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Doing Our Fairshare: New Zealand’s Responsibility to Provide Climate Finance Report

Two new reports reveal how New Zealand can meet its climate finance obligations ahead of COP29.

Auckland, New Zealand –Humanitarian agencies World Vision New Zealand and Oxfam Aotearoa, alongside the New Zealand Climate Action Network (NZCAN), have released two important climate finance reports today.

These reports are published during the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga and ahead of the United Nations climate change conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the New Zealand government will be participating in negotiations on climate finance to fund climate change adaptation and mitigation measures

Doing Our Fair Share: New Zealand’s Responsibility to Provide Climate Finance, is published today by World Vision New Zealand and Oxfam Aotearoa.

“Our report highlights New Zealand’s responsibility to bolster its climate finance support for communities on the frontlines of climate change in the Pacific” says co-author, World Vision’s Advocacy Policy and Research Advisor, Dr Olivia Yates.

“As climate change intensifies, those communities least responsible are paying the highest price. Children and their families who are facing the most severe impacts often live in poverty, unable to afford the necessary tools to switch to greener, more climate-resilient livelihoods and prepare for future unprecedented extreme weather,” she says.

Co-Author, Oxfam Aotearoa’s Climate Justice Lead Dr Nick Henry says “New Zealand’s climate finance is helping to build resilience for Pacific communities on the frontlines of climate change. The need for support will only increase in the coming years and New Zealand should continue to stand with the Pacific and be ready to contribute our fair share.”

The report reveals that to meet its fair share of climate finance, New Zealand should be contributing between 0.38% and 0.66% of the global climate goal, which currently equates to between NZ$558 million and NZ$953 million each year, based on our gross national income (GNI) and historic greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, New Zealand is only fulfilling 34% to 58% of this target.

The report shows that, although New Zealand’s climate finance falls short by over NZ$200 million, its funding has been steadily increasing. In the next funding round (2026-2030), New Zealand has a fresh opportunity to show global leadership by committing to provide a fair share of climate finance.

Dr Olivia Yates hopes the report will encourage the government to take seriously the need for ambitious climate finance in its upcoming climate finance decisions. 

“While all countries must act on climate change, higher-income countries like New Zealand should pay their ‘fair share’ of the bill for climate action, based on their higher historical emissions and financial capability.”

Climate finance involves funding to support lower-income countries to cover the costs of shifting to greener systems, adapting to our warming world, and dealing with losses and damages from extreme weather – all vital for a response to climate change that leaves no one behind.

‘Seizing the Moment: A New Climate Finance Goal That Delivers for the Pacific’, by Climate Action Networks (CAN) in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, calls on the New Zealand Government to stand with the Pacific and commit to new funding aligned with a stronger global goal on climate finance, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), to be set at COP29 this November.

The NCQG is set to replace the prior US$100 billion (NZ$146 billion) annual global goal, a promise made by higher-income nations in 2010 to provide at least US$100 billion annually for climate change adaptation and mitigation each year.

Dr Nick Henry, Climate Justice Lead at Oxfam Aotearoa and co-author on the CAN report, says that funding to-date has been far from fair.

“The previous $100 billion goal was largely met in 2022 through loans and redirected development assistance, exacerbating debt burdens in lower-income countries. Countries on the frontlines of climate change now spend more paying debts than they receive in aid.”

The CAN report calls for a global target of at least US$1 trillion per year (NZ$1.46 trillion), prioritising grants over loans, to adequately support those hit hardest by climate change.

“At COP29, New Zealand has an opportunity to stand with the Pacific and advocate for a stronger, fairer climate finance target,” he says.

“New Zealand should commit to its fair share of the refreshed global goal, retaining its emphasis on grants instead of loans, and in addition to current aid efforts, to show enduring support, leadership, and a commitment to equity.”

As COP29 approaches, New Zealand has the opportunity—and the responsibility—to increase its fair share of climate finance and stand with the Pacific to ensure a fairer and more sustainable future for people most affected by climate change. Countries on the frontlines are urging global action, and New Zealand must rise to the challenge.

Note to Editors:

New Zealand’s fair share of climate finance has been calculated by looking at the country’s share of responsibility for climate change (based on the country’s cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases since 1992 and since 1850) and its ability to pay (according to its Gross National Income) relative to other higher-income (“Annex II”) countries.

Media Contact:

For a copy of the report, or to arrange interviews, please contact: Rachel Schaevitz – [email protected] or 027 959 5555 Ashley Miln – [email protected] or 020-4051-3769 Kirsty Jones – [email protected] or (09) 580 7753

Towards Transparent, Accountable and Inclusive Climate Change Policies in Timor-Leste

Oxfam in Timor-Leste has released a report analyzing the climate change policies in Timor-Leste with a focus on transparency, accountability, and inclusivity. The report highlights the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable groups, particularly women and people with disabilities, and underscores the importance of effective climate finance disbursement to help these communities build resilience.

