https://theintercept.com/2022/12/13/climate-protest-private-jets-schiphol-airport/
QuoteConsider that the world's richest 10 percent account for 50 percent of fossil fuel burning and carbon emissions. Consider that climate reparations, for which the Global South won acknowledgment but little more at last month's COP27 climate talks, can't be funded at scale by tweaking wealthy countries' hidebound taxation-as-usual. Consider that carbon emissions pricing, an indispensable policy tool for shrinking fossil fuel demand, can't be made politically palatable in the U.S. — even with worthy "dividend" schemes — so long as middle- and working-class families must witness the superrich lording and polluting at will.
I think most of the west is in the top 10% of wealth in the world.
But it does highlight the wealth extremes again. Ah read on Rupert:
QuoteIn the Netherlands, 8 percent of the population takes 40 percent of flights. Worldwide, the difference is even more stark: One percent of the population is responsible for 50 percent of pollution due to aviation, making air travel a textbook example of how pollution by the rich leads to consequences and injustices for those who have not caused the climate crisis.
I completely missed this, anyone else? It was on the 5th Nov 2022.
Its not obvious on the BBC, Reuters, but it was in the Guardian. and financial times.
>I completely missed this
I hadn't seen that article, but the topic has been bubbling up for the last month or so. That's part of the recent interest in tracking Musk's and Taylor Swift's private jets.
>Guardian
Here's a better source, hhh.
Taylor Swift is branded the BIGGEST celebrity CO2 polluter of the year as her jet tops new list of stars with worst emissions.
Study from UK firm Yard ranked Taylor Swift's jet as the worst celebrity CO2 offender so far in 2022. Swift's jet has racked up an astounding 170 flights since January, according to the report
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11065015/Taylor-Swifts-private-jet-named-biggest-celebrity-CO2-offender.html
The private jet thing has been big for a while. There was an article (no doubt posted by RC) that listed the worst offenders and pointed out that a lot of them are taking absurdly short flights. Someone (and my memory and prejudices tell me it was Elon) took a 20-minute* flight from San Jose to San Francisco or something like that.
*If I were trying to create an urban legend, I would say a "22-minute" flight to increase authority and virality.