Instead of writing big cheques to fight climate change, billionaires should just pay taxes: environmentalist
Experts say that structural change, not donations from the
wealthy, is needed
Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.
Billionaires, celebrities and royalty were front and centre at this week's COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Jeff Bezos pledged to donate $2 billion. Leonardo DiCaprio met with world leaders. Prince William criticized billionaires who seemed more focused on flying to space than fixing the planet.
But some experts say the billions pledged by Bezos, the founder and former CEO of Amazon, are little more than a distraction from the real issues at hand.
"People hear $2 billion and they're like whoa, $2 billion," said Jessica Dempsey, an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of British Columbia.
She points to a study that found the largest banks funnelled $2.6 trillion into sectors known to degrade biodiversity in 2019. So, Bezos's donation is great. But it's a drop in the bucket.
"Two billion dollars, while it's huge, is actually very small," she said. "What we should be talking about is much more structural."
Dempsey says the climate crisis should not depend on the charity of billionaires. Governments need to set up proper taxation systems to make sure people like Bezos and companies like Amazon pay their fair share.
Amazon paid no federal income tax in 2018 even though it made more than $11 billion in profits. Bezos personally uses tax loopholes to pay himself through low interest loans against his Amazon stock. Debt isn't taxed, so Bezos lives largely tax free, even though he's one of the richest men in the history of the world.
World's wealthiest are top carbon emitters: report
Meanwhile, one new study found that by 2030, the carbon footprints of the richest one per cent are expected to reach 30 times the level compatible with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The author of that report says it's not just the space tourism that Bezos and other billionaires have been promoting that's leading to higher emissions.
- Have questions about COP26 or climate science, policy or politics? Email us: ask@cbc.ca. Your input helps inform our coverage.
"It's the private jets, it's the mega yachts, it's the multiple homes — all of this stuff comes with a massive carbon footprint," said Tim Gore of the Institute for European Environmental Policy.
"The idea that these are the people we need to listen to understand how to tackle the climate crisis is really bonkers," he told the CBC Radio program Day 6.
Gore says the voices we need to hear from now are not the billionaires and celebrities. He says we need to hear from the people living on the front lines of climate change.
He wishes conferences like COP26 spent more time fighting for and talking about issues such as inequality that allow for billionaires to flourish while the global poor suffer the harshest effects of climate change.
"If Bezos wants to put up a few billion, that's obviously welcome," Gore said. "I think it would be much better, though, to see fair systems of taxation through which that money is directed in an accountable way by governments."
'There's a problem in capitalism,' says business prof
It's not just environmental activists clamouring for change.
Andrew Hoffman, a professor at the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School for Environment and Sustainability, wrote an op-ed in the publication The Conversation late last year.
He says there's a fundamental business case for a more transparent, more fair system.
"Markets can't function properly when government doesn't work," he wrote about Bezos's announcement last year to pour more than $10 billion into climate-related projects. "[His] gift is emblematic of the broader issue of money and the ways it clouds our society's ability to address the fundamental challenges we face."
In an interview with Day 6, Hoffman said the looming climate catastrophe sits at an uncomfortable intersection of economics, environment and governance. To fix one, the others must be in working order.
"Right now there's a problem in capitalism and that is the government is extremely weak and fractioned and divisive and unable to do things," he said.
"The idea of a billionaire coming forward and saving the day, that may feed the ego of the billionaire — but I'm not so sure it's going to solve the problem."
And the problem is getting worse by the day. Hoffman says everyone on the planet is contributing to the crisis, and everyone must do their part to keep emissions low. That includes billionaires.
But more than anything else, it requires global, co-ordinated efforts and a clear way to make sure everyone can pay the bill.
Interview with Tim Gore produced by Annie Bender. With files from Jason Vermes.
World's richest 1 per cent will emit too much to limit global warming to 1.5 C: study
Jackie Dunham
Friday, November 5, 2021
TORONTO -- The carbon footprints of the world’s richest one per cent are expected to be 30 times higher than the level needed to limit global warming to the 1.5 C target set out in the Paris Agreement in 2030.
That’s according to a new study commissioned by Oxfam and based on research carried out by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Institute for European Environmental Policy.
The researchers sought to estimate how governments’ pledges will affect the carbon footprints of richer and poorer people around the world. To do this, they treated the global population and income groups as if they were a single country.
They found that the richest one per cent and the richest 10 per cent of the population are on track to emit 30 times and nine times, respectively, more carbon dioxide than the level compatible with the 1.5 C goal.
To put this statistic into perspective, someone in the richest one per cent of the population would need to reduce their emissions by approximately 97 per cent compared with today in order to meet the required level.
The poorest half of the global population, on the other hand, will still emit far below the 1.5 C-aligned level, according to the study.
“Over the past 25 years, the richest 10% of the global population has been responsible for more than half of all carbon emissions… Rank injustice and inequality on this scale is a cancer. If we don’t act now, this century may be our last,” Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, was quoted as saying in the study.
As for why the carbon footprints of the super-rich are so much higher than those of the rest of the world’s population, the researchers cited billionaires’ houses, vehicles, private aircraft, and yachts as the main culprits.
The study’s authors pointed to a recent study in which 82 databases of public records were analyzed and showed that billionaires’ carbon footprints easily run to thousands of tonnes per year, with superyachts being the biggest contributor, each one adding 7,000 tonnes per year.
The researchers said that earlier studies have shown that flights, especially on private jets, have also played a large role in increasing the carbon footprints of the rich and famous.
So has – more recently and “most egregiously,” according to the study – the introduction of “hyper-carbon-intensive luxury travel space tourism” in 2021. For example, a single 10-minute flight for around four passengers can burn hundreds of tonnes of carbon, the researchers said.
“Looking at total global emissions, instead of per capita emissions, the richest 1 per cent – fewer people than the population of Germany – are expected to account for 16 per cent of total global emissions by 2030, up from 13 per cent in 1990 and 15 per cent in 2015,” the researchers said.
With global leaders meeting to discuss climate change priorities at the COP26 conference in Glasgow this week, the study’s authors urged governments to commit to a timetable to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions to meet the 1.5 C goal on an equitable basis.
“It is time for governments to raise major taxes on or to outright ban highly carbon-intensive luxury consumption, from SUVs to mega yachts, private jets and space tourism, that represent a morally unjustified depletion of the world’s scarce remaining carbon budget,” the study’s authors wrote.
While the study painted a grim picture for the planet’s future climate targets, there was one glimmer of hope among the findings.
The Oxfam report found the middle 40 per cent of the world’s population are on course for per capita emissions cuts of nine per cent from 2015 to 2030, a sign that the 2015 Paris Agreement is having some impact.
“This is a turnaround for a group, which is mostly made up of citizens in middle-income countries like China and South Africa, that saw the fastest per capita emissions growth rates from 1990 to 2015,” the researchers said.
Fossil fuels made our families rich. Now we want this industry to end
Aileen Getty and Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert
Congress must help usher in a new energy age - a clean energy age with the same level of support that fossil fuels companies have received for over a century
Sat 6 Nov 2021
Over a century ago, our families were central in unlocking fossil fuels. Government embraced this technological advancement and invested in the infrastructure and production needed for its growth. Our personal histories compel us to publicly acknowledge what we have known for many years: the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is killing life on our planet.
Fossil fuels killed 8.7 million people globally in 2018 – disproportionately impacting Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities. Human lives aren’t the only ones being lost. More than 1 billion sea creatures along the Canadian coast were cooked to death during this summer’s record-breaking heatwave in the Pacific Northwest.
Fossil fuels are a technology of the past – leftovers of a bygone era when we believed we could force our will on nature and disregard the connectivity of all living beings.
The latest report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed that some climate impacts are already irreversible and that only through immediate, internationally coordinated action can we hope to avoid the most severe consequences. UN Secretary General António Guterres called the report “a code red for humanity.” The terrifying reality is that inaction, or even half-measures, will cost countless lives. Yet Congress is still not reacting to the climate emergency with the urgency that a humanity-threatening crisis demands.
There is nothing left to debate. The science is clear on what needs to happen and many organizations have already created a blueprint to follow.
To start, Congress must help usher in a new energy age – a clean energy age with the same level of support that fossil fuels companies have received for over a century. A rapid managed transition off fossil fuels – including an end to new refineries, infrastructure, and pipelines like Line 3 that lock in more dangerous pollution and warming emissions – can prevent the worst of the climate crisis while securing a future where our communities and the planet thrive. Including safeguards to ensure good jobs for workers in transition and responsible land management will help revive our economy while tackling environmental injustice, and systemic racism.
In addition, in the coming weeks, Congress must use the budget reconciliation bill to end all federal support for the fossil fuel industry. Every year, $15bn of our taxpayer money goes directly to fossil fuel companies in the form of subsidies. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the corporate welfare received by the industry most responsible for the climate crisis.
These handouts don’t mean jobs. Research from the Stockholm Environment Institute revealed that over 96% of the subsidies in the tax code go directly to profits. This point was hammered home last year when large fossil fuel companies received $8.2bn from the CARES Act pandemic relief bill and still laid off 16% of their workforce. Tax dollars need to support people, not polluters.
In addition to policy shifts, we must also find our way back to a deeper connection to the Earth, its well-being and our place in it. The global response to climate change must acknowledge our interconnection with nature and re-awaken our love for and connection with each other and the natural world. And we must realize that this interconnectedness is, itself, a natural resource that should not be discounted.
The two of us are intensely aware that our families’ history with oil has granted us tremendous privilege. With that privilege comes the opportunity to contribute to a world where all have the chance to thrive. We are joining so many others who are urging our elected leaders to listen to the science and understand the fundamental truth that we can’t build back better unless we build back fossil-free. We can harness the great American ingenuity and resourcefulness to steer us and the world toward a safer and more just future.
Aileen Getty is the founder of the Aileen Getty Foundation and the co-founder of the Climate Emergency Fund
Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert is the co-founder of the Equation Campaign and serves on the boards of the Rockefeller Family Fund and the David Rockefeller Fund
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