Despite their self-professed environmental bona fides, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the their ilk are responsible for so much carbon emissions that the average person would need a lifetime to match the amount one of them spews in 90 minutes.
That’s the claim from international nonprofit Oxfam, which yesterday published what it said is the first-ever study looking at the luxury transport (i.e., private jets and yachts) and investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires.
“Oxfam’s research makes it painfully clear: the extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fueling inequality, hunger and – make no mistake – threatening lives,” Oxfam International executive director Amitabh Behar said of the findings. “It’s not just unfair that their reckless pollution and unbridled greed is fueling the very crisis threatening our collective future – it’s lethal.”
Private jets, one of the most visible and publicized ways the ultra-rich get around, are significant polluters but still pale in comparison to the impact of their other indulgences. Billionaires are “treating our planet like their personal playground [and] setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit,” in Behar’s words.
Oxfam was able to identify private jets belonging to 23 of the billionaires it looked at for its report, and found that they flew an average of 184 times in a 12-month period, spending around 425 hours in the air during the period. Those jets emitted an average of 2,074 tons of carbon dioxide – equivalent to what the average person would emit in 300 years, or what someone in the global poorest 50 percent would emit if they lived for two millennia.
Musk and Bezos were called out for particularly egregious emissions, with Musk’s fleet of two (known) private jets responsible for 5,497 tons of CO2 over the course of a year (equivalent to 834 years of emissions from the average Earthling), and Bezos’ two-jet fleet emitting around 2,908 tons of carbon.
Once a darling of environmentalists for his work on electric vehicles, Musk has had no shortage of negative coverage for his excessive use of private jets, including for incredibly brief flights instead of a surface commute.
Yachts are even worse, with the average seafaring billionaire pleasure boat responsible for nearly three times as much carbon emission as the average private jet.
Along with looking at jet and yacht emissions, Oxfam also examined the stakes that various billionaires have in corporations and their publicly stated emissions, and the findings are stark.
Of the 50 billionaires studied, around 40 percent of their investments were in high-polluting industries like oil, mining, and shipping, with few having significant renewable energy investments. That means the average billionaire’s investment portfolio is responsible for 340 times the emissions of private jets and yachts – combined.
But don’t forget to recycle
While the billionaires in the study might be raking in the cash for themselves, Oxfam said that its findings suggest their voluminous carbon footprints are causing far more losses around the globe.
According to the study, the emissions of the world’s wealthiest one percent have caused global economic output to drop by $2.9 trillion since 1990 due to climate change. Those damages include food supplies, which Oxfam estimates have led to crop losses able to provide enough food for 14.5 million people – annually between 1990 and 2023.
All this comes as we’re rapidly approaching the end of our chances to limit global warming to below 1.5°C, Oxfam noted, pointing to the remaining “carbon budget” we need to stay below to have even a 50/50 chance to prevent exceeding the warming threshold.
Per Oxfam, the world has around 250 gigatons of CO2 left to emit before 1.5°C is permanently out of reach, and we’ll use all that up by January 2029, if we continue on our current trajectory.
To put in perspective how much those 50 billionaires are emitting, Oxfam said that, if everyone were to adopt the transportation habits of those 50 elites, that 250 gigaton budget would be gone in two days.
“Rich countries have failed to keep their $100 billion climate finance promise, and heading into COP29 [next month in Azerbaijan], there is no indication that they will set a new climate finance goal,” Oxfam said.
The NGO confederation hopes that global leaders will commit to reining in the emissions of the ultra wealthy, increase taxes on their emissions, and “reimagine our economies and societies to deliver wellbeing and planetary flourishing,” but let’s be realistic: Those billionaires are either making the rules, or hoping to, and they’re probably not going to put the kibosh on their own fun – especially when it’s the global south that Oxfam said will bear the brunt of their emissions.
“Dirty investments and luxury toys – private jets and yachts – aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet,” Behar said.
Oxfam International news manager Annie Thériault told The Register that, while things look grim, there is still hope.
“People are forcing governments to confront the carbon emissions of the super-rich, for instance protesting against private jets,” Thériault told us in an emailed statement, adding that “many of the world’s richest people are using their position of privilege to advocate that they should be taxed more.”
In the meantime, don’t forget to do everything you can while Elon zips around and spews smog – he has to save the world, after all. ®
