Fossil fuels and 'emissions by billionaires' drive climate crisis

As world leaders gather in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, for the COP29 summit, the irony of the event is evident in the nation’s role — or lack thereof — in the fight against climate change, due to its heavy reliance on fossil fuels, which are largely blamed for the climate crisis.

Azerbaijan, straddling Eastern Europe and Asia, is the world’s 24th largest producer of oil, with Italy, Israel, Turkey, India, and Greece being the top five markets for the country’s oil exports.

This sardonic situation, much like Dubai’s hosting of COP28 in 2023, stems from the global push to reduce reliance on fossil fuels as a key way of managing emissions.

A new report by Oxfam blames the world’s 50 wealthiest billionaires for emitting more carbon in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime.

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In Sub-Saharan Africa, the report says, the richest 0.1 per cent of the population emit more carbon than the poorest 50 per cent combined.

According to the study, these emissions stem from the billionaires’ investments, private jets, and superyachts, all of which contribute to the problem in just over an hour and a half.

The first-of-its-kind study, titled ‘‘Carbon Inequality Kills’’, tracks emissions from private jets, yachts, and polluting investments and shows how the super-rich are fuelling inequality, hunger, and death across the world.

The report warns that if the world continues its current emissions trajectory, the carbon budget (the amount of carbon dioxide that can still be added to the atmosphere without causing global temperatures to rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius) will be depleted in just four years.

If everyone’s emissions matched those of the wealthiest one per cent, the carbon budget could be gone in less than five months. If everyone emitted as much carbon as the billionaires in the study, the carbon budget would be exhausted in just two days.

“The world’s super-rich have shown time and again that they have no regard for the wellbeing of the rest of us and will neither stop nor slow down the plundering that is rapidly pushing life on the planet to the brink,” said Fati N’zi-Hassane, Director of Oxfam in Africa. “Governments must urgently regain control and implement policies that curb the runaway pollution caused by a tiny minority and make them pay for the wanton destruction they have already caused, especially in regions like Africa that are least responsible for the climate crisis.”

The report, which is the first-ever study to focus on both luxury transport and polluting investments, found that, on average, 50 of the world’s wealthiest billionaires took 184 flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air and producing as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years. Over the same period, their yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years.

Although Africa contributes less than four percent of global carbon emissions, the study reveals a massive and intolerable gap between the emissions of the continent’s wealthy elite and those of the general population.

In 2023, for example, the report reveals that Aliko Dangote’s investment emitted, in just two seconds, the carbon equivalent of what the average African emits in an entire year.

Billionaires’ lifestyle emissions dwarf those of ordinary people, but the emissions from their investments are even more dramatic.

The average investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires are approximately 340 times greater than their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined.

Through these investments, billionaires have substantial influence over some of the world’s largest corporations, driving the continent closer to a climate disaster. This is despite rich countries’ failure to honour their $100 billion climate finance promise under the Loss and Damage Fund.

At COP29, it seems unlikely that a new climate finance goal will be set to adequately address the needs of Global South countries.

Nearly 40 per cent of the billionaire investments analysed in Oxfam’s research are in highly polluting industries, including oil, mining, shipping, and cement production. On average, a billionaire’s investment portfolio is nearly twice as polluting as an investment in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index.

Oxfam’s report details three critical areas, providing national and regional breakdowns, where the emissions of the world’s wealthiest 1 percent since 1990 are already being felt and are projected to have devastating consequences. These include global inequality, hunger, and death.

Oxfam is calling on governments to reduce emissions from the richest one per cent.

“Governments must introduce new progressive taxes on the wealth and income of the super-rich and from windfall corporate profits of rich and polluting companies, regulate corporations and investors to drastically and fairly reduce their emissions,” the report’s first recommendation states.

COP29 starts today and ends on November 22.