climate change

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are set to rise by 10.6% by 2030 instead of falling by the 45% needed to limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5 °C. The G20 countries are the worst and most-responsible offenders, says Oxfam.

Today, the European Commission released their Fit for 55 legislative package. This bundle aims to revise the EU’s current 2030 climate and energy rules. The package will implement the goal of reducing average EU carbon emissions by 55% in 2030. In response to the package, Evelien van Roemburg, Oxfam EU Head of Office said: “We are at a tipping point in the fight against the climate crisis. The EU has the opportunity to keep us from tipping over the edge by capping the rampant increase in global temperatures to 1.5° Celsius."

In response to the recent Amazon fires burning at a record rate and Macron's recent statement to block the EU trade agreement with Brazil at the G7 meeting, Katia Maia Oxfam Brazil Executive Director said we welcome Macron's warning to the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro to take firm and immediate actions to save the Amazon forests, but warnings alone do not end fires. But the G7 countries, who are historically responsible for causing the climate crisis, have equal responsibility and must too take action.

The carbon footprint of a super-rich European, accumulated from nearly a week of using super yachts and private jets, matches the lifetime carbon footprint of someone in the world’s poorest 1 percent, a new Oxfam report reveals today. The first-of-its-kind study, “Carbon Inequality Kills”, tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts and polluting investments and comes ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, amidst growing fears that climate breakdown is accelerating, driven largely by the emissions of the richest people.

Fifty of the world’s richest billionaires on average produce more carbon through their investments, private jets and yachts.

Up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance —nearly 40 percent of all climate funds disbursed by the Bank over the past seven years— is unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping practices, reveals a new Oxfam report published today ahead of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Washington D.C. 

Rich countries have again effectively short-changed low- and middle-income countries as part of international climate change negotiations by as much as $88 billion in 2022, the latest year of newly reported figures, says Oxfam.

Responding to the G7 communiqué published today, Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy Max Lawson, said: “Talking about taxing the super-rich for the first time in their 50-year history was the thin silver lining in a big black cloud of G7 failure for people living in poverty.” 
 

In response to the outcome of the June UN Climate Meetings (SB60) in Bonn, Germany, Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam International’s Climate Change Policy Lead, said: "This year’s climate talks felt like treading water in a rising tide, with the world’s biggest economies failing to act with the urgency this crisis demands. Rich countries continue to shirk their responsibilities in contributing their fair share to the global effort to reduce carbon pollution."

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.”