Why climate projects by billionaires are dangerous
America's billionaires are not only known for their luxurious lifestyles, but also for their generous donations, often for projects to save the world. But what the richest of the rich consider helpful may be doing more harm to humanity than good.
The super-rich are not just bad for the planet, they are particularly bad. This is how the latest report by the poverty-fighting organization Oxfam can be summarized in one sentence. According to the report, the richest one percent of the world's population caused around the same amount of greenhouse gases in 2019 as the five billion people who make up the poorer two thirds.
In Germany, the richest one per cent of inhabitants caused a total of 83.3 tons of CO₂ emissions per capita per year in 2019, more than 15 times as much as the poorer half of the German population, according to the report "Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99 Percent" presented by the aid organization at the beginning of the week - just a few days before the UN Climate Summit in Dubai, which begins on 30 November.
The conference is another attempt to rally the international community around the 1.5 degree target to limit the rise in temperature, which is becoming increasingly unlikely to be met. The statistics in the report prove what Oxfam has been denouncing for years. There is a direct link between humanity's biggest problems: the climate crisis and extreme social inequality. Why are billionaires and multimillionaires so much worse for the climate?
There are their private jets and their yachts, which are more like floating palaces. The city villas and country estates, of which the super-rich usually own a whole collection in the most exclusive corners of the world. Above all, however, they profit from their investments and holdings in corporations that pollute the environment. As a large proportion of the super-rich derive their wealth from the financial market and their investments, they contribute disproportionately to fueling the climate crisis.
In doing so, the elite are undermining the common fight against global warming. This is because the burden is also unevenly distributed. Even in affluent Germany, the purchase of a new heating system or an electric car presents many households with a financial challenge - or is simply unaffordable. No wonder the commitment of the super-rich to the climate seems hypocritical. Yet many members of the super-rich club count themselves among the saviors of humanity.
There is hardly a well-known billionaire who does not have a WSP, a "World-Saving Project". Elon Musk, for example, with a current fortune of 219 billion dollars, has offered 100 million dollars as a prize for the person who develops an affordable technology that can extract and bind 1000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year.
Bill Gates, currently worth around 134 billion dollars, is convinced that our energy problem can be solved with the help of nuclear power. And unlike normal earners, he can realize his vision. He does not have the nuclear reactors in mind that are in use today, but a new type of power plant that is smaller and cheaper. "Sodium" is the name of the model that is soon to be built in the US state of Wyoming, as the reactor will be cooled with liquid sodium instead of water. Experts are critical of the project, but the US Department of Energy has already promised support - and subsidies.
A new nuclear age, sponsored by the super-rich, seems almost modest in the face of projects that want to "hack" our climate and use technology to stop or even reverse global warming. The more elegant term is geoengineering. This refers to ideas such as solar radiation management (SRM). This involves spraying aerosols into the upper atmosphere, probably from a fleet of very high-flying aircraft. The aerosols - various substances are being discussed - are intended to darken the sun somewhat and thus cool the atmosphere. One of the fans of this approach is George Soros, who presented his plans to initiate such an SRM project and thus "freeze" the Arctic again at the Munich Security Conference in February 2023. "The message is clear: human interference has destroyed a previously stable system and it will take human ingenuity, both locally and internationally, to put it back in order," he said there.
Scientists are deeply concerned. In an open letter, hundreds of them called for immediate political action from governments, the United Nations and other actors to prevent the normalization of solar geoengineering as a climate policy option. It is not just the fact that billionaires are giving money to new, potentially dangerous technologies that is problematic. What is problematic is that they are now often the ones who decide which technologies should be promoted. Men who apparently conclude from the fact that they have made a lot of money in Silicon Valley with software or on the financial markets that they also know the right solutions for the really big problems facing humanity. And thanks to their wealth, they can turn this certainty into real projects almost unhindered.
The human geographers Iain Hay and Samantha Muller investigated the phenomenon of the "golden age of philanthropy", as they called it, back in 2014. They found that since the late 1990s, bequests to charity by the super-rich had grown to hundreds of billions of dollars - and there seemed to be no end in sight to the "generosity". Her sober conclusion: "Super-philanthropy diverts attention and resources away from the failures of today's manifestations of capitalism." Just as the projects to save the world distract attention from the fact that the climate crisis is also caused by the donations of billionaires.
Despite their philanthropic efforts, billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, whose wealth is significant contributors to global warming through their lavish lifestyles and investments in polluting corporations, may unintentionally exacerbate climate change with their climate projects. In fact, their 'solution' to global warming, such as Jeff Bezos' CO₂ extraction project and Bill Gates' nuclear power plans, could potentially exacerbate existing environmental issues rather than solving them.
Source: www.ntv.de
