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With the UN Rio+20 talks effectively at a stalemate, Oxfam today calls on the Brazilian government to provide the leadership that is so urgently needed to rescue the Rio 92 Earth Summit legacy, and chart a path toward equitable and sustainable development.

New figures released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) show that the number of hungry people has risen for the third year in a row, mainly as a result of conflict and the climate crisis. However, despite the spiralling hunger and two global food price crises in a little over ten years, hunger has fallen off the political agenda.

If Europe were to rule out its support of biofuels by 2020, the region could lower its net imports of grain and oilseeds by up to 27 million tons, remarkably reducing its dependence on foreign goods. Global food prices could also drop significantly.

Rulings by the General Court of the European Union today are a wake-up call for the EU to stop the destructive race to the bottom on taxation and reform the global architecture to create a fairer and more equitable system, says Oxfam.

While the G20 have put their first nail in the coffin of corporate tax dodging, they squandered this chance to make progress towards a political solution to the Syria crisis, and have failed entirely to confront the growing problem of income inequality.

Today leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa –better known as the BRICS- finalized their 6th summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, consolidating the creation of a new development bank that will provide fresh sources of financing for emerging economies.

The energy investment decisions of the new $100bn Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank could signal a dramatic, positive new direction in the fight against global poverty and climate change.

In response to Jeff Bezos’ space flight scheduled for Tuesday, Deepak Xavier, Oxfam International's Global Head of Inequality Campaign, said: "We’ve now reached stratospheric inequality. Billionaires burning into space, away from a world of pandemic, climate change and starvation. 11 people are likely now dying of hunger each minute while Bezos prepares for an 11-minute personal space flight. This is human folly, not human achievement."

Up to a quarter of a billion people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and the crisis in Ukraine. Global inequality threatens to rise massively unless more is done to effectively address this situation.  

The European Commission admits that wealth taxation is gaining “traction globally” as a tool to “ensure a fairer sharing of the tax burden across individuals”. This is according to the Commission’s new Annual Report on Taxation, which mentions the recent G20 discussions around taxing the super-rich and the European Citizens Initiative for a wealth tax.