“Vulnerable groups in Timor-Leste, particularly women and people with disabilities, are already experiencing severe impacts caused by climate breakdown. We need a climate action plan that enables the most vulnerable to participate,” said Jude Perera, Country Director for Oxfam in Timor-Leste.

The report emphasizes that climate finance is critical to help these communities build resilience. It outlines how the Government of Timor-Leste (GoTL) influences climate finance allocation through its policies. The policies analyzed include the Strategic Development Plan, National Adaptation Plan, Nationally Determined Contribution, National Climate Change Policy, Zero Draft Carbon Farming Policy and Guidelines, and the proposed Climate Change Framework Law.

A key recommendation from the scoping study is the need for greater transparency. The report recommends that all climate change policies should be available in Tetum on a Climate Change Information webpage and that the GoTL should expand its direct engagement with communities on climate change.

Accountability is another crucial aspect highlighted in the report. While the policy framework includes provisions promoting accountability, their implementation is largely lacking. The report recommends that the GoTL implement these accountability measures and develop a national monitoring, evaluation, reporting, and learning framework.

“The government has made significant progress in creating a policy framework that enables affected communities to hold it to account for its climate action. We want to work with the government to implement its good intentions,” Perera stated.

“Oxfam calls on the government to develop a framework to monitor the implementation of its climate change policies,” Perera emphasized.

Although gender equity is an important element of the GoTL’s climate change policy approach, the report calls for the GoTL to implement all provisions promoting gender equity.

“Oxfam congratulates the Government of Timor-Leste for including gender equity as a core focus of its climate change response. What we need to see now is action. The government should urgently develop guidelines for mainstreaming gender into Timor-Leste’s climate change response as provided for in its National Adaptation Plan,” said Lucio Savio, Climate Justice Programme Manager.

In addition, the report points out that the current policy framework does not specifically address the challenges faced by people with disabilities in relation to climate breakdown.

“People with disabilities have been left behind from Timor-Leste’s response to climate change. We call upon the government to update all climate policies to include the rights, needs, and priorities of people with disabilities,” Savio added. 

The report underscores the need for a climate finance plan and mobilization strategy. Implementing the climate change policy framework depends on dedicated financial resources. The report calls on the GoTL to develop a financing plan that outlines how Timor-Leste’s climate policies will be funded and a strategy to access international support required to undertake climate action.

“Climate finance is the key to helping vulnerable communities build resilience to climate breakdown, yet it’s missing from the government’s climate change response. Oxfam is calling on the government to develop a plan to finance its climate policies and a strategy to access international support,” Savio emphasized.

To access the report, visit here.

The Climate Finance Project is supported by the New Zealand Aid Program. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Oxfam in Timor-Leste, and the views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the New Zealand Government.

About Oxfam in Timor-Leste:

Oxfam in Timor-Leste (OiTL) is part of a global movement that fights against inequality, poverty, and injustice.  Oxfam works in more than 60 countries in partnership with over 3,500 organizations to deliver 22 million programmes. Over 50 percent of those working with us are women and girls.

Oxfam has been working with the Timorese people for almost 50 years. We are an organization focused on rights and a leader in our partnership model, to enable our partners to conduct activities in rural communities. One of our objectives is to advance our work to influence development challenges such as land rights and economic diversification. 

“Least Cost” means “More Damage” in Government’s Emissions Plan

Oxfam Aotearoa is dismayed by the lack of ambition in the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan released today.

‘Relying on the least cost option of planting more pine trees, rather than cutting climate pollution, will only cause more damage for communities in Aotearoa and the Pacific on the frontlines of the climate crisis.’ said Oxfam Aotearoa’s Climate Justice Lead, Nick Henry.

‘The gap is growing between our domestic policies and our international commitments. This will cost New Zealand billions of dollars by 2030 if we rely on buying offsets from other countries. The lack of ambition in today’s plan will increase that cost by tens of millions.

‘Today’s announcement makes it clear that the Government now has no plan to reach net-zero, with emissions exceeding net-zero budgets after 2030. The cost of cutting climate pollution is being kicked down the road, while communities in Aotearoa and the Pacific continue to suffer from the worsening climate crisis.

‘We are disappointed to see the lack of significant support for public and active transport in the plan. Improving access to public transport would be one of the best climate wins, and would also help reduce the cost of living for so many.

‘The plan does nothing to fix the Emissions Trading Scheme. We need leadership from Government to stop subsidising pollution through free allocation and change settings that reward planting pine trees rather than cutting gross emissions.

