Taxing the Wealthy Before They Kill Us All?
Lloyd Alter’s adds a new CO2 or carbon pollution commentary on Carbon Up Front which follows many of his other commentaries on the issue. They can be found here. All of which address the issues of our advanced civilization slowly poisoning the world with a continued release of CO2. His latest article identifies the worst emitters of CO2 amongst us.
Tax the rich before they kill us all, Carbon Upfront, Lloyd Alter
A new OXFAM report finds that the richest 1% of the world’s population is responsible for as much carbon pollution as the poorest two-thirds of humanity.
An Instagram post from a couple of years ago caused enough embarrassment it was taken down after 8.3 million views. It could have easily been on the cover of the new Oxfam report Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99%. It gets to the point of who are the worst violators.
The report starts with a stern Greta Thunberg writing in the forward:
“The richest 1% of the world’s population are responsible for as much carbon pollution as the people who make up the poorest two-thirds of humanity. They have stolen our planet’s resources to fuel their lavish lifestyles. A short trip on a private jet will produce more carbon than the average person emits all year. They are sacrificing us at the altar of their greed. This report reveals a perverse reality: those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are the ones who are suffering the most. And those who have done the most will likely suffer the least.”
In my previous writing, I did not worry much about the 1%, with their production of 16% of carbon emissions, as I was about the top 10%, who are responsible for fully 50% of the carbon emissions. I thought the private jets and yachts of the super-rich were ostentatious and emitted a lot of carbon, with some very rich yacht owners at 3,000 tonnes per year when the Canadian average is around 18.
There weren’t that many of them- only 7,700 worldwide, with a total annual output of 1.7 gigatonnes of CO2, while the top 10% pumped out 18.5 gigatonnes. But many average North Americans are in that 10% and can find it hard to cut their footprint significantly. It costs serious money to change to electric cars or heat pumps. Many live in places where it’s hard to get around without a car. But as the report notes . . .
“Cutting emissions is easier the richer you are. The majority of carbon emissions of the super-rich come from luxury goods and services and from their investments, so they have far greater capacity to make the deep and immediate cuts we need to stay below 1.5°C. No one needs, for example, frequent air travel, private jets or yachts, multiple multimillion-dollar mansions or fleets of high-end gas-guzzling cars. With one call to their stockbroker, a billionaire investor can easily shift their money away from fossil fuels into green energy.”
The rest of the commentary can be found at Lloyd Alter’s site, Carbon Upfront. It is a good read with more charts depicting the issues.
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1727484437443837968
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Some much-needed incredibly good news: *
“China’s carbon emissions have either peaked already or will do this winter, 7 years ahead of schedule… The country’s target of net zero by 2060 is likely to be achieved a decade earlier than previously assumed, and perhaps earlier than in Europe.”
Xi has committed to transform China into an “ecological civilization” and he’s delivering like no other country on earth. As the article points out, “he was green long before it became fashionable” (reminding that he was already advocating for green transition 20 years ago) and China is transforming on a scale that is “staggering”: “China accounts for 60% of all new solar and wind power being installed across the world this year”. Just in solar the country will add 210 GW of capacity this year alone, which is “twice the entire solar capacity installed in the US to date.”
You’d have been laughed out of the room for saying this even 10 years ago but it’s now crystal clear that China is leading the world in our common fight against climate change. Which frankly actually worries me because I wouldn’t be surprised if China’s position of leadership led to increasing climate change denialism by petty populists in the West, with arguments of the type “this climate change thing is a Chinese hoax to make us dependent on them”… when the truth is simply that we’re much less competent and slower in leading the necessary transition…
* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/21/chinas-carbon-emissions-falling-xi-jinping-net-zero/
China’s CO2 emissions may be falling already, in a watershed moment for the world
Xi’s quest for global supremacy is in perfect alignment with the country’s clean-tech dominance
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
7:29 PM · Nov 22, 2023
For those with NYT access, this article about water addresses also looks at how the wealthy use their power to get more than their share in a way that will kill some of us.
Aren’t the numbers in molecular notation subscripted?
Yes
“Before they kill us all” …
Pentagon’s AI initiatives accelerate hard decisions on lethal autonomous weapons
AP – Nov 25
Yes, but the rich got rich by making and selling us the gasoline and fast cars we want.
and high power electric cars will be as bad for the environment as high power gas cars.
and, as far as I know, Ted Cruz (see post above) was elected by “the people.”