The wealthiest 10 per cent of people are disproportionately responsible for environmental damage that’s costing the Earth trillions.
That’s according to a new study, published in the Communications Sustainability journal, which set out to calculate the financial cost of environmental harm caused by the world’s richest people, due to their businesses and lifestyle habits.
Unsurprisingly, the estimated monetary value of damage caused is gargantuan. The study's authors found annual damages owed by the top 10 per cent amounted to around $1.7–5.7tr (£1.3–4.3tr), equivalent to $2,300–7,500 (£1,700–5,700) per person (in 2017 US dollars), surpassing international climate and biodiversity financing gaps.
To understand just how much money could potentially be owed, study authors calculated the financial cost of the climate change, biosphere integrity, biogeochemical cycles and freshwater use footprints of the richest 10 per cent in 2017 (the most recent data we have in this area), using the Environmental Prices Handbook.
They found that the two biggest contributors to the damage bill were biodiversity loss and climate change. Consumers in the USA racked up the biggest bill of the six countries examined.
“A small number of people are contributing to most of the damage – and they are also controlling the funding that should be used to compensate for the climate change and biodiversity loss,” explains environmental scientist Prof Lisa Schipper from Oxford University, who was not involved in the study.
The study’s authors suggest environmental taxes as a solution to ensure the richest 10 per cent offset their consumption, however, Schipper says it’s a little more nuanced than that: “Some of the activities that are supported by the 10 per cent of ‘baddies’ probably employ, feed or otherwise serve a large number of the rest of the 90 per cent – perhaps in a way that undermines a sustainable and resilient future.”
Billing the biggest contributors to environmental damage would solve the issue of the public sector having to provide this funding when the private sector, and particularly the top 10 per cent, are responsible for most of the damage, according to Schipper.
“But, in reality this is very difficult to implement precisely because the top 10 per cent also have most of the power. In my idealistic mind, there needs to be an acknowledgement of responsibility in order for such an approach to be sustainable.”
Read more:
