• will_a113
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    6 hours ago

    Oxfam’s research shows that the richest 1% —comprising 77 million individuals, including billionaires, millionaires, and those earning over $140,000 per year in PPP terms— were responsible for 15.9% of global CO2 emissions in 2019. The bottom 50% (3.9 billion people with an average annual income of $2,000 in PPP terms) accounted for 7.7%

    Billionaires and the other 0.01% (not 1%) account for a ludicrously outsized amount of Carbon spend. However the Oxfam research really calls out how outsized even a much Carbon even a much more modest American lifestyle is. $140k/year is a lot even in the US, but still well within what many would call “normal”, especially in pricier areas. We spend a lot of time attacking billionaires for their lifestyles (and don’t get me wrong – fuck them all), but the problem is a lot larger than that.

    • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      My counter is they are the ones preventing any major changes at the political level. Climate change doesn’t impact the wealthy and powerful.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        21 minutes ago

        Don’t discount the impact of middle- to upper-class NIMBYs preventing political changes locally. Billionaires aren’t necessarily the ones demanding that we continue to massively subsidize single-family housing (by using the zoning code to artificially inflate its supply at the expense of multifamily) and exacerbate car-dependency.

    • MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
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      6 hours ago

      It also shows how incredible the impact of the wealth gap on climate issues is even in rich countries like the US. The 1% having per capita emissions of 76t, whereas US average is at 17.6t. It is even starker in Europe with a lot of rich people, but lower per capita emissions.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    It would seem we have a pathway to save the planet, if this is the extant of their transgressions already.

    • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyz
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      2 hours ago

      Reminds me that Ben Elton’s “This other Eden” imagined (decades ago) an innovative capitalist solution to lock away the 1% in their bubbles …