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South Africa has today tabled its climate action plan for Paris, committing to put a lid on rising emissions through to 2030. How low they are able to plateau will depend on international support meaning so climate finance will be key to unlock greater ambition, says Oxfam.

As the UN General Assembly kicks off again this year, Oxfam’s experts and partners are available to speak to their work focused on the People’s Vaccine for COVID-19, the climate crisis - including climate finance, and a number of pressing humanitarian crises. 

Wealthy nations are expected to fall up to $75 billion short of fulfilling their long-standing pledge to mobilize $100 billion each year from 2020 to 2025 to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to the dangerous effects of climate change and reduce their emissions, according to estimates by Oxfam today.

Halfway through the Cancun climate talks, negotiators have an opportunity to make real progress on a fair global climate fund and climate finance, said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Honorary President of Oxfam.

Nearly 90% of Somalia is now in a severe drought, following three consecutive failed rain seasons. Some areas facing their driest season in 40 years. Nearly 3.5 million people are already acutely food insecure and millions more are now at risk of going hungry by the beginning of next year.

Oxfam leaders, experts, and partners will be in New York for the UN General Assembly with a focus on the SDGs, inequality, climate, access to healthcare, humanitarian issues, and more. Oxfam is a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice and will bring this focus on inequality (Goal 10) and how it intersects with the entire 2030 agenda.

EU environment ministers again acknowledged the importance of financial support for climate action in poor and vulnerable countries in the Paris climate agreement, but they must invest in the Green Climate Fund, says Oxfam.

Rich nations today published a Climate Finance Delivery Plan claiming that it will take until 2023 to meet their commitment to mobilize $100 billion each year to support poorer nations to confront the climate crisis. In response, Jan Kowalzig, Senior Climate Policy Adviser at Oxfam said: “This plan claims that rich nations will meet their target three years late, but conveniently fails to mention the money that poorer countries are owed for every year they fell short."

In response to the decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the Grand Chamber’s first-ever climate-related cases (Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Others, and Carême v. France), Evelien van Roemburg, Head of Oxfam’s European Union office said: “European judges have ruled that a government’s failure to do enough to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions violates its population’s human rights. This is a positive step and allows people to require their governments to put in place effective climate regulations and carbon budgets. But the judges did not challenge Switzerland’s decision to give itself almost three more decades to reach net zero emissions, even though people around the world are being harmed now by the climate crisis.”    

Leaders must heed climate strikes and give vulnerable people the tools to survive.