Tax the Super Rich. Carbon Inequality Costs 1.3 Million Lives.

The following is paid content from Oxfam Canada.

Just one year of climate pollution from the world’s super-rich 1 percent will kill nearly 1.3 million people this century from excess heat alone, concludes a new report released this week by Oxfam.

Climate Equality: A planet for the 99 percent shows that the richest 1 percent produced the same greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 as the world’s 5 billion poorest people, or 66 percent of the global population.

This year’s United Nations climate change conference, COP28, is running from November 30 to December 15. Write to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today and tell him to tax the richest and biggest polluters, and use that money to support the communities most impacted by the climate emergency. A better world is possible, but only if polluters pay.

Twin Crises Overwhelm Communities

The twin crises of climate breakdown and runaway inequality are overwhelming communities the world over. Super rich polluters are getting richer through their investments in polluting industries, but are insulated from the worst climate impacts.

Meanwhile, ordinary Canadians are experiencing the results. From wildfires and flash floods in the Atlantic, to fires and smoke alerts in Ontario and Quebec, to drought across the Prairies, to devastating wildfires in British Columbia and the North, 2023 has been yet another year when the terrifying reality of climate change came home to our daily lives.

People living in poverty, those experiencing marginalization, and countries across the Global South are hurt first and worst, just as they’ve always been. Even more so for women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, people living in poverty, and other groups experiencing discrimination.

There is a stark gap between the carbon footprints of the super-rich — whose carbon-intensive lifestyles and investments in polluting industries like fossil fuels are driving global heating — and the majority of people around the world who pay the ultimate price.

Oxfam based its calculations on the “mortality cost of carbon,” one of several measures that governments and climate advocates use to put a number to the social cost of carbon. This includes impact figures for lost food production, damage due to sea level rise, human health hazards, and lost hours of work. The estimate of 1.3 million deaths is the impact just from heatwaves.

Devastating Impacts Caused by the Super Rich

In Canada, the richest 10 percent produced twice as much climate pollution as the poorest 50 percent. And, the richest 1 percent were responsible for a mind-boggling 150 tonnes per person, compared to just 5.2 tonnes for the poorest 50 percent. Those Canadian emissions will cause more than 13,000 deaths globally, just over 1 percent of the global total, through 2100.

Using the latest available data from 2019, the report shows that:

• The super-rich are using up far more than their share of the remaining carbon budget—the amount of carbon we can still emit and have a reasonable chance of holding off the worst effects of climate change. Since the 1990s, the top 1 percent have used up twice as much of the available carbon budget as the poorest half of humanity combined.
• Global emissions from the 1 percent richest are almost enough to cancel out the carbon savings from a million wind turbines.
• By 2030, the emissions of the super-rich will be 22 times higher than the safe limit that would keep global warming below the 1.5°C target in the Paris climate agreement.

Holding the Rich Accountable

We can’t let the rich continue burning through the rest of our carbon budget. But we’ll only hold the richest people, countries, and corporations accountable by radically reducing inequality, through transformative climate action and a fundamental shift in our economic goals as a society.

Oxfam calculates that a 60 percent income tax on the global richest 1 percent would cut global emissions by 700 million tonnes, more than Canada’s total climate pollution in 2021. It would raise $6.4 trillion per year to fund the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy and energy efficiency, while delivering long-delayed climate financing to countries in the Global South.

Write to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today and tell him to tax the richest and biggest polluters, and use that money to support the communities most impacted by the climate emergency.

“We must make the connection explicitly,” Oxfam’s Behar writes. “Not taxing wealth allows the richest to rob from us, ruin our planet, and renege on democracy. Taxing extreme wealth transforms our chances to tackle both inequality and the climate crisis. These are trillions of dollars at stake to invest in dynamic, 21st century, green governments, but also to re-inject into our democracies.”

To learn more about Oxfam Canada’s work on climate justice visit: oxfam.ca/climate