On average, the world’s 50 richest billionaires emit more CO2 in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime.
This is stated by the development organization Oxfam in a new climate inequality report.
The report describes how the world’s richest people have large climate emissions through their consumption of private jets and luxury yachts.
The luxury consumption of the super-rich and its emissions are “a direct threat to the planet”, believes Lars Koch, secretary general of Oxfam Denmark.
– The super-rich have a very large responsibility for the climate disaster. It’s a small group of people, but they have some extremely large emissions. They have a consumption that is in no way sustainable, says Lars Koch.
According to the report, 50 of the world’s richest people have flown an average of 184 times in a single year and spent 425 hours in the air.
Air transport alone accounts for half of the world’s richest one percent of CO2 emissions from the airline industry, the report states.
The climate inequality report focuses on the world’s very richest, but the ordinary person is also part of the solution to reduce CO2 emissions, states the secretary-general.
– The average Dane also has a CO2 emission which is not sustainable. So there is a need for all of us to do something.
Lars Koch believes that you “can easily argue that if you are very rich, you are also very important”.
– But a first step must be that you have to pay for the pollution you create, he says.
In Denmark, an air tax will be introduced, which will be phased in from next year.
However, journeys by private aircraft are not covered by the upcoming model for flight taxes.
Enhedslisten proposed in November last year that a departure tax should be introduced on private flights departing from Danish airports.
Oxfam shares the same desire for taxes on private aircraft.
Seen from a Danish perspective, Danish-owned private aircraft emit almost 17 times more per passenger than ordinary scheduled aircraft, a calculation carried out for DR earlier in October showed.
The main reason for the difference in CO2 emissions is the number of empty seats on the flights.
According to DR’s calculation, 82 percent of the seats are occupied on average on a classic scheduled flight departing from a Danish airport.
Conversely, 25 percent of the seats are occupied when a Danish-owned private plane takes off from Denmark.
/ritzau/
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
