The report said that on average, billionaires are responsible for emitting “3 million tonnes” of carbon a year, which is “more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90% of humanity.” Here is how it reached its conclusions.
An Oxfam report titled, Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people, has said the world’s richest people emit “unsustainable amounts of carbon,” as compared with an ordinary person.
This report is based on the fact that every human on Earth has a carbon footprint, which can be divided into “personal consumption emissions, emissions through government spending and emissions linked to investments.”
What does the Oxfam report say?
An analysis of the investments of 125 of the world’s richest billionaires was conducted by Oxfam International, and the report was published this November. It demonstrated that on average, billionaires are responsible for emitting “3 million tonnes” of carbon a year, which is, “more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90% of humanity.”
It further found out that the 125 billionaires taken as a sample fund about 393 million tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per year. This is equivalent to the “annual carbon emissions of France,” which is a nation of 67 million people.
In comparison, it said, “it would take 1.8 million cows to emit the same levels of CO2e as each of the 125 billionaires,” and “almost four million people would have to go vegan to offset the emissions of each of the billionaires.”
How was the research conducted?
Oxfam listed the 220 richest people in the world, based on Bloomberg Billionaire List (August 2022), and obtained emissions data from data provider Exerica. It then identified the ownership of these billionaires in corporations and their emissions
Scope 1 emissions: These are a direct result of the company’s operations.
Scope 2 emissions: They constitute indirect emissions, for example, energy to operate machines.
Scope 3 emissions are other indirect emissions such as those resulting from a company’s supply chains.
To focus on investments and sectors where billionaires have a massive influence, their final research database involved 183 corporates, with investments by 125 billionaires worth $2.4 trillion. They utilised the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which “provides the world’s most widely used GHG accounting standards”, to calculate the carbon footprint of these companies.
Why does the report matter?
The report comes at a time when discussions to meet the globally agreed target of limiting the world’s temperature to below 1.5℃ is underway at COP 27 in Egypt and has significant implications for climate policymaking. It takes a critical look at the relationship between economic inequality and climate crisis.
The idea is that since billionaires hold significant wealth and stakes in globally recognised corporations, they hold the power to influence the ways in which those corporations behave. As people from low and middle-income backgrounds do not exercise much control over their energy choices, the report says it is imperative for world leaders to ensure that “those who emit the most carbon also do the most to reduce those emissions.”
One can also gauge the ways in which the conduct of investors in the global economy impacts our environment. The decisions made by the investors — whether to invest in corporations failing to reduce carbon emissions, or to fund fossil fuel and similar industries — can further determine the intensity of future emissions.
What are billionaires’ ‘personal consumption emissions’?
Apart from investments by billionaires, their personal consumption also adds up. For example, in 2018, emissions from the private yachts, planes, helicopters and mansions of 20 billionaires generated, on average, about 8,194 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂e). As evident in the billionaire space race, a single space flight can emit as much carbon dioxide as a normal person will in their lifetime, the report highlighted.
In 2021, research conducted by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute revealed: “The richest 1 per cent (around 63 million people) alone were responsible for 15 per cent of cumulative emissions and that they were emitting 35 times the level of CO₂e compatible with the 1.5°C by 2030 goal of the Paris Agreement.”
What can be done to curb their carbon footprint?
Corporations are failing to cut emissions and avert climate change, as per the report. To make the 2050 climate change plans of ‘net-zero’ total carbon emissions, they are heavily relying on using land in low-income countries to plant trees but the report points out some flaws in that plan. “In 2021 Oxfam revealed that using land alone to remove the world’s carbon emissions to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050 would require at least 1.6bn hectares of new forests, an area equivalent to five times the size of India,” it said.
“At present,” the report states, “no state in the world compels corporates to reduce their carbon footprints.” It is the responsibility of governments to create climate policies that work towards green transition, mainly, through the regulation of corporate investments in highly polluting industries.
They should aim to set strong and binding science-based GHG reduction targets and demand greater transparency. Governments should also include workers’ rights, protection of their livelihoods and that of marginalised communities who are adversely affected by climate change in policy decisions.
Most importantly, the report suggests that a wealth tax on the richest could aid the urgent climate finance needs of developing countries and “raise hundreds of billions of dollars to help and protect those already suffering the impacts of catastrophic climate change.”
Written by Ariba
Source: Indian Express, 8/11/22
