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Oxfam says richest 0.1% emit more carbon than poorest 3.5 billion
Oxfam said Tuesday the world's richest 0.1 percent, about 8 million people, produce more carbon pollution than the poorest 3.5 billion, in a report issued ahead of COP31.
- Oxfam is now reporting this
- New headline Was: “Richest 0.1% (8M) produce more carbon pollution than 3.5B”
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- oxfam.org is now reporting this
Oxfam said Tuesday that the world's richest 0.1 percent, about 8 million people, produce more carbon pollution than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined, in analysis released ahead of the U.N. climate summit, COP31, in Türkiye1.
The aid group said a person in that richest slice has contributed nearly 400 times more to today's extreme heatwaves than someone in the poorest half of humanity, and that the group together produces more than three times the carbon pollution of Sub-Saharan Africa's 1.3 billion people1.
Combining carbon-inequality data with climate attribution models, Oxfam said the richest 1 percent are responsible for 20 percent of global warming since 1990 — 100 times more, per person, than someone in the poorest half1.
It estimated that one year of emissions by the richest 1 percent would cause 1.9 million excess heat-related deaths, 78 percent of them in low- and lower-middle-income countries that it said account for 8 percent of global emissions, and nearly $53 trillion in damage by 20501.
On private aviation, Oxfam said combined private-jet emissions in two seconds exceed what someone in the poorest half of humanity emits in a year1.
Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar said, "The ultra-rich are setting the planet on fire and then charging the rest of us for the extinguishers"1.
The group said climate disasters have become a growing market, with global disaster recovery projected to rise from $70 billion to $92 billion a year by 2029, and that as many as 1 billion people could be displaced by climate change by 2050, mostly in the Global South1.
A new Oxfam "Destroy & Rebuild Index" names 217 corporations it says profit from industries that fuel climate breakdown as well as disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction; it said BlackRock and Vanguard are invested in 92 percent of those companies, with combined investments of more than $1 trillion1.
Oxfam urged governments at COP31 to tax wealthy polluters and fossil-fuel firms, raise grant-based climate finance for the Global South, cut inequality, and limit corporate roles in emergency response and reconstruction1.
The figures are Oxfam's analysis and have not been independently reviewed in this filing; the companies named were not quoted in the press release1.
