The Guardian reports this morning that:
The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency, a report says.
The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019 – enough to cause more than a million excess deaths due to heat, according to the report.
The solution is obvious: the excess consumption of this group needs to be cut, and tax is the best way to do that.
So, now we not only need to tax the wealthy more to tackle inequality and provide the tax revenue needed to prevent inflation as we expand essential public services, but we also need to do so to address climate change.
The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 makes clear that it is possible to tax the wealthiest people in the UK considerably more than at present to address these three issues. The question is, when will we have politicians who rise to the challenge?
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“The question is, when will we have politicians who rise to the challenge?”
No…..
People with the will to do so are barred by current political structures and the machinations of the rich from attaining public platforms. The public have been deliberately dumbed down by the media and the education system.
I work (still!) in a 11-19 school and the curriculum has been manipulated down to some STEM and a set of largely useless info that enables largely pointless filtering and selection to occur. Any useful info (like about politics, economics, living in the C21) is largely removed. I am supposedly barred from teaching using materials from sources critical of capitalism, despite such criticism being on the sociology specifications!
This enables politicians to lie, and favours those using arguments unsuitable for GCSE.
This is an interesting read
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/20/billionaires-great-carbon-divide-planet-climate-crisis
Excellent article, thanks for the link. This has been exactly my view for years now.
I have a recurring fantasy where all the billionaires are packed off to a remote island, or one of their beloved space capsules – along with all their net worth, in specially printed million and billion dollar notes. And left to get on with it. Meanwhile, the rest of humanity abolishes the US dollar, reclaims the billionaires’ physical assets and starts to build a more equitable world.
What makes your point even more compelling is that some in the top 1% would entirely agree with you!