host: welcome to “global 3000”" global wealth is distributed hugely unequally. we meet someone who has nonetheless managed to leap, quite literally, to a better life. luxury bunkers in the u.s. the business of fear is booming. and, why the super-rich are doing poorly when it comes to the climate.

ever more money, ever more possessions. last year, global private assets hit a new record level of $473 trillion u.s. despite all of the current crises, values have continued to increase -- they're now up more than 10% compared to last year. the super-rich club has around 69,000 members, all of whom have assets of more than $100 million. most of them live in the u.s. china comes in second, followed by germany in third place. this comparatively tiny group of super wealthy individuals owns 15% of all global wealth. not only is this disproportionate, but so is their environmental footprint. reporter: welcome to the polluted lives of the filthy rich.

this is a world of helicopters, jets, mansions, and rockets. cutting these people's emissions is the easiest win for the climate. it comes at zero cost to anyone except them. and, well, they can afford it. so just how dirty are the world''s richest people? and how do we clean them up? answering the first question is tricky because nobody is forced to report their own emissions. scientists take estimates of the carbon pollution from an activity or product and combine them with data about how often you do or buy it. that's hard enough to get right for yourself. beatriz: when it comes to billionaires, this is even harder because you don't have that much information about them. reporter: researcher beatriz barros worked out the carbon footprints of 20 billionaires in 2018.? beatriz: we had to work with what we had. we had to work with billionaires whose lifestyle is glamorized, who often appear in the media, who show off their yachts,

their private jets. reporter: that meant they ignored some of the richest people in asia. but in europe and the u.s., they found plenty of material to keep them busy.?? take roman abramovich, the russian oligarch, steel magnate, and former football club owner.?? his 162-meter-long yacht has two helipads and -- kinda unnecessarily for a boat -- two swimming pools. powering this single ship with diesel makes up the bulk of his colossal carbon footprint. how about microsoft founder bill gates? he's a billionaire who at least gets the problem. bill: avoiding a climate disaster. so we need green cement, green steel. to bring the emissions from all those areas down to zero. reporter: gates has written an entire book about avoiding a climate disaster. and to his credit, he doesn't own a mega-yacht. but bill gates flew around the

world with his private jet so much that in 2018 the emissions from his transport were still the same as around 4000 indians or 500 americans. beatriz: these billionaires, they are aware of the social capital of caring about the environment. but i don't see them doing anything about it, at least in their personal behavior. reporter: it's not just celebrities who are the problem. inequality is falling between countries but growing within them. and in cities across the world, the widening gap between the rich and the rest also applies to emissions. let's look at the top 1% of global earners. that's somebody earning a yearly salary of about $109,000. these people live in cities from miami to mumbai. and they're responsible for one-fifth of the growth in carbon pollution in the last 30 years. anisha: the top 1% use basically a similar amount to the bottom 50% of humanity. ? reporter: this is anisha nazareth, from

the stockholm environment institute. anisha: things like space travel and private jets and yachts and stuff are absurd. but a bigger problem is really the way they exert political influence through campaign donations and influence in general on the lifestyles of everybody else. reporter: there are two ways this takes place. the first is full-scale lobbying. rich people have poured money into preserving the status quo, which is working out pretty well for them. and society glamorizes the rich. from jeff bezos blasting into space, to kim kardashian's holidays, we're obsessed with their opulent lifestyles, and often want them for ourselves. so how can we clean them up? the first answer is the most obvious -- don't let the super-rich get so rich in the first place. the problems of capitalism are beyond the scope of this video. but even hard-core ideologues

admit the ultra-rich often avoid taxes and exploit loopholes in the system to grow even richer. by raising taxes, closing legal loopholes, and cracking down on tax havens, policymake could make it more costly for the wealthy to pollute. and in doing so, they'd raise money to invest in clean energy infrastructure. but bear in mind it's not just the ultra-rich who emit way too much. the best example of this is flying. if you've set foot on a plane this year, you belong to the elite 2% to 4% of the population that flies in a given year. and if you fly more than once a year, your carbon footprint is pretty much guaranteed to be incompatible with doing your fair share for a stable climate. one way to solve this is a carbon tax. raise the cost of flying to reflect the damage it does to the planet and a lot more people will holiday closer to home. sounds simple. but it also makes flying -- the thing that's already only accessible to a small group of people -- even more elite.

