‘Mega-consumers’ of food and energy cost environment $5.7tn a year, study finds

The environmental damage bill racked up by the highest-consuming 10% of the world’s population has reached up to $5.7tn a year – larger than the economy of every country except the US and China, a study has found. Mega-consumers in this group are concentrated in the global north, accounting for more than half the population of the US and 40-45% of people in the EU. The damage tally, which one researcher described as “bonkers”, also exceeds global funding gaps for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises, highlighting how economic priorities remain skewed towards running down the Earth’s life-support systems. The most destructive forms of consumption were linked to two main areas: food – particularly red meat, a primary driver of deforestation – and energy, including flights and heating and cooling homes, which typically rely on burning of fossil fuels, such as gas, oil and coal. The $5.7tn figure, published in a paper by researchers at University of Oxford and University of Leiden , was calculated by using estimates of the monetary impacts of climate disruption, biodiversity loss, nutrient pollution and freshwater use. A lone tree stands in a deforested area of the Amazon rainforest. Photograph: Raphael Alves/AFP/Getty Images The study found that the average annual environmental damage bill for someone in the global top 10% ranged from $2,300 to $7,500. This figure rose to $19,000-$63,000 for those in the US. …