? The world’s wealthiest people make a huge contribution to climate change through their carbon-hungry activities. Wealthy people set the tone on consumption to which everyone tends to aspire. Fast cars, exotic holidays, designer fashion and large homes are typical status symbols but all result in excessive individual carbon footprints. ??

The world’s wealthiest 10% were responsible for around half of global emissions in 2015, according to a 2020 report from Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute. The top 1% were responsible for 15% of emissions, nearly twice as much as the world’s poorest 50%, who were responsible for just 7% and will feel the brunt of climate impacts despite bearing the least responsibility for causing them.

When we think of “the rich”, we might think of millionaires and billionaires with private jets and multiple mansions. But an income of $38,000 (£27,500) is enough to put someone in the world’s richest 10%, and $109,000 (£79,000) would put them in the top 1%. ?

The last few decades have shone a spotlight on global inequality. From the 2008 financial crisis, to the pandemic and the increasingly severe impacts of climate change – disruptive events tend to hit the poorest first and hardest.?

Therefore, targeted taxes on unsustainable behaviours, such as frequent flying and the overconsumption of meat, could help shift people to low carbon behaviours more quickly. Proceeds from such taxes such as a frequent flyer tax could be invested into a cheaper or even free public transport system or money from a “mansion tax” could be put towards insulating houses, bringing down levels of fuel poverty. ?

Unfortunately, the wealthiest have a certain level of control over governments through their lobbying and large political donations, giving them the influence to dilute climate related legislation and regulation and consequently shape the choices available for everyone. ⚖️

Governments need to overhaul infrastructure, putting sustainability, and not the interests of the wealthiest, at the heart of their policies. That means creating fast, extensive and affordable public transport networks; decarbonising electricity; building well-insulated housing that use heat pumps; banning the use of petrol-powered cars; and considering measures such as a four-day working week to help slow the rate of individual consumption / energy use / pace of life down, as we saw during the Covid related lockdowns. ⏰️

The pace of such change is however currently glacial, and the world is running out of time. ⌛️ Our choices and actions therefore matter and we should all become political activists in one way or another, very deliberately and decisively going after our governments and tasking them to live up to their climate change commitments.??? ?