for - liberal blind spot - Chris Yates - book - liberalism and the challenge of climate change - adjacency - liberalism - individual liberty - progress - bond spot - political polarization - fuel for the right -hyperobjects

Summary - This short article contains some key insights that point to the right climate communication strategy to target and win over the working class - Currently, climate communications speak to elitist values and is having the opposite effect - The working class farmer protests spreading across the EU is a symptom of this miscommunication strategy - as is the increasing support and ascendency of right wing political parties - Researcher and author Chris Yates is in a unique position with one foot in each world - He articulates his insightful ideas and points is in the right direction to communicate in a way that reaches the working class

comment - the figure 4 graph is an example of carbon inequality

Example - carbon inequality - see figure 4

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/22/who-are-polluter-elite-how-can-we-tackle-carbon-inequality

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/22/who-are-polluter-elite-how-can-we-tackle-carbon-inequality

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/22/who-are-polluter-elite-how-can-we-tackle-carbon-inequality

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/22/it-is-all-about-listening-and-sharing-indigenous-solutions-to-the-carbon-divide

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2023/nov/22/car-culture-car-industry-consumers-debt

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/21/i-cannot-stress-too-much-about-it-monaco-yacht-buyers-shrug-off-climate-concerns

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/21/the-jet-set-200-celebrities-aircraft-have-flown-for-combined-total-of-11-years-since-2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/21/ad-industry-grapples-with-role-selling-consumption-in-climate-crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/21/new-orleans-climate-carbon-emissions

https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2023/nov/21/superyachts-and-private-jets-the-carbon-impact-of-the-polluter-elite-podcast

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/restaurants-pets-holidays-how-uk-well-off-have-outsize-carbon-footprints

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/revealed-huge-climate-impact-of-the-middle-classes-carbon-divide

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/20/billionaires-great-carbon-divide-planet-climate-crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/elon-musk-green-credentials-clean-energy-climate-deniers

Oxfam legt die bisher umfangreichste Studie zur weltweiten Klima-Ungleichheit vor. Sie wurde gemeinsam mit dem Guardian und dem Stockholm Institut erstellt. Sie ergibt unter anderem, dass das reichste Prozent der Weltbevölkerung für mehr Emissionen verantwortlich ist als die unteren 66%. Analysiert wird auch die Verbindung von wirtschaftlicher und politischer Macht der globalen Eliten und die Möglichkeit, eine just transition durch Besteuerung der Superreichen zu finanzieren https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says

Report: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/climate-equality-a-planet-for-the-99-621551/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2023/nov/23/climate-emergency-crisis-conference-cop-28

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/24/the-guardian-view-on-the-carbon-divide-climate-policies-must-target-the-private-jet-set

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/twelve-billionaires-climate-emissions-jeff-bezos-bill-gates-elon-musk-carbon-divide

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/nov/20/the-great-carbon-divide-climate-chasm-rich-poor

• for: quote - Kevin Anderson, quote - elite positive feedback carbon inequality loop, climate crisis - societal aspirations, elites - societal aspirations, societal aspirations, key insight - societal aspirations

• quote

  • This 1% of humanity uses its awesome power to manipulate
    • societal aspirations and
    • the narratives around climate change.
  • These extend from
    • well-funded advertising to
    • pseudo-technical solutions,
    • and financialisation of carbon emissions (and increasingly, nature) to
    • labelling extreme any meaningful narrative that questions inequality and power.

• comment

• key insight - societal aspirations
  • it is the societal aspiration of the logic of capitalism and the free market that continues to create the next generation of the 1%
  • How can the luxury industry NOT BE high carbon intensity? It's an oxymoron. High carbon is baked into the definition of luxury, and it is luxury goods and services which accelerate climate breakdown.
  • The elites have a strong feeling of entitlement. They feel they DESERVE to reward themselves with a luxury lifestyle. That aspiration and reward structure multiplied by 80 million (1% of 8 billion) is a major variable driving the climate crisis

• for: carbon inequality, question - new COP - focused on elites?

• comment

  • while COP28 fights over which nations bear what responsibility, from this perspective, there is an entirely different class of people that must be held responsible, not at the nation state level, but at the individual level. Why isn't there a COP where the elites are held responsible?

• question

  • Are we making a grave category error in holding the wrong class of people responsible? Should questions of carbon equity concern both high polluting nations AND individuals?
  • At the very least, should we formally recognize a parallel set of responsibilities and elevate that recognition to the level of COP conventions to deal with the problem?

• for: climate crisis - elites, Kevin Anderson - elites, carbon emissions - elites, adjacency - elites - carbon inequality - incentives - luxury - capitalism

• title: A Habitable Earth Can No Longer Afford The Rich – And That Could Mean Me And You

