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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.

Oxfam commended the World Bank for connecting the need to tackle climate change with the urgent fight to end poverty. In a new report, the Bank warned that more than 100 million additional people could be pushed into poverty by crop failures, floods, hunger, and other shocks caused by climate change. 

In reaction to the orientations discussed today by Energy Ministers on changes to the European biofuels policy, Marc Olivier Herman, Oxfam’s EU Policy Advisor said:

Hundreds of European cities, regions, businesses, youth and faith groups and civil society organisations are urging European leaders to take decisive action to respond to the climate emergency by profoundly altering the way we run our societies and economies to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.

In “Powering the Transition,” Oxfam details how together, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank are investing almost $5 billion in fossil fuels in the 10 Asian countries that belong to the Climate Vulnerable Forum.

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. 

In a key committee vote on the reform of the EU bioenergy policy, the European Parliament has improved the reform proposal, but Oxfam says it does not do enough to end the EU's bioenergy policy's destructive effects on the climate and on people worldwide.

In reaction to the Council’s conclusions on a renewable energy strategy for Europe beyond 2020 adopted in Brussels today by Energy Ministers, Marc Olivier Herman, Oxfam’s EU Policy Adviser

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.

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.