Although their investments are able to steer the economy in a greener direction, they put their money (on average) in twice as climate-unfriendly companies as a typical investor would.
These are some of the conclusions of a study by development organization Oxfam, which was published on Monday. In the report Carbon Billionaires the authors try to find out what the total climate effect is of the spending and investment pattern of the richest elite in the world. They conclude that a wealth tax should actually be increased with a rate that tax investing in polluting industries more heavily.
The very richest account for at least 3.1 million tons of CO2 per person. That is more than a million times as much as the bottom 90 percent of the world population, which remains below 3 tons (an average Dutch person has a CO2 footprint three times larger).
consumption pattern
That enormous amount is not only due to their consumption pattern, which, thanks to their yachts, private planes and other luxuries, is often tens of times more greenhouse-intensive than that of other Earthlings. But the bulk is in what they do with their savings.
And, because the economy still generates a lot of CO2, so do their investments – just like ordinary mortals put money into CO2-emitting sectors through their pension pot. Because it involves much more money, the emissions are also much greater (the average British pension pot generates 23 tons of CO2 emissions).
But, Oxfam has calculated on the basis of the shareholdings of the billionaires, they are still investing their money more dirty than necessary. Every million dollars invested by the billionaires produces an annual emission of 162 tons of CO2. If you put a million into a fund that tracks the S&P 500 (the broad index of US publicly traded companies) you only get 86 tons of CO2.