Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in under three hours than the average Brit does in a lifetime

In Carbon Inequality Kills – a first-of-its-kind study of both the luxury transport and polluting investments of billionaires – Oxfam tracks the emissions of the super-rich and details how they are causing economic losses of trillions of dollars; contributing to huge crop losses; and millions of excess deaths.

The report comes ahead of the Government’s first Budget this week where Oxfam is calling on the Chancellor to increase taxes on climate-polluting extreme wealth – starting with private jets and superyachts – to raise the much-needed funds to tackle the climate crisis in a way that targets those most responsible and those who can most afford to pay.

While the outsized emissions of the ultra-wealthy are accelerating climate breakdown and wreaking havoc on lives and economies around the world, it is low-income countries and communities – that have done the least to cause the climate crisis – that are experiencing its most dangerous consequences.

If the current level of emissions continue, 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 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.

Chiara Liguori, Oxfam’s Senior Climate Justice Policy Advisor said: “Most of the super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playground, setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit. This report shows that fairer taxes on extreme wealth are crucial to accelerate climate action and fight inequality – starting with private jets and superyachts. It’s clear these luxury toys aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet.

“The evidence is clear: the extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fuelling inequality, hunger and threatening lives. It’s not just unfair that their reckless pollution is fuelling the very crisis threatening our collective future —it’s lethal."

Oxfam’s research found that, on average, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took 184 private jet 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 luxury yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years.

Findings showed 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, while billionaire Carlos Slim took 92 trips in his private jet, equivalent to circling the globe five times.

Billionaires’ lifestyle emissions eclipse those of ordinary people, but the emissions from their investments are dramatically higher still. Nearly 40 per cent of billionaire investments analysed in Oxfam’s research are in highly polluting industries: oil, mining, shipping and cement.

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.

The report details three critical areas, providing national and regional breakdowns, where the emissions of the world’s richest 1% are already having — and are projected to have — devastating consequences:

• Global inequality: The emissions of the richest 1% 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 per cent of their cumulative GDP between 1990 and 2050. Southern Asia, South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will lose 3 per cent, 2.4 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively. High-income countries, on the other hand, will accrue economic gains.
• Hunger: The emissions of the richest 1% 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 (nine million a year by 2050).
• Death: Just four years (2015–2019) of the consumption emissions of the world’s super-rich 1% are enough to cause 1.5 million excess deaths between 2020 and 2120. 78 per cent of excess deaths due to heat through 2120 will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

At the UN Climate Summit COP29 next month, the issue of climate finance will take centre stage as countries are set to negotiate a new global climate finance goal, the New Collective Quantified Goal. Oxfam is warning that the cost of global warming will continue to rise unless the richest drastically reduce their emissions.

Liguori said: “Given the accelerating pace of climate change, there should be no excuse. Rich countries must agree to a new goal that properly addresses the climate financing needs of low-income countries. The money is there - if governments are willing to make ultra rich high-polluting individuals and corporations pay, they can start raising the scale of financing truly needed.

“Oxfam recently calculated that fair taxes on private jets and superyachts in the UK could have raised up to £2 billion last year to help generate vital funds for climate action. The Government can and must act now to curb the emissions of the super-rich, and make rich polluters pay.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

Oxfam’s report Carbon Inequality Kills can be found here.

The Oxfam report found that the average billionaire emissions from investments, yachts, and private jets in a year amount to 2,645,389.55 tonnes CO₂e, or 301.99 tonnes CO₂e per hour (calculated by dividing by 8,760 hours in a year).

The average British emissions in a year are 7.62 tonnes of CO₂ according to the Emissions Inequality Dashboard of the Stockholm Environment Institute. When adjusted to CO₂e using a conversion factor of 1.375, this equals 10.47 tonnes CO₂e. Multiplied by 80.1 years (the life expectancy in the UK for 2021, according to the World Health Organization), this gives us the average lifetime emissions of a British person, which is 838.84 tonnes CO₂e.

By dividing the average lifetime emissions of a British person (838.84 tonnes CO₂e) by the billionaire’s average emissions per hour (301.99 tonnes CO₂e), we find that it takes a billionaire just 2.78 hours to emit as much as the average British person does in a lifetime.

Oxfam’s research shows that the richest 1 per cent, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those earning $310,000 ($140,000 PPP) or more a year, accounted for 16 per cent of all CO2 emissions in 2019.

Daniel Horen Greenford (Concordia University, Universitat de Barcelona) carried out the calculations on economic damages, Corey Lesk (Dartmouth College) conceived and carried out calculations on agricultural losses, and Daniel Bressler (Columbia University) provided country-level estimates of the mortality cost of carbon.

On average, a billionaire’s investments in polluting industries such as fossil fuels and cement are double the average for the Standard & Poor 500 group of corporations.

Oxfam’s analysis estimates the changes in economic output (GDP), changes in yields of major crops (it considers maize, wheat, and soy, which are among the most common crops globally) and excess deaths due to changes in temperatures that can be attributed to the emissions of the richest people. Economic damages are expressed in International Dollars ($), which adjusts for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, if invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures by 2030, billionaires’ wealth could cover the entire funding gap between what governments have pledged and what is needed to keep global warming below 1.5⁰C.

Rich countries continue to resist calls for climate reparations. Climate justice activists are demanding the Global North provide at least $5 trillion a year in public finance to the Global South "as a down payment towards their climate debt" to the countries, people and communities of the Global South who are the least responsible for climate breakdown but are the most affected.

Oxfam recently calculated that fair taxes on private jets and superyachts in the UK could have raised up to £2 billion last year to help generate vital funds for communities suffering the worst impacts of climate change.