While millions of people try to reduce their ecological footprint – by saving energy, buying fewer clothes, and sorting waste – the world’s wealthiest continue to emit the same amount of carbon as the average person does in a year by going on holiday just once.
In other words, while ordinary citizens are encouraged or even pressured to reduce their environmental impact, the world’s wealthiest individuals continue to use extremely carbon-intensive forms of private transport with little political constraint. This is what Rowland Atkinson, Professor and Research Chair in Inclusive Societies at the University of Sheffield, points out in an article.
Enormous and unnecessary environmental impact
According to the professor, the 125 wealthiest billionaires alone emit 3 million tons of carbon annually. This is close to Madagascar’s carbon footprint, a country of 30 million people.
Among the many things worrying climate-conscious people is the question of the carbon-intensive movements of the super-rich, using private jets, fossil-fuelled yachts, heavy cars, and space rockets, which represent an enormous and unnecessary environmental impact.
Private rockets
Super-yachts may use thousands of liters of marine diesel per hour even when just cruising. Yacht engines must ‘idle’ at anchor to power air-conditioning and heating, desalination systems, pools, cinemas, and onboard helicopters, consuming thousands of litres per week. Annual emissions from a single 70-100 meter yacht can rival those of thousands of average citizens.
The emerging trend of private rockets also involves burning vast quantities of fuel. Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ first trip to the edge of the atmosphere reportedly produced around 93 metric tons of CO².
Jets and yachts
For comparison’s sake: did you know that a 50 cc scooter has a fuel tank of 5.7 liters? A hatchback car holds 42 liters, and a London double-decker bus holds 275 liters. A full tank of a 24-meter yacht holds 6,000 liters, but the superyacht Azzam, the world’s longest private superyacht, owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family, carries a whopping 1,000,000 liters.
Growth in private wealth has directly translated into an increase in jets and yachts. For example, the global private super-yacht fleet has grown by 50% in about ten years and continues to see strong demand.
Luxurious (and unnecessary) forms of mobility
Current industry estimates put the global superyacht fleet at roughly 5,000 to 6,000 vessels (typically defined as yachts over 24-30 metres), and more than 1,000 additional yachts are currently under construction or on order, signalling continued expansion despite the climate emergency.
The number of private jets has also increased substantially, resulting in the massive carbon footprint associated with the most luxurious (and unnecessary) forms of mobility utilised by the world’s wealthiest people.
Social cohesion
Compared to the essential carbon emitted by everyday citizens going about their work and lives, the contrast is enormous. “It highlights how luxury and entitlement combine to create a new class of hyper-mobile carbon-emitting groups, ” Professor Atkinson explains. “And that is precisely what undermines social cohesion and collective action.”
Atkinson argues that extreme inequality undermines social cohesion and weakens climate action by creating a sense of unfairness: people are less willing to make sacrifices when elites appear exempt from limits. He notes that industries and political actors often justify private jets and yachts as “economically necessary.”
Political protection
However, public tolerance for elite carbon excess is rapidly eroding. Surveys across Europe show strong support for higher taxes — and even bans — on private jets and yachts, highlighting a growing political disconnect between climate policy aimed at ordinary citizens and the largely unchecked emissions of the ultra-wealthy.
Effective climate action cannot succeed without addressing the disproportionate emissions of the super-rich, Atkinson argues. As long as the most polluting forms of luxury mobility remain politically protected, climate policy risks losing both credibility and democratic legitimacy.
