World’s richest 1% emits more carbon than the poorest half

The wealthiest 1 percent is responsible for more than double the carbon pollution caused by the poorest half of the world’s population, new research shows.

Even though the pandemic spread created a huge decrease in the carbon emission, the world is set to warm several degrees in this century, causing an alarming situation in the poor and developing nations.

Carbon budget 

The study conducted by Oxfam, a global organization focusing to end the injustice of poverty, says that between 1990 and 2015, the annual emission increased 60 percent and the rich nations were responsible for consuming a third of Earth’s carbon budget.

Carbon budget refers to the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions permitted over a period of time to keep the global temperature from rising over a certain limit after which it cannot be controlled. Over the past 25 years, one percent of the rich population which is just 63 million people used up nine percent of the carbon budget.

The research conducted by Oxfam in collaboration with the Stockholm Environment Institute highlighted an ever-increasing “carbon inequality” and the high-carbon transport addiction of the rich which is exhausting the carbon budget of the globe.

“The global carbon budget has been squandered to expand the consumption of the already rich, rather than to improve humanity. A finite amount of carbon can be added to the atmosphere if we want to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We need to ensure that carbon is used for the best.”

The 2015 Paris climate deal pledged countries to control the global temperature rise to well below two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels.

But the carbon emissions have continued to rise since then and if left unchecked in the coming decade the wealthiest 10 percent of the world would be enough to increase the levels above the point of 1.5 Celsius even if the entire world stopped their emission. With just 1 Celsius of warming, the globe is already fighting with intense wildfires, drought and storms.

While the COVID-19 has created a slight dip in the emission, the overall impact on the carbon budget is minor as the carbon outflow picked up around the globe after lockdown and other movement restrictions.

Gore stated that the government should include the double challenge of inequality and climate change when framing pandemic recovery plans and “it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that we have to choose between economic growth and (fixing) the climate crisis,” he added.

The 75th UN general assembly will be held virtually this week and is set to consider the climate crisis top in their agenda. The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to present his observations for the UN Climate Summit named COP26 to be conducted in November 2021, after the one year delay due to pandemic.

Being the host nation, the UK government has to set out its plans to reach net-zero emission by 2050.