you would have to set a blanket carbon tax extremely high to deter the frequent fliers and business travelers. that same added cost would be felt much more by a middle-class family. stefan: the very wealthy, specifically the 1%, will always buy their way out of carbon taxes just because they can. reporter: this is stefan gössling, a sustainability researcher who says we should focus on the super frequent fliers, people who, for instance, take more than 12 flights a year.? stefan: even though they are just 1% of the world's population, this little group will account for more than half of all the aviation emissions that the system is causing in a year. reporter: one way to address this is to increase the cost of flying for every extra flight you take. this is known as a frequent flier levy. it would cut demand for air travel without pushing the activity further into the hands of the very richest. that sounds like an idea everybody

could get behind, right?? stefan: in reality, we see a surprising support of the lifestyles of the very wealthy. reporter: but it would be a mistake to focus solely on what rich people buy. kristian: because people who are wealthy contribute the most to causing climate change, they are unfortunately also in the most ideal position to help us mitigate climate change. reporter: thiss kristian nielsen, a scientist and lead author of a study on what the richest 1% can do to stop climate change. kristian: in the paper, we sketch five different roles. the first one is what they do as a consumer. we broaden that to also consider, what can thedo as investors? because the more wealth and income you have, the more money you can invest io companie linkedo fossil fuel, or renewable energy production. reporter: because rich people have more influence within organizations, they can also lobby for change where they work.

cleaning up the lifestyles of the rich is a clear-cut win for the climate. but for the most part, the rich aren't going to just decarbonize themselves. policies that redistribute their wealth need to gain societal acceptance. policies that target their emissions need to avoid a backlash from people who look up to their lifestyles. recognizing that the wealthy have more power to stop climate change is the first step to tackling their outsize pollution. host: natural disasters, pandemics, terrorism, war. many people worldwide ve started preparing themselves for such scenarios. they're stocking up on provisions, and weapons, and even building private bunkers. profits are soaring for producers of such equipment. there's cash to be made from people's fear. reporter: the teeth are bared and the welding torch is in action. at this factory in dallas, texas, millions are being made from selling fear.

ron hubbard builds bunkers for private individuals, and they're in demand like never before. a glimpse into doomsday real estate. ron: you'll notice the trimwork, the walls, the beams in the ceiling -- it's all built to the standard of a brand-new house. there's nothing about it that says industrial or military. these are luxury bomb shelters for the world's elite. reporter: since the pandemic and russia's invasion of ukraine, hubbard has more money than he knows what to do with. he spends a lot on his favorite toys, as he calls them -- several hundred thousand dollars' worth of guns. in ron hubbard's business, safety concerns make the cash registers ring. even the fact that his idol had to leave the white house benefits his bottom line. ron: donald trump is bad for business when it comes to bunkers and guns. when trump was in business, gun

sales go down, bunker sales go down, because the people who buy bunkers are conservatives. they feel safe, so they don't buy bunkers. when a democrat is in office, we don't feel safe, and we -- they buy bunkers. so biden is great for business. reporter: the war in europe is also great for bunker sales. where others see death and suffering, hubbard sees a business opportunity. this video shows him in ukraine two months ago. he's thinking of opening a factory here, to maybe sell his bunkers to ukrainians, too. it could be a booming market. ron: i hope that, when this war ends, this will become a big tourist spot for the rest of europe. everybody will come here to see all these blown-up tanks. that will be a good thumbnail, right there. reporter: the fear of war and disaster is now so great that some americans are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on shelters.

