There is a largely ignored Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust in which currently 17 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease in the Developing World (minus China) (Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ). Abut 0.5 million people die from climate change each year and, while hard to quantify, climate change impacts the 17 million avoidable deaths annually in the tropical or sub-tropical Third World. Further, about 7 million people die each year from the effects of air pollution from the burning of carbon fuels (). This is happening on Spaceship Earth with the flight deck under the control of the 10% richest who have about 90% of the wealth of the World, and who in turn are controlled by One Percenters who own about half the wealth of the World. An annual global wealth tax of about 4% would yield US$16 trillion annually and enable raising all countries to annual per capita incomes equivalent to the $6,000 per person per year of China and Cuba, countries for which annual avoidable mortality is zero (0). This is a feasible option for stopping the Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust (see Gideon Polya, “4 % Annual Global Wealth Tax To Stop The 17 Million Deaths Annually”, Countercurrents, 27 June, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270614.htm .
Indeed a progressive annual wealth tax ranging up to 10% for the richest has been proposed for democracy and economic sustainability reasons by French economist Professor Thomas Piketty in his important book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”( Thomas Piketty, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” ( Harvard University Press, 2014), the French apply an annual wealth tax of up to 1.5% , and Islam has provided for annual wealth tax of 2.5% (zakkat) for 1400 years It is now too late to avoid a catastrophic plus 2 degrees Centigrade (2C) temperature rise (see “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed and "Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming ) .
Assuming a damage-related Carbon Price in USD of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent (Dr Chris Hope, 90-Nobel-Laureate University of Cambridge), the World has a Carbon Debt of $360 trillion that is increasing at $13 trillion per year, and, for example, Australia, a world-leader in annual per capita greenhouse (GHG) gas pollution, has a Carbon Debt of $7.5 trillion that is increasing at $400 billion per year and at $40,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians (see “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ ). The huge Carbon Debt we are passing on to future generations is inescapable – thus, for example, coastal cities will drown if sea walls are not built. However an Annual Wealth Tax applied selectively to the rich will help meet this Carbon Debt and also serve as a retrospective Carbon Tax on wealth generated in a Carbon Economy (see (see Gideon Polya, “4 % Annual Global Wealth Tax To Stop The 17 Million Deaths Annually”, Countercurrents, 27 June, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270614.htm and “1% ON 1%: one percent annual wealth tax on One Percenters”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/1-on-1 ).