WHO IS REALLY at fault here? A recent study has found that a small minority of the wealthiest people contribute nearly seven times as much to extreme climate change as the entire lower-earning 90 percent of the planet. Since 2019, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population accounted for nearly half of global emissions through private consumption and investments, whereas the poorest 50 percent accounted for only one-tenth of global emissions.
The results were developed by combining climate change models with economic data, which allowed researchers to focus on rates of toxic emissions from various income groups throughout the globe. By linking climate change with the economy, they found the source of these emissions overwhelmingly skewed toward the top hoarders of wealth.
While the numbers are huge, they’re not unexpected. In the United States, the top 1 percent of households control 80 percent of company assets — an ordinary person has no way of ending the coal industry’s devastating hold over Appalachia, for example. That’s a decision to be made by shareholders and executives at the top of the pyramid.
The study is just more confirmation of something we’ve known for years – the rich are the biggest threat to the climate. Most studies on wealth and climate change zero in on consumption habits. But instead of simply arguing that rich people consume more than the average poor, researchers studied emissions through the flow of public and private investments, as well as global trade. This gives a much more complete picture of the actual cause and effect of pollution.
The poorest among us, owning no factories, private jets, or oil rigs, are hardly a speck in the rearview mirror of the ultrarich as they race toward emission rates previously unseen by humankind. Climate change, being clearly tied to economic activity, is simply one of dozens of consequences of our economic system.
To mainstream commerce, the Earth is both loot and dump. Commercial activity, broadly speaking, consists of extracting resources from a hole in the ground on one side of the planet, inducing people to buy them, then dumping them a few days later in a hole in the ground on the other side.
Look no further for evidence of this than the ultrarich themselves. Measuring their wealth in increasingly fractured portfolios and webs of corporate spending, those who do own the factories hide their role in the changing climate through tales of consumer responsibility such as recycle your plastics, buy an electric car, and use paper straws.
Yet as research shows, none of these measures can make a dent in the grand scheme of climate emissions. Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t try but that until the ultrarich put a stop to what they are doing, we do not have very much chance of stopping climate change at all. By Manny Palomar, PhD (EV Mail AUGUST 4-10, 2025 Issue)
