climate crisis

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.

In 2011, Somalia experienced a devastating famine that killed over a quarter of a million people – half of them children under the age of five. The international community failed to act in time, despite repeated warnings of an impending crisis. Yet, just over a decade later, and despite various alarms over the past two years, world leaders are once again responding too late and with too little to avert catastrophic hunger in East Africa.

Over a decade since Somalia experienced a devastating famine that killed over a quarter of a million people, another famine is looming in East Africa. Despite various warnings and alarms over the past two years, we are once again responding too late and with too little to avert the crisis. The humanitarian system must evolve in order to enable and fully fund anticipatory action.

Responding to the publication today of the IPCC’s Working Group III report on climate change mitigation, Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead Nafkote Dabi said: “This IPCC report pulls no punches. It’s not about taking our foot off the accelerator anymore —it’s about slamming on the brakes. A warming planet is humanity’s biggest emergency."
 

Experts at Oxfam and partner organizations will be leading CSW parallel events tackling challenges to women’s rights and equity related to the climate crisis and economic opportunities. 

Responding to the publication of the IPCC’s Working Group II report assessing climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead Nafkote Dabi said: "This catalogue of pain, loss and suffering must be a wake-up call to everyone. The poorest who have done the least to contribute to climate change are suffering the most and we have a moral responsibility to help those communities adapt."

The world’s ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day— during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty. 

By 2030, the richest 1% are on course for an even greater share of total global emissions than when the Paris Agreement was signed. Tackling extreme inequality and targeting the excessive emissions linked to the consumption and investments of the world’s richest people is vital to keeping the 1.5⁰C Paris goal alive.

Overall, 155 million people around the world are living in crisis levels of food insecurity or worse. Around two out of every three of these people are going hungry primarily because their country is in war and conflict. Women and girls are disproportionally affected. They face extraordinary dangers to secure food, and yet, too often eating last and eating least. This is their story.