Media Releases

Oxfam Aotearoa reacts to the Climate Change Commission’s report

June 9, 2021

Oxfam Aotearoa reacts to the historic Climate Change Commission report released today at parliament that outlines recommendations for Aotearoa, New Zealand’s climate action over the next 15 years.  

Oxfam Aotearoa’s Campaign Lead Alex Johnston says that report marks a step up in the country’s response to climate change, but that the final does not reflect the urgency around the current climate crisis we’re in. Johnston says that although we can’t deny this is a historic moment, we need to do more. 

“The Climate Change Commission’s report draws a line in the sand for the bare minimum of what the government should be doing to reduce New Zealand’s climate pollution. However, if adopted using the timeframes currently proposed, they won’t make much of a difference.

“Aotearoa needs to do more to achieve its fair share of keeping to 1.5 degrees, so that our friends, colleagues and loved ones in the Pacific and beyond do not have to endure rising poverty, lack of food, moving homes, loss of culture. Greater action is needed in prior to 2030 to ensure a safe climate future for all.”

The recently released report will be used to inform New Zealand’s upgraded target at COP26, the global climate talks in Glasgow, later this year.

Johnston says that Aotearoa is getting left further behind as other countries race to step up their commitments under the Paris Agreement:  

“The US has a target of 50% reductions by 2030, compared to 2005 levels. The UK has a target of 68% reductions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. And now compare this to New Zealand’s target of 30% reduction by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels), and you can see how we have a problem.” 

New Zealand’s agricultural sector is responsible for around half of the country’s total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, but only has a 10% reduction target by 2030 under the Zero Carbon Act.  Earlier this year Oxfam Aotearoa urged the Commission to greatly enhance their emissions budgets with agriculture in mind.

“The government continues to let agricultural emissions off the hook, and this is reflected in the Commission’s report – it’s the area where planned reductions are most clearly not aligned with 1.5-degree pathways, and this is holding back how ambitious we can be in our international 2030 target,” said Johnston.

“What we need is to invest in supporting farmers to diversify land uses. Cutting climate pollution from agriculture should include specific and direct regulations on the sources of pollution and rewarding those already farming sustainably, pricing agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme, and using the revenue to fund the transition to sustainable food productions.   

“The reality is this: unfortunately, in order for Aotearoa to uphold its end of the agreement to keep warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius, our government either need to do much more to reduce methane pollution at home, or we will need to spend billions of dollars of offshore carbon credits. Essentially passing on an unfair burden of reducing emissions to developing nations like our Pacific neighbours to do our work for us. 

“We cannot embed our sky-high methane emissions caused by industrial agribusiness at the expense of small-scale farmers around the world growing food for their communities. These are people that have contributed the least to the problem, and are facing disruption to their food security due to climate change. That is not climate justice.”   

For interview opportunities and more info:

David Bull, Oxfam Aotearoa
david.bull@oxfam.org.nz

Notes to editors 

The richest 10% accounted for over half (52%) of the emissions added to the atmosphere between 1990 and 2015. The richest 1% were responsible for 15% of emissions during this time – more than all the citizens of the EU and more than twice that of the poorest half of humanity (7%).

Download Oxfam’s report, ‘Confronting Carbon Inequality,’ for more information. 

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. 

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. 

Oxfam New Zealand’s 2020 report ‘A Fair 2030 Target for Aotearoa’ found that New Zealand’s fair share of effort for keeping to 1.5 degrees would be no less than an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2030. 

Millions facing double disaster as second Covid wave overwhelms rural India

June 4, 2021

New Delhi: The second wave has left public healthcare in shambles. People have lost their lives due to lack of proper medical facilities and infrastructure. The situation is getting a little under control in the cities, but it is still very grim in rural India where there are issues related to access to medical facilities, hospitals, doctors, technically trained staff or testing facilities.

Around 65% of the total population of approximately 1.3 billion live in rural India, which hardly has rural health infrastructure. As per the Rural Health Statistics 2019, there is a shortfall of 43,736 Sub Centres (23 percent), 8764 Primary Health Centres/PHC (28 percent) and 2865 Community Health Centres/CHC (37 percent) across the country.

Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar said: “There was a time when we woke up every day to news of death of a friend, family, acquaintance. Villages were worse off – with no access to health care, no testing; in some cases, 20-25 people from a village died within a few days. No one in India has remained untouched by this pandemic. And most of these lives could have been saved if there was proper, adequate, and affordable healthcare for all.”

People outside the major cities do not have the same access to social media to reach out for help or raise awareness of what is happening. Lack of testing, healthcare facilities and postmortems mean large number of cases in rural communities are not being recorded.

Apart from a healthcare calamity, India was already reeling under economic stress. The sporadic lockdowns and containment zones mean that once again it is the informal sector workers who are going to be worst hit. Latest report from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) states that over 1 crore Indians lot their jobs in the second Covid wave and around 97% household incomes have fallen since the start of the pandemic last year.

Millions who slipped into poverty last year due to job losses are now facing another looming crisis: hunger. India already has the largest population facing food shortages in the world, with an estimated 189 million people in India already undernourished before the pandemic began

While healthcare is the primary focus at this point in time, Oxfam India is also reaching out to some of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities with food. In the long run we will work towards providing livelihood support to informal sector workers and their families.

Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar said: “We are reaching out to public healthcare institutions, district administrations and COVID Care Centres with medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators, patient monitoring systems, oximeters, oxygen nasal masks, and thermometers along with PPE kits and safety kits for frontline health workers. We will also reach the most marginalised and vulnerable communities with food, ration, and safety kits.”

Through Mission Sanjeevani, our COVID-19 response in the second wave, we have provided 96 Oxygen Concentrators, 155 Oxygen Cylinders (40 Lts), over 1200 Oxygen Nasal Masks, 12 BiPAP machines, over 5000 diagnostic tools/equipment of various types, 1630 PPE kits, 90 ICU beds, community safety kits and one month’s dry ration supply to 15,500 people so far.

In addition to this, Oxfam India plans to strengthen the rural health ecosystem, in some of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities, by providing the necessary tools, training and inexpensive equipment needed by frontline health workers like Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) for early identification of cases and timely referral to health centres, and hiring doctors, staff nurses and paramedics, wherever possible.

In the first month of our response to the second wave, we have provided support in Maharashtra, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. While continuing to work in these states among the most marginalised and vulnerable communities, Oxfam India will also look at expanding to Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Gujarat.

Notes to the Editors:

In the second wave, Oxfam India is working with the government and local administrations to deploy 7 Oxygen generation plants, 25 ventilators, 500 Oxygen concentrators, 3000 Oxygen cylinders (40-lts capacity), 11800 Oxygen nasal masks, 300 BiPAP machines, 1200 ICU beds, around 16000 diagnostic equipment of different types, and 19000 PPE kits. We are also aiming to provide one-month dry ration supply and community safety kits to 225,000 people.
Oxfam India also plans to train 35000 ASHA workers and provide them with medical kits for a larger community outreach to ensure Covid appropriate behaviour and also tackle the issue of vaccine hesitancy.
Since March 2020, Oxfam India has been working in 16 states, reaching the most marginalised and vulnerable with medical supplies, food kits, cooked meals, safety and PPE kits, cash, and livelihood trainings.

For more information, please contact:
David Bull
Oxfam Aotearoa
david.bull@oxfam.org.nz

About Oxfam India

Oxfam India is a movement of people working to create a just and an equal India. We work to ensure that Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, and women and girls have safe-violence free lives with freedom to speak their mind, equal opportunities to realise their rights, and a discrimination free future.

During the last five years, Oxfam India has responded to more than 35 humanitarian disasters across the country and directly provided relief to nearly 1.5 million people. Oxfam India’s humanitarian response is guided by the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalised communities in disaster affected areas.

