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Billionaires emit a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person: Oxfam

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/08/billionaires-emit-a-million-times-more-greenhouse-gases-than-the-average-person-oxfam.html

  • The investments of 125 of the world’s richest billionaires cause 393 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year, according to a report by Oxfam.
  • Billionaires “have escaped accountability for too long”, Danny Sriskandarajah, CEO of Oxfam GB, says.

The investments of 125 billionaires produce 393 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year, according to a report by Oxfam.

That’s the equivalent CO2 output to the whole of France and makes the average billionaire’s annual emissions a million times higher than a person in the poorest 90% of the world’s population, the global poverty charity says.

The billionaires included in the study have a collective $2.4 trillion stake in 183 companies, which averages out at 3 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted per billionaire, per year. People outside the world’s wealthiest 10% emit an average of 2.76 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. 

The report by Oxfam analyzed how 125 of the world’s richest people had invested their money and looked at the carbon emissions of those investments.

The study found that around 14% of the billionaires’ investments were in “polluting industries,” such as non-renewable energy and materials such as cement, while the average investor has half that amount invested in those sectors.

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