The oil barons

On the eve of the C op28 climate conference in Dubai, a major new report reveals the deep imbalance between the carbon emissions of the world’s richest and poorest people – and why recognising who is most to blame is an important step towards identifying possible solutions

- Jonathan Watts

The climate chasm between the world's carbon-guzzling rich and the heat-vulnerable poor forms a symbolic shape when plotted on a graph. Climate-heating greenhouse gas emissions are so heavily concentrated among a rich minority that the image resembles one of those old-fashioned broad-bowled, saucer-shaped glasses beloved of the gilded age: a champagne coupe.

At the top is the wide, flat, shallow bowl of the richest 10% of humanity, whose carbon appetite through personal consumption, investment portfolios, and share of government subsidies and infrastructure benefits accounts for about 50% of all emissions.

Just below is the epicure, that narrowing joint of the glass where the dregs collect. This is made up of the middle 40%, whose carbon habit is roughly proportionate to its number but still double the average carbon budget that everyone would need to stick to if the world is to have any chance of avoiding more dangerous levels of climate breakdown.

Going further down is the long, slim stem comprising the remaining 50% of the world's population, whose carbon use tapers away along with incomes. At the bottom are the hundreds of millions who live in extreme poverty and barely register in terms of greenhouse gases.

The champagne coupe is a fitting image for the great carbon divide that we are living through. The last time wealth inequality was as pronounced as it is now was during that belle époque of the 1920s. Then, it was bad enough as a cause of social misery and international instability. Today, it is arguably much worse because the gulf between the haves and have-nots extends to their carbon emissions, which heightens suffering from the climate crisis and impedes efforts to find a solution.