for: carbon tax, tax the rich, carbon inequality

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• 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

• The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions

• Kristian S. Nielsen
• Kimberly A. Nicholas
• Felix Creutzig
• Thomas Dietz
• Paul C. Stern

• Sept 30, 2021 -source
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00900-y

• 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.

• survival of the richest

• Jan 16, 2023

• 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.