Climate change

COP26 week two: Oxfam urges governments to move faster

November 8, 2021

At the start of COP26 week two, Oxfam urges governments to move faster and decisively in the final five days, if they are to reach a deal that will keep 1.5°C within reach and increase support to vulnerable communities.

On keeping 1.5°C within reach, Tracy Carty, head of Oxfam’s COP26 delegation said:

“Last week saw a flurry of announcements, from halting deforestation to reducing methane emissions. And it is an important signal that more countries have committed to ending coal use, and some even fossil fuel financing abroad. Yet, for some of these announcements there is a glaring lack of detail on what they entail.

“They must not be a distraction from the urgent issue of countries needing to increase the ambition of their national emission reduction targets (NDCs) by 2030. Current pledges still add up to a catastrophic 2.7°C.

“This is a crisis COP. There is no time to waste and duck responsibility. Governments absolutely have to keep 1.5°C within reach. This week there has to be a deal that compels all countries to increase the ambition of their NDCs in line with their fair share.”

On the issue of adaptation finance:

“Adaptation finance is a lifeline for poor communities, crucial for helping countries adapt to extreme weather events which they are least responsible for. But currently, only $20 billion of the $100 billion commitment is allocated to adaptation, less than half.

“We need agreement at this COP that there will be a significant increase in adaptation finance, in line with developing country calls for a 50/50 split between adaptation and mitigation, with a greater percentage of funds provided as grants not loans. Last week an increasing number of countries, including Germany, said this call for 50 per cent needed to be taken seriously.

On Loss and damage finance:

“Even at today’s 1.1°C of warming, we are all witnessing more frequent and devastating climate impacts around the world. And the world’s poorest countries are footing the bill for a climate crisis they did little to cause.

“We saw a glimmer of hope start of week one when Scotland stepped forward and became the first rich nation to explicitly commit to finance for loss and damage. We need other rich nations to now do the same.

“We have seen long-standing resistance from developed countries on the question of how to increase resources to help developing countries facing the worst impacts of climate change. Governments have five days to show communities on the frontlines of climate change that they’re not alone.”

Oxfam is also calling for world leaders to listen to the voices of people from developing countries and act on their concerns. Margaret Masudio, a smallholder from Uganda who travelled to the COP with Oxfam to participate said:

“We are very worried, particularly for our children. How do we survive? If right now, the hardship we are facing is at this level, how about the future? Farmers are paying the price for climate change, without knowing why they are paying the price.

“At past COPs, we feel their impact very little – most of the things remained on paper. We hear policies but implementation is not done, because finance is not adequate.”

“In Uganda they have being giving support to communities that have been affected, but it is insufficient. So, at this COP my hope is that all the nations that are here are going to join hands to ensure that loss and damages are financed.”

Carbon emissions of richest 1% set to be 30 times the 1.5°C limit in 2030

November 5, 2021

The carbon footprints of the richest 1 per cent of people on Earth are set to be 30 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement in 2030, according to new research out today. It comes as delegates grapple with how to keep this goal alive at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow.

In 2015, governments agreed to the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, but current pledges to reduce emissions fall far short of what is needed. To stay within this guardrail, every person on Earth would need to emit an average of just 2.3 tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030 – this is roughly half the average footprint of every person on Earth today.

Today’s study, commissioned by Oxfam based on research carried out by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), estimates how governments’ pledges will affect the carbon footprints of richer and poorer people around the world. It treats the global population and income groups as if they were a single country. It finds that by 2030:

The poorest half of the global population will still emit far below the 1.5°C-aligned level in 2030.
The richest 1 per cent and 10 per cent of people are set to exceed this level by 30 times and 9 times respectively.
Someone in the richest 1 per cent would need to reduce their emissions by around 97 per cent compared with today to reach this level.

But in a sign that the 2015 Paris Agreement is having some impact, the middle 40 per cent are on course for per capita emissions cuts of 9 per cent from 2015 to 2030. This is a turnaround for a group, which is mostly made up of citizens in middle-income countries like China and South Africa that saw the fastest per capita emissions growth rates from 1990 to 2015.

Looking at total global emissions, instead of per capita emissions, the richest 1 per cent – fewer people than the population of Germany – are expected to account for 16 per cent of total global emissions by 2030, up from 13 per cent in 1990 and 15 per cent in 2015. The total emissions of the richest 10 per cent alone are set to exceed the 1.5°C-aligned level in 2030, regardless of what the other 90 per cent do.

Nafkote Dabi, Climate Policy Lead at Oxfam, said: “The emissions from a single billionaire space flight would exceed the lifetime emissions of someone in the poorest billion people on Earth. A tiny elite appear to have a free pass to pollute. Their over-sized emissions are fuelling extreme weather around the world and jeopardising the international goal of limiting global heating. The emissions of the wealthiest 10 per cent alone could send us beyond the agreed limit in the next nine years. This would have catastrophic results for some of the most vulnerable people on Earth who are already facing deadly storms, hunger and destitution.”

The geography of global carbon inequality is set to change too, with a larger share of the emissions of the world’s richest 1 per cent and 10 per cent linked to citizens in middle income countries. By 2030, Chinese citizens will be responsible for almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the emissions of the richest 1 per cent, US citizens for a fifth (19 per cent) and Indian citizens for a tenth (11 per cent).

Tim Gore, author of this briefing and Head of the Low Carbon and Circular Economy programme at IEEP, said: “The global emissions gap to keep the 1.5°C Paris goal alive is not the result of the consumption of most of the world’s people: it reflects instead the excessive emissions of just the richest citizens on the planet. To close the emissions gap by 2030, it is necessary for governments to target measures at their richest, highest emitters – the climate and inequality crises should be tackled together. That includes both measures to constrain luxury carbon consumption like mega yachts, private jets and space travel, and to curb climate-intensive investments like stock-holdings in fossil fuel industries.”

Emily Ghosh, Scientist at Stockholm Environment Institute says: “Our research highlights the challenge of ensuring a more equitable distribution of the remaining and rapidly diminishing global carbon budget. If we continue on the same trajectory as today the stark inequalities in income and emissions across the global population will remain, challenging the equity principle at the very heart of the Paris Agreement. Analysis of carbon inequality must urgently be put at the centre of governments efforts to reduce emissions.”

Oxfam said world leaders should focus on targeting deeper emissions cuts by 2030, in line with their fair share, and ensure that the richest people worldwide and within countries make the most radical cuts. The richest citizens have the potential to speed up this process dramatically, both by leading greener lifestyles but also by directing their political influence and investments towards a low-carbon economy.

Notes to editors:

For a copy of the briefing see: Carbon Inequality in 2030: Per capita consumption emissions and the 1.5C goal

The report was commissioned by Oxfam and authored by Tim Gore, IEEP, based on research carried out by IEEP and SEI.

Today’s briefing is based on an analysis of the impact of unconditional Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted up to September 2021 under the Paris Agreement on the per capita consumption emissions of different global income groups.

Global income groups	Estimated consumption emissions per person in 2030 (tonnes CO2 per year)	Number of times over the level of per capita emissions consistent with 1.5°C (2.3 tonnes)
Richest 1%	70	x30
Richest 10%	21	x9
Middle 40%	5	x2
Poorest 50%	1	x0.43 (less than half)

The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2021 estimates that total global emissions will need to fall to approximately 18 Gt CO2 (25 Gt CO2e) per year by 2030, on a pathway to net zero emissions by mid-century, in order to have a reasonable chance of limiting global heating to 1.5°C. This works out to approximately 2.3 tonnes CO2 per person per year (per capita emissions) in 2030.

By 2030, the global population is projected to be approximately 7.9 billion people. This will comprise approximately 80 million people in the top 1 per cent, 800 million in the top 10 per cent, 3.4 billion in the ‘middle 40 per cent’ and 4 billion in the poorest 50 per cent.

By 2030, you would need an annual income of more than NZD 255,000 to be in the richest 1 per cent; more than NZD 82,000 to be in the richest 10 per cent; more than NZD 14,500 to be in the middle 40 per cent; or less than NZD 14,500 to be in the poorest half of the global population.

This briefing builds on last year’s report from Oxfam and SEI which estimated that the richest 1 per cent of people on Earth is responsible for twice the carbon emissions of the poorest 50 per cent from 1990 to 2015.

Carbon emissions per passenger for an 11-minute space flight are estimated to be at least 75 tonnes, according to a recent report by Lucas Chancel. People in the poorest billion emit less than one tonne of carbon per year.

The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) is a sustainability Think Tank working with stakeholders across EU institutions, international bodies, academia, civil society and industry. Our team of economists, scientists and lawyers produce evidence-based research and policy insight (www.ieep.eu).

The Stockholm Environment Institute is an international non-profit research and policy organisation that tackles environment and development challenges.

Reaction to pledge to end overseas fossil fuel

November 5, 2021

Responding to reports that around 20 countries, including New Zealand, have committed to stop financing overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022, Oxfam’s climate policy lead Nafkote Dabi said:

“This is an encouraging move that will divert much-needed resources to clean energy and help countries to develop in a low carbon way. Energy is vital to economic and social development, burning fossil fuels is not. This is the only way we can meet the collective goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C.

“With around 20 governments already on board, it is now vital that others sign up at these talks, including some of the largest funders of overseas coal, oil and gas who are notably absent.

“I also hope that these signatories will bring forward clear commitments to help poorer countries build clean energy systems. They should also progress to phasing out all new fossil fuel projects at home as well as abroad, as the International Energy Agency says we must.”

Oxfam supports Partnering for Resilience approach to Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific engagement

November 4, 2021

Oxfam Aotearoa Executive Director Rachael Le Mesurier said:

“The Minister’s speech today outlined a deeper approach to Aotearoa New Zealand’s relationships with Pacific Island Countries. Building on the Pacific Reset of 2018, the Minister has articulated yet another step-change to the nature of Aotearoa New Zealand’s relationships across te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.

“The move to focus on building long-term resilience across the region, with an enduring inter-generational approach will be key to Aotearoa supporting Pacific people to make the lasting and meaningful changes that they wish to see in their own countries.

“The emphasis on Pacific-led solutions and relationships of openness, trust and respect that Minister Mahuta described resonates with us at Oxfam, as this is also our approach to working with our colleagues and partners across the Pacific. We also know how challenging it can be to put these values into practice across the diversity of Pacific Island countries and peoples.

“We were pleased to hear that there will be a focus within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) on cultural competency and diversity. We question whether further changes will also be necessary across MFAT, and other government departments, to fully implement the values-based approach the Minister outlined today.

“We look forward to working alongside our Pacific partners and MFAT, to achieve inclusion, prosperity, peace and well-being for all peoples across the great Blue Continent.”

Reaction to Scotland announcement on Loss and Damage fund

November 2, 2021

Responding to the announcement that the Scottish Government has pledged £1 million (NZ$1.9 million) for ‘loss and damage’, Jamie Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland, said:

“The First Minister’s announcement today is ground breaking recognition that funding to help certain people adapt to the climate crisis is utterly useless when their entire community has been wiped off the map.

“This announcement is welcome acknowledgement that for some communities around the world, talk of limiting the damage of climate change has already come far, far too late. In many places, climate change has already caused irreversible damage to people’s homes, lives and livelihoods. Despite this grim truth; world leaders have continued to duck calls to establish a new funding mechanism for loss and damage. Other countries must now follow Scotland’s lead and offer dedicated financial support to countries where lives have already been lost and ruined because of climate change.”

In addition, Alex Johnston, Oxfam Aotearoa Campaign Lead, said:

“We congratulate Scotland for recognising the devastating impacts of climate change on climate vulnerable countries, and being the first developed nation to commit to making an explicit financial contribution to tackling the loss and damage climate breakdown creates.

“Pacific Islands have been calling for loss and damage finance to be addressed globally for over 30 years. Despite efforts to adapt, climate-charged cyclones and flooding causes asset losses worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the Pacific each year. It is crucial other world leaders follow suit and recognise that these events need distinct funds to recover from.

“We call for the New Zealand government to follow Scotland’s lead and scale up financial support to existing loss and damage finance solutions in the Pacific with new commitments, and label this support as loss and damage, not adaptation finance. The government should also align with Pacific Island Countries’ positions on loss and damage at COP26 to get a global response to this issue.”

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

November 1, 2021

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.”