More than a million COVID deaths in 4 months since G7 leaders failed to break vaccine monopolies

June 3, 2021

At the current vaccination rates, low income countries would be waiting 57 years for everyone to be fully vaccinated.

More than a million people have died from COVID since The Group of Seven (G7) leaders met back in February 2021. The leaders had made vague pledges to increase the global vaccine supply, but failed to collectively back the waiver of intellectual property rules and investment in manufacturing vaccines in developing countries.

As G7 Health Ministers meet today for talks ahead of the Leaders’ Summit next week, The People’s Vaccine Alliance is calling on the G7 to stop making empty promises and protecting the interests of pharmaceutical companies, and instead take urgent action to close the massive vaccine void between their nations and poorer countries.

New calculations from the Alliance, which includes Health Justice Initiative, Oxfam, and UNAIDS, found that last month people living in G7 countries were 77 times more likely to be offered a vaccine than those living in the world’s poorest countries. Between them, G7 nations were vaccinating at a rate of 4.6 million people a day in May, meaning, if this rate continues, everyone living in G7 nations should be fully vaccinated by 8 January 2022. At their current rate – vaccinating 63,000 people a day – it would take low income countries 57 years to reach the same level of protection.

Of the 1.77 billion doses of COVID vaccines given globally, just 0.3 per cent of COVID jabs have been given in low-income countries – despite the fact G7 and low-income countries have a similar population size.

Executive Director of Oxfam Aotearoa Rachael Le Mesurier said that although the world is holding its breath waiting for our G7 leaders to step up, we must not forget that the New Zealand government has a moral duty to build on the actions taken to date:

“New Zealand has been a leader during this terrible pandemic; across the globe, world leaders and whole populations are looking to us to see what we will do next. This is the perfect opportunity for our Prime Minister to use her position to help those in need.

“This is about real concrete support for the People’s Vaccine; this is about lifting the brakes and speeding up the production of vaccines faster so we can reach more people in need sooner. This is also about the massive amount of vaccines our own government has stockpiled – enough to vaccinate our population almost six times over. If we hold these vaccines back from those who urgently need them – we are just helping the virus mutate until there is a variant our vaccines can’t stop. New Zealand will not be safe until we are all safe.”

While some G7 members claim they have done their bit by pledging doses or funding to COVAX, the initiative, which was set up to help developing countries access COVID vaccines, is massively failing. COVAX has delivered less than a third of the doses it promised to by the end of May and the Alliance warned that at the current rate, it is likely to reach only 10 per cent of people at best in developing countries by the end of the year.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, said: “It is obscene that the UK, Germany and other rich countries, which are able to vaccinate their own people, are preventing poor countries from making the doses they need to save lives.

“The sad fact is developing countries cannot depend on COVAX or the good will of the pharma industry to save the lives of their people. G7 leaders must take this moment to stand on the right side of history by putting their full support behind the vaccine patent waiver supported by more than 100 countries. The G7 may be getting the vaccines they need but too much of the world is not and people are paying for patent protection with their lives.”

Of the G7 nations, only the US are backing the proposal at the WTO to waive intellectual property rights. The UK and Germany are opposing, while Canada, France, Japan and Italy are sat on the fence. This is despite the fact their public are strongly in favour of the idea, with polling showing that an average of 70 per cent of people across G7 nations believing that governments should ensure pharmaceutical companies share their formulas and technology, so that qualified manufacturers around the world can help increase the supply.

Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni, Senior Health Policy Advisor to The People Vaccine Alliance, said: “The G7 must act now to force companies to share the vaccine technology and know-how with qualified manufacturers in developing countries in order to maximise supply.

“Last week the WHO has relaunched its COVID-19 Technology Access Pool to facilitate sharing vaccines technology, knowhow and intellectual property. The G7 must show a strong political support for the pool if they are serious about ending the pandemic. They must also announce funding to support technology transfer and manufacturing in developing countries. Every day they delay is a day that lives could be saved.”

