about
Additional sources of finance are needed to pay for the soaring costs of catastrophic climate change, such as super-storms, droughts, wildfires and sea level rise, and to take urgent measures to prevent harm to lives and livelihoods, such as with flood defences and early warning systems.
Stamp Out Poverty has worked for many years in the specialist field of Solidarity Levies to generate extra revenue from untaxed or under-taxed sectors of globalised activity, such as finance, fossil fuels, shipping and aviation, to harness new income streams for governments to utilise at home and abroad.
We work closely with the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, led by France, Kenya and Barbados, which has opened up political space for the implementation of popular proposals from the taxing of private jets to the excessive profits of the big banks and fossil fuel giants, to boost government revenues to pay for climate action.
How did we get here
Stamp Out Poverty has spent 20 years working in the specialist area of Solidarity Levies, notably on the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), targeting the banking sector in the aftermath of the 2008–2010 Financial Crisis. We were at the heart of the Robin Hood Tax campaign, launched with the 3-minute ‘Banker‘ film, starring Bill Nighy and written by Richard Curtis (author of Blackadder and Love Actually).
The campaign spread globally, achieving notable successes including the implementation of FTTs in France (2012), Italy (2013), and Spain (2021). To date, these taxes have generated an additional €25–30 billion in government revenue, with France allocating a portion to overseas health programmes, saving countless lives in developing countries.
The recent work of the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, led by France, Kenya, and Barbados, has renewed interest in the FTT. This work contributed to a 2025 report (which Stamp Out Poverty helped produce) outlining a politically viable path to generate an additional $87 billion per year for urgent international climate finance.
In 2018, Stamp Out Poverty developed the Climate Damages Tax (CDT), calling on governments to tax fossil fuel production to raise the substantial revenue needed to compensate communities on the frontlines of catastrophic climate change. The proposal is grounded in the widely accepted Polluter Pays Principle, which holds that those responsible for causing damage should be obliged to pay for it.
The CDT paper was republished in 2024, with coverage in The Guardian following the historic agreement at COP27 to establish the Fund for Responding to Loss & Damage. Stamp Out Poverty’s contributions – including a short video narrated by actor Mark Strong and the CDT blueprint paper – were pivotal in shaping the Fund and securing international support.
The Climate Damages Tax is one of the shortlisted proposals currently under consideration by the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force in its work to encourage countries to introduce levies to pay for urgent climate action from sectors with the deepest pockets, particularly those whose activities have been most polluting