• author: Kevin Anderson

• date: Nov. 29, 2023

• comment

• adjacency between
  • elites
  • capitalism
  • free market
  • incentives
  • double bind
  • wicked problem
  • inequality
  • carbon inequality
  • luxury industry
• adjacency statement
  • This article was pulled by "The Conversation" for being too controversial
  • It addresses the double-bind / wicked problems that we find ourselves in.
  • It's not just that the elites that are the highest per capita polluters, but
    • it is an indictment of the entire philosophy and worldview of capitalism and the market economy which produces winners and losers and
    • the winners reap enormous resource benefits, including being able to afford luxury items as rewards which constitute the largest ecological footprint of all
  • while at any one time, there is always a minority of the 1%, who hold the most outsized ecological footprint of all, the logic that produced that 1% also serves as the incentives for the majority of the 99%, who because of the inherent precarity created by capitalism, will fight and struggle to become part of that 1%
  • So while one generation of the 1% die off, a new generation is born and created by the incentive structure of scarcity and precarity.
  • In this sense, capitalism has its own self-reinforcing, positive feedback loop that keeps the masses of the disenfranchised aspiring to the same high resource and ecological footprint, luxury lifestyle
  • Look at the culture industry of sports, entertainment, movies, music, TV, etc. and of business in general. The leaders of these and ALL fields are celebrated as heros and they all reward themselves with an ultra-high carbon intensity, luxury lifestyle.
  • Unless we do more than simply demonize the current set of elites, and recognize the root cause and change the incentive structure itself, we will only ever deal with the symptom and not the problem, and continue to generate the next generation of elites
  • The luxury lifestyle industry is a important role-player in the self-reinforcing feedback loop

• for: Kevin Anderson, transition, climate equity, climate justice, climate justice - Kevin Anderson, carbon inequality - Kevin Anderson, life within planetary boundaries, lifestyle within planetary boundaries - elites, climate crisis - Kevin Anderson

• summary

  • Kevin offers a picture of what a world within the stable climate planetary boundary would look like for the wealthy of the planet.

• for: Kevin Anderson - carbon inequality, climate crisis - carbon inequality climate crisis - carbon inequality, carbon inequality

• for: carbon tax, tax the rich, carbon inequality

• comment

  • an obvious and logical strategy because
    • the elites are few in number, but hold much wealth
    • the disenfranchised are many in number but hold little wealth
      • but the disenfranchised exist in larger numbers
      • so when it comes to voting, they are a strategic cohort to win over
  • this is in effect the same logic as the Paris Agreement and climate justice
  • climate justice requires us to protect the poor and give them the remaining carbon budget whilst those who already have enough must cut back

• for: carbon inequality

• for: Johan Rockstrom - wellbeing economy, wellbeing economy, green growth, degrowth, question, question - Johan Rockstrom - green growth or degrowth?
• question
  • Does Johan Rockstrom advocate for a green economy or degrowth?
  • He would seem to be arguing for green growth as degrowth, if not done extremely carefully, can result in a drop in wellbeing.
  • How does he see this taking place when the elites perceive that they have the most (at least materially) to give up? Is there a contradiction here?

Auf einer neuen Tracking-Website von Greenpeace können die Flüge österreichischer Privatjets in Echtzeit verfolgt werden. Die Zahl der Flüge von Privatjets hat sich gegenüber 2019 verdoppelt. Allein im Monat August wurden dabei 10.000 Tonnen CO2 ausgestoßen..

https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000185807/oesterreichische-privatjets-emittierten-im-august-ueber-10000-tonnen-co2

• for: inequality, carbon inequality, carbon inequality - eu
• title: The unequal distribution of household carbon footprints in Europe and its link to sustainability
• authors
  • Diana ivanova
  • Richard Wood
• date: July 6, 2020
• source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-sustainability/article/unequal-distribution-of-household-carbon-footprints-in-europe-and-its-link-to-sustainability/F1ED4F705AF1C6C1FCAD477398353DC2#article

• for: inequality, Anthropocene, climate justice
• title: Why this viral photo of the world’s largest cruise ship is polarizing opinion
• source
  • https://edition.cnn.com/travel/viral-icon-of-the-seas-cruise-ship-photo/index.html
• comment
  • economic AND carbon inequality on display

• for: inequality, poverty, W2W, Jane Goodall, socio-ecological system, climate justice, emptiness - example, entanglement - inequality and climate crisis
• key insight
  • if you're very poor and you're living in some kind of Wilderness Area
    • you're going to destroy the environment in order to survive
    • example: Gumby Street National Park
      • in 1960 it was part of the Great Forest
      • but by the late 1980s was a tiny Islander forest and all the hills around were bare
      • more people living there than the land could support
      • too poor to buy food elsewhere
        • struggling to survive
        • cutting down the trees to make money from charcoal or Timber
        • or to make more land grow more food and
      • that's when it hit me
        • if we don't help these people these local communities find ways of living without destroying the environment
        • we can't save chimpanzees forests or anything else so we need to alleviate poverty
• comment
  • This is why the inequality crisis is entangled with the climate crisis

• for: voting, power - money, money - voting, inequality, voting - money, equity, voting power - rich
• paraphrase
• question
  • if we think of money as a voting tool
    • why does a billionaire have a billion times more power to decide what society should be like than i do?

