Oxfam reveals how billionaires are ‘killing’ the world

• They emit more carbon in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime

By Business Insider Reporter

Fifty of the world’s richest billionaires on average produce more carbon through their investments, private jets and yachts in just over an hour and a half than the average person does in their entire lifetime, a new Oxfam report reveals.

The first-of-its-kind study, “Carbon Inequality Kills,” tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts and polluting investments and details how the super-rich are fueling inequality, hunger and death across the world.

“The super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playground, setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit. Their dirty investments and luxury toys —private jets and yachts— aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

The report comes ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, amidst growing fears that climate breakdown is accelerating, driven largely by the emissions of the richest people.

According to the report, if the world continues its current emissions, the carbon budget (the amount of CO2 that can still be added to the atmosphere without causing global temperatures to rise above 1.5°C) will be depleted in about four years.

However, if everyone’s emissions matched those of the richest one percent, the carbon budget would be used up in under five months.

And if everyone started emitting as much carbon as the private jets and superyachts of the average billionaire in Oxfam’s study, it would be gone in two days.

“Oxfam’s research makes it painfully clear: the extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fueling inequality, hunger and —make no mistake— threatening lives. It’s not just unfair that their reckless pollution and unbridled greed is fueling the very crisis threatening our collective future —it’s lethal,” said Behar.

The report, the first-ever study to look at both the luxury transport and polluting investments of billionaires, presents detailed new evidence of how their outsized emissions are accelerating climate breakdown and wreaking havoc on lives and economies.

Oxfam details in then report that the world’s poorest countries and communities have done the least to cause the climate crisis, yet they experience its most dangerous consequences.

In the research the institution found that, on average, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took 184 flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air – producing as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years.

“In the same period, their yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years,” says the report.

Exemplifying, the report notes for instance that Jeff Bezos’ two private jets spent nearly 25 days in the air over a 12-month period and emitted as much carbon as the average US Amazon employee would in 207 years.

Another billionaire, Carlos Slim, on the other hand, took 92 trips in his private jet, equivalent to circling the globe five times.

The Walton family, heirs of the Walmart retail chain, own three superyachts that in one year produced as much carbon as around 1,714 Walmart shop workers.

Oxfam notes that billionaires’ lifestyle emissions dwarf those of ordinary people, but the emissions from their investments are dramatically higher still – the average investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires are around 340 times their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined.

Through these investments, billionaires have huge influence over some of the world’s biggest corporations and are driving the world over the edge of climate disaster.

Nearly 40 percent of billionaire investments analyzed in Oxfam’s research are in highly polluting industries: oil, mining, shipping and cement.

On average, a billionaire’s investment portfolio is almost twice as polluting as an investment in the S&P 500. However, if their investments were in a low-carbon-intensity investment fund, their investment emissions would be 13 times lower.

Oxfam’s report details three critical areas, providing national and regional breakdowns, where the emissions of the world’s richest one percent since 1990 are already having – and are projected to have – devastating consequences.

One of which is global inequality. The emissions of the richest 1 percent have caused global economic output to drop by $2.9 trillion since 1990.

The biggest impact will be in countries least responsible for climate breakdown. Low- and lower-middle-income countries will lose about 2.5 percent of their cumulative GDP between 1990 and 2050.

There is also the issue of hunger. The emissions of the richest one percent have caused crop losses that could have provided enough calories to feed 14.5 million people a year between 1990 and 2023.

This will rise to 46 million people annually between 2023 and 2050, with Latin America and the Caribbean especially affected (9 million a year by 2050).

What the billionaires are doing will also increase death. Some 78 percent of excess deaths due to heat through 2120 will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

“It’s become so tiring, to be resilient. It’s not something that I have chosen to be – it was necessary to survive. A child shouldn’t need to be strong. I just wanted to be safe, to play in the sand,” said Marinel Sumook Ubaldo, a young climate activist from the Philippines.