Wealthy people with environmental ideals are the biggest emitters

[SteamyTea]

Among people of high socioeconomic status, love for nature corresponds with a bigger environmental footprint – and there's an obvious reason why

By Alec Luhn

27 May 2026

 

Private jets are the most carbon-intensive way to travel

Steve Allen / Alamy

 

People who care the most about the environment also do the most environmental damage with their jet-setting lifestyle, at least among those with the highest income and education.

But rather than being a critique of environmentalism, this finding shows that changing policy is more important than changing values when it comes to halting the climate and biodiversity crises, scientists say.

 

“We do not want to suggest that individuals are solely responsible for their carbon footprints”, since low-carbon alternatives to activities like flying are often still hard to find, says Malte Dewies at the University of Cambridge, one of the researchers behind the new work.

In fact, the term “carbon footprint” was popularised by BP to shift responsibility to consumers.

It’s long been known that a person’s footprint tends to increase with their income. This study, however, brought personal beliefs into the equation. Researchers first asked 5000 people across Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US about their income, wealth, education and job prestige to establish their socioeconomic status.

 

Then they asked them about their views on nature, climate and wastefulness. Finally, they asked about factors like meat and dairy consumption, house size, trash generation, vehicle use and hours spent flying to estimate a broad “ecological footprint”.

For most respondents, the more importance they placed on preserving nature, the lower their ecological footprint. But among the top 30 per cent by socioeconomic status, the people who cared the most about the environment had an even larger footprint than their peers.

The main reason was that high-income nature lovers fly frequently, one of the most emissions-intensive individual activities. They may be justifying this by dedicating themselves to activities like recycling that barely reduce their footprint, says Dewies.

Environmentalism is “a universalistic value, and that means these are also the people who are open-minded, who want to interact with people from different cultures, who typically have friends in different countries and who fly more”, says Felix Creutzig at the University of Sussex, UK, who wasn’t involved in the research.

Earlier research hypothesised that environmental impacts first increase but later curve downward as a country gets richer and has more money to invest in sustainable alternatives, a trend dubbed the “environmental Kuznets curve”. Some have suggested this could apply to people as well, but Dewies and his colleagues say the results contradict this idea.

“Targeting the environmental attitudes of individuals with campaigns will not do the job” of reducing emissions, says team member Micha Kaiser at the University of Cambridge. “We need at some point to come up with stronger measures.”

 

Countries like the UK and Germany have raised taxes on aviation, and airfares have increased 24 per cent due to the Iran war energy crisis. The researchers said the price hikes probably aren’t enough to put off high-income air passengers, however.

In 2023, France banned short-haul flights, but loopholes meant no routes were actually cancelled.

Carlo Aall at the Western Norway Research Institute says policy interventions won’t avert climate catastrophe and that the research is instead an argument for degrowth, the idea that countries should reduce energy and resource consumption even at the cost of shrinking their economies. “Even the environmentalists cannot escape from the hamster wheel” of consumerism, he says.

The researchers admit their results could bolster perceptions that environmentalists are hypocrites, discouraging climate action. Climate philanthropists like Bill Gates have been bashed for flying on private jets, a rapidly growing aviation sector, including to the landmark 2015 Paris climate summit.

But Creutzig points out that the Fridays For Future protests started by Greta Thunberg pushed the German government to adopt climate legislation, even though not every demonstrator swore off flying like Thunberg did. “Being a citizen with an active voice matters more than [consumer] behaviour,” he says.

 

Journal reference:

Nature Communications Earth & Environment DOI: 10.1038/s43247-026-03521-z

[JohnMo]

Don't do as I do - do as I say, comes to mind.

 

Not much different from a multi millionaire pop star, movie stars, telling everyone to dip their hands in the pockets to give to charity. 

[Mattg4321]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

 

Let them cut their 'carbon footprint' first and then us plebs can follow.

[Ed_]

I notice a lot of cognitive dissonance around the impact of flying.

 

It's not clear in this study whether they count flying for work and pleasure as the same, I expect that people earning more generally are required to fly more.

[JohnMo]

9 hours ago, Ed_ said:

expect that people earning more generally are required to fly more.

Why? Required, or choose to?

