Billionaires Vs. the Climate

Billionaires are causing the climate crisis.  They made it happen. They continue to feed it.  They could turn things around, but they won't willingly do so.  

There is a solution.

It's hard to grasp how much wealth a billionaire has.

How much is a billion?  1 billion = 1000 million.

If 1 million was 1 millimeter wide, 1 billion would be 1000 mm or 1 meter wide.

(Graphic from the Council of Canadians London Chapter display at Earthfest 2026.)

Canada's wealthiest person, Changpeng Zhao, has over 150 billion dollars (Canadian). That's 150 thousand millions.  There are 82 Canadians on Forbes' 2026 list of billionaires, in US dollars.  In Canadian dollars there are many more.  Financial Post March 11, 2026

The problem with extreme wealth:

Billionaires don't care about the rest of us or the environment.

"If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family, you're likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family, you're likely to go to business school."

- George Monbiot in The Guardian, November 7, 2011

"WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT BILLIONAIRES AT JEFF BEZOS’S PRIVATE RETREAT.

For the richest men on Earth, everything is free and nothing matters."

"A billionaire death cult has its fingers around humanity’s throat. It both causes and downplays our existential crisis. The oligarchs are not just a class enemy but, as they have always been, a societal enemy: a few thousand people can destroy civilisations. It’s the billions v the billionaires, and the stakes could not possibly be higher." - George Monbiot in The Guardian, 23 April 2026

Rich people pay lobbyists to pressure governments to support the climate-destroying fossil fuel industry.  Big Oil's role in blocking climate action has been well documented by many. During a seven-year period spanning the Harper and Trudeau governments, oil industry lobbyists met with federal government officials 11,452 times.  "Big Oil has never wavered in its determination to keep the world hooked on the harmful product that it makes a fortune selling."

Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, Cancelling Billionaires Before They Cancel Us pp. 52, 55

“Suncor CEO to MPs: We’re not taking responsibility for climate crisis”

“‘They don’t want to give up the thing that gave them everything’”

Billionaires own most of the media.  They use their control of the media to make sure we don't hear about the climate crisis. "Last week delivered the biggest news of the year so far, perhaps the biggest news of the century. But partly because billionaires own most of the media, most people never heard it."

"The poor and middle pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the very rich pay lawyers – and the ultra-rich pay politicians. The more money billionaires accumulate, the greater their control of the political system – which means they pay less tax, which means they accumulate more, which means their control intensifies."

- George Monbiot in The Guardian, 23 April 2026

Rich people create way more carbon emissions than other people do. 

The top 0.01% wealthiest people emit 23 times more carbon than the top 1%, and 1,600 times more carbon than the least wealthy half of the world's population, about 4 billion people.

A brief 11-minutes space flight (like Canadian billionaire space tourist Guy Laliberté made) produces between 75 and 250 tons of carbon per passenger.

Billionaires buy super-yachts to display their super-wealth.  A super-yacht with a permanent crew, pools, submarines, and helicopter pad emits about 7,000 tons of carbon per year, which is roughly 1,500 times more than the yearly emissions of the typical family car. 

Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, Cancelling Billionaires

And there are the private jets, multiple dwellings, and so on.

Billionaires invest disproportionately in high-emitting industries.

"The charity Oxfam International studied the investments of 125 billionaires and found that they invested disproportionately in high-emitting industries ... Furthermore, these billionaires also invest heavily in infrastructure aimed at servicing a high-carbon economy, thereby locking us into a high carbon future for decades to come."

Cancelling Billionaires, p. 49

Don't rich people donate to charities that help people and the planet?  

Nope.

Canada's ultra-wealthy use private foundations to hide their vast wealth from taxation.

An enormous amount of money—about $107 billion—sits idle in private foundations, doing almost nothing to help millions of disadvantaged Canadians who could benefit enormously if these public funds were distributed to real, operating, frontline charities (and climate action).

A family typically makes donations, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars, to its own foundation. The wealthy donors receive approximately 50% in charitable donation tax deductions for their donations, depriving the country of revenue. Investment earnings are allowed to accumulate tax-free within the foundation, adding to the amount of public money in these foundations from uncollected taxes.

Cancelling Billionaires, chapter six

Canada’s super-rich are using foundations to funnel huge public sums to elite universities and Israel (The Breach) "They are charitable organizations and must be registered in Canada in order to issue tax receipts for donations. But, unlike the tens of thousands of other registered Canadian charities, most private foundations do almost nothing that Canadians would recognize as 'charitable.'”

Rich people put their profits ahead of regular people's well-being.

For example:

Ontario Bill 5: Doug Ford's wealthy friends will benefit. The climate will suffer.

What are special economic zones?

“Special economic zones” designate where projects deemed “strategically important to Ontario’s economy” can be fast-tracked. These projects can bypass all provincial laws and municipal bylaws. The new rules leave key decisions to the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, who will be empowered to select “trusted proponents” and designate projects under the new system. “Trusted proponents” can include the Crown, Crown agencies, municipalities, Indigenous-owned corporations and private corporations approved by the minister. The criteria do not prioritize Ontario or Canadian companies. (Canada's National Observer)

Who benefits from Ontario Bill 5?

The fightback:

Environmental groups constitutional challenge

First Nations lawsuit (APTN)

and 5 more First Nations in Ontario join litigation against Bill 5 and Bill C-5  (APTN) 

Another example: the Strada mega-quarry in Ontario.

Rich people are willing to risk contaminating the water, land and air of millions of people, in order to make a profit for a few.

Strada Aggregates wants to blast below the water table for a gravel quarry that will threaten the headwaters of major river systems in Ontario.