• for: W2W, carbon inequality, carbon footprint - 1%, carbon emissions - 1%, luxury advertising, luxury advertising contracts, carbon emissions - luxury goods
• key insight
  • the elites are often the main popularizers, influencers and propagandists of the fantasy of overconsumption
  • culture of overconsumption
  • such elites have a close tie to the luxury industry via large advertising contracts
  • Media posts critical of the carbon air travel emissions of famous DJ named DJ Snake offers a prime example of a common attitude of privilege and self-righteousness found amongst a number of elites

• for: emissions reduction, bend the curve, TPF, W2W, emissions reduction - cultural sector, bend the curve - cultural sector, TPF - cultural sector, W2W - cultural sector, carbon emissions - cultural sector, carbon inequality

• comment

  • well written article on the carbon emissions challenges of the cultural sector
  • this is related to the carbon emissions of the luxury industry as well
• question
  • same question as asked about luxury, since there is overlap with culture industry and luxury
  • Given that the 1% have the same carbon emissions as the bottom half of humanity, does the sustainability impacts of the decarbonization efforts of the luxury aspects of the culture industry measure up to stay under earth system boundaries in time?
• reference
  • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=carbon+inequality

• for: carbon inequality, decarbonizing luxury, decarbonizing luxury goods, carbon emissions - luxury goods, W2W, TPF,

• question

  • Given that the 1% have the same carbon emissions as the bottom half of humanity, does the sustainability impacts of the decarbonization efforts of the luxury industry measure up to stay under earth system boundaries in time?
• reference
  • carbon inequality
  • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=carbon+inequality

• for: sense of lack, sense of self, sense of self and sense of lack, human condition, poverty mentality, alienation, separation, emptiness, emptiness of emptiness, W2W, inequality
• key insight
  • sense of self is equivalent to
    • sense of lack
    • duality
    • disconnection
    • alienation
    • separation
    • solidification - the opposite of emptiness
• comment
  • this sense of lack that is intrinsically associated with the sense of self is perhaps the deepest root of our unhappiness
  • this is a key insight for sharing for both those who have too much (the 1%) as well as those who are so materially impoverished and deprived that they are forced to adopt survivalist strategies to stay alive, and if successful, take on a hard edge to survivalism, over-appreciating materialism
  • the same mistake is committed on both end of the disparity spectrum, both groups are still under the illusion that that sense of lack can be filled

• for: millionaire emissions, carbon inequality, inequality, W2W
• paraphrase
  • Our findings suggest that the share of US$2020-millionaires in the world population will grow
    • from 0.7% today
    • to 3.3% in 2050,
  • and cause accumulated emissions of
    • 286 Gt CO2
    • equivalent to 72% of the remaining carbon budget,
  • and significantly reduces the chance of stabilizing climate change at 1.5 °C.
  • Continued growth in emissions at the top makes a low-carbon transition less likely,
    • as the acceleration of energy consumption by the wealthiest
    • is likely beyond the system's capacity to decarbonize.
    • To this end, we question whether policy designs such as progressive taxes targeting the high emitters will be sufficient.

• for: wealth inequality, inequality, carbon inequality, elite emissions, 1% emissions, millionaire emissions
• According to a new study by tourism professor Stefan Gössling,
  • the millionaires will, within just a few decades, be responsible for almost three quarters of carbon dioxide emissions.

• for: high-SES, 1%, W2W, inequality, carbon inequality, elites, billionaires, millionaires, leverage point
• five high carbon emission areas of high-SES, HNWI, VHNWI
  • consumption
  • investor
  • role model within social networks
  • participants in organizations
  • citizens seeking to influence public policies or corporate behavior

• for: high-SES, 1%, W2W, inequality, carbon inequality, elites, billionaires, millionaires, leverage point
• definition
  • high-SES
    • high socioeconomic status
    • equivalent to high net worth individual (HNWI) or
    • very high net worth individual (VHNWI)

• for: carbon inequality, w2w, leverage point - climate change, 1%, inequality, wealth tax
• title
  • The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions
• authors
  • Kristian S. Nielsen
  • Kimberly A. Nicholas
  • Felix Creutzig
  • Thomas Dietz
  • Paul C. Stern
• date
  • Sept 30, 2021 -source
  • https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00900-y
• abstract
  • People with high socioeconomic status disproportionally affect energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions directly
    • through their consumption and
    • indirectly through their financial and social resources.
  • However, few climate change mitigation initiatives have targeted this population segment,
    • and the potential of such initiatives remains insufficiently researched.
  • In this Perspective, we analyse key characteristics of high-socioeconomic-status people and explore five roles through which they have a disproportionate impact on energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions and potentially on climate change mitigation, namely as:
    • consumers,
    • investors,
    • role models,
    • organizational participants and
    • citizens.
  • We examine what is known about their disproportionate impact via consumption and
    • explore their potential influence on greenhouse gas emissions through all five roles.
  • We suggest that future research should focus on strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by high-socioeconomic-status people and to align their
    • investments,
    • organizational choices and
    • actions as social and political change agents
  • with climate change mitigation goals.

• for: inequality, carbon inequality, 1%, wealth tax

• for: inequality, 1%, carbon inequality private jets, carbon emissions, patriotic millionaires
• title
  • He’s a millionaire with a private jet. But now he’s selling it for the sake of the environment
• source
  • https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/millionaire-selling-private-jet/index.html
• date
  • July 13, 2023
• Stephen Prince, vice-chair of the Patriotic Millionaires – a group of wealthy Americans pushing for higher taxes which also contributed to the report – is giving up his Cessna 650 Citation III.

