The world’s richest people are likely to have already used their fair share of the annual global carbon budget, according to research by international NGO Oxfam.
Based on data from 2019, Oxfam have estimated that the 77 million people in the global top 1% of earners, with an income of $310,000 or more per year, use 2.1 tons of carbon dioxide each in just ten days. In contrast, it takes those in the world’s poorest 50% nearly three years to pollute that much.
According to the global carbon budget estimated by the United Nations Environment Programme, 2.1 tons per year is the full individual budget each person can emit by 2030 before breaching 1.5C of global warming.
Oxfam GB’s senior climate justice policy adviser Chiara Liguori said: “The future of our planet is hanging by a thread, yet the super-rich are being allowed to continue to squander humanity’s chances with their lavish lifestyles and polluting investments.”
She added: “Governments need to stop pandering to the richest polluters and instead make them pay their fair share for the havoc they’re wreaking on our planet. Leaders who fail to act are culpable in a crisis that threatens the lives of billions.”
Billionaires tax
Measures to tax the super-rich to fund climate action have risen up the agenda in recent years. Last year, the Brazilian government used its presidency of the G20 group of big economies to promote a proposal that aims for governments to tax billionaires at least 2% of their wealth.
Economists working on this proposal said it could raise $250 billion a year, which could be used to tackle poverty, hunger and climate change.
G20 leaders agreed at a November leaders summit in Rio De Janeiro to “engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed” and said that discussions on this would be continued in the G20 and other forums.
Speaking ahead of that summit, Brazil’s climate change secretary Ana Toni told Climate Home that the proposal had been “really well received” and had changed the global debate on how to fund climate action. France, South Africa and Spain were among the nations in support of it.
Solidarity levies
The Brazilian government will host the COP30 summit in November and is co-chairing with Azerbaijan the Baku to Belem roadmap, which will look into how to scale up finance for climate projects and may include measures like a tax on the super-rich and particularly polluting sectors of the economy.
Seperately, a Global Solidarity Levies Taskforce coordinated by France, Kenya and Barbados will also look into these kind of measures including taxes on shipping, private air travel, fossil fuels and financial transactions.
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It will announce working groups for each measure by the end of March 2025 and produce preliminary impact assesments by the time of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in April and final impact assesments by the Financing for Development summit at the end of June.
The task force will then aim to get countries to sign up to implement some of these proposals by COP30.
Friederike Roder, director of the taskforce’s secreteriat, told Climate Home that Oxfam’s research reinforces that the rich must “contribute their fair share to fund the fight for development and against climate change, especially in the poorest and most vulnerable countries”. “What we need now is action,” she added.
(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Sebastián Rodríguez)
The post Oxfam: Super-rich have already burned more than their fair share of carbon for 2025 appeared first on Climate Home News.
Oxfam: Super-rich have already burned more than their fair share of carbon for 2025
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
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Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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