Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer, said:
“As the COP28 climate conference gets under way this week, governments can no longer ignore the very large elephant in the room – that it is a super-rich elite who are super-heating the planet.
“Private jets are the favoured form of transport by this super-rich elite and are the ultimate symbol of the ‘climate inequality’ that is not only leading to the breakdown of our climate but is also deeply unfair. A short trip on a private jet will produce more carbon than the average person emits all year.
“The Green Party wants the UK government to challenge the grotesque inequality driving climate breakdown. By pledging to impose a ban on all private jets taking off or landing at UK airports, the government would send a clear message to global leaders at COP28 that the super-rich cannot be allowed to continue with their lavish and destructive lifestyles at the expense of the rest of the global population.
“While the richest can use their vast wealth to cocoon themselves, the poorest have nowhere to hide from the impacts of climate chaos. COP28 needs to ensure those with the greatest responsibility for the climate crisis end their destructive ways. And we must redistribute the price paid by the heaviest polluters towards helping those on the front line of climate breakdown and to hasten the transition to a fairer, greener world.”
An Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft developed by Joby Aviation Inc. is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during the company’s initial public offering on August 11, 2021, in New York. (Photo: Liao Pan/China News Service via Getty Images)
The Future Can Do Better Than Air Taxis for the Super Rich
Just imagine if all the investments and expertise going into turning our skies into air-taxi lanes for the richest among us were instead going into air-speed services that actually meet real public needs.
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane, it’s… Wall Street’s electric air-taxi future!
Earlier this month, a flying machine from the California-based Joby Aviation became the first “electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft—“eVTOL”—to go airborne from the Downtown Heliport that services Lower Manhattan’s financial district.
Joby is now expecting, by sometime in 2025, to be regularly ferrying high finance’s finest from Wall Street to JFK Airport in a mere seven minutes. Mere mortals taking autos and subways routinely spend well over an hour making the same trip.
We must not let ourselves treat climate and inequality as “separate issues,” environmental activist Greta Thunberg adds in her foreword to Oxfam’s latest appraisal of our world’s environmental and economic crises.
Joby’s new one-pilot, four-passenger eVTOL figures to be only the first of many corporate efforts to speed New York’s deepest pockets on their electric way to destinations both lucrative and exotic. A host of corporations—from China’s eHang to Germany’s Volocopter—already have big plans underway for zipping the world’s richest up and over congested city streets.
But just imagine if all the investments and expertise going into turning our skies into air-taxi lanes for the richest among us were instead going into air-speed services that actually meet real public needs. Imagine air taxis, for instance, ferrying critically injured rural residents to distant emergency care.
Those sorts of efforts will have to wait. The vast wealth of our wealthiest is instead bending innovation and expertise to servicing the already rich. And that bending, new research out of Oxfam details, is keeping our planet’s richest entertained at a vast environmental cost.
The world’s wealthiest 1%, Oxfam’s latest research reveals, are now generating more carbon emissions than all the world’s poorest 66% combined. The carbon emissions from this 1% will—between 2020 and 2030—“cause 1.3 million heat-related deaths” worldwide.
The world’s bottom 99%, Oxfam adds, would have to consume away for 1,500 years to match the carbon output that billionaires now produce in a single year.
But, even so, the political impact of the super rich actually outpaces the impact of their personal energy consumption. Only our richest “have the wealth, power, and influence to protect themselves.” And that same “wealth, power, and influence,” the new Oxfam study lays out, is keeping governments worldwide doing no more than “incentivizing incremental change” in energy policy instead of phasing out fossil fuels and investing massively in renewable energy.
We must not let ourselves treat climate and inequality as “separate issues,” environmental activist Greta Thunberg adds in her foreword to Oxfam’s latest appraisal of our world’s environmental and economic crises.
“Either we safeguard living conditions for all future generations,” she relates, “or we let a few very rich people maintain their destructive lifestyles and preserve an economic system geared towards short-term economic growth and shareholder profit.”
The “twin crises of climate and inequality,” Oxfam’s Climate Equality: A planet for the 99% report goes on to spell out, are “driving one another”—and only “a radical new approach” stands any chance of “overcoming the catastrophe unfolding before us.”
That “radical new approach” must take on “the disproportionate role that the richest individuals play in the climate crisis through their emissions, investments, and capture of politics.”
How can we best realize this badly needed “new approach”? We would need, argues Oxfam, to start aggressively taxing our super rich and the corporations that fuel their fortunes “to help pay for the transition to renewable energy.”
Just one example: Some 45 major oil and gas corporations averaged annual windfall profits of $237 billion in 2021 and 2022, dollars that overwhelmingly funneled straight into rich shareholder pockets. Governments worldwide, Oxfam notes, could have increased global investments in renewable energy by 31% had they taxed this windfall profit at 90%.
