Among the many hard truths exposed by covid-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already huge fortunes by 27.5 percent.

And as many ordinary people lost their jobs and fell into poverty, The Guardian reported “the 1 percent are coping” by taking private jets to their luxury retreats.

Such perverse affluence further fuelled criticism of the so-called 1 percent, which has long been the standard rhetoric of the political Left.

In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protesters called out growing economic inequality by proclaiming: “We are the 99 percent!”. And an Oxfam report in September last year lamented how the richest 1 percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of humanity.

But you might be surprised to find this 1 percent doesn’t just comprise the super-rich. It may include you, or people you know. And this fact has big implications for social justice and planetary survival.

Look in the mirror
When you hear references to the 1 percent, you might think of billionaires such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or Tesla founder Elon Musk. However, as of October last year there were 2189 billionaires worldwide — a minuscule proportion of the 7.8 billion people on Earth.

So obviously, you don’t have to be a billionaire to join this global elite.

So how rich do you have to be? Well, Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report in October last year showed an individual net worth of US$1 million (A$1,295,825) – combined income, investments and personal assets — will make you among the world’s 1 percent richest people.

The latest official data shows Australia’s richest 20 percent of households have an average net worth of A$3.2 million. The average Australian household has a net worth of A$1,022,200, putting them just outside the world’s richest 1 percent.

If you’ve just done the sums and fall outside the 1 percent, don’t feel too sorry for yourself. A net wealth of US$109,430 (A$147,038) puts you among the world’s richest 10 percent. Most Australians fit into this category; half of us have a net worth of A$558,900 or more.

What does all this mean for the planet?
It’s true the per capita emissions of the super-rich are likely to be far greater than others in the top 1 percent. But this doesn’t negate the uncomfortable fact Australians are among a fraction of the global population monopolising global wealth. This group causes the vast bulk of the world’s climate damage.

A 2020 Oxfam report shows the world’s richest 10 percent produce a staggering 52 percent of total carbon emissions. Consistent with this, a 2020 University of Leeds study found richer households around the world tend to spend their extra money on energy-intensive products, such as package holidays and car fuel. The UN’s 2020 Emission Gap Report further confirmed this, finding the top 10 percent use around 75 percent of all aviation energy and 45 percent of all land transport energy.

It’s clear that wealth, and its consequent energy privilege, is neither socially just nor ecologically sustainable.

A potential solution
Much attention and headlines are devoted to the unethical wealth of billionaires. And while the criticism is justified, it distracts from a broader wealth problem — including our own.

We should note here, one can have an income that’s large compared to the global average, and still experience significant economic hardship. For instance in Australia, the housing costs of more than one million households exceed 30 percent of total income – the commonly used benchmark for housing affordability.

Here lies a central challenge. Even if we wanted to reduce our wealth, the enormous cost of keeping a roof over our head prevents us from doing so. Servicing a mortgage or paying rent is one of our biggest financial obligations, and a key driver in the pursuit of wealth.

But as we’ve shown above, as personal wealth grows, so too does environmental devastation. The rule even applies to the lowest paid, who are working just to pay the rent. The industries they rely on, such as retail, tourism and hospitality, are themselves associated with environmental damage.

Existing economic and social structures mean stepping off this wealth-creating treadmill is almost impossible. However as we’ve written before, people can be liberated from their reliance on economic growth when land – the very foundation of our security – is not commodified.

For social justice and ecological survival, we must urgently experiment with new land and housing strategies, to make possible a lifestyle of reduced wealth and consumption and increased self-sufficiency.

This might include urban commons, such as the R-Urban project in Paris, where several hundred people co-manage land that includes a small farm for collective use, a recycling plant and cooperative eco-housing.

Under a new land strategy, other ways of conserving resources could be deployed. One such example, developed by Australian academic Ted Trainer, involves cutting our earnings sharply – with paid work for only two days in a week. For the rest of the working week, we would tend to community food gardens, network and share many things we currently consume individually.

