Climate change is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels, as well as other activities that produce greenhouse gases. But that blame is not evenly distributed amongst the entire human species.
A recent study published in the journal PLOS Climate emphasizes that the society's elites are disproportionately responsible for the extreme weather events linked to climate change like heatwaves, droughts, floods, tropical storms, hurricanes and rising sea levels. Indeed, as corresponding author Jared Starr described American greenhouse gas pollution, "the top 1% of households are responsible for more emissions (15-17%) than the lower earning half of American households put together (14% of national emissions)."
"Our study is the first to link US households to the greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution generated when creating their incomes," Starr, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Department of Environmental Conservation, told Salon in an email. "I think this offers a fundamentally different perspective on carbon pollution responsibility and new insights into emissions inequality. We found that the highest earning top 10% of households are responsible for about 40% of U.S. GHG."
Although the United States only includes roughly five percent of the world's population, it is accountable for more than a quarter of the activity fueling climate change. This is in large part because of America's dominance as the world's foremost economic power — a dominance reflected in its large investor class, which because of its wealth is figuratively steering Earth off of the climate cliff.
"For the first time, we also quantify the share of emissions related to investment," Starr explained. "The share of emissions coming from investments increases as we move up the income ladder. For the top 0.1% households, more than half of their emissions are coming from investment income." Starr used a visual analogy to illustrate his point.
"If we picture this on a graph and imagine the bottom 10% households' emissions (1.6 metric tons) are the size of average home, then the top 1 percent's emissions would be the size of [five] Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other and the top 0.1%'s emissions would be taller than Mount Everest," Starr told Salon. "This scale of emissions inequality was unknown before our study. I think it is a climate justice issue and it poses a fundamental challenge to our political system to respond to this level of emissions disparity."
The study has a term for the super-rich who emit so much carbon: "super-emitters," which covers households with emissions greater than 3,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. As the authors write, "For pre-tax income, we estimate about 43,200 U.S. households or 34% of the top 0.1% households are super emitters with the supplier framework." They pointed out that "almost all super emitting households come from the top 0.1% income group" and "had average incomes of over $10.6 million (supplier) and $11.5 (producer)." Overall "in 2019, fully 40% of total U.S. emissions were associated with income flows to the highest earning 10% of households."
Dr. Michael E. Mann, a professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote a 2021 book called "The New Climate War" that discussed how climate change "inactivists" (fossil fuel businesses, political conservatives and others financially or ideologically inclined to oppose climate change science) spread misinformation about climate change to muddle the public discourse. The book specifically delves into how these groups falsely claim that all of humanity is collectively responsible for this pollution crisis — therefore making it seem like an individual problem where rich and poor alike are equally culpable — as opposed to a crisis predominantly caused by the wealthy's behavior.
"The inequality in energy use is a great argument for progressive climate pricing," Mann, was not involved in the recent study, told Salon. "For example, Canada has instituted a progressive carbon tax where revenue is preferentially returned to low-income earners and families."
Mann added that "the solution to the climate crisis isn't going to be voluntary behavioral change — it's going to have to be systemic change, including climate policies such as a carbon tax, fee and dividend, etc. that disincentivize carbon-intensive lifestyles." He also pointed out that when people talk about lifestyle changes, it's important to stress that only the super-affluent should be making those sacrifices. "If we want a just transition, we need to make sure that the pricing structure is progressive, so low income earners who have had the least role in creating this problem not only avoid financial hardship but potentially benefit financially," Mann wrote.
As Starr explained, the new study provides crucial support to the observation Mann and other climate scientists have made about the scientific evidence: It simply does not support the notion that individual choices make much of a difference when it comes to stopping the overheating of the planet. Only the wealthy can make that difference.
"I think for the last couple decades the dominant cultural argument has been that fixing climate change is everyone's responsibility and that if we just make different choices as consumers then we can 'fix this,'" Starr told Salon. "I think we should all obviously try to make less carbon intensive choices as consumers. But as consumers we often have very limited choices, time, knowledge, etc. over the carbon content of the goods and services we buy. This is not a problem that individual consumers can solve alone — it is a systemic problem." Because fossil fuel use is baked into our current economic system, the vast majority of people are disempowered even as a small group of Americans become "exceedingly rich."
"While we all may bear some responsibility for climate change, our work shows that very wealthy households should bear the majority of responsibility, since these emissions are occurring to enrich them and they are reaping the most benefits," Starr pointed out. "While we often think in this 'consumer responsibility' way, when we think about why businesses actually produce goods and services it isn't to benefit the consumer, but to create value for shareholders (shareholder primacy)."
The study also identified racial inequities in how different groups are responsible for carbon emissions, reporting that Black households, on average, have a carbon footprint of 19 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from both supplier and producer emissions. In comparison, White Hispanic households show slightly higher emissions with 26 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from suppliers and 25 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from producers but the most significant emissions can be observed within White non-Hispanic households. They have 40 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from suppliers and 36 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from producers.
This is not the first study to demonstrate that wealthy individuals are literally destroying the planet. A study from earlier this year in the journal Nature Sustainability demonstrated that "urban elites are able to overconsume water while excluding less-privileged populations from basic access." Similarly, a study from the journal Cleaner Production Letters found that wealthy individuals produce more greenhouse gases than poor individuals, particularly due to their extensive use of private aircraft and yachts, as well as their massive real estate holdings all over the planet. Meanwhile in 2020, a study in the journal Nature Communications detailed how the "affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions."
Starr was unambiguous when describing to Salon the political implications of the latest scientific evidence.
"What we have done in this study is revealed to the public and policymakers the scale of emissions disparity," Starr pointed out, adding that the research is open source and available to the public. "Let the political class have that information and then explain to the rest of the public why they think it is ok for a small group of people to enrich themselves while leaving the rest of society and future generations an uninhabitable planet. Let them show the other 99% of us whose interests they are there to represent. And let us hold them to political account for their choice."
