Exposing the carbon impact of the megarich

They fly to Glasgow on their private jets to lecture the world about climate change – but a new study has shown just how big the carbon footprints of the megarich really are.

PRIVILEGED globe-trotting CEOs, royal families and Hollywood movie stars will account for 16 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030, new research has found.

The study commissioned by Oxfam found the personal carbon footprint of the megarich was 30 times greater than a level required to keep global temperature rises to 1.5°C, as stipulated in the Paris Agreement.

The environmental impact of the so-called “one-percenters” has been highlighted this week as the likes of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos flew their Gulfstreams to Glasgow to take part in the COP26 conference. An estimated 400 private jets touched down in Scotland for the event, a move described by MP Monca Lennon as “rank climate hypocrisy”.

And with private jets and space flights becoming the new normal for the megarich, the study showed their contribution to total greenhouse gas emissions has been growing over time - from 13 per cent of the global total in 1990 to 15 per cent today.

COP26 attendees' jets parked at Edinburgh Airport on November 1. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

“The emissions from a single billionaire space flight would exceed the lifetime emissions of someone in the poorest billion people on Earth,” Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Lyn Morgain said.

“A tiny elite appear to have a free pass to pollute. Their over-sized emissions are fuelling extreme weather around the world and jeopardising the international goal of limiting global heating.”

Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio took a commercial flight to Glasgow rather than a private jet, and was hailed for his green credentials for doing so, but Ms Morgain said the reality was the megarich weren’t often called out for their behaviour.

“They are rarely subjected to social pressures like flight shaming,” she said. “Their lives are separated from ours so starkly.”

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (c) speaks with Leonardo DiCaprio and Stella McCartney at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum during the Cop26 summit. Picture: Owen Humphreys-WPA Pool/Getty Images

Study author Tim Gore from the Institute for European Environmental Policy said governments should “constrain luxury carbon consumption like mega yachts, private jets and space travel, and … curb climate-intensive investments like stock-holdings in fossil fuel industries.”

“The global emissions gap to keep the 1.5°C Paris goal alive is not the result of the consumption of most of the world’s people: it reflects instead the excessive emissions of just the richest citizens on the planet,” he said.

The authors of the study said in order to keep temperature rises to 1.5°C, by 2030 every person on Earth would need to emit an average of just 2.3 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Lyn Morgain, chief executive of Oxfam Australia.

This figure is roughly half the average footprint of every person on Earth today, the report stated.

Ms Morgain said there had been a “very welcome focus on climate finance” at COP26.

While Australia announced it would boost its climate finance commitment to developing nations to $2 billion over the next five years, up from $1.5 billion, Ms Morgain said the increase was “not sufficient – not even close”.

“We need to step up,” she said. “While $2 billion may sound pretty generous, we have to see some greatly increased contributions, and it’s got to be new money – we don’t want the existing development budget raided in order to do it.”