https://www.ecowatch.com/rich-poor-contrast-climate-crisis-2655944254.html
Climate Nexus
Dec. 08, 2021 10:16AM EST
As another year of extreme weather disasters draws to a close, a new report from the World Inequality Lab shows how disproportionately culpable the world's richest people and nations are for climate pollution.
This inequality is perhaps best illustrated by the equivalence between the climate pollution produced by one billionaire's nine-minute joyride into space and the lifetime carbon emissions of 1 billion people. The world's richest people have become more, and disproportionately more, wealthy in recent decades and that trend has accelerated during the pandemic.
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It’s easy to understand why these big discrepancies exist. Richer people have larger homes with more high-energy amenities like air conditioners. They are more likely to own cars, to have bigger cars and to take airplane trips. They buy more new products, from smartphones to clothes, that each have their own carbon footprint.
It’s also unsurprising that the average American produces more emissions, adjusted for income, than their European counterparts: Americans tend to have larger homes and to drive more and in less efficient cars. That’s largely because of different government policies. Gasoline taxes in the United States are the second-lowest, after Mexico, of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The average American pays $0.56 per gallon in gasoline taxes. In the United Kingdom, the average gasoline tax per gallon is $2.82; in Japan it’s $1.91, and in Germany it’s $2.79.
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