• for: inequality, climate justice, wealth tax
• policy paper
• title
  • survival of the richest
• date
  • Jan 16, 2023
• executive summary
  • Since 2020, the richest 1% have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth
    • nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population.
  • Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7bn a day,
    • even as inflation outpaces the wages of at least 1.7 billion workers, more than the population of India.7
  • Food and energy companies more than doubled their profits in 2022,
    • paying out $257bn to wealthy shareholders,
    • while over 800 million people went to bed hungry
  • Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue comes from wealth taxes and
    • half the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children.
  • A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year,
    • enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.

• for: inequality, 1%, elites, carbon inequality, leverage point, leverage point - climate change, oxfam
• quote
  • Richest 1% Took 2/3rds of Global Wealth Since 2020
  • Richest 1% increased wealth in 2020 and 2021 twice as much as 99% of Population Earned

• for: carbon inequality, W2W, leverage point

• five leverage points

  • consumer.
  • investors
  • lobbyist
  • influencer
  • citizen

• for: carbon inequality, w2w
• comment
  • it would be useful to have the accounting process used to calculate how the top1% emit carbon equivalent to bottom 50% to help us identify areas where interventions can be developed

Wenn die reichsten Menschen in Europa ihren Energieverbrauch auf 170 Gigajoule pro Jahr reduzieren würden, ließen sich allein damit 10% der EU-Emissionen reduzieren - wobei 170 Gigajoule mehr sind, als 80% der europäischen Bevölkerung verbrauchen. Eine neue Studie zeigt das Potenzial von Reduktionen auf der Nachfrageseite vor allem bei Wohlhabenden. Eine bessere Befriedigung grundlegender Energiebedürfnisse von Armen hat dagegen nur geringe Auswirkungen auf die Emissionen. https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000179254/energiesparen-bei-reichen-kann-erhoehten-verbrauch-bei-armen-kompensieren

Studie: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01283-y

• question
  • how to we split the burden of collectively staying within the PBs?
  • To know if e.g. a person or a company is absolute environmentally sustainable,
    • we need to know that person’s or the company’s assigned SoSOS.
  • How to determine a person’s or a company’s assigned SoSOS is not only normative,
    • but essentially a question of distributive justice.

• One energy demand reduction strategy
  • Cap the top 20% of energy users
  • while allowing those people
    • who use little energy and
    • have poverty-level incomes
  • to be able to
    • increase their consumption levels and
    • improve their quality of life.

• Title
  • Cap top 20% of energy users to reduce carbon emissions

• Publication

  • https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717175940.htm

• Summary -Consumers in the richer, developed nations will have to accept restrictions on their energy use

  • if international climate change targets are to be met, warn researchers.
  • The big challenge is to identify the fairest and most equitable way
  • that governments can curtail energy use,
    • a process known as energy demand reduction. -The research team analyzed several scenarios to identify a potential solution.

• comment
  • Disney is an ardent wealth and climate reformer and was protesting the 1%'s use of carbon intensive jet planes.

• Title
  • Abigail Disney Arrested During ‘Private Jet’ Protest

• Source

  • https://insidethemagic.net/2023/07/abigail-disney-arrested-during-protest-emd1/?taid=64b2e5af9f67e300011a350c

• Description

  • She is the heiress to the Walt Disney empire but is a climate activist.
  • She performed this action to bring attention to the carbon intensive activity of the 1%
  • She stated the carbon inequality fact that the wealthiest 1% are responsible for carbon emissions equal to the bottom 50% of humanity.

Siehe auch: World's 5% 'Polluter Elite' Responsible for 37% of Global Emissions Growth, Study Concludes - EcoWatch, das Buch Carbon Inequality: The Role of the Richest in Climate Change - 1st Edi, den Bericht über die IPCC-Beratungen zur Studie des Konzeptwerks Neue Ökonomie Maßnahmen gegen die Klimakrise: Ein Flug alle drei Jahre - taz.de

Highlights erroneously posted to a group:

 We allocate national consumption emissions to individuals within each country based on a functional relationship between income and emissions, drawing on new income distribution dataset

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

inequalityOxfam and SEI's approach to estimating how global carbon emissions can be attributed to individuals based on their consumption builds on Oxfam's 2015 report 'Extreme Carbon Inequality,'23 which gave a snapshot of the global distribution of emissions in a single year, and that of Chancel and Piketty24 among others. It is explained in detail in the accompanying research report.25

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

nequal growth has another cost: it means that the global carbon budget is being rapidly depleted, not for the purpose of lifting all of humanity to a decent standard of living, but to a large extent to expand the consumption of a minority of the world's very richest people

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

The World Bank recently concluded that continued unequal growth will barely make a dent in the number of people living on less than $1.90 per day by 2030; only a reduction in income inequality will help

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

S. Kartha, E. Kempt-Benedict, E. Ghosh, A. Nazareth and T. Gore. (2020). The Carbon Inequality Era: An assessment of the global distribution of consumption emissions among individuals from 1990 to 2015 and beyond. Oxfam and SEI. https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/handle/10546/621049The dataset is available at https://www.sei.org/projects-and-tools/tools/emissions-inequality-dashboard

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

The poorest 50% barely increased their consumption emissions at all.

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

t is striking that the shares of emissions across income groups have remained essentially unchanged across the period

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

the total emissions added to the atmosphere since the mid-1800s approximately doubled.2Global GDP doubled in this period too, a

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

juncture – prioritizing yet more grossly unequal, carbon intensive economic growth to the benefit of the rich minority

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

in the service of increasing the consumption of the already affluent, rather than lifting people out of poverty.

