The richest people in the US are also its worst emissions emitters

Fixing the problems related to climate change is something that will take a group effort from individuals all over the world but the best place to begin may be with the lifestyles of America's most wealthy.

There have been lots of claims made about the emissions emitted by the rich and famous but now there is hard science to back up the perception that the richest people in America are problematic emitters.

An August 2023 study from researchers at the University of Massachusetts published in the journal PLOS Climate linked US household income data with greenhouse emissions and what they discovered was quite shocking.  

The researchers found that 40% of greenhouse gas emissions were created by 10% of households based on 30 years of household income data from between 1990 and 2019. 

Jared Starr was the lead author of the study and a press release on the research noted he looked at income data and calculated the cost of emissions to produce that income. 

Starr found that the richest 0.1% of Americans could be linked to between 15 and 17% of national emissions with their investment accounts making up 38 to 48% of emissions. 

Super-emitters were also identified by Starr and his team, all of whom were found in the country’s top 0.1% richest people in industries like finance, insurance, and real estate. 

“The scale of emission disparity is quite striking,” Starr said in a statement, adding that 15 days of average emissions from the top 0.1% equaled a lifetime of the emissions by households in the lowest decile. 

Starr continued by adding that he found his findings “morally troubling, especially since low-income households face disproportionate climate harms.”

The Washington Post picked up Starr’s study and reported that he found the highest emitters were white, non-Hispanic households while the lowest were black households. 

Emissions also tended to peak for people between the ages of forty-five and fifty-four before they began to taper off and decline into a person’s old age.