News & Media

New Zealand Facing Credibility Test on Climate Crisis and Pacific ‘Reset’: Oxfam

August 12, 2019

New Zealand is facing a critical test of its credibility on tackling the climate crisis and its ability to remain a trusted partner to the region as Pacific Island Forum leaders prepare to meet in Tuvalu this week, Oxfam New Zealand said today.

Photo: Vlad Sokhin/Oxfam

New Zealand is facing a critical test of its credibility on tackling the climate crisis and its ability to remain a trusted partner to the region as Pacific Island Forum leaders prepare to meet in Tuvalu this week, Oxfam New Zealand said today.

Oxfam New Zealand executive director Rachael Le Mesurier said New Zealand’s progress so far showed promise but its rising emissions and glaring omissions in proposed climate policies were concerning.

“Pacific leaders, including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, will gather at Tuvalu, where the community is grappling with the extreme toll of climate damage – where rising seas and higher storm surges are already swallowing land and contaminating scarce water supplies, and where homes, livelihoods and the fate of an entire nation are at stake,” Le Mesurier said.

“New Zealand is among a tiny minority of developed countries in which climate pollution is going up not down. The government must go further, faster to get emissions down now while also stepping up to finance a thriving, climate-resilient future for our neighbours in the Pacific and beyond.”

Le Mesurier said this week’s leaders’ meeting was the first since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s landmark report on limiting warming to 1.5C, which laid out the severe consequences of failing to limit warming to 1.5C and the scale and pace of global action necessary to achieve this goal, including that global emissions must be roughly halved over the next decade and reach zero before the mid-century.

“This week’s meeting also comes three months after the government published details of the proposed Zero Carbon Act, legislation that in its final form will be a key test of New Zealand’s commitment to addressing climate change.

“New Zealand must create a Zero Carbon Act that has a 2040 target for net zero emissions, covering all greenhouse gases; phase-in the full pricing of agricultural emissions much faster; and accelerate reforms of the Resource Management Act in order to be taking the climate crisis seriously.

“As well as getting our own house in order, we have a responsibility to support the resilience, resolve and leadership of those at the front lines of climate destruction – starting with a US$30 million contribution to the Green Climate Fund in the October replenishment round,” Le Mesurier said.

“Pacific island countries are tackling the grave injustice they face head on – having contributed the least to climate change, these nations are making bold national commitments, and playing a major role in international negotiations.

“If New Zealand is to remain a trusted partner with the members of the Pacific family, and with that retain the ability to help shape the region’s future, it must immediately step up its response to the number one priority of our region – the climate crisis.”

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Nearly 1,000 Child Casualties of Yemen Since Shocking Sa’ada Bus Attack

August 9, 2019

More than 300 children have died in fighting across Yemen in the year since an airstrike hit a bus in Sa’ada killing 41 school children, and almost 600 have been injured as international arms sales continue to fuel the conflict.

335 children have been killed by violent attacks including airstrikes, mines and shelling since 9 August 2018, equivalent to another eight buses being hit. Many more have died from hunger and disease, according to the UN, in a massive humanitarian crisis stoked by the conflict.

Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director said: “The world was rightly appalled by an attack that took the lives of so many young, innocent schoolchildren. Yet almost one child a day has been killed in the year since and violence remains a daily threat for Yemenis, alongside the struggle against hunger and disease.

“The people of Yemen urgently need a nationwide ceasefire before more lives are lost to this horrific conflict and the humanitarian disaster that it is fueling. All parties to the conflict and those with influence over them should do all in their power to end this deadly war now.”

Since the latest figures were published, more children have been killed or injured. Just last week an attack on a market killed at least 10 civilians, including children, in Sa’ada while in Taizz, five children were injured by shelling.

Airstrikes and shelling in Al Dale’e in May killed 10 children. In March, five children were killed in clashes in Taizz city while an attack on the Kushar district of Hajjah governorate killed 14 children. Over the year, there have been 30 incidents involving schools and 18 involving hospitals.

The conflict, between the Houthis and the internationally recognised government, backed by an international coalition that includes Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is now in its fifth year. The United Nations has estimated that if the war continues until 2022, more than half a million people will be killed by fighting, hunger and disease.

The Houthis and the internationally recognized government of Yemen reached an agreement at talks in December which included a ceasefire deal for the key port of Hudaydah but moves to implement it have been long delayed.

The government and the Saudi-led coalition have accused the Houthi forces of over 5000 violations of the Stockholm agreement, while the Houthis have in turn blamed the coalition and government forces for more than 27,000 violations.