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

It took about 140 years to use 750Gt of the global carbon budget, and just 25 years from 1990 to 2015 to use about the same again

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

Oxfamand SEI's research estimates how global carbon emissions are attributed to individuals who are the end consumers of goods and services for which the emissions were generated. See Box 2.

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

while the total growth in emissions of the richest 1% was three times that of the poorest 50%

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget –twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

he richest 10% of the world’s population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

From 1990 to 2015, a

HeinzWittenbrink 26 Dec 2020 in COS-OER

This briefing describes new research that shows how extreme carbon inequality in recent decades has brought the world to the climate brink.

Question - Those is the big question!

In Other Words - These recommendations, if we followed continue the existing inequality, Indeed can exasperate it. - Wealthy countries and individuals cannot be allowed to continue emitting high levels of carbon if we are to honour the principle of climate justice andequity written into the climate agreements

Three obstacles to policies limiting elite carbon emissions - First is the realization of connection between wealth and carbon emissions - Second is polarized politics making it difficult to pass or implement policies to limit dangerous consumption - Third is focused policy on the oversized contributions of elites

key finding - staying within 1.5 or even 2 deg C will be difficult without addressing wealth growth - a significant share of the remaining carbon budget risks being depleted by a very small group of human beings

// - if millionaire consumptive behavior - threatens the survival of civilization, - then laws can be created to ban the dangerous consumptive behavior - if they cannot self-regulate

key finding - Elite consumption has the potential to make 1.5 Deg C target unreachable - US$2020 millionaires will deplete 72% of the 1.5 °C carbon budget (400 Gt CO2, 67% chance of staying within temperature range), - or 25% of the 2 °C budget (1150 Gt CO2, 67% chance) - over the next 30 years.

• Quote
  • carbon inequality stat
    • 1% of the world's population is responsible for 50% of emissions from commercial air transport

yacht stats - 2021: 5245 superyachts of lengths 30-180m - 1990: 1090 superyachts of lengths 30-180m - stats - yachts - quote - yachts

carbon inequality follows a power law

Quotable carbon inequality stats: - the top 1% responsible for 17% of total emissions, - the top 10% for 48%, - the bottom 50% for12% - stats carbon inequality - quote carbon inequality - 2019

// A key question is also this: - what are individuals using those carbon emissions for? - is it being used just for luxury consumption - or is it being used to develop and actionize scalable low carbon strategies? - if it is the later, it could be seen as a de-carbon investment

Noteworthy countries with the most high carbon net worth individuals (HCNW): - USA - 3.16 million individuals emitting an average 318 t CO2-e/year/person, - Luxemburg: 10,000 individuals emitting an average 287 t CO2-e/year/person, - Singapore: 50,000 individuals emitting 251 t CO2-e/year/person, - Saudi Arabia: 290,000 individuals emitting 247 t CO2-e/year/person, - Canada: 350,000 individuals emitting 204 t CO2-e/year/person

Biggest source of emissions of the elite: - yachts - private air transportation - multiple homes in different countries

// - luxury industries of: - private jets - luxury home real estate - yachts - are unsustainable - this irresponsible, unsustainable consumption is imperiling civilization itself

Yacht stats: - close to two thirds of the overall carbon footprint of those billionaires owning yachts is caused by yacht-ownership. - Carbon footprint is - 6500 times greater than the global average of 4.5 t CO2 per person per year, - 300,000 times greater than the poorest, at 0.1 t CO2 per person and year - stats - carbon inequality - quote - carbon inequality

Quotable carbon inequality stats: - top 0.01% emit more than 2300 t CO2-e per capita in 2019, - global average is 6 t CO2-e - therefore, the top 0.01% emit 2300/6 = 383x more than the global average. - quote - carbon inequality - stats - carbon inequality

Title: Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 °C ambitions Authors: - Stefan Gossling - Andreas Humpe

• Abstract

  • Research question

    • Growing evidence suggests that the wealthiest individuals contribute disproportionally to climate change.
    • This study considers the implications of a continued growth in the number of millionaires for emissions,
      • and its impact on the depletion of the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5 °C (about 400 Gt CO2).
    • The study presents a model that extrapolates observed growth in millionaire numbers (1990–2020)
      • and associated changes in emissions to 2050.

  • Results

    • The share of US$2020-millionaires in the world population will grow from 0.7% today to 3.3% in 2050,
      • and cause accumulated emissions of 286 Gt CO2.
    • This is equivalent to 72% of the remaining carbon budget,
      • and significantly reduces the chance of stabilizing climate change at 1.5 °C.
    • Continued growth in emissions at the top
      • makes a low-carbon transition less likely,
      • as the acceleration of energy consumption by the wealthiest
      • is likely beyond the system's capacity to decarbonize.
    • To this end, we question whether policy designs
      • such as progressive taxes targeting the high emitters
    • will be sufficient.

// and if it is not sufficient, then what?

