Blaming climate change on single individuals has been a longstanding problem, the newest victim being Taylor Swift. While she has been continually topping lists for both her music and her carbon emissions, the blame cannot fall solely on Swift for her contribution to this long standing issue. The top celebrity polluters range from celebrities such Swift and close second celebrity boxer Floyd Mayweather and others such as Blake Shelton, Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, Oprah Winfrey and Travis Scott. While the emissions for these celebrities are huge compared to a regular person, aviation only accounts for about 2.5 percent of the total issue of climate change and carbon emissions.
While it is important to hold celebrities in the limelight accountable for their actions and the amount of emissions they produce, it is also important to address the real issue at hand when speaking about carbon emissions. The top greenhouse gas emitting company in 2023 was called Vistra Energy and they produced 95 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. If you were to calculate all of Swift’s 200,000 pounds of carbon emissions in 2023, which was the year in which she did the most flying, it would be around 90 metric tons. While you might be wondering if the blame is even slightly close, 200 of the world’s richest people who fly on their private jets 14x more than the average American flies produce, on average, 415,500 tons of carbon emissions. On the other hand, the largest carbon emitting companies in no way stagger off after Vistra energy. The next highest polluter is Duke energy at 77 tons and the next at 76.
Ultimately, the top 100 companies are responsible for around 71 percent of climate change, while aviation is responsible for 2.5 percent of carbon emissions in total. When you are thinking about blaming someone for climate change, you may want to change your mindset from that well known celebrity you say some random statistic about and focus on the policy leaders in the countries that are allowing companies to produce this many emissions or the companies themselves.
