KATHMANDU, Oct 28: The world’s richest 0.1 percent of people generate more carbon emissions than the poorest 3.5 billion combined, while climate-related disasters kill disproportionately more people in countries with greater economic inequality, according to a new report released by Oxfam on Tuesday.
The report, titled Disaster Divide: How Climate Chaos Deepens Inequality and Enriches the Few, warns that the climate crisis is widening the gap between the rich and the poor, with wealthy individuals and corporations contributing disproportionately to global warming while often profiting from the disasters it fuels.
The report estimates that the richest 0.1 percent of the global population—around eight million people—produce 44 percent more consumption-based emissions than the poorest 50 percent, or 3.5 billion people, combined. It also finds that emissions attributable to the richest 1 percent are contributing to more frequent and severe climate-related disasters, including floods, wildfires, droughts and food crises.
Oxfam estimates that emissions from the richest 1 percent in a single year could cause approximately 1.9 million excess deaths from heat. The report also finds that deaths from flooding are seven times higher in more unequal countries, highlighting how economic inequality can make extreme weather events far deadlier.
“Climate disasters drive up inequality and are also far more lethal because of it,” the report says, arguing that the climate crisis cannot be addressed effectively without tackling the economic and social inequalities that determine who is exposed to hazards, who can recover and who bears the greatest losses.
The findings come as vulnerable countries, including Nepal, face mounting risks from floods, landslides, droughts and other climate-related hazards despite contributing relatively little to global greenhouse gas emissions.
The wealthy pollute—and profit
Oxfam’s analysis goes beyond personal consumption to examine emissions associated with billionaires’ investments in major companies.
The report estimates that investments held by 1,000 billionaires generated 486 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025. If the emissions associated with their investments were attributed to a country, that country would rank as the world’s 19th-largest polluter.
Richest 10 % Nepalis over 26 times wealthier than poorest 40 %
Private aviation is another striking example of excessive carbon consumption. Oxfam estimates that private jets emitted 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2025, with a single private jet flight generating an average of 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
At the same time, the report says, wealthy people are better equipped to protect themselves from climate disasters. They can relocate to safer areas, purchase insurance, stay in hotels during emergencies and rebuild damaged properties more quickly.
Poorer households often lack these options. They may live in flood-prone settlements or poorly constructed homes, depend on climate-sensitive livelihoods and have little savings to recover from repeated disasters. Each new shock can push them further into poverty.
The report warns that disaster recovery can also create opportunities for powerful interests to acquire land, privatise public services and expand commercial control over essential infrastructure.
Inequality makes disasters deadlier
The report argues that the severity of a disaster depends not only on the intensity of extreme weather but also on existing inequalities, which influence people’s exposure to hazards, their vulnerability to the effects and their capacity to recover.
People living in low-quality housing, working outdoors or depending on agriculture and other climate-sensitive activities face greater risks. Women, Indigenous peoples, marginalised communities and smallholder farmers can experience particularly severe consequences.
Oxfam warns that around one billion people could be displaced by the climate crisis between 2014 and 2050, with most of those affected expected to be in the Global South.
Nepal’s minister calls for climate justice
In the report’s foreword, Nepal’s Minister for Agriculture, Forest and Environment, Geeta Chaudhary, says the country’s glaciers are melting faster, farmers are struggling with changing conditions, and communities are experiencing both droughts and floods within the same year. The spread of dengue to higher-altitude areas previously considered too cold for the disease is adding to the pressure on public health services.
Chaudhary highlights the injustice of a country that contributes less than 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions bearing serious climate-related consequences.
“The world may be briefly shaken by the ferocity, scale, and damage of the recent Rasuwa flood,” she writes, warning that the crisis extends far beyond the international attention generated by individual disasters.
Chaudhary argues that climate action must reduce excessive emissions, protect people and align economic decisions with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
Nepal, she says, calls on all nations and institutions to do their part in reducing emissions, while countries with greater historical responsibility and a stronger capacity to respond must do more. Countries must work together to accelerate adaptation, strengthen early-warning systems and provide adequate, predictable and grant-based climate finance.
Such support, she emphasises, must reach the communities most exposed to climate risks and least able to recover, helping protect human dignity and reduce climate injustice.
What next?
Oxfam proposes five broad measures to break the cycle linking climate change and inequality.
First, governments should sharply reduce emissions attributable to the wealthiest people and their investments through higher taxes on extreme wealth and carbon-intensive luxury activities, including private jet use.
Second, wealthy countries should substantially increase climate finance for developing nations, delivering promised funding through grants rather than loans, particularly to support adaptation.
Third, governments should adopt time-bound plans to reduce economic inequality, including measures to narrow the gap between the richest and poorest households.
Fourth, public policy should prioritise vulnerable communities through comprehensive social protection, climate-resilient infrastructure, people-centred early-warning and evacuation systems, and stronger public food-distribution systems. Smallholder farmers should receive better access to land, irrigation, seeds and other resources needed to withstand climate shocks.
Finally, governments should curb corporate power and disaster profiteering through measures such as permanent windfall taxes, price caps, restrictions on speculative activity and stronger public alternatives to privately controlled essential services.
The report concludes that reducing emissions alone will not be enough unless governments also address the inequalities that determine who drives climate change, who suffers its consequences and who benefits financially from the resulting disasters. For vulnerable countries such as Nepal, climate justice will depend not only on international commitments but also on whether adequate finance and practical protection reach communities on the front lines of the crisis.
