Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime
Fifty of the world’s richest billionaires on average produce more carbon through their investments, private jets and yachts in just over an hour and a half than the average person does in their entire lifetime, a new Oxfam report reveals today. The first-of-its-kind study, “Carbon Inequality Kills,” tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts and polluting investments and details how the super-rich are fueling inequality, hunger and death across the world. The report comes ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, amidst growing fears that climate breakdown is accelerating, driven largely by the emissions of the richest people.
If the world continues its current emissions, the carbon budget (the amount of CO2 that can still be added to the atmosphere without causing global temperatures to rise 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels) will be depleted in about four years. However, if everyone’s emissions matched those of the richest 1 percent, the carbon budget would be used up in under five months. And if everyone started emitting as much carbon as the private jets and superyachts of the average billionaire in Oxfam’s study, it would be gone in two days.
“The super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playground, setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit. Their dirty investments and luxury toys —private jets and yachts— aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet,” said Oxfam Canada Executive Director Lauren Ravon.
“Oxfam’s research makes it painfully clear: the extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fueling inequality, hunger and —make no mistake— threatening lives. It’s not just unfair that their reckless pollution and unbridled greed are fueling the very crisis threatening our collective future —it’s lethal,” said Ravon.
The report, the first-ever study to look at both the luxury transport and polluting investments of billionaires, presents detailed new evidence of how their outsized emissions are accelerating climate breakdown and wreaking havoc on lives and economies. The world’s poorest countries and communities have done the least to cause the climate crisis, yet they experience its most dangerous consequences.
Oxfam found that, on average, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took 184 private jet flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air —producing as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years. In the same period, their yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years.
- Jeff Bezos’ two private jets spent nearly 25 days in the air over a 12-month period and emitted as much carbon as the average US Amazon employee would in 207 years. Carlos Slim took 92 trips in his private jet, equivalent to circling the globe five times.
- The Walton family, heirs of the Walmart retail chain, own three superyachts that in one year produced as much carbon as around 1,714 Walmart shop workers.
Billionaires’ lifestyle emissions dwarf those of ordinary people, but the emissions from their investments are dramatically higher still —the average investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires are around 340 times their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined. Through these investments, billionaires have huge influence over some of the world’s biggest corporations and are driving us over the edge of climate disaster.
Nearly 40 percent of billionaire investments analyzed in Oxfam’s research are in highly polluting industries: oil, mining, shipping and cement. On average, a billionaire’s investment portfolio is almost twice as polluting as an investment in the S&P 500. However, if their investments were in a low-carbon-intensity investment fund, their investment emissions would be 13 times lower.
Oxfam’s report details three critical areas, providing national and regional breakdowns, where the emissions of the world’s richest 1 percent since 1990 are already having —and are projected to have— devastating consequences:
- Hunger. The emissions of the richest 1 percent have caused crop losses that could have provided enough calories to feed 14.5 million people a year between 1990 and 2023. This will rise to 46 million people annually between 2023 and 2050, with Latin America and the Caribbean especially affected (9 million a year by 2050).
- Death. 78 percent of excess deaths due to heat through 2120 will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
- Global inequality. The emissions of the richest 1 percent have caused global economic output to drop by $2.9 trillion since 1990. The biggest impact will be in countries least responsible for climate breakdown. Low- and lower-middle-income countries will lose about 2.5 percent of their cumulative GDP between 1990 and 2050. Southern Asia, South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will lose 3 percent, 2.4 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.
Rich countries have failed to keep their $100 billion climate finance promise, and heading into COP29, there is no indication that they will set a new climate finance goal that adequately addresses the climate financing needs of the global-majority countries. Oxfam warns that the cost of global warming will continue to rise unless the richest drastically reduce their emissions.
In Canada, the federal government has taken initial steps by introducing a luxury goods tax on private jets and yachts in 2022, and increasing the capital gains inclusion rate for high-income individuals in its 2024 budget.
Ahead of COP29, Oxfam calls on the Canadian government to:
- Make rich polluters pay. The federal government should institute a wealth tax on the richest 1 percent of Canadians, and an excess profits tax on the biggest polluting corporations that are raking in record profits during this affordability crisis. Climate finance needs are enormous and escalating, especially in Global South countries that are withstanding the worst climate impacts. Canada needs to ramp up its international climate finance threefold in its next five-year commitment. A wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could raise at least $1.7 trillion annually. A wealth tax on investments in polluting activities could bring in another $100 billion.
- Reduce the emissions of the richest. The government should implement its long-awaited emissions cap on the oil and gas sector immediately, and ramp up the luxury goods tax to deter the richest 1 percent from carbon-intensive luxury consumptions.
- Reimagine our economies. The current economic system, designed to accumulate wealth for the already rich through relentless extraction and consumption, has long undermined a truly sustainable and equitable future for all. The government needs to commit to ensuring that the incomes of the top 10 percent are collectively no higher than the bottom 40 percent.
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Notes to editors
Oxfam’s report “Carbon Inequality Kills” and the methodology note.
All figures are provided in US dollars (USD) unless otherwise stated.
Oxfam’s research shows that the richest 1 percent, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those earning $310,000 ($140,000 PPP) or more a year, accounted for 16 percent of all CO2 emissions in 2019.
Oxfam’s analysis estimates the changes in economic output (GDP), changes in yields of major crops (it considers maize, wheat, and soy, which are among the most common crops globally) and excess deaths due to changes in temperatures that can be attributed to the emissions of the richest people. Economic damages are expressed in International Dollars ($), which adjusts for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).
Daniel Horen Greenford (Concordia University, Universitat de Barcelona) carried out the calculations on economic damages, Corey Lesk (Dartmouth College) conceived and carried out calculations on agricultural losses, and Daniel Bressler (Columbia University) provided country-level estimates of the mortality cost of carbon.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, if invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures by 2030, billionaires’ wealth could cover the entire funding gap between what governments have pledged and what is needed to keep global warming below 1.5⁰C.
Rich countries continue to resist calls for climate reparations. Climate activists are demanding the Global North provide at least $5 trillion a year in public finance to the Global South “as a down payment towards their climate debt” to the countries, people and communities of the Global South who are the least responsible for climate breakdown but are the most affected.