New Oxfam report reveals greenhouse gas emissions of top 0.1%

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Sadhbh O'Neill (0:40)

The Hard Shoulder with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman.

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On Newstalk with Kea.

Shane Coleman (0:48)

Now let's turn to that new report from Oxfam, which finds the richest 0.1 percent of the world's population produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the poorest 44 percent combined. Saitha O'Neill is a climate and environmental researcher. She joins us now. Saitha, your reaction to this report?

Sadhbh O'Neill (1:10)

I find it really quite shocking. I mean, you know, it's just hard to fathom what it would mean when you hear that global billionaire wealth goes by more than 16 percent in 2025, reaching a record high of 18.3 trillion. I don't know how many zeros there are in a trillion. I forgot to look that up, but there's a lot of zeros. I think it's 12 And the number of billionaires has now reached 3,000 people for the first time. And it's just an extraordinary concentration of wealth. We have to remember this is not necessarily new wealth. This is wealth that is moving up into the people who already have it.

Having wealth makes it easier to earn more, given the structure of the global economy.

So I do find it shocking and I find it extremely worrying because there's more and more research and it's captured very well in this report, linking the issue of economic wealth and extreme wealth into political power and the abuse of political power. It's different in different countries. It's not the same. It depends on the degree to which lobbying and investments are regulated. But as long as we see that concentration of economic elite wealth being used politically, it tends to work against climate action. And I'll just explain why. It's because it's not just because of the consumption of these super rich people and their yachts and all their fast cars and their many homes around the world. It's because of the way they invest their wealth. The wealth is actually being invested in fossil fuel infrastructure and companies. And that is one of the reasons why they have a unique responsibility in this space. And we should be concerned.

Shane Coleman (2:50)

So is this a reference? Are you referencing here the double dividend that Oxfam says the super rich get from the causes and costs of the climate crisis?

Sadhbh O'Neill (3:02)

Yes, and this is a new thing for me. I hadn't realized the extent to which some of these companies are now diversifying into adaptation and, you know, the kind of aid structures, the private kind of emergency relief efforts that go into rebuilding countries or investing in rebuilding, depending on the nature of the crisis, whether it's a kind of a natural disaster or a climate disaster. So, you know, it's really, really dystopian that the companies that are contributing to the problem are actually benefiting from investing in this sort of response to it.

It's really staggering and quite disgusting, to be honest with you. I'm disgusted.

Shane Coleman (3:44)

Yeah, I can, I can tell.

The report also says that this gives, acts as an incentive to delay or disrupt action to solve the actual, the crisis. Do you believe that? Or is it possible that a lot of these billionaires actually do want to do the right thing by mankind? Or is that a naive perspective?

Sadhbh O'Neill (4:09)

Well, I mean, the sort of, when you think about the billionaires in the tech sector, now not all billionaires have their wealth from the tech sector. It comes from a variety of sources. But the tech sector is particularly visible. We have very prominent personalities, Elon Musk and a bunch of other, you know, faces that we, and names that we now know. And we can see the way they are using their influence to dictate, I suppose, the way that technology is going to be used in society. They have an enormous amount of control. And when they say AI is coming, get used to it, and, you know, they wave their hands and suddenly 60,000 jobs are eliminated, or, you know, suddenly you can say anything at all on Twitter because there are no rules against, you know, hate speech anymore. So they have an enormous amount of power and they use that power in different ways. They're taking over institutions. You can see what's happening in the United States very clearly, but it also happens in many countries around the world, just less visibly slow.