The wealthy are the ones ruining planet

The elephant in the room at COP26 is entitlement.

Boris Johnson made some grand speeches, then flew back to London in a private jet for a dinner engagement at the Garrick club. He did not appear to sense the contradiction.

Poor people tend not to avail themselves of private jets. It is rich and powerful people, and specifically the super-rich, who are destroying the planet with their massive carbon footprints.

The more money a person has, the more they spend.

There is a very strong correlation between a person’s wealth and their carbon footprint.

Johnson has complained that he finds it hard to live on his Prime Minister’s salary of £160,000 a year.

Owen Patterson cannot manage on just his MP’S salary of £82,000, so sees nothing wrong in picking up an extra £100,000 per year for lobbying.

(Why is it even legal for an MP to earn money as a consultant? Their job should be to represent their constituents, not some other organisation.)

Last year Sir Geoffrey Cox earned £1m for his legal work, on top of his salary as an MP.

In one month he spent 140 hours on this legal work. This equates to 35 hours a week. So, his legal work is his full-time job.

He treats his role as an MP as a hobby – to him, a very important hobby. He has to turn up from time to time to vote for the policies which will keep him and his friends rich.

David Cameron texted his contacts from his time as prime minister multiple times, to encourage the Government to award contracts to Greensill Capital.

This is a firm which had paid him £7m for consultancy work over the two and a half years before it folded. Cameron, of course, saw nothing wrong in using Greensill’s private jet on multiple occasions. Cameron’s needs are clearly much more important than saving the planet.

Cameron has got away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist for abusing his former position.

Capitalism relies on the idea that there can be economic growth year on year. The planet is dictating that this is not possible. We have to find a new way of organising life on planet earth.

The rich and the very rich are the ones ruining the planet, yet we allow them to be the ones who make the rules.

They want to rig the system so that they stay rich and powerful. The fate of the planet does not seem to worry them.

Unfettered capitalism is going to destroy the planet.

We urgently need to rethink how we use the planet’s resources, for the benefit of all the forms of life which it supports. This will also benefit the vast majority of people.

The rich have to learn to have less. They have to learn to have no more than their fair share.

Lesley Hankins

Bath