Such a way of living could help us re-evaluate the amount of wealth we need to live well.

The social and ecological challenges the world faces cannot be exaggerated. New thinking and creativity is needed. And the first step in this journey is taking an honest look at whether our own wealth and consumption habits are contributing to the problem.

Dr Alex Baumann is a casual academic, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University and Samuel Alexander, Research fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Zero Carbon Act (ZCA)

There’s plenty of plaudits being handed out – not only from the politicians to themselves, but from pundits, too. For example, The AM Show’s Duncan Garner gave tribute to both sides of the Parliament, singling out the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw (“his ability to get almost unanimous support”), and National Party leader Simon Bridges (“being constructive, modern and green”) – see: Passing Zero Carbon Bill a sign Parliament has grown up.

Garner says “Mark this week down as the week Parliament grew up, maturing beyond petty politics and personal divisions to put New Zealand and indeed the planet first.” He concludes “Compromise is king. Long live the planet Earth.”

David Cormack praised the ZCA as being good for business: “This is the sort of certainty that helps businesses and research institutes plan for the future. It means they know what the legislative framework will look like so they can make five, 10 even 20-year plans knowing there is certainty. This was why the negotiation was so critical” – see: NZ goes from fast follower to world leader (paywalled).

Cormack also praised the consensus approach: “this is actual progressive legislation that was passed in a mature and sensible way.” And he pointed to the international attention on the legislation: “Already we have seen the ripple effect from other countries from the passing of the Zero Carbon Act. New Zealand had favourable media coverage all around the world, which will hopefully influence other countries to adopt similar laws. US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders praised it and said he would look to adopt similar measures were he to be successful in becoming President.”

Not everyone is impressed, of course. Greenpeace has been derisive.  Amanda Larsson, who is the group’s Lead Climate Campaigner, said the legislation was entirely inadequate: “below the thinly-veiled layer of rhetoric lay no substance. No regulation. Nothing but vague promises to maybe do something about dairy pollution in two to five years’ time” – see: Don’t kick climate to touch.

Another Greenpeace spokesperson, Steve Abel, was even more scathing, labelling the ZCA “bland and ineffective”, and suggesting the Green Party has essentially “joined the consensus on inaction” in their promotion of this as a solution to climate change – see: A weak climate law based on a feeble consensus is no ‘nuclear-free moment’.

In analysing the ZCA, and what was needed, Abel says: “the last couple of years the climate movement has called for: 1) political consensus on a 2) strong and 3) binding climate law. What we got was one out of three. But without being strong and binding, consensus is meaningless.” He adds: “One of the tell-tales of the hollowness of the Zero Carbon Act is that the polluting industries are not crying foul. The reason is, the law barely touches them.”

Greenpeace is not only extremely unhappy with the end product, but also the process that James Shaw and Jacinda Ardern used to get there, which Abel says has been a case of misleadership. He argues that by focusing on finding consensus amongst all the political players, the Greens and Labour have gone with a lowest-common denominator outcome rather than the right one.

He compares it to other landmark political progress such as women winning the right to vote, the creation of the welfare state, banning nuclear ships, and homosexual law reform, and points out these were achieved through strong leadership asserting the best way forward rather than attempts to find compromise across the political spectrum.

Henry Cooke also puts forward this position: “There is a good argument that Shaw should have made use of power instead of sharing it. National rarely obsesses with getting Labour and the Greens on board with changes it makes when it is in power. Sometimes you just have to pass a bill, pray you win the election, and hope that if you don’t, the other guys will find it too hard to undo your work” – see: James Shaw won the battle on climate change, not the war.

The counterargument is that, for the ZCA to endure, it’s better to get the National Party on board and reluctant to make too many changes to the scheme once it next gets into power. Cooke explains Shaw’s thinking: “to get people to actually trust that this structure would remain in place, Shaw knew he would have to bring National along with him. Any new structure which National just promised to tear down when it eventually won office would seem toothless, in his eyes.”