hubbard's clients arrive in ferraris or bentleys, like here. bill sinclair is the head of a big american insurance company. a few weeks after the war in ukraine began, sinclair ordered this $500,000 luxury bunker. bill: a lot of people have written it off, saying it's not going to be part of the society, the millennials, the generation x-ers. the people that have never seen or been part of a war, because we haven't had a war since the 1960's. and i think this brings it full-circle and lets them know that the world we live in is not a 100% stable environment where everybody gets along. reporter: this house is like a fortress. it's owned by thomas janecek, a doctor who's lived here for 11 years.

he built most of the place himself, including the bunker that lies beneath it. all that's missing are the interior fittings. thomas: i had the house to build first. and then the wife wanted the pool and patio finished first, after the house. so, this was kind of the last resort. reporter: janecek hopes to put the finishing touches on next year. like many of his compatriots, he's lost faith in government institutions. he no longer trusts them to protect his fe and children in case of emergency. thomas: being a father and husband, a couple of my jobs are to provide for the family and provide for their safety. and living here, with the storms, tornados, just having a storm shelter was important. and having a storm shelter, you have that underground and if you build it deep enough, it can also be protection against radiation. reporter: those who can't afford to buy a custom-made shelter can rent one in south dakota.

dante vicino purchased 575 former military bunkers, which served as ordnance depots during world war ii. today, he leases them to private individuals -- $45,000 for a 99-year term. dante: what we offer is very much a -- i think it's a solution to fear, you know? it may be the initial reason why people begin looking, because they are afraid of what may happen. people really aren't so afraid anymore when they knowhat they have a bunker for themselves. reporter: his firm vivos has leased most of its bunkers already. some people only plan to use them in an emergency, but others live here at fort igoo all year round. maybe that's because here they feel safe from the disasters shown in the company's videos. these mix the fearf real dangers with pseudo-religious apalyptic fantasies. but they seem be effective

in attracting clients. the bunkers themselves are second world war- and cold war-era relics. the renewed interest in them shows many fear a new era of conflict. across the u.s., businesses profit from this angst. dante: i don't feel that there's an ethical issue in it. because i have people that come up to me pretty much on a daily, if not weekly basis, who thank me for making this a reality. reporter: and dante vicinio does his best to make them comfortable here. he's a trained architect, who also finishes the shelters' interiors. dante: we've very much democratized an industry that may have never seen that level of accessibility before. and so now we've opened this whole market up to, basically, all types of people, and something that now middle-class families can really afford. reporter: nearly a third of u.s.

adults polled believe an apocalyptic disaster will occur in their lifetime. so businesses are helping them devise survival plans, which would previously have been considered absurd. to feel safe again, more and more americans are sinking their cash into reinforced concrete shelters and going underground. host: our planet is home to around 2.4 billion children and young people. that's nearly a third of the global population. the kind of start they get in life varies greatly. around 260 million children don't go to school. and millions even live on the street. but given the right opportunities, everything can change. reporter: it looks effortless, but the tricks that jacobus claassen and his colleagues are doing take a lot of practice.

and usually it doesn't work right away. jacobus: once the club hits you or once you get injured, it's a little bit difficult to go back to it because the first thing that's gonna be in your mind is, that fall is gonna happen again, or that club is gonna hit me again. normally, if i fall i just stand up and say, yes, let's go again, one more time, and always, the second time, we nail it. reporter: this attitude has brought jacobus claassen a long way. he's one of the zip-zap circus's top performers. the academy in cape town's woodstock district offers free training to young people who want to go on stage. funded in part by donations and performances. brent van rensburg and his wife

laurence founded zip zap in 1995. both are former circus artists. brent: we believe that any kid, no matter what the background, if they are given the opportunity in life and they are passionate about what they do, any child can make it. and a lot of kids who have talent and skills are often left behind. and zip zap, you know, we kind of provide that platform to give children who might not have as much the platform to do something with their life. reporter: jacobus claassen, whom everyone here calls trompi, was one of those kids. he and stage partner jason barnard have been teaching and performing at zip zap since graduating there. the most important things they want to convey to their students are passion, discipline, and teamwork. zip zap brings people from all kinds of backgrounds together. after the lesson, jacobus claassen and jason barnard have