The international community is coming under increasing pressure to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia and other members of the coalition.

Siddiquey said: “Seventy years after the creation of the Geneva Convention, which seeks to protect civilians in and around war zones, children in Yemen still find themselves in the firing line.

“The international community should focus on protecting the lives of Yemeni civilians and ending this war, not profiting from it through arms sales.”

Notes:

Data on the number of children killed and injured has been provided by the UN Civilian Impact Monitoring Project (CIMP). It is unverified open source information. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Yemen Data Project also monitor civilian casualties. None is an official source and given the difficulties of working in Yemen, the data from these three sources do not always match.
The CIMP data shows 335 children died and 590 were injured between 9 August 2018, when the bus attack in Sa’ada took place, and 3 July 2019.
The government and coalition allege over 5000 violations of the Stockholm agreement by Houthi forces since it came into effect on 23 December 2018 until 10 June 2019. The Houthis allege 27714 violations by the government and coalition in the period 23 December 2018 to 2 July 2019.

Oxfam To Visit NZ Cities To Talk Action On Climate Breakdown

August 1, 2019

Climate: Global challenge, local action.

Oxfam New Zealand is starting a tour around the country next week to host discussions about the impact of climate breakdown in regions from Auckland to Dunedin.

The Climate Breakdown: Global Challenge, Local Action series of events will showcase a special pre-release excerpt of the film 2040 and a panel discussion with local leaders, from student activists to council representatives, moderated by Oxfam New Zealand’s executive director Rachael Le Mesurier.

Le Mesurier said she is looking forward to listening to initiatives and ideas about how communities are working together to tackle climate breakdown, how these connect into the actions being taken in the Pacific by like-minded local communities and how they offer opportunities for our individual and collective actions.

“At Oxfam we see daily evidence of communities being dramatically affected by climate destruction, but also fighting hard to adapt to and mitigate its effects.

“It’s inspiring to see the rise in people power – protests, innovative solutions, influencing MPs, communities building climate resilience together – often being led at a grassroots level. We’re interested to hear what people think we might do more of to inspire action on a large scale.

“Climate breakdown is no longer a faraway problem. Communities in New Zealand are also being affected by rising sea levels and extreme weather. Our farming community will likely be dealing with even more intense rains, longer dry periods and higher heat, and a number of other impacts in the coming few years.

“The poorest people, wherever they may be, will continue to be hit hardest. While individual efforts are important, collective action across regions and on the international stage is even more crucial for the world to successfully prevent the worst of climate destruction.

“Oxfam works with vulnerable communities all over the world to help them increase their climate resilience, but especially in Pacific Island nations who are leading the charge against further destruction. What we see is that Kiwis have a lot in common with our Pacific neighbours. We rely on the land, we are connected to the sea, we have the wisdom of indigenous communities guiding efforts that protect our earth for future generations. We can work together to better meet this challenge.”

All are invited to participate in the events, being held in seven cities around New Zealand. Each event will include an exclusive preview of footage from innovative feature documentary 2040, by award-winning director Damon Gameau (That Sugar Film). Panellists from each region will discuss the issues facing their communities due to climate breakdown with a focus on community-led solutions and collective action within the global movement for a more sustainable future.

Find out more about an event near you and RSVP here.

Climate Breakdown: Global Challenge, Local Action dates:

Dunedin – 5 August
Christchurch – 6 August
Nelson – 8 August
Hamilton – 19 August
Tauranga – 20 August
Wellington – 27 August
Auckland – 5 September

How to Talk About Climate Change: A Toolkit for Encouraging Collective Action

July 31, 2019

This toolkit discusses effective communication strategies that inspire hope, build connections, develop understandings and encourage collective action.

For those working on achieving meaningful action about climate change, locally and internationally, effective communications can create hope, improve people’s understanding of the causes and solutions, open doors to collaboration between people, business and politicians, and motivate people to act in meaningful ways, to be agents of change. We can inspire our children, show them all that is possible when adults come together to work on understanding the problems, and building better systems for them and their children and the planet we live in partnership with.

Our communications must therefore have a sound evidential basis. We need to know they will be effective, ethical and have an impact in helpful ways. Mainstream climate communication has, to date, focussed heavily on fear, economic impacts, and led with facts. And while climate change is alarming, urgent, has significant economic repercussions, and requires people to think productively about the causes and solutions, inspiring action at the right level requires more than communicating the facts and the dangers. We need strategies grounded in the evidence of persuasive communication: the science of story.

