Super-rich pollute more than almost half of humanity

O0.1% richer in the world produce more pollution than the 3.5 billion poorest people on the planet together, today reveals an analysis of Oxfam, published before COP31 in Turkey.

According to the international confederation of organizations against poverty and inequality, the 0.1% richest equal eight million people and each of these contributed almost 400 times more to the current extreme heat waves than someone belonging to the 50% poorest of humanity.

Collectively, this group emits more than three times the greenhouse gas pollution produced by the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa, estimated at 1.3 billion people.

Oxfam also calculated that the richest 1% are responsible for 20% of global warming recorded since 1990, emitting on average 100 times more per person than one of the poorest 50%.

Emissions from this group could cause 1.9 million additional heat-related deaths in a single year, 78% of which in low-income or medium-low-income countries, although they account for only 8% of global emissions.

“ Those who contributed less to this crisis are losing their homes, crops and, more and more, their lives”, lamented Oxfam International executive director Amitabh Behar, quoted in a statement.

Oxfam claims that super-rich people manage to protect themselves through private insurance, housing in safer areas and private firefighting services, while most people face floods, fires and food insecurity.

Private aviation is presented as one of the most obvious examples of inequality: together, private jets emit more greenhouse gases in two seconds than a person of the 50% poorest emits for one year.

In the study entitled “Index Destroy and Rebuild”, Oxfam calls on governments to meet in November in Antalya, Turkey, at the 31st United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP31) to make large polluters pay through permanent taxes on wealth and high incomes, fossil fuel companies and taxes on luxury goods that produce many greenhouse gases, such as private jets.

The organisation also advocates a substantial increase in climate finance for the Global South, with priority for public funding and subsidies instead of loans, and calls for the adaptation funding to be tripled by 2035.

Oxfam estimates that by 2050 around one billion people, about 10% of the world's population, can be displaced due to the climate crisis, especially in the Global South.