“Billionaires are burning the planet.” In a report (PDF) published Wednesday, February 23, Oxfam and Greenpeace denounce the significant greenhouse gas emissions generated by the financial assets of the richest French people. “The financial assets of 63 French billionaires emit as much greenhouse gas as that of 50% of French households”deplore the two NGOs.
Greenhouse gases, produced by the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) and our way of life (transport, food, housing), are the engine of global warming. Several works have already established the link between level of wealth and pollution, between countries and within societies, but this report offers a new illustration.
The two NGOs were not interested in the way of life of these ultra-rich, presented as “The tree that hides the forest”. “Beyond their way of life, it is their financial assets, through their participation in polluting companies, which is the largest item in their total carbon footprint”, they write. This financial wealth corresponds to the assets they hold in different companies.
Three billionaires are particularly singled out: Gérard Mulliez, who made his fortune in mass distribution (Auchan), Rodolphe Saadé, who heads the maritime transport company CMA-CGM, and Emmanuel Besnier, owner of the agri-food group Lactalis. Between them (and with their family for the first two), they emit as much CO2 as the financial assets of 23.4% of households.
Faced with this situation, Oxfam and Greenpeace call for a “correction as radical as it is pragmatic” carbon taxation, which weighs “4 times heavier in proportion to their income” on low-income households than on the wealthiest. They therefore propose, like the presidential candidates Yannick Jadot, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Anne Hidalgo, a climate ISF, which would take into account the size of the heritage and its impact on the climate.