Consultation: | FYEG General Assembly 2022 |
---|---|
Agenda item: | 4. Resolutions |
Status: | Published |
Submitted: | 06/24/2022, 14:51 |
History: | Version 1 |
R7new: Tax the Rich to Save the Climate
Motion text
While the rich are disproportionately responsible for the climate emergency and
environmental degradation, it is mainly the poor who are suffering their
consequences. The links between the climate, environmental and social crises
must be recognized. They are not three separate crises, but manifestations of
one single problem: capitalist exploitation.
Between 1990 and 2015, the richest decile of the world's population was
responsible for more than half of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas
emissions from the "richest 1%" of our planet have increased since the Paris
Agreement was signed and are likely to increase even more by 20301. These
striking disparities are the result of completely different lifestyles, as
evidenced, for example, by disparities in airplane use. One percent of the
world's population is responsible for half of the emissions caused by aviation,
while 90% of world’s population have never flown2.
These environmental inequalities take many forms and are present at all scales.
On the one hand, the habits of the most affluent are more harmful to the
environment and contribute more to climate change than those of the least
affluent. On the other hand, exposure to environmental pollution and climate
change is unequal. Poorer people live in neighborhoods with higher pollution of
nitrogen dioxide3, a gas produced during the burning of fossil fuels that
worsens symptoms of asthma and reduces lung function growth4. Worryingly, the
World Health Organization notes for Europe that: “although air pollution levels
have decreased over recent years, inequalities in exposure persist”5. In the
French Île-de-France region, for example, waste treatment facilities, such as
incinerators, are often located in low-income neighborhoods6. Similarly, the
poorest have fewer opportunities to adapt to climate change; they tend to have
less access to green spaces that could help to cool off during heat waves, and
it is more difficult to move away from high risk areas, such as regions
threatened by rising sea levels and flooding. Nothing justifies that those who
contribute most to climate change and the destruction of our environment can
escape the consequences, for example by living in air-conditioned houses in
areas where the impacts of climate change are less.
The Federation of Young European Greens works for a better recognition of
environmental inequalities. These should be taken into account systematically by
public authorities. Public authorities in Europe must fight any form of
environmental inequality at all scales. Their efforts must go beyond encouraging
individual consumer action. We need a paradigm shift.
Moreover, we must be extremely vigilant with regard to products that promise to
have a lesser environmental and climatic impact. In response to the awareness of
the climate and environmental emergency, more and more products have been put on
the market that promise to be good for the planet and humanity. Organic food,
fair trade products, electric vehicles, and carbon offsetting programmes often
have a lower environmental and climate impact and are produced under better
working conditions, but they are by far too expensive for the majority of the
population. Thus, they are only accessible to the most affluent who can afford
the luxury of ethical and environmental consumption choices. Worse, the
promotion of these products conveys the idea that one must belong at least to
the middle class to save the world. Even if it is imperative to reduce the
impact of consumption on the planet and to improve the conditions of production,
this cannot be achieved by adding a few more fair trade products to the shelves
of our supermarkets. It must be a systemic change that includes helping the poor
and raising social and environmental standards dramatically. The wealthy don’t
save the world. They destroy it. Capitalism relies on the exploitation of
workers and nature and creates these massive inequalities. To fight inequality
at its root cause, we need to fundamentally change our economic system. Taxing
wealth can only be a first step in creating an equal society.
FYEG is fighting against all forms of inequality, for climate justice and
environmental justice. Since these struggles are intimately linked, we cannot
fight the climate emergency without fighting social inequalities and vice versa.
We must fight against environmental inequalities, notably by making the
wealthiest pay:
Taxes on income and capital must be more progressive, including by an
introduction of a wealth tax for the whole of Europe.
We call on the European Union, or its Member States by lack of such EU
power, to levy a higher carbon tax rate for luxury products and on
European states outside the EU to introduce such analogous measure. The
rental, purchase and maintenance of yachts, for example, should be heavily
taxed according to their environmental impact. The EU should push for such
a Union-wide tax to be implemented as soon as possible.
