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Friends of the Earth (Les Amis de la Terre) France, Notre Affaire à Tous and Oxfam France, who had given BNP Paribas formal notice to comply with its due diligence obligations on 26 October, sued BNP Paribas over its massive support to fossil fuels and for its substantial contribution to climate change. BNP Paribas is Europe’s largest and fifth worldwide funder of fossil fuel expansion: the three organizations urge the bank to immediately stop financing this expansion and to adopt an oil and gas exit plan. This is the world's first climate lawsuit against a commercial bank.

The investments of just 125 billionaires emit 393 million tonnes of CO2e each year – the equivalent of France – at an individual annual average that is a million times higher than someone in the bottom 90 percent of humanity.

On the eve of Climate Finance Day, an international finance event held annually in Paris, BNP Paribas – the number one financier of fossil fuel expansion in Europe and fifth in the world - was given three months to comply with the French duty of vigilance law. This legal action was taken by the NGOs Oxfam France, Friends of the Earth France and Notre Affaire à Tous. This is the first step towards an unprecedented climate litigation case - the first in the world to target a commercial bank for its high-risk activities in the oil and gas sector.

Less than half (49 per cent) of the 2.1 billion COVID vaccine donations promised to poorer countries by G7 countries have been delivered, according to new figures published today by Oxfam and the People’s Vaccine Alliance.  

Over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of COVID-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine, reveals a new Oxfam brief today. 

The global repercussions of the Ukraine crisis ―already being felt in fast-rising food, commodity and energy prices― could undermine official aid efforts to help people in other humanitarian hot-spots. 

In response to the announcement of the withdrawal of the Barkhane military operation and the Takuba forces from Mali, Oxfam's West Africa Regional Director, Assalama Dawalack Sidi said: "The withdrawal is a terrible admission of failure. Nearly ten years of military operations in the country have solved nothing as much of the Central Sahel continues to be plagued by conflict." 

More than 140 former heads of state and government and Nobel laureates today called on the candidates to be the next German chancellor Annalena Baerbock, Olaf Scholz, and Armin Laschet to declare themselves in favour of waiving intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines and transferring vaccine technologies, and “to make these the policies of any future coalition government”. 

Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said: "This G7 summit will live on in infamy. Faced with the biggest health emergency in a century and a climate catastrophe that is destroying our planet, they have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times. Never in the history of the G7 has there been a bigger gap between their actions and the needs of the world."

In response to the announcement today from French President, Emmanuel Macron, that France will support a temporary waiver on intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said: “It is fantastic news that President Macron has joined US President Biden on the right side of history by supporting the calls from India and South Africa, as well as millions of people around the world."