The consensus approach might end up being be very bad for the Greens electorally, according to Matthew Hooton, who says: “With multi-party consensus, those who worry about climate change now have no more reason to vote for the Greens than for Labour, National or NZ First” – see: James Shaw’s victory double-edged (paywalled).

Here’s his main point: “Come election time, Shaw and Ardern may wax lyrical about the new legislation and the Climate Change Commission it sets up, but Simon Bridges and Winston Peters will both be able to say, ‘yep, that’s my policy too’ and move on to immigration, infrastructure, housing or the economy.” Meanwhile, the Greens are likely to bleed more activists.

That makes National the biggest winner from the new law, Hooton says. And the fact that the party signed up was important for getting the law enacted: “National and NZ First are chasing the same provincial vote and so are joined at the hip on issues that worry farmers and agriculture support industries. Had Bridges defected from Shaw’s consensus, Peters would have too, and the bill would have been defeated. Whether out of genuine conviction, cynical political calculation or both, Bridges has therefore chosen to give Ardern a significant short-term win, but that only underlines how powerfully it is in National’s interests to remove climate change from the mainstream political debate”.

Herald political editor Audrey Young certainly regards the whole outcome as very good for National’s leader, saying he “has just had the best week of his leadership and enhanced his credentials as leader for his management of the party’s shift on climate change” – see: Simon Bridges enhances his leadership over climate change shift (paywalled).

Navigating the repositioning in favour of the ZCA was a long-time coming, and not easy for National’s leader: “Bridges had to be mindful of a policy shift that could alienate the rural sector, alienate the urban vote by looking too much like a farmers’ party, give New Zealand First a weapon by botching the arguments, cause strife within his party, and all about an issue which gave leadership rival Judith Collins an opportunity to seek support.”

In the end, Young says, it was entirely in National’s electoral interests to vote for the legislation, and the decision was “more about National’s future and how it wanted to be seen. Had the party voted against the bill, it would have been seen as climate deniers, not reflecting mainstream New Zealand which is caring more and more about climate change, and of being the party of only farmers, not urban liberals.”

She points to battles behind the scenes with NZ First determined to block National’s pro-farmer amendments to the legislation. Young says this also advantaged National: “Now National can legitimately claim to farmers that New Zealand First opposed National’s ameliorating amendments”.

Similarly, Henry Cooke says “In a strange way this is something of a victory for Simon Bridges’ leadership. He came into the leadership promising some compromise climate change” – see: James Shaw won the battle on climate change, not the war.

Cooke argues that National had to support the law, even if it continues to fight against other elements of the Government’s climate change agenda: “National was wedged into a very tricky space. As much as it might like to project itself as the party for rural New Zealand, the truth is there aren’t enough people in rural New Zealand to get the party the kinds of vote totals it needs to win power. National is an urban party as much as it is a rural one, and recognises that climate change is not going away as a topic. Now it can look constructive on the big structural stuff like the Zero Carbon Bill while turning the actual day-to-day climate change issues into proxy culture wars – see the feebate proposal, or investment in public transport.”

Cooke also points to NZ First’s role in watering down the power of the new Climate Change Commission: “Shaw was also keen to make the commission have a bit more actual power – a la the Reserve Bank. But NZ First leader Winston Peters quashed that, and then made sure everyone knew about it.”

Veteran political journalist Richard Harman also focuses on the role of NZ First in shaping the ZCA, reporting that Shaw had to negotiate very carefully with the party, and encountered many hurdles along the way. For example: “Those negotiations were, by all accounts, going well until Shaw’s separate negotiations with NZ First Chief of Staff, Jon Johansson, broke down late last year. There are varying descriptions of what happened, but the situation was so bad that the Prime Minister commissioned former chief of staff to Helen Clark, Heather Simpson, to try and broker a peace” – see: Bridges uses the Zero Carbon Bill to redefine National.

