Ultra-rich 0.1% produce more carbon pollution than nearly half of humanity while cashing in on the climate disasters they create

• Person in the richest 0.1 percent has contributed nearly 400 times more to extreme heatwaves than someone in the poorest half of humanity. 
• In Africa, the richest 0.1 percent emit 530 times more CO2 per person than the poorest half of the continent’s population. 
• Oxfam’s new “Destroy & Rebuild Index” exposes how super-rich investors backing fossil fuels and other high-polluting industries are also profiting from disaster preparedness and clean-up. 
• Oxfam urges governments to make rich polluters pay and end climate profiteering. 

The world’s richest 0.1 percent (8 million people) produces more carbon pollution than the world’s poorest 3.5 billion people combined, reveals new Oxfam analysis. Published ahead of the UN climate summit (COP31) in Türkiye, the report exposes how the world's super-rich are driving climate breakdown through their outsized emissions, while shielding themselves from the consequences and, increasingly, profiting from the destruction. 

In Africa, the richest 0.1 percent emit 530 times more CO2 per person than the poorest half of the continent’s population (607.4 million people vs 1.3 million people). Globally, 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 small group of people produces over three times more carbon pollution than the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa (1.3 billion people).  

“Climate change is not a shared burden. Those who contribute the least suffer the most, while those who contribute the most often continue to profit. In Africa, this injustice is laid bare. While vulnerable communities endure devastating droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events, the world’s wealthiest individuals can escape the worst impacts of climate change aboard private jets, expensive climate shelters and comprehensive insurances,” said Fati N'Zi-Hassane, Director of Oxfam in Africa. 

Combining carbon inequality data with cutting-edge climate attribution models, Oxfam has found that: 

• More than 300 million people in Africa—34% of the population—are both exposed to climate hazards and highly vulnerable to their impacts. That’s 28 times the rate in high-income countries. 
• The richest 1 percent are responsible for 20 percent of global warming since 1990 – 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. 78 percent of these deaths will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries, despite these countries being responsible for 8 percent of global emissions. 
• The emissions of the richest 1 percent will cause nearly $53 trillion in damage by 2050.  

Used exclusively by the super-rich, private aviation remains one of the clearest examples of extreme carbon inequality. New analysis by Oxfam of private jet tracking data finds that: 

• Combined, private jets emit more carbon pollution in two seconds than someone in the poorest half of humanity emits in a year. 
• In 2025, more than 11,000 private jet flights departed Africa, emitting over 98,000 metric tons of CO2. Offsetting those emissions would take around 493 thousand trees. 

While the super-rich are responsible for a disproportionate share of carbon pollution, it is ordinary people who bear the brunt of the resulting floods, fires and famine. For Africans, who on average spend 41 percent of their consumer expenditure on food – three times more than the average in high-income countries –climate disasters mean destroyed homes and crops, depleted savings, lost livelihoods and hunger.  

This leaves people even more exposed when the next disaster hits, deepening the inequality that made them far more vulnerable to climate disasters in the first place. By 2050, as many as 1 billion people (around 10 percent of the world’s population) could be displaced by the climate crisis. Most of those displaced will be in the Global South. 

Oxfam’s report also shows how climate disasters have become an increasingly lucrative business. The global disaster recovery market is projected to grow from $70 billion to $92 billion annually by 2029.  

Oxfam’s new Destroy & Rebuild Index identifies 217 corporations profiting from industries that fuel climate breakdown as well as disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction. 

BlackRock and Vanguard are invested in 92 percent of the corporations in this new index, backing both disaster creation and disaster recovery simultaneously. Their combined investments total more than $1 trillion.  

The report also warns that climate disasters are increasingly exploited to push policies that deepen inequality, including the privatization of climate action and public services, land grabs, deregulation and tax breaks benefiting the super-rich. The result is a vicious cycle of injustice: deaths from flooding are seven times higher in more unequal countries. 

“Rich polluting countries should take full responsibility for their role in the climate crisis, as they exacerbate the suffering of African communities that have contributed least to global emissions. They must provide sufficient funds needed to tackle the climate crisis they created, to save lives and property. Sooner or later, major carbon emitters will have to pay a fairer share, because forced climate migrants will have no choice but to seek refuge at their own doorstep,” said N'Zi-Hassane. 

Oxfam is calling on governments meeting at COP31 to:

• Make rich polluters pay to significantly and rapidly curb their carbon emissions, including through permanent wealth and income taxes, a permanent tax on fossil fuel corporations, and punitive taxes on high-emitting luxury items like private jets. 
• Substantially increase climate finance for the Global South, prioritizing public, grant-based finance rather than loans that deepen debt. The amount for adaptation should be tripled by 2035. 
• Radically reduce inequality within and between countries, including through climate-resilient public infrastructure and public services. 
• End profiteering from climate disasters. Governments need to curb corporate power in emergency response, reconstruction, and food systems during disasters.