Researchers have discovered a trend where the more money people have; the higher their carbon footprint is. A University of Leeds study shows that the lifestyles of the world’s wealthiest are mainly responsible for the climate crisis.
Among all eighty-six countries and income classes studied, the bottom 10% consumed about 20 times less energy than the top 10%. “Our results consequently expose large inequality in international energy footprints,” the authors explained.
According to one of the researchers, Julia Steinberger, the study looked at energy consumption “used to manufacture and transport traded products,” as well as the amount of energy directly used. She notes that “richer households, around the world, tend to spend their extra [money] on energy-intensive products,” including shopping online, vacations, and fuel for their automobiles.
One of the most critical factors in this difference is people who have more money, spend more on transportation in air, land, and sea. From private jets to luxury yachts, expensive cars, and trips to Mars, rich people have all kinds of options when it comes to transportation.
The study, published in the scientific journal Nature Energy, found that the top 10% of consumers used more than 50% of the total energy associated with traveling, with most of it based on fossil fuel.
Yannick Oswald, the lead author, said:
Without reducing the energy demand of these services, either through frequent-flyer levies, promoting public transport and limiting private vehicle use, or alternative technology such as electric vehicles. The study suggests that as incomes and wealth improve, our fossil fuel consumption in transport will skyrocket.
Energy used for cooking and heating was consumed more or less in an equal manner across both groups. Regardless, the overall energy consumption was distributed unequally across all of the studied countries.
2% of Chinese citizens belonged to the top 5% of energy consumers across the world, compared to 20% of the UK and 100% of Luxembourg’s population. Meanwhile, the bottom 84% of India used five times less the amount of energy than 20% of the UK.
Professor Steinberger stressed:
There needs to be a serious consideration on how to change the vastly unequal distribution of global energy consumption. To cope with the dilemma of providing a decent life for everyone while protecting climate and ecosystems.
A few ways that wealthy people could change these figures into an equal distribution is to buy electric cars, offset their flyer miles and offset their carbon footprints.
