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People around the world have been adapting to change since time immemorial, but there is a cost attached to it. While people living in poverty deploy the resources, traditional knowledge and skills that they have, much more is needed. Adaptation finance is needed to support vulnerable countries and poor communities to adapt to the climate crisis.

At the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Peru this week, moves to help combat inequality and climate change were announced, but G20 finance ministers failed to adequately address the skewed international tax system, said Oxfam today.

G20 countries spend far more subsidizing the coal and oil industry than developed countries provide in adaptation finance to poor and vulnerable countries.

Governments must build back better low carbon economies post the pandemic to avoid fuelling the climate crisis, warned Oxfam today ahead of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue on 6-7 May. The virtual meeting will bring together government ministers from across the globe to discuss international climate action ahead of this year’s critical UN summit COP26 in autumn.

Climate-fuelled disasters were the number one driver of internal displacement over the last decade – forcing an estimated 20 million people a year from their homes. While no one is immune, it is overwhelmingly poor countries that are most at risk.

Responding to the final communiqué of the COP25 climate talks in Madrid, Chema Vera, Interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: “The world is screaming out for climate action but this summit has responded with a whisper. The poorest nations are in a sprint for survival yet many governments have barely moved from the starting blocks."

Battered by cyclones and ravaged by extreme drought, poor communities in the Horn of Africa and Mozambique have found themselves on the front line of a climate crisis they did little to create.

Ministers must deliver on their climate finance promises and support a second wave of attack on corporate tax cheats if their Lima meeting is to succeed, said Oxfam today. 

The people marched with a clear and urgent message, but world leaders still refuse to listen.

Cyclone Eloise, which recently hit Sofala province central Mozambique, compounded by covid-19 and the economic fallout from previous climate-fuelled disasters, has crippled people's ability to recover, and left over 260 thousand people in desperate need of humanitarian aid, said Oxfam.