In the run-up to the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28), the impact of the climate crisis across the world could not be clearer. Last year the average global temperature was 1.32°C above the pre industrial baseline (taken as 13.5°C). One quarter of the global population experienced dangerous levels of extreme heat. In May, the World Meteorological Office reported a 66% chance that the world would exceed the 1.5°C average threshold in the next four years, a grim picture confirmed by the State of Climate Action report in November. This reality is evidenced by another unprecedented year of heatwaves, tornados, disappearing polar ice, shrinking glaciers, historic floods and wildfires.
Main culprit: the rich
Oxfam’s report Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99% (November 2023) makes clearer than ever the stark differences between the rich and poor, who have respectively caused the climate crisis and suffer from its impacts. It states that the super-rich 1%:
- Were responsible for 16% of global carbon emissions, the same as the emissions of the poorest 66% of humanity (5 billion people) in 2019
- Burned through twice as much of the carbon budget (the maximum emissions allowed while staying below 1.5°C) as the poorest half of humanity combined since the 1990s
- Emitted enough emissions to cause 1.3 million excess deaths due to heat in 2019
- Emit annual global emissions that cancel out carbon savings for almost a million onshore wind turbines
- Are set to emit 22 times more than the safe limit to stay below 1.5°C in 2030.
Beyond the super-rich 1%, the top 10% of population by income are responsible for 50% of emissions and the following middle 40% responsible for 42%. The poorest 50% of the global population are responsible for just 8% of emissions.
These emissions are divided into two main categories: consumption-based emissions and corporate and investment emissions. For the super-rich 1%, investments can account for between 50% and 70% of their emissions. The proportion increases with the even smaller group of billionaires amongst this 1%. An Oxfam study of 125 of the world’s 2,600 billionaires found that ‘on average, they emit the equivalent of 3 million tonnes of CO2 a year through their investments – over a million times more than someone in the bottom 90% by income’. Importantly, these investments give this 1% an anonymous control over the biggest corporations through stock ownership. In the US, the top 1% own 54% of stocks held by all US citizens; in South Africa, the equivalent figure is over 95%. This unstoppable centralisation process of capital puts just a few individuals in a position to shape the future of the global economy. With this influence, the top 1% make investment decisions that destroy the environment. In the same Oxfam study, only one billionaire had invested in a renewable energy company. Furthermore, the share of billionaire investments in polluting industries was double that of the average investor, demonstrating a murderous disregard for the climate.
Capitalist culture destroys the climate
Politicians around the world whom the greater population depends on to pass laws for emissions reductions are themselves often among the richest in the top 1% group of emitters. Just the salaries for US Senators, European Commissioners, UK Cabinet Ministers and Australian MPs ($174,000; $311,768; $192,038; $146,803 respectively) places them in this top category. This ignores their significant investments in the fossil fuel industry. Members of the US Congress alone own $93m in stocks in fossil fuel industries. With this revolving door between investment and policymaking, it is clear that state emissions policies are simply a stratagem of the capitalist ruling class to maintain profits.
While corporate emissions are staggering, consumption-based emissions are a significant contributor to the total, especially for the middle 40% of the population by income. The top 1% has immense influence on the aspirations of the wider population through marketing and advertising goods and services that generate profit for the corporations they invest in, driving overconsumption and with it carbon emissions. This trend is most clearly demonstrated in transport spending. Across the population, spending on housing, energy, travel and meat accounts for most carbon emissions. Amongst these, household heating and electricity consumption are proportionally similar between high-income and low-income groups, while transportation spending is most differentiated. The largest share of emissions among high-income groups is from personal transportation in pursuit of the lavish lifestyle of luxury cars, yachts and jets, advertised and enjoyed by the 1%.
Inequality exacerbated by climate change
It is well-known that global warming is widening gaps between rich and poor with evidence now showing that economic inequalities between countries are 25% larger than they would have been in a world without global warming. In the last 50 years, 91% of deaths caused by climate-related disasters occurred in developing countries. Furthermore, the devastation wrought by extreme weather depends on the preparations for and responses to each disaster. As FRFI has reported in cases like Pakistan and Libya, ruined by imperialism, it is not just the disaster itself but also the government’s incapacity to plan and respond to it that contributes significantly to the consequent death tolls, displacement and destruction. Oxfam’s study across 573 major flood disasters now proves this: the death toll from floods is seven times higher in the most ‘unequal’ countries compared to the more ‘equal’ ones. Oxfam uses socialist Cuba as an example of one of these ‘equal’ countries, praising its exemplary flood and disaster management policies. These allowed Cuba to save 64 times more lives than the Dominican Republic after the same hurricane hit both countries with the same force in 1998.
Beyond the direct impacts of extreme weather, climate change has led to substantial declines in economic output in hotter, mostly developing countries and increased economic outputs in cooler, mostly developed countries, expanding existing inequalities between countries. Climate change’s impact on future agricultural productivity in Africa is devastating. Average agricultural productivity there is estimated to fall 35% below its potential value due to climate change. Conversely, countries like Canada and Russia have seen their agricultural productivity increase due to the warming climate. Add to this the $10 trillion per year in resources developed countries currently drain from developing countries and the picture becomes dire. Even anticipating this situation, developed countries have failed to meet the $100bn a year target to support climate action in developing countries, which was set in 2009 at COP15. It has reached only $83.3bn of which only $21bn to $24.5bn was aimed specifically at climate action. Even then, $100bn is nothing compared to Oxfam’s estimated $2.7 trillion needed per year for climate action in developing countries between now and 2030, making a total of $18.9 trillion.
Socialism or destruction
Oxfam’s report ends by suggesting a variety of tax schemes as recommendations to build ‘a planet for the 99%’. It recommends that wealthy individuals and rich high-emitting countries must be ‘compelled’ to give up their power and implement a green and just transition. It is unclear however what mechanisms should be used to ‘compel’ these individuals and states to act as recommended.
The much-lauded COP21 Paris Agreement of 2015, which agreed to hold average global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C above the ‘pre industrial’ average, is a voluntary scheme. Countries set their own targets and promises are easy to break. The US-China climate agreement of this November has no definite targets. The EU’s current interim target of at least 55% emission reduction by 2030, is comparable to Britain’s aim to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035. Now however, more coal extraction and CO2 emissions are the price the EU is prepared to pay to absorb Ukraine into the EU, as gas prices surged due to EU restrictions on Russian imports. Meanwhile the EU is to allow combustion engine cars to be sold after 2035. In Britain, in July, approval of more annual oil and gas license provision around its coasts retreats from previous policy. In September the Tory government delayed deadlines for the installation of gas boilers and sales of petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles from 2030 to 2035.
In October ExxonMobil bought Pioneer natural resources for $59.5bn, expecting ‘to generate double-digit returns’ by recovering ‘more resource’. In November it began extracting 620,000 barrels of oil per day from its new Guyana field. Brazil is opening its Amazon Coast oil reserves. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, plans to expand its oil and gas production capacity to 5 million barrels per day. Al-Jaber has been cynically appointed president of COP28. With other oil company plans, the world is now set to double its oil production, making it impossible to meet its 2030 net zero goals.
It is clear the only pathway forward for the vast majority of humanity is to fight for socialism, the only system in which a just world designed for the masses can exist.
Soma Kisan and James Martin
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 297 December 2023/January 2024
