Who Owns the Planet? Rethinking Capital to Tackle Climate Change

The Climate Inequality Report 2025 from the World Inequality Lab argues that the climate crisis and wealth (and ownership) inequality are intimately connected and that effective climate policy must account for who owns what. The report opens by noting that the world’s remaining carbon budget for limiting warming (e.g., to 1.5 °C) is nearly exhausted, while wealth is extremely concentrated with those at the top 10 per cent globally holding about three-quarters of all assets. The report argues that ignoring the the issue of ownership, who controls capital, who profits and who invests actually risks undermining climate action and exacerbating inequality.

Key Findings

The world's wealthiest individuals drive more emissions through the assets they own ( investments in high-carbon companies, fossil fuel infrastructure, etc) than by just their consumption alone. The global top 1 per cent account for about 15 per cent of emissions linked to consumption but about 41 per cent of emissions tied to the ownership of private capital.

Looking at ownership, individuals in the global top 1 per cent emit much more than the bottom 50 per cent. The report finds that per-capita emissions for someone in the top 1 per cent are about 75 times higher than someone in the bottom 50 per cent under consumption accounting and roughly 680 times higher under ownership accounting. 

Climate change is also reshaping wealth inequality. Lower income households and countries tend to bear highest relative losses (as a share of income or assets) and have less capacity to invest in adaptation or mitigation. For instance, the report states that the bottom half of the global population could bear around 74 per cent of relative income losses by 2050, while the top 10 per cent may face only about 3 per cent. 

If high-wealth individuals were to dominate future low carbon investment and asset ownership, the share of wealth held by the global top 1 per cent could rise from 38.4 per cent today to around 46 per cent by 2050.

Why Ownership Matters

The report emphasises several mechanisms through which wealth and ownership shape climate outcomes. 

• Asset ownership and investment: Wealthy individuals often own shares and capital in high-carbon industries, thereby having considerable influence over production, extraction, and emissions trajectories.
• Unequal capacity and vulnerability: Wealth enables diversification, protection of assets, relocation or avoidance of risk. Poorer households or countries lack these buffers, making them more vulnerable to climate shocks and losses.
• Policy and power: Ownership implies power, political, corporate and financial. Those who own high-carbon assets have incentives to resist transition, or set the terms of it. That means that effective climate policy cannot treat emitters as a homogeneous group of consumers.
• Lock-in of infrastructure and fossil capital: The report points out that despite the urgency of decarbonisation, hundreds of new fossil fuel projects are under development (oil/gas fields, coal mines) signalling that current investment patterns remain tied to high-carbon capital. 

Policy Proposals

To address the intertwined crises of climate change and wealth/ownership inequality, the report lays out three major policy directions:

1. A global ban on new fossil-fuel investments. Preventing new coal, oil and gas projects from going ahead would stop additional high-carbon capital being locked in. This can be done by placing restrictions on foreign investment, stronger disclosure and reporting of fossil-fuel ownership, and transparency of ultimate beneficial owners.
2. Taxing the carbon content of wealth and investments. While consumer-facing carbon taxes are common, the report argues that the carbon intensity of wealth (assets held) is often unpriced. A carbon wealth tax or equivalent mechanism could redirect capital away from high-carbon assets and reduce emissions more equitably. Such measures are designed to be progressive, targeting high-wealth asset holdings rather than consumption alone.
3. Public investment in low-carbon infrastructure and safeguarding public ownership. Scaling up public investment in renewable energy, grid infrastructure, storage, low-emission technologies is essential to ensure decarbonisation is not privatised in a way that further concentrates wealth. Ensuring a publicly driven decarbonisation helps avoid a scenario where wealthy actors dominate the transition and capture rents from it.

The report warns that if climate action remains oblivious to ownership and wealth, then the transition may worsen rather than reduce inequality. The next few decades will be decisive in investments, asset ownership, infrastructure building, and risk allocation. Ensuring the burden of climate change and transition is fairly distributed is not only a moral or political imperative, it is pragmatic. Without addressing unequal power and wealth, resistance to climate policy will grow, and outcomes will favour those already privileged. For lower-income countries and households, failure to act on ownership and asset distribution means greater vulnerability and fewer resources to adapt. That undermines global equity and long-term stability.

The Climate Inequality Report 2025 makes a compelling case. Tackling climate change is not just about reducing emissions or shifting consumption. It is about confronting the ownership of capital, the distribution of wealth, and the power structures embedded in our economy. If we ignore who owns carbon-intensive assets, who benefits from extraction, and how future infrastructure is structured, then even successful decarbonisation might leave the many behind and enrich the few. Climate policy must address ownership if it wishes to deliver both a safer planet and a fairer society.