Billionaires

Europe’s wealthiest are driving the bloc’s emissions while ordinary Europeans make the steepest cuts, according to new Oxfam research published ahead of COP30. This research also comes amidst the EU watering down its own climate ambition. 

As the EU scales back its climate ambition, new Oxfam research reveals the stark carbon inequality in the EU: Europe’s wealthiest are increasing their emissions, while ordinary Europeans have made the biggest cuts. The report highlights three key findings: Europe’s wealthiest are burning through our climate budget: the richest 10% of Europeans produce as much carbon as the bottom 50% combined. Carbon cuts are driven by ordinary Europeans, while Europe’s elite keep polluting: emissions have fallen. The bottom 50% of Europeans reduced their emissions by 27%, while the richest 0.1% increased theirs by 14%. To stay on the 1.5°C pathway, the EU must tackle the excessive emissions of Europe’s richest: everyone must cut their emissions, but the richest must go much further. The research shows that, to stay within the 1.5°C limit, the bottom 50% would need to cut their emissions in half, the top 10% by 90%, the top 1% by 97%, and the top 0.1% by 99%. 2024 was the first year that average global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet, since the European elections, the EU has scaled back its climate ambitions, failing to submit its climate plan before the COP30 deadline and watering down climate legislation in the name of simplification. Oxfam calls on the EU to ramp up its ambition for emission reduction, with measures aimed at Europe’s wealthiest, to avoid a climate catastrophe and reduce climate inequality.

Today, just four of Africa’s richest billionaires hold $57.4 billion in wealth — more than the combined wealth of 750 million people.

The 1,000 richest people on the planet recouped their COVID-19 losses within just nine months, but it could take more than a decade for the world’s poorest to recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic, reveals a new Oxfam report today. "The Inequality Virus" is being published on the opening day of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Davos Agenda’.

New estimates show that just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world. As growth benefits the richest, the rest of society – especially the poorest – suffers. Our economy must stop excessively rewarding those at the top and start working for all people.

Average global CEO pay hit $4.3 million in 2024, reveals new analysis from Oxfam ahead of International Workers’ Day (1 May). This is a 50 percent real-term increase from $2.9 million in 2019 (adjusted for inflation) —a rise that far outpaces the real wage growth of the average worker, who saw a 0.9 percent increase over the same five-year period in the countries where CEO pay data is available.

Oxfam International and Oxfam Intermón met with the Prime Minister of Spain.

Billionaire wealth has risen three times faster in 2024 than 2023. Five trillionaires are now expected within a decade.

Today, Oxfam publishes “Takers Not Makers” as business elites gather in the Swiss resort town of Davos and, billionaire Donald Trump backed by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is inaugurated as President of the United States. The report shows that globally, billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024 alone, at a rate three times faster than the previous year.

Billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024 alone, equivalent to roughly $5.7 billion a day, at a rate three times faster than the year before. An average of nearly four new billionaires were minted every week. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, according to World Bank data.