The ten wealthiest billionaires could each pay for one year of the pledge to the Global South to enable development without reliance on fossil fuels out of their personal wealth; and still have more than a billion left over (which is more than enough for anyone). Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos could do it twice. You’d think they’d want to do something useful with it. They can’t take it with them, even into space.

These are not aspirational role models. It is obscene that individuals are allowed such grossly inflated wealth and power, while the climate heats and progress reducing poverty is stalling everywhere outside China.