-Ends-

For interview opportunities please contact:

David Bull – Oxfam Aotearoa
+64 274 179 724

Notes to Editors:

The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental organisation consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The heads of government of the member states, as well as the representatives of the European Union, meet at the annual G7 Summit. New Zealand is not a part of this group.

Since G7 leaders last met for a virtual summit on 19 February, 1,094,213 people have died from COVID, the equivalent of 8 people per minute, according to data from Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

Vaccine supply and delivery data from Airfinity, Our World in Data, UNICEF and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Projections of how long vaccinations could take are based on the average rate of vaccinations from 1 – 25 May 2021.Calculations were made on 26 May 2021.

Between them, G7 nations are vaccinating at a rate of 4,630,533 people per day. At that rate it would take 227 days to fully vaccinate their entire population, until 8 January 2022, assuming everyone receives two doses. Between them, Low income countries are vaccinating at a rate of 62,772 people per day. At that rate it will take them 57 years to vaccinate their entire population, until 7 October 2078, assuming everyone receives two doses.

According to new calculations made by the People’s Vaccine Alliance using Our World In Data from 25 May, 1,774,959,169 vaccines have been administered globally. People living in G7 countries received 497,150,151 of these vaccines (28%) their combined population is 774,917,290. People living in low Income countries received 5,481,470 vaccines (0.31%), their combined population is 660,310,395.

For the month of May 497.15m doses were given in G7 countries, divided between 774m people = 0.6423 doses per person, 5.48mdoses were given in low income countries divided between 660m people = 0.0083 doses per person, 0.6423 divided by 0.0083 = 77.4 – therefore, last month people in G7 countries were 77x more likely to get a vaccine than those in poor countries.

The statistic that COVAX will only reach 10% of people in developing countries this year does not include India.

More information on G7 public opinion polling by the People’s Vaccine Alliance available here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/an-average-of-7-in-10-across-g7-countries-think-their-governments-should-force-big-pharma-to-share-vaccine-know-how/

Oxfam staff member killed in Yemen

May 27, 2021

Oxfam confirms the death of colleague Fathi Mahmoud Ali Salem Al-Zurigi in Yemen on the evening of Tuesday May 25, after a shooting incident on Monday May 24.

Fathi, a Yemeni citizen, 42, was traveling with another Oxfam colleague and a contracted driver when they were caught in what appears to be a crossfire at a checkpoint in southern Yemen, traveling to Aden. The three men were taken to hospital where Fathi succumbed to his injuries. The driver is still in intensive care, and stable; the second Oxfam staff member was discharged earlier in the day. Oxfam has no reason to believe the three people were targeted. All security protocols were being followed at the time of the incident.

Fathi had been with Oxfam for more than six years. He was the agency’s Senior Logistics Officer, working on Oxfam’s program response in Yemen.

“It is a heart-wrenching sadness to lose a colleague particularly in such terrible circumstances, someone who was working in his own home country for the humanitarian cause, trying to help his fellow citizens. Humanitarian workers across the world, like Fathi, risk their own lives every day. We stand in solidarity with them all. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Fathi’s family and loved ones,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher.

After the bombing, Gaza struggles to restart power, water, hospitals, markets and fishing for its 2.1m people

May 26, 2021

400,000 people in Gaza do not have access to regular water supply after 11 days of bombardment devastated electricity and water services and severely impacted the three main desalination plants in Gaza city, Oxfam warned today.

Oxfam Country Director in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, Shane Stevenson said: “Every one of the 2.1 million people living in the Gaza strip has been affected by Israel’s bombing that took 240 lives, destroyed or damaged 258 buildings containing nearly 1,042 homes and commercial offices, and devastated vital public services.”

Around 100,000 Palestinians were displaced by the bombing and are attempting to return home. Even if their homes are still standing, life for them will not be normal.  

“Gaza is largely dependent upon fuel for its electricity, including to pump clean water from wells into homes. With the disruption in the supply causing a shortage of fuel, hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza will soon have no access to basic hygiene,” Stevenson said. 

“Electricity cuts and the destruction of office buildings have forced many small businesses to come to a halt. Israel’s authorities have stopped the bombing but are now restricting fuel deliveries. They have also closed most of the Gaza fishing zone, meaning nearly 3600 fishermen have now lost their daily income and food.

“Water is doubly important, during this critical phase of the Coronavirus pandemic, to help people limit the spread of COVID-19. Six hospitals and 11 clinics have also been damaged including the only COVID-19 laboratory in Gaza,” he said.

Gaza and the West Bank have already seen more than 330,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 3,700 people have died due to the virus.

Even before the recent hostilities, the average daily consumption of water was just 88 liters per capita – far below the global minimum requirement of 100 liters. Amal, a mother in Northern Gaza told Oxfam: “We [now] only get four hours of electricity a day, and we don’t have a schedule for it. Water might be available for one hour, but we won’t have electricity to pump the water to the roof tank. We stay up all night looking for water to fill plastic buckets.”

Oxfam is already working with partners to provide people with immediate lifesaving clean water, hygiene kits and cash to help people buy food and their essentials, and to restore destroyed water systems. The agency aims to reach an additional 282,000 people and needs $3m to ramp up its humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

“Meeting people’s immediate humanitarian needs is critical now. But Gaza cannot rebuild without addressing the root causes of the conflict. The cycle of war means any humanitarian effort now could be lost again tomorrow. The international community must ensure concrete political action to bring an end to the occupation and the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip,” Stevenson added.

 Notes to the Editor 

The World Health Organisation has set the minimum requirement for daily per capita water consumption at 100 liters. This amount should cover basic domestic needs such as drinking, bathing, cooking, and washing. In Gaza, average daily per capita consumption is only 88 liters; in Israel, by comparison, it is more than 200. 
Figures on impacted hospitals were reported in OCHA Flash Report #9, May 19
The Covid laboratory has now resumed working as per OCHA Flash Report # 11 on May 21st

-ENDS- 

For interviews, please contact:
David Bull | +64 274 179 724 | david.bull@oxfam.org.nz

Oxfam reaction to 2021 Global Health Summit

May 24, 2021

Anna Marriott, Oxfam Health Policy Manager and Policy co-lead for the People’s Vaccine Alliance said:

The 2021 Global Health Summit ended today in danger of being judged an historical failure of global solidarity to tackle a Covid-19 pandemic that is still, around the world, in its first expanding phase and yet to peak. World leaders talked eloquently about the bottle-necks that are limiting vaccine manufacturing and supply, and the gross inequalities today of global vaccinations, but their solutions remain the same tired ones that have failed billions of people who remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to infection ahead.

Nine people are dying every minute while the vaccine stores of COVAX – a multilateral initiative to get vaccines to developing countries – lie empty. Rich nations again parroted the lines of the same pharmaceutical companies who’ve succeeded better in creating new vaccine billionaires among their CEOs and major shareholders than they have supplying enough stock. The trickle of charity promised at the summit today was the sound of a bucket of water being thrown on a forest fire.

Governments representing the vast majority of the world’s people are calling for an end to the corporate vaccine monopolies and demanding the mandatory sharing of the rights in order to produce more doses. But a handful of rich countries are continuing to put their relationships with big pharma ahead of ending this pandemic. Pharmaceutical corporations have had more than a year to voluntarily share their intellectual property and know-how but have instead put profits before people at every turn. Relying on just a handful of pharmaceutical corporations to make enough vaccines – and the sharing of crumbs of that supply to developing countries as charity – is an insult to the nurses and doctors on the front lines trying to save lives now.

G20 leaders have once again ceded control of this pandemic to a handful of pharmaceutical corporations who continue to dictate who will get a vaccine and live, and those who will not and may die as a result.