The new Oxfam study surveys a wide range of other options the world’s nations could pursue to subject the rich to serious taxation. Govrnments could, for instance, levy “steep and progressive” tax increases on the incomes of the ultra rich—as well as on their property, land, and inheritances. They could raise taxes on corporate profits, fossil fuels, and financial transactions—or levy entirely new taxes on “high-emitting luxury travel.”
The world, in other words, could have plenty of money for social and climate spending “if rich-country governments were willing to implement bold and progressive tax reforms.”
“We cannot allow the richest countries to claim that they cannot afford to raise the trillions needed,” Oxfam ends up concluding. “Mobilizing this money simply takes political will.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk boards his private jet before departing from Beijing Capital International Airport on May 31, 2023.
Who are the polluter elite and why do they matter?
The richest 1% of people are responsible for as much carbon output as the poorest 66%, research from Oxfam shows. Luxury lifestyles including frequent flying, driving large cars, owning many houses, and a rich diet, are among the reasons for the huge imbalance.
Jason Hickel, an economist, argues: “We have to think about the rich in terms of how much they are depleting the remaining carbon budget. Right now, millionaires alone are on track to burn 72% of the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C. The purchasing power of the very rich needs to be curtailed. We are devoting huge amounts of energy to facilitate the excess consumption of the ruling class – in the midst of a climate emergency, that is totally irrational.”
The problem goes far beyond the greenhouse gas emissions arising from these lifestyles, substantial though they are. The polluting elite have an outsized influence on the climate in many ways. Hickel notes: “While personal consumption-related emissions are important, what matters most is control over investible assets. When we account for investments in polluting industries, we find that each billionaire is responsible for a million times more emissions than the average person in the bottom 90%. Who is making the decisions about investment and production in the world economy? About energy systems? When it comes to the question of responsibility, that’s what we need to be focusing on.”
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It is simply impossible to have a polluting elite and a livable climate, argues Farhana Sultana, professor at Syracuse University and fellow at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh. Along with many developing country economists, she regards the high emissions of rich people in industrialised countries in terms of colonialism. “Carbon inequality is effectively a colonisation of the atmosphere by the capitalist elite of the planet through hyper-consumption and pollution, while the cost of that climate coloniality is borne disproportionately by the marginalised and vulnerable communities in developing countries.”
The culture of rich people, and rich countries, built on use and discard cannot continue in a world of finite resources and planetary boundaries. “What the 1% do is overuse the earth’s resources through extraction, hyperconsumption, a discard culture that produces enormous amounts of waste and pollution – all these processes together create significant strains to planetary systems,” she says.
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One of the many occasions climate change denier and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a private jet.
Greenpeace Netherlands and Extinction Rebellion activists block a private jet at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on Saturday, November 5, 2022. (Photo: (c) Marten van Dijl/Greenpeace)
The planes tracked by a new Guardian report belong to celebrities, billionaires, CEOs, and their families, among them the Murdoch family, Taylor Swift, and the Rolling Stones.
The private jets of just 200 rich and famous individuals or groups released around 415,518 metric tons of climate-heating carbon dioxide between January 2022 and September 22, 2023, The Guardian revealed Tuesday.
That’s equal to the emissions burned by nearly 40,000 British residents in all aspects of their lives, the newspaper calculated.
The planes tracked by the outlet belong to celebrities, billionaires, CEOs, and their families, among them the Murdoch family, Taylor Swift, and the Rolling Stones. All told, the high-flyers made a total of 44,739 trips during the study period for a combined 11 years in the air.
“Pollution for wasteful luxury has to be the first to go, we need a ban on private jets.”
Notable emitters included the Blavatnik family, the Murdoch family, and Eric Schmidt, whose flights during the 21-month study period released more than 7,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The Sawiris family emitted around 7,500 metric tons, and Lorenzo Fertitta more than 5,000.
The Rolling Stones’ Boeing 767 wide-body aircraft released around 5,046 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is equal to 1,763 economy flights from London to New York. The 39 jets owned by 30 Russian oligarchs released 30,701 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Taylor Swift was the only celebrity or billionaire in the report whose team responded to a request for comment.
“Before the tour kicked off in March of 2023, Taylor bought more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel,” a spokesperson for the pop star told The Guardian.
Swift appears to have responded to public pressure to reduce private jet use. Her plane averaged 19 flights a month between January and August 2022, when she received criticism after sustainability firm Yard named her the celebrity who used her plane the most. After that point, the plane’s average monthly flights dropped to two.
