Are improvements to green technologies, like better batteries and more efficient solar panels, enough on their own to tackle climate change? Unfortunately not. Our behaviour and lifestyles must change too.
Rolling out the solutions to climate change (electric vehicles, solar power, heat pumps) will require confronting the enormous gulf in wealth and resources separating the richest and poorest people – both within countries and between them.
In our recent article for Nature Climate Change, we explain why inequality remains one of the biggest barriers to the net zero transition.
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The very rich are very big polluters
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Political solutions are limited
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Carbon taxes could be more effective
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Green options aren’t in reach for all
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People need free time to go green
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Public services cannot meet their potential
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So when is it in our best interest to start eating the rich?
I wanna play a game. No one is allowed more than $999 million in wealth. Anyone who is found having more than that gets put on a worldwide manhunt. We could make it fun, every few weeks we spin the chocolate wheel starting with bezos, gates, musk, rhinehart etc
