Super Yachts and Jets of Europe’s Elite Emit More Carbon Pollution in a Week than the World’s Poorest 1% Emits in a Lifetime

The carbon footprint of a super-rich European, accumulated from nearly a week of using super yachts and private jets, matches the lifetime carbon footprint of someone in the world’s poorest 1 percent, a new Oxfam report on 28 October 2024 reveals.

The first-of-its-kind study, “Carbon Inequality Kills”, tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts and polluting investments and comes ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, amidst growing fears that climate breakdown is accelerating, driven largely by the emissions of the richest people. 

“The super-rich in Europe are treating our planet like their personal playground. Their dirty investments, their private jets and yachts are not just symbols of excess; they are fuelling inequality, hunger and even death”, said Chiara Putaturo, Oxfam EU tax expert.

The report presents detailed new evidence of how the super-rich’s outsized emissions are accelerating climate breakdown and wreaking havoc on lives and economies.

The world’s poorest countries and communities have done the least to cause the climate crisis, yet they experience its most dangerous consequences.

Oxfam’s analysis found that:

• One ultra-rich European takes an average of 140 flights a year, spending 267 hours in the air and producing as much carbon as the average European would in over 112 years. 
• In the same period, an ultra-rich European on their yachts emits, on average, as much carbon as an ordinary European would in 585 years. 

If the world continues its current emissions, 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’s emissions matched those of the richest 1 percent, the carbon budget would be used up in under five months.

And 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.

Billionaires’ lifestyle emissions dwarf those of ordinary people, but the emissions from their investments are dramatically higher still — 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 and are driving us over the edge of climate disaster. 

Nearly 40 percent of billionaire investments analysed in Oxfam’s research are in highly polluting industries: oil, mining, shipping and cement.

The total investment emissions of 36 of the EU’s richest billionaires are equivalent to the annual emissions of over 4.5 million Europeans. 

Oxfam’s analysis details three critical areas, providing national and regional breakdowns, where the emissions of the wealthiest 1 percent since 1990 are already having — and are projected to have — devastating consequences:

• Global inequality. The emissions of the richest 1 percent in the EU have caused global economic output to drop by 179 billion international US dollars since 1990. The biggest impact will be in countries least responsible for climate breakdown. Globally, low- and lower-middle-income countries will lose about 2.5 percent of their cumulative GDP between 1990 and 2050 due to the climate crisis. South Asia, South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will lose 3 percent, 2.4 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively. High-income countries, on the other hand, will accrue economic gains.
• Hunger. The emissions of the richest 1 percent in the EU have caused crop losses due the climate crisis. These crop losses could have provided enough calories to feed nearly 900,000 people a year between 1990 and 2023. This will rise to 1.7 million people annually between 2023 and 2050. 
• Death. The emissions of the richest 1 percent in the EU are causing excess heat-related deaths of nearly 80,000 people between 2020 and 2120.

“The super-rich must foot the bill for their carbon footprint, not ordinary Europeans. This means more taxes on the super-rich, like wealth taxes, and higher taxes on superyachts and private jets”, said Putaturo.