Greenpeace calculates that wealthiest contribute nearly $1tn of damage a year with ownership-based emissions

Ultra-wealthy people zooming across the world on their private jets, lounging on yachts and conspicuous by their Instagrammable consumption are among the most easily identified individual culprits when it comes to the climate crisis – but new research argues that it is not just their heady lifestyles to blame, but also their bank accounts.

Through their ownership of companies and private financial and physical assets, from oil producers to property developments, the super-rich are responsible for an outsized slice of the greenhouse gases that are overheating the planet. The top 1% of people by wealth, through their shareholdings and investments, control about a quarter of global annual emissions in total.

Greenpeace has calculated the “climate debt” of these high net worth individuals, by attributing to them their share of the damage done to the climate by the assets they own. By this reckoning, the world’s richest cause nearly $1tn a year of damage to the climate.

  • frunch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    11 hours ago

    I live near a couple fairly affluent areas and it’s insane how little time those places are actually occupied by residents/renters/anyone-that’s- not-a-contractor. Massive, sprawling properties that could comfortably accommodate like 3-4 families (or uncomfortably, perhaps 9-10?!)… I drive by these houses year-round and have never even noticed any cars or lights on or any signs of life coming from anywhere on/around the property. I guarantee some of these mansions are gobbling up resources for heating/cooling/etc without a soul inside to benefit from any of it–if anything it’s more to preserving the condition of the house and the contents within. The amount of resources these monstrosities take to build and maintain is ridiculous. I realize that it does fuck-all in the grand scheme, but i feel like it’s an example of the kind of thoughtless waste these people leave in their wake.

    • Ellvix@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Yep, had a friend who worked housekeeping or something on those empty mansions. He said that in general for that area people tended to use the house for like a week or two in the year and the rest of the time it was totally empty. They apparently had like 10-20 houses like that and just didn’t use them.

    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      7·
      10 hours ago

      This is all creating needless pollution. It’s not clear if this type of waste is included in the article’s percentage.

      It adds up faster than one might expect. This is closer to commercial real estate than home. They probably spent 10 families worth of utilities on those properties. And don’t discount all it’s furnishings all the contributing pollution.

      It’s been clear for a while that none of the material wealth of the 1% supports humanity more than it destroys it elsewhere.

      We allow ourselves to be harmed by them.

      The right blames gays as cover for the true cause of nature’s wrath, billionaires. And if we don’t sacrifice them soon, nature’s wrath will get the blood it’s due through us.