2023-11-20

Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says?

bones More of the usual from the Graun. Let's quote:

‘Polluter elite’ are plundering the planet to point of destruction, says Oxfam after comprehensive study of climate inequality...

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 problem - apart from any quibbles with the doubtful quality of their analysis, which I suspect but am not very interested in - is that although they do their level best to present this as the 1% versus the 66%, they can't help notice that the 1% only emit 16%. So even after they've all been the first up against the wall after the revolution came, we've barely dented the problem. 84% of emissions remain - or at least they would, in the sort of static thinking that Oxfam do. Who is producing those emissions? You. Me. Our friends and colleagues. Everyone in the West. Well, everyone who isn't too dirt poor to do otherwise, really. Of course, different people emit differently, but it would need a much more careful analysis by less clearly biased people to produce something useful.

The Graun, which has the memory of a goldfish and the need to present things as though they were news, fails to point out that they've said all this before. Oh, duh, I've just realised: COP28 is coming up, hence the spam.

Refs

Clauser-ology: Cloudy with a chance of meatballs - RC - the long tradition of idiot physicists continues.

* "When Idiot Savants Do Climate Economics; How an elite clique of math-addled economists hijacked climate policy" - FFS - or, "A powerfully argued article on Nordhaus‘ climate economics" if you're SR.

1 comment:

Tom said...

Sigh... We can't eat the rich as it would deprive of of the entertainment we all crave and which cannot be satisfied by the likes of Housewives of Hoboken and Hartford.