floods

• Person in the richest 0.1 percent has contributed nearly 400 times more to extreme heatwaves than someone in the poorest half of humanity.
• Oxfam’s research shows that while the super-rich are responsible for a disproportionate share of carbon pollution, it is ordinary people who bear the brunt of the resulting floods, fires and famine.
• Oxfam’s new “Destroy & Rebuild Index” exposes how super-rich investors backing fossil fuels and other high-polluting industries are also profiting from disaster preparedness and clean-up.
• Oxfam urges governments to make rich polluters pay and end climate profiteering.

The world’s richest 0.1 percent (8 million people) produces more carbon pollution than the world’s poorest 3.5 billion people combined, reveals new Oxfam analysis. Published ahead of the UN climate summit (COP31) in Türkiye, the report exposes how the world’s super-rich are driving climate breakdown through their outsized emissions, while shielding themselves from the consequences and, increasingly, profiting from the destruction.

A person in the richest 0.1 percent has contributed nearly 400 times more to today’s extreme heatwaves than someone in the poorest 50 percent. Collectively, this small group of people produces over three times more carbon pollution than the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa (1.3 billion people).

“The climate crisis is often described as a shared human challenge. It is not. Those who have done the least to cause it are losing their homes, their harvests and, increasingly, their lives. Meanwhile, the super-rich can buy their way out of danger – by retreating to high-tech underground survival bunkers, hiring private firefighting crews, and securing private insurance – and are actively profiting from the consequences of their pollution. This is not a tragedy of shared fate; it is a crime of extreme inequality,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

Combining carbon inequality data with cutting-edge climate attribution models, Oxfam has found that:

• The richest 1 percent are responsible for 20 percent of global warming since 1990 – 100 times more, per person, than someone in the poorest half of humanity.
• Just one year of emissions by the richest 1 percent will cause 1.9 million excess heat-related deaths. 78 percent of these deaths will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries, despite these countries being responsible for 8 percent of global emissions.
• The emissions of the richest 1 percent will cause nearly $53 trillion in damage by 2050.

Used exclusively by the super-rich, private aviation remains one of the clearest examples of extreme carbon inequality. New analysis by Oxfam of private jet tracking data finds that:

• Combined, private jets emit more carbon pollution in two seconds than someone in the poorest half of humanity emits in a year.

While the super-rich are responsible for a disproportionate share of carbon pollution, it is ordinary people who bear the brunt of the resulting floods, fires and famine.

“Eight million people produce more carbon pollution than three and a half billion. In places like Tonga and Solomon Islands, families who did the least to cause this crisis are paying for it first, rebuilding after floods and droughts they had no hand in causing. That isn’t bad luck. It follows from who decides where emissions get cut and who pays. At COP31, New Zealand has a seat in that room. It should use it to back taxes on extreme wealth and fossil fuel profits, and push for climate finance that comes as grants, not more debt.” said Oxfam Aotearoa Executive Director Jason Myers.

The super-rich buy safety through private insurance and homes in safer, cooler places. For everyone else, climate disasters mean destroyed homes and crops, depleted savings, and lost livelihoods. This leaves people even more exposed when the next disaster hits, deepening the inequality that made them far more vulnerable to climate disasters in the first place. By 2050, as many as 1 billion people (around 10 percent of the world’s population) could be displaced by the climate crisis. Most of those displaced will be in the Global South.

Oxfam’s new Destroy & Rebuild Index identifies 217 corporations profiting from industries that fuel climate breakdown as well as disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction.

BlackRock and Vanguard are invested in 92 percent of the corporations in the index. Their combined investments total more than $1 trillion.

The report also warns that climate disasters are increasingly exploited to push policies that deepen inequality, including the privatization of climate action and public services, land grabs, deregulation and tax breaks benefiting the super-rich. The result is a vicious cycle of injustice: deaths from flooding are seven times higher in more unequal countries.

“The ultra-rich are setting the planet on fire and then charging the rest of us for the extinguishers,” said Behar. “They profit from the pollution. They profit from the disaster. And they profit again from the clean-up.” said Behar.

Oxfam is calling on governments meeting at COP31 to:

• Make rich polluters pay to significantly and rapidly curb their carbon emissions, including through permanent wealth and income taxes, a permanent tax on fossil fuel corporations, and punitive taxes on high-emitting luxury items like private jets.
• Substantially increase climate finance for the Global South, prioritizing public, grant-based finance rather than loans that deepen debt. The amount for adaptation should be tripled by 2035.
• Radically reduce inequality within and between countries, including through climate-resilient public infrastructure and public services.
• End profiteering from climate disasters. Governments need to curb corporate power in emergency response, reconstruction, and food systems during disasters.

/ENDS

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam’s report “Disaster Divide” and methodology note.

Oxfam’s analysis finds that 1.18 million or 78 percent of excess deaths due to heat will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

Since 1990, carbon emissions from the richest 1 percent have caused global economic output to drop by $2.9 trillion. By 2050, this will rise to $52.6 trillion, equivalent to a 0.5 percent loss of global cumulative GDP over that period. The heaviest economic toll will fall on the countries least responsible for climate change.

According to the International Organization for Migration, as many as 1 billion people could be displaced by the climate crisis by 2050. The frequency and intensity of these events is rising as a direct result of climate change.