Reports

Climate finance is fundamental to a fair and effective global climate agreement. Too few countries have delivered on their obligations. As a result the world’s poorest people have not benefitted from the necessary investment, and climate finance has been a major obstacle to achieving a global climate change agreement. A new approach that recognises the failings of the current regime and is better informed by needs and opportunities at the national level can break the current standoff and trigger a collaborative effort that delivers effective investment at scale in both mitigation and adaptation. This, along with ambitious emissions reduction pledges by developed countries, is key to success in the 2015 Paris climate negotiations.

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bp201-breaking-standoff-climate-finance-011214-en.pdf

bp201-breaking-standoff-climate-finance-011214-summ-en.pdf

Economic inequality has reached extreme levels. From Ghana to Germany, Italy to Indonesia, the gap between rich and poor is widening. In 2013, seven out of 10 people lived in countries where economic inequality was worse than 30 years ago, and in 2014 Oxfam calculated that just 85 people owned as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity.

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cr-even-it-up-extreme-inequality-291014-summ-en.pdf

cr-even-it-up-extreme-inequality-291014-en.pdf

Climate change is already making people hungry, and the use of fossil fuels is largely to blame, representing the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions globally. On current trends, the world will be 4–6ºC hotter by the end of the century, exceeding 2ºC within the lifetimes of most people reading this report. This could put up to 400 million people in some of the poorest countries at risk of severe food and water shortages by the middle of the century. This paper shows how, despite some steps in the right direction to tackle climate change, a “toxic triangle” of political inertia, financial short-termism and vested fossil fuel interests is blocking the transition that is needed.

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bp191-fossil-fuels-finance-climate-change-171014-embargo-en FINAL 1.pdf

Ban Ki-moon Summit at risk of being another missed opportunity to stop climate change making more people hungry

Since global leaders last met to discuss climate change five years ago, climate-related disasters have cost the world almost half a trillion dollars. More than 650 million people have been affected and more than 112,000 lives have been lost. Climate change is also making more people hungry. The September 23, 2014 UN Climate Summit reflects inertia in tackling climate change rather than reversing it. The Summit must be a wake-up call for government leaders and the private sector.

In this media brief, The Summit that Snoozed? Oxfam analyses the commitments being brought by government and corporate sector leaders to the Climate Summit and reveals that they fall short of what is urgently needed.
Oxfam is calling on governments to:Re-commit to the 2C goal, and agree new targets to phase-out fossil fuel emissions entirely by 2050
Increase their climate finance pledges to meet the $100bn per year by 2020 commitment, and capitalise the Green Climate Fund with at least $15bn in grant-based funds over its first three years
Agree specific, time-bound, measurable actions in line with their responsibility for causing emissions and capacity to pay to reduce them before 2020, to keep open the chance of limiting warming to below 2C
Submit ambitious initial pledges for the Paris UN climate conference by Spring 2015, in line with their responsibility for causing emissions and capacity to pay, and prepare to subsequently raise them as needed as part of a fair collective global effort

and the private sector to:Put their own houses in order by delivering faster and further near-term reductions in absolute emissions consistent with climate science, and establish goals to phase-out fossil fuel emissions entirely from their operations
Increase their calls for strong government regulation and international agreements, including related to energy efficiency, investment in renewable energy, cutting fossil fuel subsidies, and increasing flows of climate finance for adaptation.

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BKM Climate Summit Media Brief_Sept19.pdf

The number of people killed, displaced or in desperate need of assistance as a result of the conflict in Syria continues to rise. A staggering 190,000 people have been killed and 6.5 million displaced inside Syria. And with 3 million refugees, it is now one of the biggest refugee crises since the end of the Second World War. The crisis is posing a serious risk to the security and stability of neighbouring countries and has contributed to the destabilisation of Iraq.

The sheer scale of this crisis demands specific and increased commitments from members of the international community to help alleviate the suffering: to fully fund the aid response, to offer refugees resettlement, and to halt the transfer of arms and ammunition. This briefing shows that the international community is falling far short in each of these areas.

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bp190-fairer-deal-syrians-090914-embargo-en21.pdf