#future-hoarding — Public Fediverse posts

Chasing Returns Leaves a Big Carbon Footprint

This chart is from the World Inequality Report 2026, published this week by the World Inequality Lab.

The authors explain:

Most emission estimates traditionally attribute greenhouse gases to the final consumers of goods and services. This “consumption-based” approach highlights differences in lifestyle and consumption patterns. However, it overlooks another critical dimension of responsibility: capital ownership.

Focusing on ownership highlights investor agency:

While many consumers have limited ability to alter their consumption, due to constrained budgets, a lack of information, or limited access to alternatives, owners of productive assets actively decide how and where resources are invested. They directly benefit from the profits generated by emission-intensive industries. An ownership-based approach, therefore, assigns emissions from production to those who own the corresponding capital stock. 

Under this framework, an individual owning 50% of a company’s equity is attributed 50% of that firm’s emissions, whether directly or via intermediaries such as investment funds….

Accounting for emissions through this ownership lens reveals a high degree of concentration. In France, Germany, and the United States, the carbon footprint of the wealthiest 10% is three to five times higher when private ownership–based emissions are included….

The extreme concentration of private ownership–based emissions stems from both the amount of wealth owned and the investment choices made. Wealthy individuals not only hold larger asset portfolios but also allocate them disproportionately toward high-carbon sectors. 

As shown in Figure 6.3, every $1 million invested in business assets in the United States corresponds to roughly 143 tonnes of carbon emissions, compared with 75 tonnes for equities (Chancel and Rehm (2025a)). Similar patterns emerge in France and Germany.

The global top 10% allocates about half of their wealth to such carbon-intensive holdings, often seeking higher-risk, higher-return investments that coincide with higher emissions. Hsu, Li, and Tsou (2023) find that high-emission companies yield, on average, 4.4 percentage points more in annual excess returns than low-emission peers—an implicit “pollution premium” that further incentivizes carbon-heavy investments. 

From this ownership perspective, the nature of emissions changes across the wealth distribution. For low- and middle-income groups, nearly all emissions are linked to essential consumption — transportation, heating, or electricity. For the top 10%, and especially for the top 1%, emissions from capital ownership dominate, accounting for 75–95% of their total footprint in France, Germany, and the United States. This also means that the wealthiest have a far greater capacity to reduce emissions without compromising their living standards. [emphasis mine]

And, note, this chart is drawn from 2019 data, and does not take into account the investing trends, governance failures, or policy retreats of the last several years.

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AI, GDP, and the Singularity

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published this chart of AI Scenarios back in June. I came across it for the first time today.

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#artificialIntelligence #dataCenters #degrowth #economicGrowth #electricity #extinction #futureHoarding #gallowsHumor #growthImperative #resourceHoarding #singularity #Water