Oxfam says investing by rich in disaster recovery widens inequality and gives incentive to delay climate action
The world’s wealthiest people are not just profiting from the polluting causes of climate breakdown, they are also increasingly cashing in on the catastrophic consequences, according to a study by Oxfam.
The global equality organisation has found that the richest 0.1% of the world’s population are heavily invested in disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction – a market that is projected to grow from $70bn to $92bn a year by 2029.
This gives the planet’s wealthiest and most powerful people a “double dividend” from the climate crisis and, more alarmingly, an incentive to delay or disrupt action to solve the problem, the NGO says.
It also worsens global inequality as those least responsible for global heating end up having to pay those most responsible in terms of higher food prices, repairing homes damaged by extreme weather or relocating to other areas.
Jean McLean, Oxfam’s chief influencing officer, accused billionaires of turning chaos into profit. “The super-rich benefit at both ends of the crisis: first, through continued investment in polluting industries, and second, through investment in the booming ‘adaptation economy’ – recovery and rebuilding services are sold back to a warming world,” she said.
“The populations who contributed least to the climate crisis are absorbing its worst consequences, while those who caused it are best equipped to protect themselves.”
The richest 0.1% on the planet, a group of 8 million people, are responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 3.5 billion combined, the report says. As a result, this group have reportedly contributed by 125 times more than the average person to extreme heat events.
This is partly due to lifestyles. The world’s private jets, for example, release more CO2 in two seconds than most of the world’s people emit in an entire year. But the biggest impact of this group comes from their investments.
Oxfam’s new destroy and rebuild index identifies 217 corporations that either fuel climate breakdown or do business in adapting to it through provision of cooling devices, flood barriers, firefighting equipment, transportation, food, insurance and loans.
Last year, these companies made an average of US$1.8bn and paid out $1bn in dividends to shareholders. Six major asset managing firms, which advise wealthy investors, are on this list in their own right and are heavily invested in other members. Two of the biggest, BlackRock and Vanguard, have shares in 92% of the companies in the index, worth a total of more than $1tn, Oxfam says.
Similarly, it notes that crises – caused by extreme weather or war – have tended to boost the profits of major food trading companies that are dominated by billionaires, whose wealth has increased by $120bn since 2020. When drought, floods or storms hit crops, any subsequent increase in food prices tends to disproportionately benefit big corporations and their investors at the cost of small producers and regular consumers, Oxfam says.
The group cites the case of a 231% surge in cocoa prices after extreme weather in west Africa in 2024, when it says local farmers saw none of the gains.
Such inequality has consequences. The annual emissions for the richest 1% will cause 1.9m excess deaths due to heat, Oxfam says, based on estimated impacts on human health, agricultural productivity and sea level rise.
More than three-quarters of those deaths will occur in low- and middle-income countries, which are far less responsible for the crisis because they produce only 8% of emissions.
Wealthy nations and wealthy individuals are somewhat insulated – at least for now – from the climate crisis because they are more likely to be able to afford higher food prices, robust houses, emergency evacuation, private healthcare and personal security.
This makes them less likely to use their considerable lobbying power to support climate action, and may even encourage them to slow or block emissions cuts that could affect their personal wealth, Oxfam says. Instead, some use disasters to push privatisation agendas or encourage poor nations to take out loans.
Alex Maitland, one of the lead authors, said the very richest people were not just passive beneficiaries of the climate crisis. “This is deliberate,” he said. “When you take into account their political influence, this is pretty damning evidence that they’re able to orchestrate that is happening.”
Oxfam is demanding higher taxes on the rich, private jets, oil and gas companies and polluting companies. The group calls on the UK government to improve international climate financing commitments based on grants rather than loans, and to end profiteering from climate disasters.
Nafkote Dabi, the climate change policy lead at Oxfam International, said: “What’s complex about talking about climate change is everyone likes to think it’s a shared problem, but it’s not. Addressing the climate crisis is really easy. Control the richest, curb their power, curb their emissions, and also tax their wealth.”
