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Oxfam Aotearoa reacts to Lawyers for Climate Action (LCANZI) announcement

Lawyers for Climate Action (LCANZI) announced that they will be taking the Climate Change Commission (CCC) and Climate Minister James Shaw to the High Court arguing that the CCC’s report did not recommend climate action consistent with New Zealand’s obligations under the Paris Agreement.

“We support this court action to ensure that New Zealand’s targets and plans to reduce emissions are aligned with the science of what is needed for keeping warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius. It is critical for those on the frontlines of ever intensifying climate impacts, that New Zealand is playing its part,” said Oxfam Aotearoa Campaign Lead Alex Johnston.

“The Zero Carbon Act and the Paris Agreement set clear expectations of New Zealand contributing to global efforts to 1.5 degrees, and so decisions about what level of action we take must be grounded in the best chance possible keeping to that temperature limit.

“Oxfam has stated before that the current plans are not enough for New Zealand to be contributing its fair share to this effort, and we look forward to seeing the court clarify what the government needs to do.”

OECD Inclusive Framework agrees two-pronged tax reform and 15 percent global minimum tax: Oxfam reaction

Responding to the announcement today that the OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) has agreed to push ahead with the two-pronged global tax reform deal and set a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent, Dr Jo Spratt the Communications and Advocacy Director of Oxfam Aotearoa, said:

“A really disappointing result for global tax reform. We had great hope that these negotiations would change the archaic global tax rules to make sure the majority of the world’s population benefitted. This is a self-serving deal for the G7 and EU that will allow them to pocket more than 2/3rds of the revenue this global tax will create.

“Once again rich countries are leaving developing countries high and dry with only 3% of profits being funneled to the people in greatest need. Our ask is that global tax be at least 25 percent which could have generated over USD$17 billion (over NZD$24 billion) more each year for the poorest countries. Enough to pay to vaccinate 80 percent of their people.

“There are still many questions we need to be asking including what this means for New Zealand, which has a corporate tax rate of 28 percent and our Pacific neighbor Vanuatu who currently has no corporate tax rate at all.”

Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: 

“The world needs a fair tax deal if we are to defeat extraordinarily high inequality and stop climate breakdown. But this deal is instead no more than a G7-money grab. Rich countries are forcing developing countries to choose between a raw deal or no deal. It is just another form of economic colonialism. This is not an ‘historic’ deal ―it is history repeating itself. Those who shamelessly rigged the global tax system to their benefit over a century ago have again ring-fenced the game for themselves.

“The new rules on making multinationals pay taxes where they are making their sales and profits will apply to just 100 of the most profitable corporations, and loopholes could let big offenders like Amazon off the hook. With so many carve-outs now in play, including the UK’s push to exempt the City of London, this one-sided deal could end up being about as helpful as a bucket full of holes.

“The long-overdue tax reform was meant to recover billions in underpaid corporate tax for all countries. Instead, the G7 and EU will pocket more than two-thirds of new cash that a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent will yield. The world’s poorest countries will recover less than 3 percent ―despite being home to over a third of the world’s population. If you’re a nurse in Mexico, a market vendor in Thailand or a small business crippled by COVID-19 in Kenya, then this tax deal isn’t for you.

“A global tax rate of 25 percent would raise nearly $17 billion more per year for the world’s poorest countries than a 15 percent rate ―enough to vaccinate 80 percent of their population. The 15 percent rate agreed by the G7 and endorsed today will do little if nothing to end harmful tax competition. It is already being seen by some in Australia and Denmark as an excuse to lower domestic corporate tax rates, risking a new race to the bottom.

“The deal the OECD wants is skewed-to-the-rich and completely unfair. It is bad news for tax havens, but will fail to levy funds developing countries desperately need to save lives and propel sustainable economic recovery from COVID-19. This was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a profoundly more equal world where the richest pay their fair share of tax.”

Notes to editors

130 out of 139 members of the OECD Inclusive Framework on BEPS have endorsed the deal. 

The deal’s pillar one will only apply to multinationals with “global turnover above 20 billion euros (over NZD$34 billion) and profitability above 10 percent”, which could rule out corporations like Amazon. Extractives and regulated financial services are excluded from the deal.

The 15 percent rate agreed by the G7 is well below the UN Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI) Panel recommendation made earlier this year, which called for a 20- to 30-percent global corporate tax on profits. The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) has called for a 25 percent global minimum tax to be applied. 

A 25 percent global minimum corporate tax rate would raise nearly USD$17 billion (over NZD$24.4 billion) more per year for the world’s 38 poorest countries (for which data is available) than a 15 percent rate. These countries are home to 38.6 percent of the world’s population.

The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors will meet in Venice on 9-10 July 2021. Technical details for both pillars are expected to be finalized at the G20 Rome Summit scheduled for the end of October 2021. 

Oxfam Aotearoa launches a petition to help farmers curb climate pollution

Oxfam kicks-off the campaign with a petition that supporters will sign to get the New Zealand government to help our largest polluting sector – industrial farming – to evolve to sustainable food production.

Recently, the Climate Change Commission released a report that will be used by the government to plan what New Zealand will do to reduce climate pollution and what target to present at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow this year. Despite some progress being made, the government’s current efforts will not do enough to protect us or communities in the Pacific from runaway climate destruction, or make sure that everyone has good, local food in the future.  

Large scale, intensive agriculture is responsible for 48% of New Zealand’s climate pollution. Oxfam Aotearoa’s Campaign Lead Alex Johnston says that right now, the government gives unsustainable farming practices a free pass to pollute, and props up an intensive model that treats farms like factories:  

“The land is overloaded with cows and chemicals that pollute waterways and cause methane pollution to skyrocket. Farmers across the Pacific are bearing the brunt of this inaction with more frequent superstorms and heightened food insecurity. 

“The only way for Aotearoa New Zealand to play our part in keeping within the crucial temperature limit of 1.5°C is if the government does more to reduce farming pollution and help farmers transition to sustainable food production,” says Johnston. 

Oxfam Aotearoa’s aim is to push the government to set a bold international target to cut New Zealand’s pollution by 2/3rds by 2030; bring agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme so everyone pays the full price for their pollution; and use the revenue to help farmers shift to regenerative, sustainable agriculture. Johnston says that bold targets are necessary:  

“By finally requiring intensive farming to pay the full price for its pollution just like everyone else, the government would spur investment in lower-impact ways of growing food, and reward farmers that have been doing this for generations with less fertilisers and fewer cows. 

“Revenue generated from big polluters could then fund the advisory services, certification and manufacturing facilities needed to allow any farmer in Aotearoa to transition to diversified and climate-friendly crops and livestock farming. 

“This is an opportunity to adjust our most polluting industry into one that is sustainable, healthy, and positioned for success in the future. And it’s a chance to ensure that farmers on the frontlines of climate breakdown can survive and thrive too.” 

 /ENDS 

Notes to editors   

  • The Climate Change Commission advice would plan to reduce New Zealand’s domestic emissions, reducing net carbon dioxide emissions to 55% below 2010 levels by 2030, and net agricultural methane, 8% below 2010 levels by 2030.  The reductions proposed in agricultural methane are not within the IPCC pathways for staying within 1.5 degrees warming. 
  • The government is also reviewing New Zealand’s Paris Agreement target for emissions reductions by 2030, our ‘Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)’, which the Commission found to currently be inconsistent with global efforts to stay within 1.5C of global heating. New Zealand is one of the countries yet to increase its NDC target ahead of COP26, the global climate talks in Glasgow in November. This target is planned to be met through a combination of domestic emissions reductions and the purchase of offshore carbon credits.
  • The combined climate plans submitted by countries account to a dismal 1% emissions reduction, which is way off track from the targeted 45% reduction needed to limit global warming below 1.5 degrees, and to avoid disastrous impacts on vulnerable communities.   

Oxfam responds to the announcement that COVAX has received more funding and is planning to accelerate its vaccine rollout

Responding to the announcement that COVAX has received more funding and is planning to accelerate its vaccine rollout, projecting it will reach 23 percent of people with COVID vaccines in mostly developing countries by the end of the year, Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy, Max Lawson, said:

“More funding for COVAX and a quicker rollout of vaccines is a small piece of good news for developing countries struggling to get the doses they need, but at best fewer than a quarter of people in these countries will have been vaccinated by the end of the year.

“A lot of COVAX’s doses are donations from rich countries, which doesn’t change the fact that there aren’t enough vaccines being produced to protect the world at the speed we need.

“If pharmaceutical companies with successful vaccines were made to share their science and know how, many countries could be making their own vaccines, rather than being solely dependent on doses from COVAX. While the UK, Germany and the EU are busy vaccinating their citizens, it is totally unfair that they continue to block proposals to remove the intellectual property barriers that would allow this to happen.

“COVAX is also paying monopoly prices for the vaccines it is buying; if vaccine patents were waived prices would be far lower, meaning far more people could be vaccinated. Yet unlike the WHO, COVAX leadership have consistently failed to challenge Big Pharma monopolies or to support waiving patents.”

/Ends
 
Notes to editors:

  • The announcement of more funding and quicker rollout was made at the GAVI board meeting this week: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/more-funds-approved-covax-vaccines-tighter-access-planned-statement-2021-06-25/
  • Oxfam is part of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a movement advocating that COVID-19 vaccines are manufactured rapidly and at scale, as global common goods, free of intellectual property protections and made available to all people, in all countries, free of charge.
  • The TRIPs waiver was tabled by South Africa and India in October 2020 to boost vaccine supplies and other COVID-19 health technologies globally. In May the US joined over 100 other countries and backed this waiver for the vaccines. France announced their support for the waiver on 10 June.
  • On vaccine capacity in developing countries: India already produces 60 percent of the world’s vaccines and just over a fifth of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines to date, yet only a handful of the country’s 20 plus vaccine manufacturers are currently involved in COVID-19 vaccine production. The Director General of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has also reported that the governments of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Africa and Senegal have all said that they have facilities that could possibly be retooled to produce coronavirus vaccines.

Queer communities at huge risk in Lebanon, Oxfam research warns

Lebanon’s queer communities have few safe spaces left and have been among the hardest hit by the combined impacts of the 2020 Beirut blast, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing economic crisis, new Oxfam research warned today.  The combination of crises has destroyed entire neighbourhoods where queer people had found refuge over the last decade.

The report, “Queer Community in Crisis: Trauma, Inequality & Vulnerability” was produced with the financial support of the European Union, and it is one of the first studies conducted in Lebanon to understand the impact of the multi-layered crises facing the LGBTQI+ community and their unique needs. Oxfam interviewed 101 individuals, civil society organisations and informal aid groups, an urban planner, and business owners in the areas affected by the blast.

The research found 70% of those surveyed lost jobs in the past year, compared to an unemployment rate of 40% among the total workforce. Almost half said they had relied on family support and humanitarian aid to make ends meet.

The LGBTQ community in Lebanon is facing a housing crisis: 41% of LGBTQ individuals cannot pay their rent, and 58% reported that their homes were damaged in the blast: 35% were forced to relocate or change their living arrangements, 39% do not have a safe living space, and a further 11% had been forced back with their families where many said they faced abusive, unsafe or unaccepting environments. Others were forced to move to overcrowded houses where they faced physical and mental health problems from Coronavirus.

Overall, nearly 73% of survey respondents said that their mental health has worsened to a large extent due to the three-layered crisis.

Nizar Aouad, Oxfam in Lebanon’s Gender Advisor, said the Beirut blast and the subsequent reconstruction efforts could have devastating structural and cultural repercussions for the queer community. “The blast has been the final straw for LGBTQ people in Beirut. It destroyed whatever safe spaces were left in the city. The city’s reconstruction efforts will likely lead to gentrification, making the areas unaffordable to its current residents,” said Aouad.

“Swathes of neighborhoods are set to become less accessible to queer individuals because of high rent and the destruction of already limited public spaces and venues that catered for them. We fear the loss of cultural diversity in Beirut”, added Aouad.

The discrimination and lack of social acceptance that queer people, especially transgender people, face in Lebanon correlate with fewer opportunities for them to make a living. Trans people who face systemic and longstanding barriers to formal education and employment are often forced to work in low-income jobs in the informal sector. Many of them are forced into sex work to make ends meet. During the pandemic, many informal businesses struggled to survive and demand for sex work services sharply decreased, making an already dire situation even worse.

One interviewee noted: “We don’t have safe spaces to exist. We are stifled from all angles. We can’t go out, we can’t work, and we can’t receive proper support”.

Queer refugees, who have been struggling for years under legal restrictions that bar them from the formal job market and limit their mobility, also found in this crisis another burden.

The research shows a huge and pressing need to rebuild queer friendly spaces and create new ones in Beirut. However the government of Lebanon has shown little interest doing so.

Oxfam calls on the government to prioritise the reconstruction of safe spaces for the queer community and offer basic assistance, including cash, shelter, and access to services, to those who are not included in current aid projects.

Oxfam urges Lebanese authorities to decriminalise homosexuality and ensure all members of the community have equal rights.

 “Queer people in Lebanon are systematically discriminated against and have been denied equal access to general healthcare and mental healthcare services for far too long. There must be a focus on the impact of the current crises on their mental and physical wellbeing, so that their opportunities to recover are equal to their cis-hetero counterparts,” said Aouad.

ENDS

Notes to editor:

  • 75% of survey respondents said that their mental health was negatively impacted to a large extent due to the three-layered crisis.
  • 62% respondents reported increased exposure to violence in their current houses.
  • 48% reported inability to access support systems.
  • 39% reported not being able to access safe spaces.
  • 46% reported great difficulties accessing general healthcare services.
  • On August 4, 2020, Lebanon was ravaged by a disastrous blast in Beirut’s port, resulting in over 200 deaths and 6500 injuries, and causing massive destruction over a 10 kilometers radius from the explosion site. The areas most severely affected by the Beirut Blast, particularly the neighborhoods of Mar Mikhael, Gemmayze, and Achrafieh, were known for their reputation as the most queer-friendly neighborhoods in Beirut.
  • Lebanon is facing its most precarious economic crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990. Since 2019, the Lebanese Lira has devalued by more than 85 percent and unemployment has reached a record high, leading to economic recession, high inflation, leading to , devastating social conditions.

 

This report was produced through the financial support of the European Union as part of a project implemented by Oxfam and entitled “Challenging Stereotypes, Providing Services, Convening, and Advocating: A multi-layer approach to promote LGBTQ rights in Lebanon”. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Oxfam and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Oxfam has been working in Lebanon since 1993. We provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people affected by conflict, and we promote economic development, promotion of good governance at a local and national level, and women’s rights through our work with our partners. Oxfam also works with local partners to contribute to the protection and empowerment of marginalized women and men. Oxfam in Lebanon works on active citizenship and good governance, economic justice and humanitarian programmes. To respond to the impact of the blast Oxfam is working with 11 partners to deliver emergency support including distribution of food parcels and the provision of emergency and temporary cash assistance, household rehabilitation, legal assistance and consultation, psycho-social support and medication. The services are provided to families and individuals in the affected areas including women, girls, LGBTQ+ community members, people with disabilities and migrant workers.

Oxfam reaction to G7 Communique

Oxfam campaigners pose as G7 leaders on Swanpool Beach near Falmouth
Oxfam campaigners pose as G7 leaders on Swanpool Beach near Falmouth

Oxfam campaigners pose as G7 leaders on Swanpool Beach near Falmouth

Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said:

“This G7 summit will live on in infamy. Faced with the biggest health emergency in a century and a climate catastrophe that is destroying our planet, they have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times. Never in the history of the G7 has there been a bigger gap between their actions and the needs of the world. In the face of these challenges the G7 have chosen to cook the books on vaccines and continue to cook the planet. We don’t need to wait for history to judge this summit a colossal failure, it is plain for all to see.”

Vaccines

“Today the G7 leaders have failed to protect millions of people from the deadly threat of COVID-19. They say they want to vaccinate the world by the end of next year, but their actions show they care more about protecting the monopolies and patents of pharmaceutical giants.

“A billion vaccine doses would have been a drop in the bucket, but they didn’t even manage that. Sharing vaccines will only get us so far – we need all G7 nations to follow the lead of the US, France and over 100 other nations in backing a waiver on intellectual property. By holding vaccine recipes hostage, the virus will continue raging out of control in developing countries and put millions of lives at risk.

“Prime Minister Johnson and Chancellor Merkel are insisting on defending the monopolies of pharmaceutical companies over people’s lives, which is completely inexcusable.

Special Drawing Rights

“We welcome the new proposal for rich countries to reallocate $100 billion of their Special Drawing Rights to lower-income nations. This will help to even up the mammoth disparity between how much rich and poor nations will be allocated. The additional finance is desperately needed, but it is vital that it is provided as additional to existing aid targets and on grant-like terms instead of loans. Otherwise it risks exacerbating the debt situation that is overwhelming many countries.”

Climate

“It is unacceptable that most of the G7 missed the opportunity to make new pledges of climate finance. Developing countries were looking for progress on this front ahead of landmark climate talks in Glasgow. Vague promises of new financing for green development projects should not distract from this goal.

“Today’s announcement represents new calculations of old pledges to cut emissions. We will be watching closely whether G7 countries bring forward new targets in the coming months. We need to see a Herculean effort to cut emissions further and faster, and to hit the long-overdue target of $100 billion per year in climate finance, with half of this amount for adaptation.”

/Ends

To arrange an interview with an Oxfam spokesperson contact:
David Bull | Oxfam Aotearoa | david.bull@oxfam.org.nz 

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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