no longer a future issue,” Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist of Toronto-based conservation group Nature United and professor at Texas Tech University, told CTV National News.

“Every tenth of a degree saves someone’s house from flooding, someone's crops from being lost, someone from suffering heat exhaustion and having to go the hospital or even worse. Everything we do truly matters.”

According to Oxfam, limiting long-term global warming to 1.5C requires a 48 per cent cut in total global emissions by 2030, but the World Meteorological Organization predicts temperatures will likely pass that limit within the next four years.

THE WEALTHY CAUSE THE MOST DAMAGE, THE POOR SUFFER THE WORST CONSEQUENCES

Global inequality and the climate crisis go hand in hand, the report argues.

It found that the deadly toll of the climate crisis weighs heavier on poorer regions of the Earth, with Indigenous people, migrants and women suffering disproportionately. These groups may be more likely to work outside or in homes vulnerable to extreme weather, or be less likely to have the savings to protect them in the event of heatwaves, droughts, floods or wildfires.

“Climate change is no question an issue of justice and equity, and those who have contributed least to the problem are bearing the brunt of the impacts,” Hayhoe said.

“Flip that around and what that tells us is those who are creating or generating the biggest contribution to this problem have the most responsibility to do something about it,” she added.

The report used a “mortality cost” formula of 226 excess deaths worldwide for every million tonnes of carbon to calculate that 1.3 million people could die of heat-related causes because of the excess emissions produced by the top one per cent.

One-third of the carbon emissions from the richest one per cent come from those living in the U.S., while 40 per cent of carbon emissions from the richest 10 per cent are associated with people living in North America and countries in the European Union.

But the wealth gap between countries isn’t the only explanation for the difference in emissions. The report found that emissions inequality between the richest people and those living in poverty within a given country is now greater than the emissions inequality between rich and poor countries.

The groups who contribute the fewest emissions being more likely to be the victim of climate-caused extreme weather is something we see even within Canada, experts say.

“If you look at who is most impacted here in Canada it is people who are unhoused, who are living on the streets, people who don't have access to the resources most of us have access to, and again are contributing the least (amount of emissions),” Hayhoe said.

THE BILLIONAIRE FACTOR

The average income of the top one per cent of global earners, according to this report, is US$310,000—but when we look at the 0.01 per cent of global earners, that’s where we see some of the most egregious emissions per person, Thomson said.

“We're really talking about that multi-millionaire and billionaire class,” he said.

The excesses of extreme wealth can mean a huge climate toll. The report cited 2022 research from Greenpeace which found that European private jets emitted a total of 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 between 2020 and 2023.

But although personal jets, sailing in yachts and travelling between multiple homes are a surface driver of the top one per cent’s emissions, their lavish lifestyles aren’t the true issue, according to Thomson.

The big problem, the data shows, is where billionaires invest their money.

“When you unpack their investments, what sort of industries they're investing in, we find those are where the climate heating emissions really start to ramp up,” Thomson said.

According to Oxfam data, the share of billionaire investments that were invested in polluting industries was double that of the average investor, and these investments accounted for 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the emissions from the super-rich.

A 2022 Oxfam study of 125 billionaires found just one invested in a renewable energy company. On average billionaires emitted 3 million tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) every year through their investments.

Oxfam is pushing for a wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires, along with a broad windfall corporate profits tax, in order to fund solutions for the climate crisis.

Windfall profits refer to when a company rakes in a significantly higher profit than usual or than expected, meaning they go beyond the profit that is needed to keep a company successful and operational.

According to the report, 45 energy corporations made, on average, US$237 billion a year in windfall profits.

Although Canada introduced a relatively narrow windfall profits tax during the pandemic which was specifically targeted at the banking and insurance sectors, estimates from the Parliamentary Budget Officer predict a wealth tax and an excess windfall profits tax could bring in a combined $10 billion per year. But experts say it wouldn’t be enough for only a few countries to apply a wealth tax or a windfall profits tax.

“We can't simplify the problem by only looking at a handful of countries, we really have to look at the super rich as a group, regardless of where they live, and hold them accountable for the impact they're having,” Thomson said.

According to the Oxfam report, a tax of around 60 per cent on the incomes of the super-rich globally would cut the carbon equivalent to more than the total 2019 emissions of the U.K., and could raise US$6.4 trillion in the process, which could be reinvested into renewable energy and a transition away from fossil fuels.

“We have the technologies today to transition off fossil fuels, we don't even need to develop new technologies to do this,” Thomson said. “We really just need the political will to bring about these changes.”

Hayhoe says a price on pollution continues to be the most effective market tool to tackle climate change, but says those revenues need to be redistributed to middle and low-income households to lessen the impacts of a warming world.

“Solutions for climate can also be solutions for justice and equity, and by tackling climate change we can create a better and safer and more just world,” she said.