Taxing? No, they have enough wealth to just keep going. - if we people don't act on their own, legal regulation is required - unless they can transform themselves and the global luxury industry also undergoes a huge transformation

• First stage of characterizing the Safe and Just Corridor
• The black line in Fig. 5 shows that
• redistribution is not enough
  • if everyone’s emissions are equalized at escape from poverty levels, then
  • we would STILL overshoot the climate boundaries (annotator's emphasis)
  • hypothetical pressure from 62% of humanity that is lacking humane access to resources is equal to the pressure exerted by 4% of the elits of humanity

• report shows that tackling global poverty will not overshoot global carbon budgets, as is often claimed.
• Failure to address the power and privilege of the polluter elite will.

• These are related because

  • reducing carbon consumption at the top
  • can free up carbon space to lift people out of poverty.

• = comment:

= comment - It has been a research claim for SRG for years that this is the case, - and is also rather obvious that - carbon inequality exists wherever there is wealth inequality - our more interesting analysis is the historical connection between colonialism and capitalism - As the explicit form of colonialism began to disappear for to progressive action, globalised, industrial capitalism began to emerge - the North/South divide created by colonialism began to plant the seed of the extractive logic of democratically into opportunist minds of every creed - in effect, the traditional colonialist perpetrator club, swung their doors wide open, inclusive now of non-white exploiters - there is now a North /South divide within each country

• The difference between the carbon emissions of the rich and the poor
• within a country
• is now greater than the differences in emissions
• between countries

• They are currently programmed by minority power holders to serve their interest.
• Many individuals and projects are trying to do this
• Climate change is a classic example of power holders dictating the agenda

Bill Gates and Steven Pinker falsely argue that neoliberal capitalism has substantially reduced poverty. Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel critiques Gates and Pinker's claim here: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjacobin.com%2F2019%2F02%2Fsteven-pinker-global-poverty-neoliberalism-progress&group=vnpq69nW

Oxfam inequality report: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Foi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fs3fs-public%2Ffile_attachments%2Fbp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-summ-en.pdf&group=vnpq69nW

IPCC AR6 WGIII chapter 5 points out the major role that decarbonizing the rich can have on meeting our 1.5 Deg C target: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Freport.ipcc.ch%2Far6wg3%2Fpdf%2FIPCC_AR6_WGIII_FinalDraft_Chapter05.pdf&group=world

And the wealth inequality = carbon inequality: As per Oxfam https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oxfam.org%2Fen%2Fpress-releases%2Fcarbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity&group=world As per IPCC https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Freport.ipcc.ch%2Far6wg3%2Fpdf%2FIPCC_AR6_WGIII_FinalDraft_Chapter05.pdf&group=world

Why is 2022 a critical year to fund projects that build the commons?

From a scientific, commons and Stop Reset Go perspective, humanity now stands at the doorsteps of the Anthropocene and we as a species have collectively shaped the planet in a way that is harming many species on the globe, including our own.

We are at a bifurcation point in human history, a fork in the road and the next few years will determine the course of humanity for the next thousands of years to come.

The funneling of human resources to the few elites at the top leaves the majority of humanity little agency to determine our own future and carbon emissions are also related to structural inequality: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oxfam.org%2Fen%2Fpress-releases%2Fcarbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity&group=world

See Jason Hickel's arguments against the overly optimistic story that Neoliberal capitalism has alleviated poverty. Hickel finds the opposite when critical analysis is applied to the rosy claims that Steven Pinker and Bill Gates make: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjacobin.com%2F2019%2F02%2Fsteven-pinker-global-poverty-neoliberalism-progress&group=vnpq69nW

Funding projects in the commons counters the wealth of elites, a trend that is counter to planetary health because it continues degrading the environment through carbon inequality:

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity#annotations:8gdC3ht8EeyWyQ-BBdinXw

and wealth inequality.

This is a key leverage point strategy for Stop Reset Go for Rapid Whole System Change (RWSC) strategy. As argued by Kevin Anderson https://youtu.be/mBtehlDpLlU, the wealthy are a crucial subculture to target and success can lead to big decarbonization payoffs.

The key is to leverage what contemplative practitioners and happiness studies both reveal - after reaching a specific level of material needs being met, which is achievable for staying within planetary boundaries, we don’t need any more material consumption to be happy. We need an anti-money song: https://youtu.be/_awAH-JJx1kamd and enliven Martin Luther King Junior’s quote aspirational: the only time to look down at another person is to give them a hand up. Educate the elites on the critical role they now play to solve the double problem of i equality and runaway carbon emissions.

Oxfam reports that the carbon footprints of the richest 1 percent of people on Earth is set to be 30 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement in 2030. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-set-be-30-times-15degc-limit-2030

The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth. The richest 10 percent accounted for over half (52 percent) of the emissions added to the atmosphere between 1990 and 2015. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity

Stop Reset Go strategy. Stop Button. Could we use the Stop Button to just stop? Is there a way to create a conditional stop button with conditional impacts if thresholds are exceeded?

Stop Reset Go needs to implement a STOP the STEAL! campaign against the elites and luxury producers and also a WEALTH to WELLth program to transition high carbon consumption lifestyle to a low one that helps the wealthy funnel their wealth into climate justice and become carbon heros instead of carbon villains.

See the reports that George Monbiot is referring to:

OXFAM REPORT: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Foxfamilibrary.openrepository.com%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10546%2F621305%2Fbn-carbon-inequality-2030-051121-en.pdf&group=__world__

Even more recent research adds to this:

See the annotated Oxfam report: Linked In from the author: https://hyp.is/RGd61D_IEeyaWyPmSL8tXw/www.linkedin.com/posts/timgore_inequality-parisagreement-emissionsgap-activity-6862352517032943616-OHL- Annotations on full report: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Foxfamilibrary.openrepository.com%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10546%2F621305%2Fbn-carbon-inequality-2030-051121-en.pdf&group=__world__

and the annotated Hot or Cool report: https://hyp.is/KKhrLj_bEeywAIuGCjROAg/hotorcool.org/hc-posts/release-governments-in-g20-countries-must-enable-1-5-aligned-lifestyles/ https://hyp.is/zo0VbD_bEeydJf_xcudslg/hotorcool.org/hc-posts/release-governments-in-g20-countries-must-enable-1-5-aligned-lifestyles/

This suggests that perhaps the failure of the COP meetings may be partially due to focusing at the wrong level and demographics. the top 1 and 10 % live in every country. A focus on the wealthy class is not a focus area of COP negotiations perse. The COP meetings are focused on nation states. Interventions targeting this demographic may be better suited at the scale of individuals or civil society.

Many studies show there are no extra gains in happiness beyond a certain point of material wealth, and point to the harmful impacts of wealth accumulation, known as affluenza, and show many health effects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950124/, https://theswaddle.com/how-money-affects-rich-people/, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dark-reasons-so-many-rich-people-are-miserable-human-beings-2018-02-22, https://www.nbcnews.com/better/pop-culture/why-wealthy-people-may-be-less-successful-love-ncna837306, https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/affluence,

A Human Inner Transformation approach based on an open source praxis called Deep Humanity is one example of helping to transform affluenza and leveraging it to accelerate transition.

Anderson has contextualized the scale of such an impact in his other presentations but not here. A recent example is the temporary emission decreases due to covid 19. A 6.6% global decrease was determined from this study: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3#:~:text=After%20rising%20steadily%20for%20decades,on%20daily%20fossil%20fuel%20emissions. with the US contributing 13% due to lockdown impacts on vehicular travel (both air and ground). After the pandemic ends, experts expect a strong rebound effect.

The bottom-up nature of this cluster makes it the focus area for civil society movements, human inner transformation (HIT) approaches and cultural methodologies.

Changing the mindset or paradigm from which the system arises is the most powerful place to intervene in a system as Donella Meadows pointed out decades ago in her research on system leverage points: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/

The sleeping giant of billions of potential change actors remains dormant. How do we awaken them and mobilize them. If we can do this, it can constitute the emergence of a third unidentified actor in system change.

The Stop Reset Go (SRG) initiative is focused on this thematic lens, bottom-up, rapid whole system change, with Deep Humanity (DH) as the open-source praxis to address the needed shift in worldview advocated by Meadows. One of the Deep Humanity programs is based on addressing the psychological deficits of the wealthy, and transforming them into heroes for the transition, by redirecting their WEALTH-to-WELLth.

There are a number of strategic demographics that can be targeted in methodical evidence-based ways. Each of these is a leverage point and can bring about social tipping points.

A number of 2021 reports characterize the outsized impact of the top 1% and top 10% of humanity. Unless their luxury, high ecological footprint behavior is reeled in, humanity won't stand a chance. Annotation of Oxfam report: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Foxfamilibrary.openrepository.com%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10546%2F621305%2Fbn-carbon-inequality-2030-051121-en.pdf&group=__world__ Annotation of Hot or Cool report: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhotorcool.org%2Fhc-posts%2Frelease-governments-in-g20-countries-must-enable-1-5-aligned-lifestyles%2F&group=__world__

See the annotated Oxfam report: Linked In from the author: https://hyp.is/RGd61D_IEeyaWyPmSL8tXw/www.linkedin.com/posts/timgore_inequality-parisagreement-emissionsgap-activity-6862352517032943616-OHL- Annotations on full report: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Foxfamilibrary.openrepository.com%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10546%2F621305%2Fbn-carbon-inequality-2030-051121-en.pdf&group=__world__

and the annotated Hot or Cool report: https://hyp.is/KKhrLj_bEeywAIuGCjROAg/hotorcool.org/hc-posts/release-governments-in-g20-countries-must-enable-1-5-aligned-lifestyles/ https://hyp.is/zo0VbD_bEeydJf_xcudslg/hotorcool.org/hc-posts/release-governments-in-g20-countries-must-enable-1-5-aligned-lifestyles/

Policy alone may not be sufficient to change this deeply ingrained luxury lifestyle. It may require deep and meaningful education of one's deeper humanity leading to a shift in worldviews and value systems that deprioritize materially luxurious lifestyles for using that wealth to redistribute to build the future wellbeing ecocivilization. Transform the wealthy into the heros of the transition. Shaming them and labeling them as victims will only create distance. Rather, the most constructive approach is a positive one that shifts our own perspective from holding them as villains to heros.

This underscores the critical nature of dealing with the cultural shift of luxury lifestyle. It is recognized as a "hot potato" issue, which implies policy change may be slow and difficult.

Policy changes and new legal tools are ways to force an unwilling individual or group into a behavior change.

A more difficult but potentially more effective way to achieve this cultural shift is based on Donella Meadows' leverage points: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/ which identifies the top leverage point as: The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules, its culture — arises.

