Cloud of pollution around the judicial city of Paris, September 15, 2020. -

Thomas COEX / AFP

The richest 1% in the world emit twice as many greenhouse gases as the poorest half of the population, according to an Oxfam report released on Monday.

The NGO demands that this data be taken into account in the policies of the post-Covid world.

The NGO looked at the period 1990-2015, 25 years during which global CO2 emissions, responsible for the warming of a planet which has already gained more than +1 ° C since the pre-industrial era, have increased by almost 60%.

According to his analysis, "the richest 1% of the population (around 63 million people) were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions alone", or "twice as much as the poorest half of the world's population" .

Between 1990 and 2015, the richest 10% were responsible for more than half of the cumulative CO2 emissions!

They have thus consumed nearly a third of the global carbon budget still available to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C.


👉 https://t.co/zuLI54T1pt pic.twitter.com/Rq4Ht1cFed

- Oxfam France (@oxfamfrance) September 21, 2020

The poorest pay the price

And the richest 10% of the world's population (about 630 million people) were responsible for 52% of cumulative CO2 emissions.

“Over the past 20-30 years, the climate crisis has worsened and the limited global carbon budget has been squandered in the service of intensifying the consumption of a well-off population, not to lift people out of poverty », Denounces Oxfam.

And the groups that "suffer the most from this injustice are the least responsible for the climate crisis": the poorest and future generations, continues the NGO, calling on governments around the world to rectify the situation by placing social justice and struggle against the climate at the heart of post-Covid economic recovery plans.

"Better rebuild" the economy

"It is clear that the very carbon-emitting and very unequal economic growth model of the last 20-30 years has not benefited the poorest half of humanity", denounced to AFP Tim Gore, NGO expert.

“It is a fallacious dichotomy to suggest that we have to choose between economic growth and the climate,” he added.

"The Covid-19 pandemic inevitably highlights the need to rebuild better and put the world economy on a fairer, more sustainable and more resilient path", reacted in the report the former secretary general of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.

"This collective commitment must have as a priority to reduce the CO2 emissions of the richest fringe of society, which pollutes disproportionately."

World

Coronavirus: Rich countries have reserved half of future vaccine doses, denounces Oxfam

Economy

Budget 2020: The poorest households, the big losers in the government's choices?

  • Planet

  • Greenhouse gas

  • Covid 19

  • Weather

  • Consumption