The world's wealthiest 1% account for more than twice the combined carbon emissions of the poorest 50%, according to the UN.
Their emissions gap report finds that the richest will need to rapidly cut their CO2 footprints to avoid dangerous warming this century.
The study, compiled by the UN Environment Programme (Unep), predicts that while carbon production will have tumbled by around 7% this year because of the pandemic, this would only reduce warming by 0.01C by 2050.
The global top 10% of income earners use around 45% of all the energy consumed for land transport and around 75% of all the energy for aviation, compared with just 10% and 5% respectively for the poorest 50% of households, the report says.
If the world wants to keep on track to restrict the rise in temperatures this century to 1.5C, then these high carbon footprints will need to be significantly curbed to around 2.5 tonnes of CO2 per capita by 2030.
For the poorest 50% of the world, that would actually mean an increase in their footprint by a factor of three.
And for the top 10% of earners, this would mean cut of around 10% - a not inconceivable goal.
But for the richest 1%, it would mean a dramatic reduction.
"The wealthy bear the greatest responsibility in this area," Unep executive director Inger Anderson wrote in a foreword to the report. "The combined emissions of the richest 1% of the global population account for more than twice the combined emissions of the poorest 50%. This elite will need to reduce their footprint by a factor of 30 to stay in line with the Paris Agreement targets," she wrote.
"The UNEP report shows that the over-consumption of a wealthy minority is fuelling the climate crisis, yet it is poor communities and young people who are paying the price," said Tim Gore, head of climate policy at Oxfam, and a contributing author to the report. "It will be practically and politically impossible to close the emissions gap if governments don't cut the carbon footprint of the wealthy and end the inequalities which leave millions of people without access to power or unable to heat their homes."
But to keep to the 2C goal, the level of ambition in the Paris agreement needs to be tripled. To keep under 1.5C, that ambition needs to increase five-fold.
The direct climate impact of the coronavirus lockdown has lowered 2050 temperature projections by a “negligible” 0.01C, the UN has revealed.
Months of empty roads, empty skies and sluggish economic activity reduced this year’s global greenhouse gas discharges by an estimated 7%, the sharpest annual fall ever recorded. But the temporary decline merely slowed the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere, leaving the world on course for a catastrophic 3.2C of warming by the end of this century, even if countries implement their existing commitments under the Paris Agreement.
“We are going in the wrong direction,” Inger Andersen, the executive director of Unep, told the Guardian. “We had lockdown. Some people think that gave us a bonanza. But it doesn’t. Just because you stop running the tap for a moment or two, that doesn’t change the fact that the bathtub is still full.”
Climate change: Global 'elite' will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles - BBC News
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