How the world’s richest people exhausted their emissions budget in days
The world’s richest people have already used up their carbon emissions budget for 2026. According to new research by Oxfam, the richest 1% of the global population took just 10 days from the start of the year to consume the amount of carbon emissions compatible with keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The picture is even starker for the top 0.1%, who exhausted their annual carbon budget in just three days.
Oxfam has labeled the date when ultra-wealthy individuals run out of their allowable emissions as “Pollutocrat Day”, a concept designed to highlight how a tiny fraction of the global population is disproportionately responsible for a climate crisis that affects everyone.
Who are the world’s richest people?
This group includes around 77 million individuals worldwide, comprising billionaires, millionaires, and people earning more than USD 140,000 per year, adjusted for purchasing power parity.
The richest 1% emit more than 75 tons of CO2 per person each year
According to United Nations projections, the global population is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030. If the emissions level compatible with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in 2030 were divided equally, the annual per capita carbon budget would be just 2.1 tons of CO2.
Oxfam’s latest research on climate and inequality, based on data from the Stockholm Environment Institute, shows that the richest 1% emit an average of 75.1 tons of CO2 per person per year, based on 2023 data, the most recent available. This equals 0.206 tons per person per day, meaning that just over 10 days of emissions are enough to exceed the entire annual carbon budget.
The report also finds that a single person in the top 0.1% generates more carbon pollution in one day than the poorest 50% of the global population emits in an entire year. If everyone on the planet emitted at the same rate as the richest 0.1%, the global annual carbon budget would be exhausted in less than three weeks.
Climate damages could reach USD 44 trillion by 2050
Emissions produced in a single year by the richest 1% are expected to cause nearly 1.3 million heat-related deaths by the end of this century, according to the research.
Decades of excessive and unchecked emissions by the wealthiest individuals are also driving massive economic losses in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. The total cost of these damages could reach USD 44 trillion by 2050.
To remain within the 1.5 degree limit, the richest 1% would need to cut their emissions by 97% by 2030. Meanwhile, those who have contributed the least to the climate crisis, including communities in economically disadvantaged and climate-vulnerable countries, Indigenous peoples, women, and girls, will continue to bear the heaviest impacts.
Recently, the International Court of Justice ruled that countries have a legal obligation to reduce emissions sufficiently to protect universal rights to life, food, health, and a clean environment.
A straightforward path to cutting carbon emissions
“The research once again shows that governments have a clear and simple path to drastically reduce carbon emissions and tackle inequality, by targeting the wealthiest polluters. By cracking down on the reckless carbon-intensive lifestyles of the super-rich, global leaders have an opportunity to put the world back on track to meet climate goals and unlock net benefits for people and the planet,” said Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam’s climate policy lead.
“The immense power and wealth of ultra-rich individuals and corporations have also enabled them to exert undue influence over decision-making and weaken climate negotiations,” Dabi added.
What Oxfam is asking governments to do
Oxfam is calling on governments to curb emissions from the super-rich and ensure that those who pollute the most pay more:
- raise income and wealth taxes on the super-rich and actively engage in negotiations for a United Nations Convention on International Tax Cooperation to build a fairer global system
- impose windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies. A tax on the profits of 585 oil, gas, and coal companies could generate up to USD 400 billion in a single year, equivalent to the cost of climate damages in countries of the Global South
- ban or heavily tax high-carbon luxury assets such as superyachts and private jets. The carbon footprint accumulated by a super-rich European citizen in about one week of superyacht and private jet use equals the lifetime footprint of someone in the poorest 1% globally
- build a fair economic system that puts people and the planet first, moving away from the dominant neoliberal model toward an economy based on sustainability and equality