‘It is not credible to claim that increasing oil and gas exploration is compatible with reducing emissions. It is the wrong century for “lesser evil” thinking that fossil gas is better than coal, when renewable energy options are already here and getting cheaper every year. Aotearoa urgently needs to stop producing and burning fossil fuels. Instead, we need a just transition to renewable energy for workers, communities, and the planet.’

Notes for editors:

1. The Emissions Reduction Plan states: ‘The gap between the first and second emissions budgets and the NDC is 101 Mt CO2-e.’ [p. 34].

2. Mt CO2-e is Megatonnes of Carbon-Dioxide equivalent emissions, including emissions of all Greenhouse Gases. New Zealand has committed to cutting net emissions to no more than 571 Mt CO2-e for 2021-2030 in our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.

3. In 2023, Treasury calculated the gap between ERP1 and ERP2 and the NDC as 99.2 Mt CO2-e and estimated that purchasing international offsets to cover this gap would cost between $3.7 billion and $20.6 billion, with a mid-point estimate of $8.6 billion, assuming all emissions budgets were met. [p. 86]

Even assuming Treasury’s lowest cost estimate, increasing the gap between emissions and the NDC commitment by two percent, as today’s plan does, would cost New Zealand at least $80 million.

4. For more on the urgent need for a just transition from fossil fuels, see Oxfam Aotearoa’s 2023 report Closing Time: Why Aotearoa needs a just transition from fossil fuel production now.

For more information:

Rachel Schaevitz/ [email protected]

Oxfam criticises lack of G20 bold action to tackle vaccine inequality, climate change, and promote a fair economic recovery

At the end of the G20 Summit in Rome, Italy, Oxfam panned the lack of bold and effective action from the world leaders at such an important moment in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Despite the amazing coffee in Rome, G20 leaders must have been drinking decaf, as their collective results were muted, unambitious, and lacking concrete action plans,” said Oxfam’s Senior Advisor, Jörn Kalinski. “This G20 was supposed to be a key global moment for shaping effective, innovative and equitable responses towards a post-COVID world, but world leaders failed to come together and deliver the necessary action to the historic crisis still unfolding.”

While the G20 intend to help get at least 40% of the population in all countries vaccinated by the end of 2021 and 70% by mid-2022, they did not take the concrete action to put us on the path to deliver on that goal, such as a plan to boost the supply of vaccines in developing countries and remove relevant supply and financing constraints. According to the World Health Organization, 82 countries are at risk of missing that target. It is clear that we will not get there if we perpetuate the current profit-driven approach of insufficient donations of doses, voluntary licenses, generic support for technology transfer which has crashed and failed miserably.

“What an abysmal and total failure of leadership. The G20 talk of helping to reach the 70% vaccination target but yet again produce absolutely no plan to achieve it. At this stage in the pandemic for them to have requested health ministers to simply ‘explore’ ways to accelerate vaccine access is a sickening insult to the millions of people who have lost loved ones to this catastrophic pandemic and to the health workers on the front line trying to save lives with no protection,” said Kalinski. “Paltry and unfulfilled promises of donated doses will not end this pandemic, nor will pathetic hopes that greedy pharmaceutical corporations will at some point volunteer to do the right thing. It is scandalous that Germany and the UK have acted to silence the majority of the G20 members who support the breaking of pharmaceutical monopolies so that vaccine production can be redistributed and scaled up across the world. It is beyond time that the rights and the recipes for these lifesaving tools were shared as global public goods.”

As the world’s largest economies and emitters, the G20 should have provided the lightning bolt that the COP26 climate talks so desperately need. Instead, they responded with vague promises and platitudes.

“Confirming the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement was a minimum requirement. Without a promise to revise their lacklustre national climate plans to be in line with this goal, it is meaningless,” said Kalinski. “The planet is on fire, and we are running out of time. It is now critical that COP26 agrees to send all countries back to the drawing board to scale up their climate plans immediately, and not in five years’ time.”

The half-hearted words on financing adaptation in vulnerable countries were again not backed up by timeframes or targets. Without these, poorer nations will continue to lack the resources they need to protect lives, homes and businesses from weather disasters. This was a missed opportunity to re-invigorate the $100-billion climate finance target that should have been met last year.

One of the few positives is the promise to stop financing new coal power plants overseas by the end of this year. But it is disappointing that there was not a similar announcement on domestic coal power and on phasing out other fossil fuels altogether with rich nations taking a lead. This means that climate-killing coal power plants can be built for another ten years, which is incompatible with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C.

G20 leaders also had the opportunity to pursue a more equitable economic recovery and there was growing hope that leaders would take bold action on debt relief.  Mounting debt in developing countries poses a considerable threat to the fight against COVID-19, as it represents a clear opportunity cost to resources that should be channeled to public health and economic recovery. However, these hopes were dashed.

“There is no credible reason for rich countries and companies to continue extracting resources from the world’s poorest countries and people during an unprecedented global catastrophe,” said Kalinski. “Ad hoc approaches with strong biases towards the borrowers should be left to the past. Instead, we need to establish an international, autonomous, framework to oversee temporary standstills and handle debt restructuring, thus ensuring poor countries are not using their limited resources to pay off their debts instead of helping their citizens cope with the pandemic.”

Oxfam welcomes the general SDR allocation that the G20 agreed to earlier this year to address the huge liquidity needs associated with the pandemic and the post-crisis recovery and it is good to see the G20 stating an ambition of channeling USD 100 billion worth of SDRs to more vulnerable economies; this should be a bare minimum given the massive gulf between what rich countries and lower income countries received. This must now be operationalized through individual country commitments which are still sorely lacking, and crucially this funding must be delivered on terms that work for countries and their people.

“Recalling that rich countries received USD 400 billion in SDRs this year, we need to see them now make individual commitments to meet, if not surpass, the USD 100 billion commitment on SDR channeling. Today the pledges only amount to USD 45 billion, less than half of the global ambition,” said Kalinski. “Moreover, how the channeling is done is of fundamental importance. We don’t want to see funding that locks countries into high debt payments or into risky conditionality that could worsen inequalities. Moreover, SDR channeling absolutely cannot be a substitute for existing aid and climate finance commitments”,

The G20 Leaders also endorsed the OECD/G20 global tax agreement that Oxfam says is far from historic and displays a far too moderate level of ambition and little fairness. While the agreement proves it could have been possible and realistic to tax large corporations on their global profits, the envisaged profit redistribution is extremely limited and less than one hundred mega corporations will be in scope. It could generate just 10 million Euro on average in extra revenues for 52 of the poorest countries and comes with the conditionality to remove all the existing digital services taxes. The minimum tax rate set at 15% with generous carve outs is a joke: rather than curbing the harmful tax competition, it normalizes low-tax jurisdictions and risks to transform the current race to the bottom into the race towards the new minimum.

“At the G20 Summit in Rome, G20 leaders could have taken urgent action to dramatically scale up manufacturing and access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world, promote a fair economic recovery, lower dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, and help the poorest countries adapt to the climate change already happening,” said Kalinski. “The bottom line is that this Summit failed to deliver much of anything for people, planet or prosperity.”

Case of the Century decision Climate: the next five-year term(s) under judicial supervision

The following is a joint release from Fondation Nicolas Hulot, Greenpeace France, Notre Affaire à Tous, and Oxfam France:

The administrative court of Paris has ruled in favour of the Case of the Century: successive governments will now be obliged to prove themselves and comply strictly with France’s climate commitments. The French State is also ordered to repair the damage to the environment caused by its inaction, by December 31, 2022. This ground-breaking judgement is binding on the current government, but also on the future tenant of the Elysée. This decision marks the start of a new era for France’s climate policies: never again will any President get away with climate inaction without placing the State outside of the law.

Climate justice has forced its way onto the political agenda

For the Case of the Century organisations: “From now on, any President who does not respect France’s climate commitments condemns it twice: first by exposing its population to the increasingly devastating and costly impacts of climate change, and secondly by exposing it to further sentencing by the courts.”

The next five-year presidential term is the last chance, and the forthcoming elections will be decisive. The organisations Notre Affaire à Tous, la Fondation Nicolas Hulot, Greenpeace France and Oxfam France therefore call on all candidates to demonstrate, with figures to back them up, how they intend to extricate the State from illegality and comply with climate objectives. The organisation will evaluate these roadmaps before the presidential election.

To comply with its Climate commitments, the French State should, for instance:

  • Reach 700 000 building renovations per year;
  • Increase the Railway traffic by 20 to 25% compared to 2018;
  • Multiply by 4 the available surface in organic agriculture.

14 months to catch up on the climate delay which has been accumulating for 3 years Between 2015 and 2018, France emitted 15 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in excess of its legislative commitments. An offence which placed the State in a position of unlawfulness and which the country’s leaders are now obliged to put right before the end of next year. 15 million tonnes of greenhouse gases will therefore have to be subtracted from France’s “carbon budget” for 2022. This decision therefore forces the State to double up on the reduction of emissions planned between 2021 and 2022.

For the Case of the Century organisations: “As of today, any divergence from the greenhouse gas reduction plan may be sanctioned by the courts in the case of any further delay. The State now has an obligation of result for the climate. We have the judges who took on board the climate issue to thank for this necessary break with climate policy as it stands today, as well as the unprecedented mobilisation of the 2.3 million people who supported the Case of the Century.”

It is in this context that the Case of the Century staged a demonstration this morning at the Trocadero in Paris, with two messages in giant lettering: “Climate: justice is on our side!” and “Presidential candidates: no climate, no presidential term (Candidat.es: Pas de Climat, pas de mandat)”.

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.   

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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