These articles are somewhat disingenuous. It isn't their mansions, their jets, or their yachts. It's because of the amount they have invested in fossil fuels and other industries. A better question is why do they have enough money to own so much.
And as private shareholders they demand those oil companies maximize irresponsible profit at the planet's expense.
When you own something, you bear responsibility for it. Not legally sadly, because these criminals make the laws, but in every other sense.
You don't get to own oil stock and then credibly claim you aren't the problem. No one puts a gun to anyone's head and says take the stake in blood money.
You realize you personally emit likely 10 times the carbon emissions than the poorest 66 percent. There majority of the world uses far far less energy than you. While wealth inequality is an issue, the best majority of energy is uses by regular people in developed nations. Ignoring this is just trying to find someone else to blame.
If you earn $60,000 a year after tax and you don't have kids, you're in the richest 1 percent of the world's population. If you have a household income of $130,000 after tax and you've got a partner and one kid, you're also in the richest 1 percent.
I mean if you had bothered to open the article, it's in the 2nd paragraph:
The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year
more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019 – enough to cause more than a million excess deaths due to heat, according to the report.
absolutely irrelevant and disingenuous using local income on a global scale. Dude making 130, 000 in Vancouver these days is a broke motherfucker (before tax)
The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency, a report says.
For the past six months, the Guardian has worked with Oxfam, the Stockholm Environment Institute and other experts on an exclusive basis to produce a special investigation, The Great Carbon Divide.
Over the period from 1990 to 2019, the accumulated emissions of the 1% were equivalent to wiping out last year’s harvests of EU corn, US wheat, Bangladeshi rice and Chinese soya beans.
“The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction and it is those who can least afford it who are paying the highest price,” said Chiara Liguori, Oxfam’s senior climate justice policy adviser.
The extravagant carbon footprint of the 0.1% – from superyachts, private jets and mansions to space flights and doomsday bunkers – is 77 times higher than the upper level needed for global warming to peak at 1.5C.
Oxfam International’s interim executive director, Amitabh Behar, said: “Not taxing wealth allows the richest to rob from us, ruin our planet and renege on democracy.
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