The upshot was that “NZ First demanded that Shaw stop negotiating with National and talk only to Government parties. The Prime Minister apparently agreed with this approach.”

In another column, Harman says “Shaw is understood to have been so frustrated by NZ First’s obstinance that he did not mention them in his speech lauding the bipartisan support for the Bill. Instead, he paid tribute to Bridges, [Scott] Simpson and [Todd] Muller” – see: Bipartisan agreement – except for NZ First.

And National seemed to return the favour, with Todd Muller – who negotiated much of the agreement with Shaw – being quoted in Parliament by Harman giving tribute to Shaw: “There are certain people that you meet in this place who you can connect with. He is one of them. He is a man of huge character and integrity. There were many times in the last 18 months of this process where things could have turned out differently, but for his determination to see this as an opportunity beyond partisan politics, the credit, in no small measure, sits with him.”

Finally, an interesting analysis of the ZCA comes from Thomas Coughlan, who draws on rightwing public choice theory to argue that the new legislation succeeds in taking much of the politics – or democracy – out of climate change, just as Ruth Richardson’s Fiscal Responsibility Act did for debt in the early 1990s – see: Carbon bill might not save NZ from climate change, but it saved democracy from itself. He says, “Get used to hearing forms of the following: ‘Don’t blame me for making you cut your emissions, blame the Zero Carbon Act’.”

By Megan Darby, deputy editor of Climate Home News

China launched an “international green development coalition” last week, in the face of growing concern about its coal investments.

The Environment Ministry hosted an event on the “green belt and road” as part of a leaders’ summit in Beijing to promote Chinese investment in partner countries.

According to the official progress report on President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign policy: “The Belt and Road Initiative pursues the vision of green development and a way of life and work that is green, low-carbon, circular and sustainable.

READ MORE: Climate Weekly: Activists hold London landmarks

“The initiative is committed to strengthening cooperation on environmental protection and defusing environmental risks.”

However, China’s energy investments abroad – it is a major investment and aid donor in the Pacific – continue to favour coal, threatening to blow the global carbon budget.

More than 30 heads of state were due at the summit, including from countries with shared coal, oil and gas interests such as Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan.

In a press conference before travelling to join them, UN chief Antonio Guterres said greening the initiative was important to meeting international climate goals.

“We need a lot of investments in sustainable development, in renewable energy, and a lot of investments in infrastructure that respect the future,” he said, as reported by Xinhua.

Test for China
The test is whether China will require its belt and road projects to meet international standards, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, said Greenpeace China climate analyst Li Shuo.

“China is certainly becoming more conscious about the criticisms around president Xi’s diplomatic initiative, particularly the environmental impacts of some of the Chinese projects,” said Li.

“Now comes the hard part – will any substantive progress be made at the policy level?”

China is financing 102 gigawatts of coal power capacity outside the country, 26 percent of the total under development, according to green think tank the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

It has become the “lender of last resort” for projects Western banks deem too risky.

Investment in renewables grew in 2018, US-based campaign group NDRC noted, but was still dwarfed by support for fossil fuels.

“There is a huge potential for renewable energy in these partner countries, but then they don’t have great policy set-ups for renewables,” NRDC energy policy expert Han Chen said.

Indonesian coal plants
In a commentary for the Jakarta Globe, campaigner Pius Ginting criticised the Indonesian government for seeking investment in four coal power plants instead of cleaner hydroelectric projects.

An opinion poll of six key emerging economies commissioned by UK-based thinktank E3G found a strong preference for renewables over fossil fuels. In Pakistan, 61 percent of respondents said renewable energy was a better investment for development in the long term, rising to 89 percent in Vietnam.

In these and Turkey, Indonesia, South Africa and the Philippines, solar power was seen as top priority. Coal had some positive associations, most strongly in Pakistan, where 41 percent said it created jobs, but in the rest of the countries polled these were outweighed by pollution concerns.

Republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz