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The Future is Equal

Timor-Leste

COP29 must deliver more than “threadbare promises”

In response to the latest climate finance draft text at COP29, Oxfam International’s Climate Justice Lead, Safa’ Al Jayoussi, said:  

“COP29 must do more than simply repeat the same threadbare promises. Rich countries have spent decades now stalling and blocking genuine progress on climate finance. This has left the Global South suffering the most catastrophic consequences of a climate crisis they did not create. The draft text scandalously misses the crucial element of declaring a clear public commitment to a new climate finance goal.  

“Rich countries, those most responsible for climate chaos, owe $5 trillion in annual climate debt and reparations. This funding must come as grants-based public financing to help communities that need it the most mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change and recover from loss and damage. Anything less will simply be a failure. 

“This is not charity – it is an established obligation under international law. It is the bare minimum needed to shield frontline communities from devastation, allow them to rebuild after disasters pass, and ensure their just transition to a sustainable future. The next few days are a credibility test for these climate negotiations and for COP itself. The time for stalling is over. If rich countries don’t deliver, they will go down in history as having chosen profit over people and complacency over courage.” 

Notes to editors

Rich countries continue to resist calls for climate reparations. Climate activists are demanding the Global North provide at least $5 trillion a year in public finance to the Global South.
 

Contact information

Rachel Schaevitz in Auckland, NZ I rachel.schaevitz@oxfam.org.nz

Jeshua Hope in Suva, Fiji | jhope@oxfampacific.org | +679 7500889 

Global climate activists rally at Baku’s Olympic stadium with bold “Pay Up!” message

Global climate activists today gathered at Baku’s Olympic stadium —the venue for the United Nations climate talks— to urge world leaders to commit to a new, ambitious climate finance deal. The message “Pay Up!” unfolded across the stadium seats, in perfect sight from the COP29 presidency offices located on the opposite side of the arena. 

COP29 has been dubbed the “finance COP” because setting a new goal for global climate finance and laying out a plan for achieving it is the big battleground issue. Activists and civil society organizations call for the new goal to drastically increase from its present $100 billion a year to $5 trillion a year in climate debt and reparations and to protect communities facing the worst impacts of the crisis. 

“As communities in the Global South bear the brunt of climate disasters, it’s past time for the Global North to pay their share —without saddling us with more loans and debt,” said Marinel Ubaldo, a Make Rich Polluters Pay activist and delegate from the Philippines. “Real climate action means financing solutions that uplift, empower, and sustain our communities, free from the chains of fossil fuels and debt traps.”

Global climate policy experts underscore this year’s conference as one of the most critical since COP26 in 2021.Without more ambitious and urgent action, the world could warm by a terrifying 3.1°C by the end of the century.

Activists are also calling to make rich polluters pay through taxes on fossil fuel-intensive industries and the super-rich. Fifty of the world’s richest billionaires emit more carbon pollution through their investments, private jets and yachts in 90 minutes than the average person does in their lifetime.  

“The world needs leaders who are committed to justice and fairness; this starts with honoring climate finance commitments, taxing the super-rich, phasing out fossil fuels, and holding polluters accountable,” Ubaldo added. “The climate crisis doesn’t pause for politics or profit —it demands swift, decisive, and equitable action now.”

Notes to editors

The organisers are a cross-constituency of climate groups, including Oxfam.

Oxfam’s report, “Carbon Inequality Kills,” tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts and polluting investments and details how the super-rich are fueling inequality, hunger and death across the world. 

Contact information

Rachel Schaevitz/ rachel.schaevitz@oxfam.org.nz

 

Make Rich Polluters Pay

Make Rich Polluters Pay

Join the campaign to help make rich polluters pay.

The climate crisis is here and now, wrecking the lives and livelihoods of millions of people from Aotearoa to the Pacific, and around the world.

Every day, the devastating impacts of climate change are being felt, but not equally. People facing poverty, who did the least to cause the crisis, are suffering the most. Discrimination means that it’s often women who pay the highest price, while young people everywhere are seeing their futures stolen. All the while the richest people and corporations are plundering the planet and polluting for profit. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. A more equal and sustainable world is possible. One where all of us who are at risk from the climate crisis have what we need to survive extreme weather and build a better future. 

The biggest polluters, who are raking in record profits and amassing huge fortunes, must pay for the climate crisis they are creating and the costs of building a fairer future. We can raise the trillions of dollars needed to tackle the climate crisis if we make rich polluters pay! 

Have Your Say And Sign The Petition

Meet Cynthia Houniuhi​

Cynthia Houniuhi is a climate activist from the Solomon Islands and the current President of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC). In 2019, she was one of 27 youth activists and law students who formed the PISFCC – a campaign to persuade the leaders of the Pacific Island Forum to take the issue of climate change and human rights to the International Court of Justice.

Carbon Inequality Kills

The only way to beat climate breakdown and deliver social justice is to radically reduce inequality. This report reveals the catastrophic climate impacts of the richest individuals in the world, and proposes taking urgent action to protect people and the planet.

What little carbon dioxide we can still safely emit is being burned indiscriminately by the superrich. We share new evidence of how the yachts, jets and polluting investments of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires are accelerating the climate crisis. Oxfam’s research shows that the emissions of the world’s super-rich 1% are causing economic losses of trillions of dollars; contributing to huge crop losses; and leading to millions of excess deaths.

As global temperatures continue to rise, risking the lives and livelihoods of people living in poverty and precarity, we must act now to curb the emissions of the super-rich, and make rich polluters pay.

Read the report here.

Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 mins than the average person does

Fifty of the world’s richest billionaires on average produce more carbon through their investments, private jets and yachts in just over an hour and a half than the average person does in their entire lifetime, a new Oxfam report reveals today. The first-of-its-kind study, “Carbon Inequality Kills,” tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts and polluting investments and details how the super-rich are fueling inequality, hunger and death across the world. The report comes ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, amidst growing fears that climate breakdown is accelerating, driven largely by the emissions of the richest people.

If the world continues its current emissions, the carbon budget (the amount of CO2 that can still be added to the atmosphere without causing global temperatures to rise above 1.5°C) will be depleted in about four years. However, if everyone’s emissions matched those of the richest 1 percent, the carbon budget would be used up in under five months. And if everyone started emitting as much carbon as the private jets and superyachts of the average billionaire in Oxfam’s study, it would be gone in two days.

“The super-rich are treating our planet like their personal playground, setting it ablaze for pleasure and profit. Their dirty investments and luxury toys —private jets and yachts— aren’t just symbols of excess; they’re a direct threat to people and the planet,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

“Oxfam’s research makes it painfully clear: the extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fueling inequality, hunger and —make no mistake— threatening lives. It’s not just unfair that their reckless pollution and unbridled greed is fueling the very crisis threatening our collective future —it’s lethal,” said Behar.

The report, the first-ever study to look at both the luxury transport and polluting investments of billionaires, presents detailed new evidence of how their outsized emissions are accelerating climate breakdown and wreaking havoc on lives and economies. The world’s poorest countries and communities have done the least to cause the climate crisis, yet they experience its most dangerous consequences.

Oxfam found that, on average, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took 184 private jet flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air —producing as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years. In the same period, their yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years.

  • Jeff Bezos’ two private jets spent nearly 25 days in the air over a 12-month period and emitted as much carbon as the average US Amazon employee would in 207 years. Carlos Slim took 92 trips in his private jet, equivalent to circling the globe five times.
  • The Walton family, heirs of the Walmart retail chain, own three superyachts that in one year produced as much carbon as around 1,714 Walmart shop workers.

Billionaires’ lifestyle emissions dwarf those of ordinary people, but the emissions from their investments are dramatically higher still —the average investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires are around 340 times their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined. Through these investments, billionaires have huge influence over some of the world’s biggest corporations and are driving us over the edge of climate disaster.

Nearly 40 percent of billionaire investments analyzed in Oxfam’s research are in highly polluting industries: oil, mining, shipping and cement. On average, a billionaire’s investment portfolio is almost twice as polluting as an investment in the S&P 500. However, if their investments were in a low-carbon-intensity investment fund, their investment emissions would be 13 times lower.

Oxfam’s report details three critical areas, providing national and regional breakdowns, where the emissions of the world’s richest 1 percent since 1990 are already having —and are projected to have— devastating consequences:

  • Global inequality. The emissions of the richest 1 percent have caused global economic output to drop by $2.9 trillion since 1990. The biggest impact will be in countries least responsible for climate breakdown. Low- and lower-middle-income countries will lose about 2.5 percent of their cumulative GDP between 1990 and 2050. Southern Asia, South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will lose 3 percent, 2.4 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively. High-income countries, on the other hand, will accrue economic gains.
  • Hunger. The emissions of the richest 1 percent have caused crop losses that could have provided enough calories to feed 14.5 million people a year between 1990 and 2023. This will rise to 46 million people annually between 2023 and 2050, with Latin America and the Caribbean especially affected (9 million a year by 2050).
  • Death. 78 percent of excess deaths due to heat through 2120 will occur in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

“It’s become so tiring, to be resilient. It’s not something that I have chosen to be —it was necessary to survive. A child shouldn’t need to be strong. I just wanted to be safe, to play in the sand —but I was always fleeing when storms came. Counting dead bodies after a typhoon isn’t something any child should have to do. And whether we survive or not, the rich polluters don’t even care,” said Marinel Sumook Ubaldo, a young climate activist from the Philippines.

Rich countries have failed to keep their $100 billion climate finance promise, and heading into COP29, there is no indication that they will set a new climate finance goal that adequately addresses the climate financing needs of Global South countries. Oxfam warns that the cost of global warming will continue to rise unless the richest drastically reduce their emissions.

Ahead of COP29, Oxfam calls on governments to:

  • Reduce the emissions of the richest. Governments must introduce permanent income and wealth taxes on the top 1 percent, ban or punitively tax carbon-intensive luxury consumptions —starting with private jets and superyachts— and regulate corporations and investors to drastically and fairly reduce their emissions.
  • Make rich polluters pay. Climate finance needs are enormous and escalating, especially in Global South countries that are withstanding the worst climate impacts. A wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could raise at least $1.7 trillion annually. A wealth tax on investments in polluting activities could bring in another $100 billion.
  • Reimagine our economies. The current economic system, designed to accumulate wealth for the already rich through relentless extraction and consumption, has long undermined a truly sustainable and equitable future for all. Governments need to commit to ensuring that, both globally and at a national level, the incomes of the top 10 percent are no higher than the bottom 40 percent.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam’s report “Carbon Inequality Kills” and the methodology note.

Oxfam’s research shows that the richest 1 percent, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those earning $310,000 ($140,000 PPP) or more a year, accounted for 16 percent of all CO2 emissions in 2019.

On average, a billionaire’s investments in polluting industries such as fossil fuels and cement are double the average for the Standard & Poor 500 group of corporations.

Oxfam’s analysis estimates the changes in economic output (GDP), changes in yields of major crops (it considers maize, wheat, and soy, which are among the most common crops globally) and excess deaths due to changes in temperatures that can be attributed to the emissions of the richest people. Economic damages are expressed in International Dollars ($), which adjusts for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

Daniel Horen Greenford (Concordia University, Universitat de Barcelona) carried out the calculations on economic damages, Corey Lesk (Dartmouth College) conceived and carried out calculations on agricultural losses, and Daniel Bressler (Columbia University) provided country-level estimates of the mortality cost of carbon.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, if invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures by 2030, billionaires’ wealth could cover the entire funding gap between what governments have pledged and what is needed to keep global warming below 1.5⁰C.

Rich countries continue to resist calls for climate reparations. Climate activists are demanding the Global North provide at least $5 trillion a year in public finance to the Global South “as a down payment towards their climate debt” to the countries, people and communities of the Global South who are the least responsible for climate breakdown but are the most affected.

Contact information

Rachel Schaevitz – rachel.schaevitz@oxfam.org.nz

Hamriik Project

Timor-Leste is a nation comprising half of the island of Timor, in Southeast Asia. Timor-Leste is highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters, and is considered the seventh most disaster-prone country in the world. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the negative consequences of drought, landslides, and floods. Gender-based violence is prevalent across Timor-Leste and research shows that climate emergencies can lead to further increases in domestic violence.

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Hamriik Project

Oxfam has launched the Hamriik Project in OÉ-CUSSE, TIMOR-LESTE, named after the Tetum word for “to stand.”

This initiative aims to strengthen the climate change adaptation capacities of households and communities in rural Timor- Leste, addressing the critical intersections between gender, disability, and climate change.

Inclusive Resilience Project

The inclusive Resilience Project is a key component of HAMRIIK, designed to improve food security, agency, and resilience to climate change for vulnerable and marginalised populations. Targeting 650 vulnerable households in Oecusse and Liquiça, the project will promote climate-smart agriculture, water conservation, and sustainable land use practices. Additionally, it will address community-identified climate adaptation priorities in 12 communities.

Over the next five years, Oxfam and its partners will work to enhance gender-equitable planning, decision-making, and adaptation actions at all levels, household, community, and municipal. By leveraging expertise in disaster risk reduction, women’s economic empowerment, and action learning, the project will develop and implement equitable climate resilience approaches tailored to the Timor-Leste context. This initiative will also build the capacity of partner organizations to effectively support gender-responsive climate adaptation efforts.

Our climate change adaptation project, HAMRIIK, has made a promising start. In the first six months, Oxfam and its partners have launched several key initiatives:

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Community Engagement

Over 1000 people across 12 villages have been introduced to the project, and 225 individuals, 66% of whom were women, have received training in organic composting and eco-enzyme production. A total of 320kg of organic compost and 280kg of eco-enzyme have been produced. 

Savings Groups

Two new savings groups have been established, one of which, composed of 24 women, saved NZ $1,291 in just 10 weeks, providing loans for various community needs. 

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Agricultural Training

A training needs assessment in permaculture and agriculture was conducted, with plans to begin training in soil conservation and seed bank management in October 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Oxfam Aotearoa.

Oxfam is a worldwide development organisation that mobilises the power of people against injustice. Oxfam Aotearoa is a registered charity with the New Zealand Charities Register (registration CC24641). Donations are tax refundable.

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