Released on the eve of the UN annual climate summit COP28, which concluded last month in Dubai, this report throws light on critical aspects of climate change that usually flies below the radar: enormous carbon footprints of the world’s wealthiest, and the stark inequality between them and the world’s poor. The world’s richest 1 percent — 77 million people — were responsible for 16 percent of the total global consumption emissions in 2019, the last year for which comparable data was available, which was as much as the carbon pollution of five billion people who made up two-thirds of the world’s poorest. These carbon emissions of the wealthy would result in excess heat taking the lives of nearly 1.3 billion people till 2030, and seven times more people dying from floods in countries with high levels of inequality, the report found. “Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99%” was released by Oxfam, the global organisation working on inequality, and was based on the research conducted with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).  

The comparisons drawn in the report are stark. For example, it would take the bottom 99 percent of the world’s humanity an unimaginable 1,500 years to produce as much carbon as the richest billionaires do in a year, and the emissions of the richest 1 percent every year cancel out the carbon savings from one million wind turbines. The significance of this report lies in the clear implication it brings out: climate change and fossil fuel consumption cannot be substantially and comprehensively addressed without addressing stark inequalities in wealth and consumption. The carbon-hungry lifestyles of the richest 1 percent, or even the richest 10 percent, and their investments in polluting fossil fuel-based industries are key drivers of global warming and climate change. A fair tax on the super rich, the report suggests, would help both climate change and wealth inequality. Climate change is worsening inequality both between and within countries, the report pointed out.