The last time this quarry was proposed, an American hedge fund was behind the project.

Mega-quarry Backed by Boston Hedge Fund Wants to Eat Prime Spud Farmland

and How a small group of farmers and wealthy weekenders made the Melancthon mega-quarry protest a cause célèbre

Melancthon faces a new quarry fight over water, environment and farmland risks (Farmtario Nov 8 2025)

Horning’s Mills community continues to mobilize against Strada Aggregates’ proposed mega quarry - Shelburne Free Press May 7, 2026

Melancthon Against Quarries web site: https://www.juststopit.ca/about-us

Stop the Strada Melancthon Quarry petition launches online (article)

sign up for the newsletter https://www.juststopit.ca/sign-up

sign the Stop The Strada Melancthon Quarry petition.

War is bad for people and the climate but profitable for a few.

Tamara Lorincz provides an in-depth analysis of Mark Carney's Militarization of Canada in the 2025 budget and ongoing.  

War's harm to the climate is a huge topic which we won't attempt to document here, but here are a few examples of how Canadian billionaires profit from war, which is bad for the climate.

"The Financial Times has reported that Canada’s oil producers are in line to land $90 billion in windfall profits due to the Iran war.” - Seth Klein: Urgent need for a windfall profits tax on oil and gas

The oil industry is making billions from the Iran war—it should be taxed - Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood and David Macdonald in the CCPA Journal

Targeting Canadian Profiteers of the War in Colombia - Projet accompagnement solidarité Colombie (PASC)

Budget 2025: A “historic moment” for the arms industry - Nikolas Barry-Shaw, Nov 2025

Budget 2025 invests billions in mining  The federal budget highlights include an industrial strategy tying critical minerals development to national security, supply chains and allied cooperation.  These measures came just days after Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson announced 26 new investments and partnerships with allied countries under the G7 Critical Minerals Production Alliance.  The government said these investments could unlock $6.4 billion of critical minerals projects, including offtake agreements with Nouveau Monde Graphite and Rio Tinto.  - Kelsey Rolfe, November 5, 2025

As Canadians Struggle with Rising Cost of Living, Civil Society Organizations Denounce Canada’s Plans to Lead New DSRB “War Bank” - World Beyond War Canada

Organizing Against Canadian Militarism - World Beyond War Canada

Where is the money to pay for needed climate action? 

Canada's billionaires and multi-millionaires have more than enough!

"In our estimates, the wealthiest 0.01% of families (1,685 families) have at least $155.8 million in wealth and an average wealth of $448.5 million, 4,041 times larger than the average wealth of the bottom half of families. There are nearly 17,000 families with at

least $34.5 million in wealth, while the median family has only $407,000.

"Focusing on billionaires alone, the estimated 86 Canadian-resident billionaire families in 2023 held $286 billion in wealth, as much as 6.2 million families at the bottom of the wealth distribution, and close to the value of all residential land in the City of Vancouver."

 "The new robber barons: a quarter century of wealth concentration in Canada"

In 2026 Canada has 82 billionaires. That's in US dollars, so they each have over $1.35 billion CDN.  Canada's wealthiest person has over $150 billion CDN.  Financial Post March 11, 2026     

Oxfam reports that the richest 1 per cent in Canada hold nearly $1.25 trillion in wealth, almost as much as the bottom 80 per cent of Canadians. As the report puts it, “That isn’t a narrow wealth gap but a wide, expansive, echoing wealth chasm.” - The Rise of the Super-Rich: The State of Inequality in Canada

CEOs at seven Canadian oil and gas companies were paid a total of $94 million in 2022 alone.  The Globe and Mail

Canada’s five biggest oil and gas companies had $38.3 billion in combined profits in 2022 Environmental Defence.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is not a billionaire, but he almost certainly has extensive holdings in Brookfield, a conglomerate that is embedded in most of Canada’s major industries, including those involved in many of the nation-building projects approved by the Major Projects Office, such as fossil fuels, mining, nuclear energy, and shipping. As PM he could do a lot to help the climate (and all Canadians) but instead he is feeding the industries that will make him and his friends wealthier. 

What to do?  Move the money!

TAXING CANADA’S BILLIONAIRES: A CLIMATE SOLUTION

by Chris Kruszewski / Council of Canadians January 3, 2023

In CANCELLING BILLIONAIRES Before They Cancel Us (2026), Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks propose a very modest wealth tax on the ultra-rich.

The case for a wealth tax is stronger than ever in Canada. An excerpt from “Cancelling Billionaires (CCPA)

How would it work?

The first $25 million in wealth would not be taxed.

Wealth over $25 million to $50 million:         tax at 1%

Wealth over $50 million to $100 million:       tax at 2%

Wealth over $100 million to $500 million:     tax at 3%

Wealth over $500 million to $1 billion:          tax at 5%

Wealth over $1 billion:                                    tax at 8%

If this wealth tax had been in place in 2025 it would have raised over $40 billion for the federal government.

What could we have done with 40 billion dollars? Cancelling Billionaires has a list of ideas with costs that add up to $40 billion.  The Council of Canadians London Chapter asked Earthfest 2026 attendees what they would want, and they voted for climate action, reducing homelessness and poverty, providing clean drinking water for First Nations, free or subsidized post-secondary education, health care and other social programs.  Here are the details*:

*People were allowed and encouraged to vote for as many options as they wanted.

Conclusions:

Billionaires get rich from activities that harm the environment (and people).

Billionaires then use their money to further harm the environment (and people).

They can be stopped.  We can turn things around.  

Money is power.

Move the money.

Move the power.

Tax the ultra-rich.