The richest 10 percent of U.S. households are responsible for 40 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions
The important context missing from the title.
They included income tied to emissions related to the operation of a business, such as from a coal-fired power plant. But they also included income, such as from investments, that supported services or products from those industries.
I mean, yeah... people with more money will have more investments and business assets, and therefore will have a higher contribution, this probably didn't need a study to determine. The more interesting / shocking statistic, in my opinion, is:
Then there were “super-emitters” with extremely high overall greenhouse gas emissions, corresponding to about the top 0.1 percent of households. About 15 days of emissions from a super-emitter was equal to a lifetime of emissions for someone in the poorest 10 percent in America.
This is absolutely disgusting, and unconscionable.