【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability

By Wind Young，Jointing.Media, in HongKong, 2024-12-04

Global climate change is an urgent issue that not only affects the future of the planet, but also has a profound impact on the quality of human life.

It is estimated that 50% of the world’s carbon emissions are produced by the richest people in the world, whose luxurious lifestyles, such as the use of private jets and excessive consumption, place a significant burden on the environment. However, in order to reduce carbon emissions, a concept called ‘offsetting’ has emerged which allows them to buy carbon credits to support their excessive consumption. However, this approach actually deprives the less affluent of their space to produce and consume, and instead exploits them. At the same time, it allows the rich to maintain their wealth without changing their lifestyles to reduce carbon emissions. So is this really a good policy? Is there no better policy?

We can use some examples and data to better visualize the large amount of carbon emissions generated by the lavish lifestyles of the world’s richest people:

1. Carbon emissions from private jets

According to one study, carbon emissions from private jets will increase by 46 percent between 2019 and 2023.

Private jet flights are one of the most polluting forms of travel, emitting an average of 3.6 tons of CO2 per flight, equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of one person living in Sweden.

Total carbon emissions from private jets reach 15.6 million tons in 2023, equivalent to the annual emissions of Tanzania.

The world’s 50 richest billionaires produce more carbon emissions from their private jets and yachts in just over an hour than the average person does in a lifetime.

For example, Jeff Bezos’ two private jets flew nearly 25 days in a 12-month period, emitting as much carbon as an average U.S. Amazon employee would emit in 207 years.

2. The relationship between luxury sales and carbon emissions

A research model shows that luxury sales, capital expenditures, and financing costs are positively correlated with carbon dioxide emissions. Specifically, for every $1 million increase in luxury sales, emissions increase by an average of 8.07 tons of carbon dioxide; for every $1 million increase in capital expenditures, emissions increase by an average of 32.69 tons of carbon dioxide.

3. Emissions from billionaires’ investments

Analysis shows that the investments of 125 of the world’s richest billionaires emit an average of 30 million tons of CO2 per year, more than a million times the average emissions of the bottom 90 percent of the world’s population.

14% of these billionaires’ investments are in polluting industries such as fossil fuels and cement, twice the average for S&P 500 companies.

4.Carbon emissions of the richest 1 percent of the world’s population

Between 1990 and 2015, the richest 1 percent of the world’s population generated more than twice as much carbon pollution as the world’s poorest 3.1 billion people.

The richest 10 percent of the population accounted for 52 percent of new emissions into the atmosphere during this period, while the richest 1 percent of the population accounted for 15 percent, which is more than all the member states of the European Union combined and more than twice as much as the poorest half of humanity.

The rich can occupy more resources and accumulate more wealth essentially because they break the rules and are also the rule-makers. Now we want to restrict them within the rules, which will inevitably lead them to find more ways to break the rules; that’s their nature.

I don’t think they will play by the same rules; if they did, they wouldn’t be rich. Therefore, existing policies will only make this balance, or the underlying rights to development and consumption, more unequal. This is called the unequal right to carbon emissions, which is not only between rich and poor, but also between developed and less developed, rich and impoverished nations.

Edited by Kimi, DeepL

Ralated:

Is Climate Change Really Caused by Human Activity？

More>>