Super-rich profit from climate crisis they caused, Oxfam finds — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Oxfam found the richest 0.1% emit 125 times more per person than the average, driving extreme heat events and benefiting from polluting investments
- Wealthiest 0.1% are increasingly invested in the $70bn–$92bn adaptation economy—rebuilding, recovery, and disaster services—earning a 'double dividend' from climate breakdown
- BlackRock and Vanguard hold shares in 92% of 217 corporations identified in Oxfam’s destroy and rebuild index, with combined holdings exceeding $1tn
- 217 corporations that either fuel climate change or profit from adaptation made $1.8bn on average last year and paid out $1bn in dividends to shareholders
- Food trading companies dominated by billionaires saw wealth rise $120bn since 2020, with price spikes like a 231% cocoa surge benefiting investors, not farmers
- Alex Maitland, lead author, stated the super-rich are not passive beneficiaries but actively orchestrating systems that profit from climate chaos
- Oxfam demands higher taxes on the rich, private jets, and polluters, and calls for grant-based climate financing over loans to poor nations
Why it matters: The richest, responsible for vastly more emissions, are financially insulated and politically empowered to delay climate action, while low-income countries—producing just 8% of emissions—face 1.9m excess heat deaths. This entrenches inequality and shifts crisis costs to those least able to pay.
Ask SkimNews
