The world’s richest one per cent contributed as much carbon as the five billion people who comprise two-thirds of the globe’s poorest in 2019, which could spell out dire consequences in less than a decade, according to a new report.
The report was published Monday by Oxfam — an independent organization focused on alleviating global poverty — and conducted with the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Growing opposition to carbon tax
Given the disproportionate number of rich countries responsible for climate change, the organization also calls on countries to get off fossil fuels “quickly and fairly” and to put new taxes on corporations and billionaires, which it says could assist in paying for the transition to renewable energy. The report says a 60 per cent tax on the one per cent of global earners could cut 690 million tonnes of emissions, more than the total amount produced by the U.K., and would raise US$6.4 trillion that could go towards renewable energy.
Thomson said Canada is one of the countries Oxfam would like to see the “wealth tax” placed on the richest that would then be used towards green climate solutions.
“If billionaires are the ones that are causing the majority of this pollution disproportionately compared to the rest of the world, then we really do need to focus in on their wealth and making sure that, through taxation, they’re going to be spending less on this high-consumption lifestyle,” he said.
“But also that the resources that we raise from the tax are actually going to the things that we need to protect people from climate change.”
— with files from Nivrita Ganguly
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