This toolkit is to help us use strategies that inspire hope, build connections between people, open doors to people developing more productive understandings of the causes of climate change, and encourages collective action on evidence-informed solutions, across local and international settings. We have drawn on many disciplines from cognitive psychology, implementation science through to cognitive linguistics. The science of story takes us beyond repetition of the facts and framing of fears, and into the realms of storytelling with science.

How To Talk About Climate Change – The Workshop & Oxfam NZ 2019.PDF
Literature Review: Effective Climate Change Communications – The Workshop & Oxfam NZ 2019.PDF

5 Steps Governments Can Take To Prevent Another Mauritius Leaks Scandal

July 29, 2019

A 5-point plan to stop big corporations cheating poor countries out of billions of dollars in tax revenue, was published by Oxfam today in the wake of the Mauritius Leaks.

When multinational corporations and the super-rich use tax havens to dodge paying their fair share, it is ordinary people, and especially the poorest, who pay the price. The Mauritius Leaks show that tax havens continue not only to exist but to prosper, despite government promises to rein in tax dodging. Oxfam’s plan lists five steps governments can take to tackle tax avoidance and end the era of tax havens.

Susana Ruiz, Oxfam International’s tax advisor, said:

“Politicians could put a stop to tax scandals if they wanted to. Oxfam has listed 5 concrete solutions that would prevent another Mauritius Leaks scandal and ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share of tax wherever they do business. Developing countries can revise or void their tax treaties and introduce withholding taxes to better protect their tax revenue, and all governments – rich and poor – agree to set a global minimum effective tax rate on corporate profits.

“There is no time to waste. Developing countries lose an estimated $100 billion a year in tax revenue as a result of tax dodging by multinational corporations, and even more as a result of damaging tax competition between countries. This money is desperately needed to end hunger, tackle the climate crisis, and ensure all children have the chance of an education.”

Oxfam’s 5-point plan to build a fairer global tax system calls on governments to:

(1) Agree new global tax rules in the negotiations led by the OECD under the mandate of the G20 to ensure fair taxation of big corporations. This should include the introduction of a global minimum effective tax rate set at an ambitious level and applied at a country-by-country basis without exception. This would put a stop to the damaging tax competition between countries and remove the incentive for profit shifting – effectively putting tax havens out of business.

(2) Developing countries should not give away their taxing rights. Many treaties result in multinational companies not paying certain types of tax at all in any country. Rich countries have a responsibility in ensuring fair taxation with their investments and the projects they finance. Governments of developing countries can protect their tax base from erosion by revising or voiding their tax treaties, introducing withholding taxes and implementing strong tax anti-abuse rules.

(3) End corporate tax secrecy by ensuring all multinational companies publish financial reports for every country where they operate. The current OECD initiative on country-by-country reporting falls well short of the mark as it does not cover all multinational corporations and it does not require companies to make their financial reports publicly available. This means poor countries are unable to access the information to identify tax cheats. Stronger European proposals on public country-by-country reporting were due to be agreed this year but are being blocked by EU member states such as Germany, Ireland, and Luxembourg.

(4) Agree a global blacklist of tax havens based on comprehensive objective criteria and take strong countermeasures including sanctions to limit their use. Governments have yet to agree an objective global list of tax havens. A farcical OECD-G20 blacklist published in July 2017 features only Trinidad and Tobago. The more comprehensive European Union list omits European tax havens such as the Netherlands and Ireland.

(5) Strengthen global tax governance by creating a global tax body where all countries can work together on an equal footing to ensure the tax system works for everyone. The new round of global tax negotiations (BEPS 2.0) is a historic opportunity to put a stop to damaging tax competition and corporate tax avoidance, and to build a fairer tax system that works for the benefit of all people and not just a fortunate few. Even if the new round of global tax negotiations (BEPS 2.0) delivers positive results, a more inclusive tax body is required to oversee the global governance of international tax matters and strengthen international tax cooperation.

Notes to editors:

Download Oxfam’s 5-point plan here.

Mauritius Leaks is a global investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). For more details see: https://www.icij.org/investigations/mauritius-leaks/

Oxfam’s 5-Point Plan to Build a Fairer Global Tax System

July 29, 2019

Endless corporate tax scandals?

When multinational corporations and the super-rich use tax havens to avoid paying their fair share, it is ordinary people, and especially the poorest, who pay the price. The Mauritius Leaks show that tax havens continue not only to exist but to prosper, despite government promises to rein in tax dodging. This briefing lists five steps governments can take to tackle tax avoidance, and end the era of tax havens and the race to the bottom on corporate taxation.

Oxfam’s 5-Point Plan to Build a Fairer Global Tax System.PDF