Oxfam report finds world's richest 0.1% out-pollute half of humanity | Report

The world’s richest 0.1 percent, approximately 8 million people, produces more carbon pollution than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined, according to a press release issued by Oxfam International on October 27, 2026. The analysis was published ahead of the UN climate summit (COP31) in Türkiye. It argues that the super-rich are driving climate breakdown through outsized emissions while shielding themselves from consequences. The report also claims they are increasingly profiting from the resulting destruction. Oxfam is urging governments to make rich polluters pay and to end climate profiteering.

A person in the richest 0.1 percent has contributed nearly 400 times more to today’s extreme heatwaves than someone in the poorest 50 percent. Collectively, this group produces over three times more carbon pollution than the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa, home to 1.3 billion people. The findings combine carbon inequality data with climate attribution models. Private aviation is cited as one of the clearest examples of extreme carbon inequality. Combined, private jets emit more carbon pollution in two seconds than someone in the poorest half of humanity emits in a year.

The richest 1 percent are responsible for 20 percent of global warming since 1990, or 100 times more per person than someone in the poorest half of humanity. Just one year of emissions by the richest 1 percent will cause 1.9 million excess heat-related deaths. Some 78 percent of these deaths will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries, which are responsible for 8 percent of global emissions. The emissions of the richest 1 percent will cause nearly $53 trillion in damage by 2050. By then, as many as 1 billion people could be displaced by the climate crisis.

Oxfam’s new Destroy & Rebuild Index identifies 217 corporations profiting from industries that fuel climate breakdown as well as from disaster preparedness, recovery, and reconstruction. BlackRock and Vanguard are invested in 92 percent of the corporations in the index, with combined holdings exceeding $1 trillion. The global disaster recovery market is projected to grow from $70 billion to $92 billion annually by 2029.

“The ultra-rich are setting the planet on fire and then charging the rest of us for the extinguishers,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar. “They profit from the pollution. They profit from the disaster. And they profit again from the clean-up.”

Oxfam is calling on governments meeting at COP31 to make rich polluters pay through permanent wealth and income taxes, a permanent tax on fossil fuel corporations, and punitive taxes on high-emitting luxury items such as private jets. It is also urging a substantial increase in climate finance for the Global South, prioritizing public, grant-based finance over loans, with adaptation funding tripled by 2035. The organization calls for radical reductions in inequality within and between countries through climate-resilient public infrastructure and services. It further demands an end to profiteering from climate disasters by curbing corporate power in emergency response, reconstruction, and food systems. Deaths from flooding, the report notes, are seven times higher in more unequal countries.