climate

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.

Responding to the latest draft of the COP26 decision text released earlier today, Tracy Carty, head of Oxfam's COP26 delegation said: "This draft text is still missing some vital elements."

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."

The carbon footprints of the richest 1 per cent of people on Earth is 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.

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."

Responding to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) updated NDC Synthesis Report, Oxfam France’s Advocacy Manager Armelle Le Comte said: “This confirms we are still dangerously off track from limiting global warming to the vital 1.5°C limit. The climate clock is ticking ever closer to midnight and COP26 now needs to be a planetary crisis meeting. Governments need to agree to revise their climate plans more regularly to get us back on track. Remedial action is desperately needed now —there is no later or better time."

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.

In response to the World Bank Group today issuing a statement announcing the discontinuation of its Doing Business report, Nadia Daar, Head of Oxfam International’s Washington DC Office, said: “It's a welcome move and about time the World Bank scrapped its Doing Business report, a global competitiveness index that encouraged governments to adopt destructive policies that worsen inequality, like slashing labor regulations and corporate taxes."

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. 

Responding to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, Oxfam Climate Policy Lead Nafkote Dabi said: “Amid a world in parts burning, in parts drowning and in parts starving, the IPCC today tables the most compelling wake-up call yet for global industry to switch from oil, gas and coal to renewables."