US Billionaires Emit A Rhino's Weight Of Carbon Every Day; A Somali Citizen, That Of A Small Tomato
The US’s super-rich are burning through carbon emissions at 4,000 times the speed of the world’s poorest 10%, according to an analysis provided to the Guardian. These billionaires and multimillionaires, who comprise the wealthiest 0.1% of the US population, are also running down our planet’s safe climate space at 183 times the rate of the global average.
The data, produced by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute ahead of the Cop30 climate summit, highlights the chasm between the carbon-guzzling rich, who are most responsible for the climate crisis, and the heat-vulnerable poor, who suffer the worst consequences.
At one end, the wealthiest 0.1% emit an average of 2.2 tonnes of CO2 every day, equivalent to the weight of a rhinoceros or an SUV. At the other, a citizen of Somalia burns off just 82 grams of CO2 each day, barely the mass of a single tomato or half a cup of rice. In between, the average for everyone on the planet is 12kg a day, about as heavy as a standard car tyre.
The analysis was provided for the launch of Oxfam’s annual report on carbon inequality, which underscores how lavish lifestyles of superyachts, private jets and vast mansions often combine with investments in polluting industries to create climate-destabilising individual footprints. The study, which was released on Wednesday, found that 308 of the world’s billionaires had a combined CO2 tally that, if they were a country, would make them the 15th most polluting country in the world.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/29/americas-super-rich-running-down-planet-safe-climate-spaces-oxfam
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