The climate crisis and the 1%

The carbon emissions of the richest 1% of humanity are the same as the poorest five billion people. That’s according to the latest report from Oxfam into inequality and climate change. Climate Equality: A planet for the 99% updates their statistics and outlines again how the climate crisis is caused by the richest and suffered by the poorest.

As this graph from the report shows, the wealthiest 10% of the world’s population account for half the climate pollution. The richest 1% hoard a vastly greater share of the earth’s atmosphere, and billionaires multiply that impact again. Oxfam calculate that it would take 1,500 years for someone in the 99% to have the same annual impact as one billionaire. Private planes, yachts and excessive wealth are just that damaging.

The title of the report is well named in my opinion. As currently configured, the global economy is geared to the needs of the 1%. That’s the nature of capitalism – money makes money. It’s infinitely easier to make rich people richer than for poorer people to get less poor. If left unchecked, this system will drive the climate into irreparable breakdown and make it impossible to end poverty. The climate will have been destroyed by and for the rich.

If that sounds radical, it’s worth pausing to reflect on why that might be. What’s more radical? Suggesting that a better world is possible, where everybody has the opportunity to meet their needs? Or the staggeringly vast inequalities of the status quo?

I’m pretty convinced that it’s runaway consumer capitalism that’s the extremist ideology, and we mistake it for the better option because it’s what we know. It is endlessly reinforced as the only possibility, and of course almost all commentary you’ll ever encounter on capitalism is written by those in the richest 10%. (I’m in that top 10% myself.) Almost everyone in positions of global influence and political power are part of the 1%, and so it’s hardly surprising that they keep voting to protect fossil fuels and ignore inequality.

If you still think that criticising capitalism automatically makes you some kind of communist, you might want to re-boot your imagination for the 21st century. The global economy won’t be transformed by big state communism. That would just swap one unaccountable concentration of power for another. Transformation lies in de-centralising power, in inclusive economies and participative democracy.

The future is being eroded by vicious cycles of inequality and climate change. It can be restored through virtuous cycles of equality and ecological repair.

For Oxfam, that begins with taxing the polluting lifestyles of the richest, and they have a petition to that effect if you want to sign it. That will help to pay for a fast and fair transition away from fossil fuels, as part of a broader recalibration of the economy around wellbeing rather than wealth: “To achieve an equal transformation, there is an urgent need to fundamentally change the purpose of our economies so that they serve the twin goals of human wellbeing and planetary flourishing.”

It’s well worth downloading and making some time for Climate Equality. If you want more of my own ideas on creating those virtuous circles, see my book with Katherine Trebeck, The Economics of Arrival.