climate

“The postponement should not delay urgently needed action on climate change which is already increasing poverty and suffering around the world", said Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam GB Chief Executive, in response to the announcement that the UN Climate Summit is being pushed back to November 2021 ―a year after it was originally scheduled. 

Governments must build back better, low carbon, economies in the wake of the coronavirus to avoid fuelling the climate crisis, warned Oxfam today ahead of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue on 27 – 28 April. The virtual meeting will bring together government ministers from across the globe to discuss international climate action. 

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

Jan Kowalzig, Oxfam’s climate policy advisor, responds to the release of new figures on the climate finance provided to developing countries by rich countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Europe needs ambitious targets and concrete policies to cut emissions and tacke the climate crisis, said Oxfam at the occasion of EU heads of state and governments meeting for a European Union summit in Brussels today.

Oxfam and international and local partners are planning to help people in Mozambique hit by a second devastating cyclone in less than six weeks.

Europeans may still be forced to buy biofuels made from food crops until 2030, as a result of the deal struck by EU member states and the European Parliament this morning on the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), Oxfam said.

Oxfam country teams and partner organizations in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba are now preparing to respond to probable damage from the impact of Hurricane Irma, to help people who are likely to be hardest-hit there.

In its proposed new Renewable Energy Directive, the European Commission has given in to the pressure of the biofuel industry lobby at the expense of people and the climate. The proposal would allow EU countries to rely on food-based biofuels to meet their 2030 climate and energy targets, notwithstanding strong evidence of their harmful impact on communities and the environment.

The European Union must overhaul its current bioenergy policy, which is based on getting fuel from plants, because the industry is linked to the eviction of thousands of people from their lands, out-competing food crops, and creating more not less pollution, says Oxfam in a new report.