The Guardian’s investigation was based on private aircraft registrations compiled by TheAirTraffic Database and flight records from OpenSky. Reporters calculated flight emissions based on model information found in the ADSBExchange Aircraft database and Planespotters.net and emissions per hour per model found in the Conklin & De Decker’s CO2 calculator and the Eurocontrol emission calculator.
The report was released the day after an Oxfam study found that the world’s richest 1% emitted the same amount as its poorest two-thirds. Given their high carbon footprint and luxury status, private jets have emerged as a rallying point for the climate justice movement.
“It’s hugely unfair that rich people can wreck the climate this way, in just one flight polluting more than driving a car 23,000 kilometers,” Greenpeace E.U. transport campaigner Thomas Gelin said in March. “Pollution for wasteful luxury has to be the first to go, we need a ban on private jets.”
In the U.S., a group of climate campaigners is mobilizing to stop the expansion of Massachusetts’ Hanscom Field, the largest private jet field in New England. An October report found that flights from that field between January 1, 2022, and July 15, 2023, released a total of 106,676 tons of carbon emissions.
“While plenty of business is no doubt discussed over golf at Aberdeen, Scotland, or at bird hunting reserves in Argentina (destinations we also documented), this is probably the least defensible form of luxury travel on a warming planet when a Zoom call would often do,” Chuck Collins, who co-authored the Hanscom report, wrote for Fortune on November 14.
Climate activists of Extinction Rebellion hold a protest action against private jets at the ExecuJet Aviation Group in Zaventem, near Brussels Airport, on February 13, 2023. (Photo: Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images)
“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.”
The richest 1% of the global population produced 16% of the world’s carbon dioxide in 2019, generating as much planet-warming pollution as the poorest two-thirds of humanity, according to a report released Monday by Oxfam International.
Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99% describes the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency and runaway inequality as “twin crises” that are leaving those least responsible for planetary breakdown to bear the worst consequences, from catastrophic extreme weather to food and water shortages.
“If no action is taken, the richest will continue to burn through the carbon we have left to use while keeping the global temperature below the safe limit of 1.5°C, destroying any chance of ending poverty and ensuring equality,” the report warns. “The world needs an equal transformation. Only a radical reduction in inequality, transformative climate action and fundamentally shifting our economic goals as a society can save our planet while ensuring wellbeing for all.”
Using the latest available emissions data from the Stockholm Environment Institute, Oxfam calculated that it would take roughly 1,500 years for a person in the bottom 99% to produce as much CO2 pollution as the world’s top billionaires create in a year. The annual emissions of the global super-rich cancel out the emissions-reduction impact of nearly a million onshore wind turbines, according to the report.
The report also estimates that the emissions of the top 1% in 2019 will cause 1.3 million heat-related excess deaths in the coming decades, with most of the deaths occurring in the current decade.
Oxfam noted that transportation is far and away the largest source of pollution from the ultra-rich, whose private jets, yachts, and fleets of gas-guzzling cars are highly carbon-intensive. Experts at Indiana University estimated in 2021 that a “superyacht” emits more than 7,000 tons of CO2 per year.
Climate activists have also increasingly targeted private jet travel as a key source of luxury emissions. Oxfam observed in its new report that “a short trip on a private jet will produce more carbon than the average person emits all year.”
The report comes in the wake of news from the World Meteorological Organization that global greenhouse gas concentrations reached an all-time high once again last year, underscoring the need for dramatic action to curb fossil fuel use and transition to renewable energy.
Chiara Liguori, Oxfam’s senior climate justice policy adviser, said in a statement that “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.”
“The huge scale of climate inequality revealed in the report highlights how the two crises are inextricably linked—fueling one another—and the urgent need to ensure the rising costs of climate change fall on those most responsible and able to pay,” said Liguori.
“Governments globally, including the U.K., need to tackle the twin crises of inequality and climate change by targeting the excessive emissions of the super-rich by taxing them more,” Liguori added. “This would raise much-needed revenue that could be directed to a range of vital social spending needs, including a fair switch to clean, renewable energy as well as fulfilling our international commitments to support communities who are already bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”
Oxfam’s report calls on governments to pursue a “radical increase in equality” by imposing wealth taxes on the richest 1% as well as steep inheritance, land, and property taxes. The report also recommends taxing or banning private jet travel, space tourism, and other polluting luxury activities and imposing “permanent, automatic” windfall profit levies on major corporations that often take advantage of crises such as wars and pandemics.
Additionally, Oxfam urged governments to invest heavily in establishing universal programs—from healthcare to education to childcare—and transitioning away from fossil fuels. The group said that rich countries must honor their commitments to provide climate financing to poor nations facing the brunt of the climate crisis and support debt cancellation and other relief measures.
“Unless we rapidly reduce carbon emissions,” the report states, “we will exhaust the amount of carbon we can emit without triggering climate breakdown within just five years.”
