The year 2025 has barely begun when the richest 1 percent of the population has already used up its share of the annual global CO2 budget – i.e. the amount of CO2 that can be added to the atmosphere without driving global warming to over 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is reported by FAIReconomics and refers to a recent Oxfam analysis. This makes 10 January 2025 an alarming milestone and Oxfam International, an international association of various aid and development organisations, has dubbed it "Polluter's Day".
Compared to this, it would take someone from the poorest half of the world's population almost three years (1,022 days) to use up their share of the annual global carbon budget. The initiative concludes that climate change is therefore being disproportionately driven by the super-rich. In order to achieve the 1.5-degree target, the wealthiest part of the population would have to reduce its emissions by 97 percent by 2030.
Economic damage in the trillions
Oxfam estimates that emissions from this small group – consisting of 77 million people, including billionaires, millionaires and people earning more than 140,000 US-dollars a year – have caused trillions of dollars in economic damage since 1990. "Governments must stop pandering to the rich. Rich polluters must be made to pay for the devastation they cause to our planet," demands Nafkote Dabi, Head of Climate Change Policy at Oxfam International. The initiative calls for a wealth tax on the super-rich and punitive taxes on private jets and superyachts.
Almost 1.6 degrees – global warming unstoppable
Global warming continues unabated. According to the latest data, the year was even 1.6 degrees warmer than the estimated average temperature from 1850 to 1900. At the same time, the last ten years (2015-2024) were the warmest since records began.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Geneva gave the value for 2024 as 1.55 degrees above pre-industrial levels. In addition to the Copernicus data, it analysed five other data sets from the UK, the USA and Japan. It gives the value of 1.55 degrees with an uncertainty of plus/minus 0.13 degrees. The US space agency NASA and the US weather agency NOAA also published data according to which 2024 was the warmest year since their records began, also according to their measurements / dpa, red