Key highlights
- People who own private jets, mansions, and super yachts are the highest carbon emitters.
- Various income groups emit carbon differently and the top 10% have a higher footprint than the bottom 10% that are mostly resident in Africa.
- Africa’s cumulative share in global emissions is just 2.7%. as of 2022.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that people with super yachts, mansions and private jets emit more carbon (CO2) than the average person in developing countries.
In a 2023 commentary, IEA analysts highlighted the fact that the world’s top 1% carbon emitters produce over 1000 times more carbon than the bottom 1%.
According to the IEA, wealth, energy use, and the consumption of goods and services are unevenly distributed across the world. So, emissions vary across countries and across generations, but even more so across income groups. The IEA stated:
- “The richest 0.1% of the world’s population emitted 10 times more than all the rest of the richest 10% combined, exceeding a total footprint of 200 tons of CO2 per capita annually. Within this 0.1% are the billionaires and multimillionaires whose emissions-intensive super-yachts, private jets, and mansions have attracted the attention of climate activists.
- “Globally, the top 10% of emitters were responsible for almost half of global energy-related CO2 emissions in 2021, compared with a mere 0.2% for the bottom 10%. The top 10% averaged 22 tons of CO2 per capita in 2021, over 200 times more than the average for the bottom 10%.
- “In 2021, the average North American emitted 11 times more energy-related CO2 than the average African. Yet variations across income groups are even more significant. The top 1% of emitters globally each had carbon footprints of over 50 tons of CO2 in 2021, more than 1 000 times greater than those of the bottom 1% of emitters.
- “Meanwhile, the global average energy-related carbon footprint is around 4.7 tons of CO2 per person – the equivalent of taking two round-trip flights between Singapore and New York, or of driving an average SUV for 18 months. These large contrasts reflect great differences in income and wealth, and in lifestyles and consumption patterns.”
The African context
Despite its high number of fuel and diesel generators, Nigeria still has low levels of carbon emissions mostly because the country has about 92 million people who lack electricity access. According to data from Climate Scorecard, Nigeria emitted about 104.27 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2018.
According to 2022 African Economic Outlook from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the world has used over 85% of its carbon budget and, at current levels of annual emissions of 42.2 gigatons of carbon equivalent (GtCO2e), is fast depleting the remaining carbon budget.
The Bank insists that Africa contributed little to the historical emissions buildup but could be denied the carbon space to expand its economy.
According to the AfDB outlook, Africa’s cumulative share in global emissions is just 2.7%, meanwhile, the United States had a 25% share between 1850 and 2020, with the EU27 + the United Kingdom at 22.5% and China at 14%.
What you should know
The IEA highlights the fact that the top 10% of emitters span all continents. Around 85% of them live in advanced economies – Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, United States, and United Kingdom and China.
Others are from the Middle East, Russia, and South Africa, in countries with relatively high income and wealth inequality and emissions-intensive fuel mixes.
Meanwhile, the bottom 10% of emitters globally live in developing economies in Africa and Asia, where they consume relatively small amounts of goods and services, and in many cases lack access to electricity and clean cooking.
