Are the world’s elite responsible for environmental disasters?

Their trip released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the average person in a poor country would in a whole year. Public outrage peaked when makeup queen Kylie Jenner posted a photo of herself with her boyfriend, Travis Scott, in which two private jets can be seen. He captioned the post, “Would you rather travel on your jet or on my plane?”

“Europe is on fire and Kylie Jenner takes 15 minutes on her jet,” wrote eating disorder campaigner Cara Listey in a tweet, one of several tweets. Kylie’s post was criticized. “I can recycle everything, buy second-hand clothes, but I can’t eliminate the carbon footprint of that jet flight,” she wrote.

Jenner’s Instagram post is sparking resentment among the younger generation in developed countries, which are already under pressure to reduce their carbon footprints. This one post illustrates the gulf between the world’s biggest polluters and generations fearful of climate change, angry at the injustice of it and refusing to abandon their unsustainable lifestyles. are reluctant.

A twenty-four-year-old youth wrote in his tweet, “This is the reason why I have also given up all my efforts to protect the environment.” According to flight data, Kylie and her boyfriend Scott took separate trips to the same airport on their private jets on the same night in early December, only a few hours apart.

What is even more disturbing is that these celebrities are causing not even as much air pollution as they are causing ocean pollution due to their lavish lifestyles. Luxury yachts, such as Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s 162-meter yacht, which also has two helipads and a swimming pool. These luxury yachts cause more CO2 emissions than luxury villas, airplanes and limousines combined.

According to a study published in 2021, Abramovich’s boat emitted more harmful gases in 2018 than the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu with a population of 11,000. Beatriz Baros, one of the researchers involved in this study, says that this is very sad. “Because island nations are more vulnerable to the consequences of climate change such as sea level rise,” he said.

There has been a large gap in carbon emissions between developing and developed countries over the decades. The top 1 percent of people in the world, with annual earnings of around 124,000 euros, are responsible for a fifth of the increase in carbon pollution over the past thirty years. There are

Researchers have proposed solutions to all these problems. According to him, tax hikes, legal actions and crackdown on tax evasion could potentially help in reducing the problem.

But such policies, especially tax hikes, often face strong opposition. According to Stefan Gosling, a professor at Lund University in Sweden, “the lifestyles of the rich enjoy amazing support.” People raised in cultures that idolize the rich often resist policies that limit their lives, he said.

Policymakers can also curb carbon dioxide emissions by banning private jets. Such a ban would only affect a small number of flights but would convince billionaires that they should invest in environmentally friendly technologies. Experts say such initial investment will help promote eco-friendly air travel for everyone.

According to a study published in the journal Nature in 2021, consumers, investors, role models and organizational participants can play an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change. People can withdraw their money from banks that lend money to oil companies, campaign for public transport at local council meetings or pressure their company’s management to turn business flights into virtual meetings.

But there is another side to this matter. Some of the world’s wealthiest individuals and companies have poured money into lobbying against policies that threaten fossil fuels. “One of the big problems is the influence of the richest,” says Nazaret of the Stockholm Environment Institute. These individuals exercise political influence through donations and thus influence the lifestyle of common people.”