There are truckloads of money available. Just after Gates published his new missive, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the 10 richest US billionaires grew by $698bn in the past year. That money alone, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is almost 10 times the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of the world’s money into their pockets? And why can’t we get it back through effective taxation? The answer is their translation of economic power into political power. The richer they become, the more they can bend the state and economic system to their will, ensuring that they become richer still. But Bill Gates says nothing in his essay about how and where extra money for both climate action and poverty relief could be found.
Read full article here I wish we could ignore Bill Gates on the climate crisis. But he’s a billionaire, so we can’t | George Monbiot | The Guardian
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