Major energy firms including BP BP.L, Chevron CVX.N and Saudi Aramco 2222.SE are among the 1,500 business leaders gathering for the annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos, where global threats including climate change are on the agenda.
“We are demanding concrete and real climate action,” said Nicolas Siegrist, the 26-year-old organiser of the protest who also heads the Young Socialists party in Switzerland.
The annual meeting of global business and political leaders opens in Davos on Monday.
The richest 1 per cent of people in the UK are now wealthier than 70 per cent of the population combined, according to analysis by Oxfam.
A report by the charity highlights how the 685,500 richest people in Britain are worth a total of £2.8 trillion, compared with 48 million people in the UK whose combined wealth totals £2.4 trillion.
Oxfam’s report, called Survival of the Richest, builds a picture of widening worldwide inequality, after extreme poverty and extreme wealth increased simultaneously over the past two years for the first time in quarter of a century.
SEVEN HUNDRED SELF-DESCRIBED “climate rebels” breached the chain-link fence surrounding Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, the world’s third-busiest hub for international passenger traffic, on November 5. With bolt cutters they opened holes in the fence and poured in, some of them on bicycles, and raced across the tarmac. Others laid ladders against the 9-foot-high fence and topped it on foot.
…
“The superrich have got used to polluting as they please with a total disregard for people and planet, and private jets are the pinnacle of these luxury emissions that we simply cannot afford,” Jonathan Leggett, one of the activists, told us. “Our action brought them back to earth. We wanted to show the extremeness and injustice related to this manner of transport.”
…
In the Netherlands, 8 percent of the population takes 40 percent of flights. Worldwide, the difference is even more stark: One percent of the population is responsible for 50 percent of pollution due to aviation, making air travel a textbook example of how pollution by the rich leads to consequences and injustices for those who have not caused the climate crisis.
The super-rich should be forced to pay an extra tax each time they fly on “hugely damaging” private jets to help fund better and cleaner public transport, a charity has said.
The Campaign for Better Transport (CfBT) called on the government to introduce a “super tax” on private jet travel, saying it is “about time that these individuals started paying for the damage their flights cause and the proceeds used to help improve public transport for communities up and down the country”.
The charity said private jets are between five and 14 times more polluting than commercial flights and 50 times more polluting than taking a train. They argue that a “super rate of air passenger duty (APD)” should be applied to account for the damage caused to the planet. The CfBT also called on the government to strip private flights of their current VAT-free status.
…
Elite minority of frequent flyers ’cause most of aviation’s climate damage’
An “elite minority” of frequent flyers cause most of the climate damage resulting from aviation’s emissions, according to an environmental charity.
The report, which collates data from the countries with the highest aviation emissions, shows a worldwide pattern of a small group taking a large proportion of flights, while many people do not fly at all.
In the US, 12% of people took 66% of all flights, while in France 2% of people took half of the flights, the report says. In China 5% of households took 40% of flights and in India just 1% of households took 45% of all the flights.
The Extinction Rebellion Group offered food for thought at this year’s The Superyacht Forum event after turning up on the final day to protest against the existence of the industry. The group arrived at roughly 9:30am on Wednesday morning with a megaphone and banners to peacefully protest against the complicit behaviour of stakeholders in yachting – they also made it clear they would not be using superglue or tins of tomato soup. We invited the group on stage to speak candidly to the nucleus of the industry about their reasoning and motivations.