[SteamyTea]

If Rasmus Errboe, the CEO of Ørsted flies a bit to promote thier business, there is an environmental gain.

If Christopher Harborne, the CEO of Sherriff Global Group, flies a bit, there is an environmental loss.

 

Both of those probably pale into rounding errors when just the UK holiday season starts.

https://www.traveldailynews.com/statistics-trends/quot-great-british-holiday-audit-quot-reveals-how-brits-will-travel-in-2025/

Probably be similar this year.

 

 

[Mattg4321]

You sound like one of them.

 

Rules for thee, but not for me. 
 

All for the greater good. 

[SteamyTea]

13 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

You sound like one of them.

 

Rules for thee, but not for me. 
 

All for the greater good. 

What is your solution to reduce emissions and curb climate change then?

[Mattg4321]

15 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

What is your solution to reduce emissions and curb climate change then?

Whatever it is should be applied equally. Those with money and power to follow the same rules as everyone else. 
 

If they don’t, it will fail, or have to be policed with authoritarian measures, which is also likely to be unsustainable. 

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

Whatever it is should be applied equally

Expand on that?

 

[Mattg4321]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Expand on that?

 

The subject was air travel. Any potential restrictions should be the same for everyone. No exceptions, no exemptions, no ‘carbon credits’ that can be traded etc. 

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

Any potential restrictions should be the same for everyone

As in a milage allowance, or an emissions allowance?

 

[Mattg4321]

9 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

As in a milage allowance, or an emissions allowance?

 

I’m not suggesting either as I don’t think either will be workable. 
 

All I’m saying is any potential restrictions must be applied equally to everyone. 

[SteamyTea]

25 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

I’m not suggesting either as I don’t think either will be workable. 
 

All I’m saying is any potential restrictions must be applied equally to everyone. 

So no solution then.

 

Personally I think education is the answer.

[SimonD]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

If Rasmus Errboe, the CEO of Ørsted flies a bit to promote thier business, there is an environmental gain.

If Christopher Harborne, the CEO of Sherriff Global Group, flies a bit, there is an environmental loss.

Hmm, no. The logic defies me here. There is no possible means of producing a proper objective measure in comparison. Instead I'd hope that Rasmus et al would be making more sensible decisions around the necessity and means of travel and thus reducing it as far as possible, not trying to justify it on the basis of 'I do more for the environment so it's okay for me' which just gets us into more trouble and bickering.

To affect change in behaviour there needs to be systemic change, because the system absolutely rewards air travel financially as a start right now - just think of the cost of a short flight from the SE to Scotland for example versus the equivalent cost of taking the train. The economics right right are shear insanity. But there are also other systemic factors that blind people to the environmental cost of activities and decision - so this becomes a societal aspect, but then there is of course the individual responsibility about taking a stand and making a statement, which in itself may affect the societal and systemic. But who is actually making this kind of stand in such a way as to shift the curve? Our politicians aren't, nor are other leaders, nor are celebrities really doing this to a great extent... but there are lots of more quiet people just getting on and doing it - maybe they're the ones that will eventually provide the gravity necessary to shift things from the bottom up? Who knows, but the winds are blowing in a direction that rather depresses me right now - it feels like taking a positive environmental stand is the higher risk path, both personally and professionally versus embracing and continuing with the status quo.

[Mattg4321]

38 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

So no solution then.

 

Personally I think education is the answer.

I never said I had a solution. Do you?

 

If your solution is education, it would depend on who is doing the educating. It’s not exactly a well thought out solution.
 

At the risk of going off topic, it’s a bit like people who just say ‘wealth tax’ when presented with the problem of the super rich getting richer and everyone else poorer. I think 99% of the population would be in favour of redistribution from those super rich to everyone else, trouble is they can just avoid it and any wealth tax ends up being counter productive. Maybe if every country could come together with a solution… but we’re back to climate change now - a utopian dream unless it can be done without a reduction in living standards. 

[SteamyTea]

38 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

If your solution is education, it would depend on who is doing the educating. It’s not exactly a well thought out solution

The best teachers are the ones that are remembered.

 

39 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

Maybe if every country could come together with a solution… but we’re back to climate change now - a utopian dream unless it can be done without a reduction in living standards. 

Both of those are happening, just not at the right pace.