Massive Pollution Emission Gap Between the Top 1% and Us, New Data Shows

The new data shows the enormous emission gap between the polluting elite and the majority of people. We know that the high-carbon lifestyle fuel the climate crisis but it’s shocking to realise the majority of people, even in developed countries, have such a smaller carbon footprint than others.

According to Autonomy’s analysis of income and greenhouse gas data from 1998 to 2018, people on average earning more than £170,000 were responsible for greenhouse gas emissions far greater than 30% of people earning £21,500 or less in the same year. In fact, it would take 26 years for a lower earner to produce as much carbon dioxide as the richest do in a year.

Flying, driving large, expensive cars, owning multiple homes and travelling between them, eating a diet rich in meat and imports, buying more clothes and imported luxury goods are all reasons for the richest generating far higher carbon footprints. Poorer people tend to stay closer to home in small houses and use public transport, while their expenditure on luxuries and items such as “fast fashion” is much smaller.

The data does end just before Covid-19 which disrupted high-carbon activities such as flying.

Autonomy also did the maths and found that if the UK had started taxing carbon emissions from just the top 1% of income groups two decades ago to now, the efforts could have generated around £126 billion by now. This money could have gone a long way in funding the UK’s net zero goals by 2030. This also would have meant an equitable funding of such a project per the study!

There are certain companies out there that do offset carbon emissions for the wealthy, however, they have largely gone underused considering the mass impact our everyday polluting is having on our planet.

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We’re a small start-up brand with an important mission — help nature and fight climate change! Specifically, we want to work with endangered animal charities, plant trees, clean up beaches and start/aid carbon capture and other environmental regeneration projects.

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In the next few months, we’re launching our sustainable clothing brand, each design linked to its own unique cause and charity. We’ll have: