[ars]

It says the top 1% emit 15%, and then basically says they need to reduce that to essentially zero.

Then the bottom 50% who collectively emit 7% could triple their emissions.

Is it me, or is 100% - 15 + 7*3 > 100?

Either the UN report is not talking about reducing CO2 emissions or the reporter greatly misunderstood it.

Later the reporter puts great emphasis on airplane travel almost to the point of saying that just cutting that alone would be enough - yet airplane travel (all of it) is 2.5% of emissions.

This article pretends to be about CO2, but is really about inequality.

[jstanley]

> Then the bottom 50% who collectively emit 7% could triple their emissions.

> Is it me, or is 100% - 15 + 7*3 > 100?

You're counting the 7% too many times.

If the 7% were tripled it would be 21%, which is an increase of 14%, which roughly corresponds to the reduction of 15%.

100% - 15 + 7*2 = 99.

[ars]

Thank you! That makes sense.

So given that the net results of this shuffle is zero, I guess that confirms that this article isn't about CO2, it's about inequality.

[adrianN]

Air travel has a relatively small global impact because almost nobody can afford to fly. For globally "rich" people it has a much bigger impact.