to practice, practice, practice. this demanding juggling number is part of the current stage program. after a break due to the pandemic, the troupe can finally perform in front of a live audience again. for jacobus claassen, the live performances create a very special bond between the audience and the artists. jacobus: every time when i am on stage, i make people feel how i feel. i just express the way i feel at that moment. so, if i feel lots of love, i make people feel the love. and that's why audiences, they always seem to scream, or they would stand up and have a lot of energy after a performance. reporter: an overdose of euphoria and endorphins. jacobus claassen has already

been able to share this experience with fans all over the world. the zip zap circus has already taken him from the small south african town of paarl to numerous countries. he's performed in front of tennis stars roger federer and andy murray, and even at the white house during barack obama's term. jacobus claassen has come a long way. but to get this far, he's had to overcome many obstacles. before he came to zip zap through a youth outreach program in 2011, jacobus classen lived on the streets, and in this home for young men. from the streets to the stages of the world. how did he do it? jacobus: i wanted more, for myself. i didn't think of going back to drugs or gangsterism and all of

that. that didn't come close to my head. and zip zap gave me a taste, they gave me a bite of the apple, and i told myself i want more of this apple. and today, i've got so much more of that apple. reporter: jacobus claassen's day is not over yet. next stop, the zip zap dome in downtown cape town, a venue for performances and for afternoon training sessions. he coaches young “zappers” here several times a week. jacobus claassen made it with a clear goal in mind. but he knows you can't do it on your own. jacobus: the most important thing is, open yourself to other people. reporter:

openness and mutual support -- a message that seems to be more important today than ever before. host: literacy is the key to education and success. and of course, that includes reading books. according to unesco, every year around 1.8 million books are published -- that's almost 5000 every day. unlike other sectors, the book trade weathered the coronavirus pandemic well. including in colombia. reporter: in the middle of the lockdown and locked away in her apartment, 22-year-old gabriela parra got serious about reading books. she even wrote notes in the margins and underlined her favorite passages. gabriela: in 2020, i think i read about 40 books. and in 2021, i read 60.

and so far this year, i've read 48. reporter: gabriella parra loves numbers. she studies mathematics. but during the pandemic, she developed a passion for fantasy literature. they're not on the shelves. she puts them in plastic bags to keep them dry. they're all books from independent publishers. there are more than 70 such publishers in colombia, that were not widely known. but during lockdown, they made record sales. publisher edgar blanco says it has to do with their flexibility. edgar: we're actually always struggling. we have to always try to reach our readers in different ways. when the completely unexpected happened, the worldwide pandemic, we were prepared. that made our work easier.

reporter: it's through these publishers that readers have discovered the new voices of colombian literature. but during lockdown, customers weren't able to browse in bookstores. social networks became crucial for distribution. edgar: that worked really well. it saved many. and they had direct contact to their readers by posting on instagram, facebook, and even twitter. that's how the books were sold. reporter: bookstores with a well-functioning online shop did brisk business. on their websites, customers communicate with each other, sharing recommendations as well as critiques. álvaro: it was surprising. for bookstores in the country, as well as on a global scale. no one expected it.

although our doors were closed, our sales went up, with the support of social networks. reporter: all the books in this bookstore originate from this kind of publisher. on offer are primarily political books about critical thinking and social movements. gabriela started reading when she was a child. her favorite book is “gargoyle,” by andrew davidson. for her, books are an alternative to the internet. gabriela: i've noticed how addictive social media can be, and that i need to distance myself from it. it really helps to have a book in my hand to stop me reaching for my phone. i know it's cliché, but it really does help. reporter: and that's why she needs new books all the time. she wants to buy more, if only to support independent publishers. host:

and that's all from us at “global 3000” this week. do send us your feedback, global3000@dw.com. and visit us on facebook too, dw global ideas. see you next time. take care. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

live from berlin. germany's chancellor walks a fine line during a controversial visit to beijing. olaf scholz asks china to use its influence with russia to end the war in ukraine. the chancellor also looks to expand economic cooperation with germany's biggest trading partner. also on the show -- russian officials urge civilians to leave the city of hearts on. an indicator that moscow's military might