European countries should close their airspaces to private jets. The
Single European Sky initiative should support this prohibition.European
countries should also close their ports to luxury private yachts.
Environmental and climate policies must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny
by an academically diverse, independent authority to identify their
potentially regressive impacts. We must avoid at all costs that the
poorest and disproportionately people of colour already exploited by the
capitalist economy, are disproportionately impacted by these policies.
Revenues generated by the above-mentioned measures must be used to combat
the effects of environmental inequalities and to support the poorest.
Environmental and climate policies should not be a burden for poor people
and people of colour; they must be designed so as to benefit them.
Environmental inequalities are also occurring in other parts of the world.
While environmental standards in Europe are slowly rising, we must make
sure that polluting activities are not simply moved to other parts of the
world, which would increase environmental inequalities. Carbon offsets are
not a solution and should be phased out. Firstly, they come with the
inherent risk that they are used by the wealthy as letters of indulgence;
having the financial means to be able to buy carbon offsets, those wealthy
can thus continue their carbon-intensive lifestyles. Secondly, carbon
offset projects have very frequently negative impacts on the local and
regional level. For carbon offsets in the Global South for example,
forests frequently become inaccessible to the local population, so that
tree growth is not hindered. Whilst such projects can have a positive
value on the environment, they must be a sufficient balancing of the
individual and collective rights of peoples, especially marginalised
peoples. Only when the reliability of the carbon offset project is
verified by an independent external organ and evaluated on the basis of
minimum human rights standards, can its operators sell their commodified
carbon certificates. Such balancing is necessary in order to ensure these
practices do not induce the poorest to have to pay for the carbon
emissions of the wealthy
- The EU needs to re-design its trade and foreign economic policies, to
ensure that when receiving crucial resources such as metals to enable the
green economic transition, both EU firms and countries, and those
countries that provide the EU with the natural resources needed are
appropriately compensated. This would entail expanding and ensuring
protections and compensation of workers in countries where the resources
are extracted, through setting greater worker rights requirements on
natural resource products that enter the EU single market. The EU should
support investment to construct natural resource processing infrastructure
to ensure that they gain larger shares of the value-added in the global
product value chain. Finally, in the process of creating or expanding
natural resource extraction projects, the communities affected by these
projects should be involved in the decision-making processes in an
equitable manner.
- The EU needs to reduce and potentially phase-out in the short- to medium-
term the use of carbon offsets to compensate for carbon emissions by both
the private and public sector. The use of carbon offsets can ameliorate
the effects of cap-and-trade, such as when polluters double count an
emission reduction. In the case of carbon offset programs deemed necessary
such as the UN’s CORSIA scheme the EU needs to ensure that the necessity
and use of carbon offsets is reduced. Furthermore, that the carbon offsets
are part of EU certified projects, that the EU makes sure that they have
little to not externalities, that land prices do not rise
disproportionally, that the offsets are able to actually offset the carbon
in the short- to medium-term, and that any groups and communities affected
from the carbon offset projects are not excluded from the decision-making
processes.
Environmental inequalities are also occurring in other parts of the world.
While environmental standards in Europe are slowly rising, we must make
sure that polluting activities are not simply moved to other parts of the
world, which would increase environmental inequalities. The EU’s Carbon
Border Adjustment Mechanism would be a first step in the right direction,
but needs to be complemented by policies for other types of activity.
The Climate emergency, environmental degradation and economic inequalities are
intimately linked. Let's fight against all three at the same time, let's tax the
rich!
- The Climate emergency, environmental degradation and economic inequalities
are intimately linked. Let's fight against all three at the same time,
let's tax the rich!
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307779
(Gössling, Humpe (2020): « The global scale, distribution and growth of
aviation: Implications for climate change »)
- Ludosky & Toussaint (2020): “Ensemble nous demandons justice. Pour en
finir avec les violences environnementales”