Press releases

Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said: "This G7 summit will live on in infamy. Faced with the biggest health emergency in a century and a climate catastrophe that is destroying our planet, they have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times. Never in the history of the G7 has there been a bigger gap between their actions and the needs of the world."

Six months after the conflict erupted in Tigray, thousands of farmers have nothing to plant ahead of the rainy season as the crisis compounded by climate-fueled locust devastated their tools and livestock and pushed over 5 million people to extreme levels of hunger, warned Oxfam today.

The world’s leading economies must act now to stop the price of basic foods from surging further out of the reach of poor people. They must also commit to a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) to help millions of people hit by the economic crisis and climate change.

Millions of Africans live in extreme poverty, and are now hit hard by the global economic and climate crisis. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is expecting losses of up to $245 billion this year as a result of the global slump, which is almost seven times the amount it receives in global aid.

Urgent action is needed to prevent hundreds of millions more people slipping into hunger as a result of volatile food prices and increasing energy and water scarcity. Decades of underinvestment in agriculture coupled with the increasing threat of climate change mean the situation could get worse.

Water-related disasters forced people to flee from their homes nearly eight million separate times in 10 of the world’s worst-hit countries last year, with many having to move multiple times – a 120% increase compared to a decade ago, said Oxfam today. 

The European Parliament voted on the report "Own resources: a fresh start for the EU Finances, a new start for Europe". The ONE Campaign, Oxfam, ActionAid and Global Citizen are campaigning for any new own resources to be used to increase the EU’s external action budget to deliver on the EU’s promises on global development and climate action.

 

Responding to the draft COP26 decision text, Tracy Carty, head of Oxfam’s COP26 delegation said: "This draft COP decision text is too weak. It fails to respond to the climate emergency being faced by millions of people now, who are living with unprecedented extreme weather and being pushed further into poverty."

A new report published by Oxfam shows that a lack of political will and a rise in xenophobia have driven a backlash against refugees in many countries, while the arrival of Syrian refugees has been delayed in some countries because of lengthy processes, security screenings, and an increasingly hostile political climate.

New Oxfam analysis describes a $27 trillion black hole – accumulating at around $3.9 trillion a year to 2030 – that low-and-middle income countries face to meet climate-related loss and damages, adaptation, and mitigation measures, along with their health, education and social protection needs.