The Stop Reset Go (SRG) open collective project applies the Deep Humanity (DH) Human Inner Transformation (HIT) process to effect impactful Social Outer Transformation (SOT). This is based on the inner-to-outer flow: The heart feels, the mind thinks, the body acts and a social impact manifests in our shared, public collective human reality.

Meadows top leverage point identifies narratives, stories and value systems that are inner maps to our outer behavior as critical causal agents to transform.

We need to take a much deeper look at the pysche of the luxury lifestyle. Philospher David Loy has done extensive research on this already. https://www.davidloy.org/media.html

Loy is a Buddhist scholar, but Buddhist philosophy can be understood secularly and across all religions.

Loy cites the work of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, especially his groundbreaking Pulitzer-prize-winning book: The Denial of Death. Becker wrote:

"Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don't know that death is happening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one's dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that's something else."

But Loy goes beyond mortality salience and strikes to the heart of our psychological construction of the Self that is the root of our consumption and materialism exasperated crisis.

To reach the wealthy in a compassionate manner, we must recognize that the degree of wealth and materialist accumulation may be in many cases proportional to the anxiety of dying, the anxiety of the groundlessness of the Self construction itself.

Helping all humans to liberate from this anxiety is monumental, and also applies to the wealthy. The release of this anxiety will naturally result in breaking through the illusion of materialism, seeing its false promises.

Those of the greatest material wealth are often also of the greatest spiritual poverty. As we near the end of our lives, materialism's promise may begin to lose its luster and our deepest unanswered questions begin to regain prominence.

At the end of the day, policy change may only effect so much change. What is really required is a reeducation campaign that results in voluntary behavior change that significantly reduces high impact luxury lifestyles. An exchange for something even more valued is a potential answer to this dilemma.

This Oxfam commissioned study points to how elites hold the rest of humanity hostage: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-set-be-30-times-15degc-limit-2030.

What policy changes will governments enact? Can law against high carbon consumption be drafted into existence based on the premise that such extreme high carbon lifestyle actually constitutes crimes against humanity?

Civil society must act as well. Individual’s must undergo a paradigm shift of the whole idea of luxury. It must be completely decoupled from its high carbon footprint. Carbon offsets are no good. Planting trees is yet another simplistic, one dimensional, reductionist solution....destroy an ancient forest and replace it with invasive monoculture tree crops. It is a false equivalency that enables the continuation of a high carbon lifestyle.

Cultural change is required at this stage. This is an opportunity to educate the wealthy and give them a last opportunity to STOP their high carbon emission behavior, RESET it to low carbon redemptive behavior, and help civilization GO at the greatest speed possible towards a wellbeing ecocivilization.

Another recent report from theNot or Cool Institute validates these findings:

https://hotorcool.org/hc-posts/release-governments-in-g20-countries-must-enable-1-5-aligned-lifestyles/

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/climate-carbon-footprint-luxury-lifestyle-study/

These should be identified.

Wow! Will carbon neutral fuels be greenwashing or real solutions? Will carbon neutral SpaceX flights be greenwashing, or real carbon neutrality?

It's not surprising that yachts and private jets, the symbols of elite luxury.are culprits. Large and multiple mansions must be accounted for somewhere as well.

The facts reflect the truth that developed economies are essentially unwilling to cede their way of life. The people of these economies want to cling to their high carbon way of life.

Humanity and the entire biosphere should not be made to suffer for the whims of 1% of the population. National commitments are very difficult to negotiate. We must really begin to target High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI), for they may hold the fate of humanity in their hands.

Hence, High Net Worth Individual Divestment (HNWID) is definitely an important future strategy.

This sentence seems contradictory to what Figure 3 shows, an increase of 1% of emissions for the top 1%. Either way, while we need a 97% reduction, their emissions are set to go up!

It should be noted that Figure 3 shows that the top 10% are slightly decreasing their emissions from 34% in 2015 to 32% in 2030. THIS is a drop of approximately 5%. Perhaps this is what they are referring to.

This figure reveals that between now and 2030, the top 11% (top 1% added to the next tier down, the top 10%) are responsible for roughly 50% of all carbon emissions. Hence, strategies for decarbonizing the top 11% are very strategic.

Note that the carbon emissions of the 1% are actually INCREASING while everyone else is suppose to be decreasing by 97%!

This is a good study on the consumption and carbon footprint of the elites.

China and India will have the largest growth of elites between 2015 and 2030. Therefore, strategic, culturally appropriate interventions need to be applied to this elite demographic.

this suggests that perhaps the failure of the COP meetings may be partially due to focusing at the wrong level and demographics. the top 1 and 10 % live in every country. A focus on the wealthy class is not a focus area of COP negotiations perse. Interventions targeting this demographic may be better suited at the scale of individuals or civil society.

Many studies show there are no extra gains in happiness beyond a certain point of material wealth, and point to the harmful impacts of wealth accumulation, known as affluenza, and show many health effects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950124/, https://theswaddle.com/how-money-affects-rich-people/, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dark-reasons-so-many-rich-people-are-miserable-human-beings-2018-02-22, https://www.nbcnews.com/better/pop-culture/why-wealthy-people-may-be-less-successful-love-ncna837306, https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/affluence,

A Human Inner Transformation approach based on an open source praxis called Deep Humanity is one example of helping to transform affluenza and leveraging it accelerate transition.