Wealthy white men from rural areas are the UK’s biggest emitters of climate-heating gases from transport, according to a study.
Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) looked at transport emissions by income, gender, location, ethnicity and age. The study broke down the transport emissions into international and domestic flights, private road transport and public transport.
The richest 0.1% in Britain emit 22 times more from transport than low earners, and 12 times more than average. The data finds that income is directly linked to levels of mobility, with people who earn more than £100,000 travelling on average at least double the distance each year compared with those on incomes under £30,000.
Those in the most deprived 10% are responsible for by far the fewest emissions, though flying still makes up more than half of their total emissions.
are you still buying narrative of broke farmer?
Farmer in modern advanced economy is a large land owner who operates an enterprise at scale with sizable state aid funded by taxpayers.
Side note, not to diminish their issues with mega food corps…
But these are not “small” players and they are certainly not part of the working slave classes.
I live in a rural area and know a lot of farmers (meat, dairy and veg), none of whom are wealthy. Several don’t own land, but have to rent it instead. Those that do own land tend to be asset-rich but don’t actually have cash (as in, they own land and farm equipment, but they can’t sell it because then they wouldn’t be able to keep working). Maybe it’s different in other parts of the country, but around here people are struggling. We also have the issue of banks and other large corporations buying up land to plant with timber as carbon offsets, rather than putting in work to reduce their carbon footprint.