Lessons from COVID-19 for addressing loss and damage in vulnerable developing countries
This is the first in a series of 3 briefings under the banner: Unpacking Finance for Loss and Damage, produced by Stamp Out Poverty, Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Washington, DC), ActionAid International, Bread for the World and Practical Action.
This briefing examines how the size of the Covid crisis and the level of required response teaches us to reset our level of ambition, both to speed up and scale up climate action to meet the challenges of loss and damage.
UN report on Human Rights and a Sustainable Environment (2019)
Read the report on the climate crisis and human rights by David Boyd, UN special rapporteur on the environment and human rights. The report illustrates the devastating impact of the globall climate emergency on human rights, and proposes practical steps to: address society’s addiction to fossil fuels; enhance adaptation to protect vulnerable people; ramp up climate finance; finance loss and damage; and empower UN institutions.
Read the report here.
IPCC Special Report on 1.5'C of Global Warming
Read the Special Report on 1.5’C of Global Warming, published by the International Panel on Climate Change in 2018, that warns we have only twelve years left to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Fossil Fuel Companies and Climate Denial
The big fossil fuel players – ExxonMobil, Shell and others – have known about climate change since the 1970s. But they’ve done their best to obfuscate the science, paying lobbyists to delay climate action, and running a very well funded campaign to stop lawmakers from taking action.
The Center for International Environmental Law provide a detailed look at the playbook of the oil industry, and the documents they have uncovered supporting it.
Find out more about the fossil fuel industry and climate change denial here.
The #ExxonKnew campaign has uncovered how Exxon knew about climate change half a century ago. They deceived the public, misled their shareholders, and robbed humanity of a generation’s worth of time to reverse climate Change.
Find out more about how #ExxonKnew here.
Making a Killing
How much profit to the big oil, coal and gas companies make? Bucketloads! They make this profit by outsourcing the true cost of their product onto poor people in the form of climate impacts.
Read the report ‘Making a Killing’ by the Climate Justice Programme here.
Climate Action Network submission to UNFCCC (2018)
Climate Action Network – an international network with more than 1,000 member organisations in 120 countries – featured the Climate Damages Tax in their recent submission on finance for loss and damage. Their submission also talks about how to generate and deliver finance to the communities on the frontline of climate impacts.
Read the Climate Action Network report here.
Carbon Majors Report (2017)
Just who are the big polluters? Groundbreaking research finds that 100 active fossil fuel producers including ExxonMobil, Shell, BHP Billiton and Gazprom are linked to 71% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.
The report also shows that these global-scale emissions are concentrated over a small number of producers. From 1988 to 2015, just 25 fossil fuel producers are linked to 51% of global industrial GHG emissions. The highest emitting companies over the period since 1988 include:
- Public investor owned companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Peabody, Total, and BHP Billiton;
- State-owned entities such as Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, National Iranian Oil, Coal India, Pemex, CNPC and Chinese coal, of which Shenhua Group & China National Coal Group are key players.
Read the report by the Carbon Disclosure Project here.
Climate Damages Declaration
Ahead of the 2017 UN summit on climate change (COP23) more than sixty organisations committed to work with us toward establishing a Climate Damages Tax.
These include: international organisations like Greenpeace, WWF, CARE, Christian Aid and Practical Action; global networks like Climate Action Network; regional groupings of states such as the Pacific Islands Development Forum; youth organisations such as the Caribbean Youth Environment Network, the Arab Youth Climate Movement and UK Youth Climate Coalition; and climate experts such as Naomi Klein.
See the declaration and full list of signatures here
The Climate Damages Tax: A guide to what it is and how it works
Our new Climate Damages Tax report was launched during COP24 in Katowice, Poland. The report outlines how a Climate Damages Tax on the fossil fuel industry – those overwhelmingly responsible for the climate problem – could raise approximately $300 billion a year in revenues for loss and damage to help the most vulnerable people deal with the worst impacts of climate change, and billions more for just transition to renewable energy, jobs and transport.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Executive Summary – The Climate Damages Tax: A guide to what it is and how it works
REPORT: The Climate Damages Tax: A guide to what it is and how it works
OPED: It’s time for those who caused climate change to pay for it
Please click here for the full data estimating potential CDT revenues.
Carbon Majors Report (2014)
Richard Heede – Climatic Change, January 2014
This paper traces 63% of cumulative worldwide emissions of industrial CO2 and methane between 1751 and 2010 to 90 fossil fuel and cement producers, of which half have been emitted since 1986.
Read the executive summary and full report
