Fix finance for climate, say Friends
‘This is the year we need to hold governments, insurers and banks to account.’ BYM, on overhauling international finance.
Quakers are calling for a major international financial overhaul to help tackle the climate emergency. This includes ‘debt cancellation, tax justice and shifting of finance flows needed to properly resource community-led climate solutions and just transitions’, said Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM).
The call came ahead of The Climate Damages Tax paper which launched last week. ‘Far more of the world’s money is flowing to the causes of the climate crisis than the solutions. This is the year we need to hold governments, insurers and banks to account to #FixTheFinance flows that are failing the planet,’ said BYM.
The Climate Damages Tax paper, published on 29 April, says that taxing big fossil fuel firms more could raise $900 billion by 2030. This would also help the worst-affected nations tackle the climate emergency.
Furthermore, an additional tax on fossil fuel companies based in the wealthiest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries could raise $720 billion (£580 billion) by the end of the decade, it calculates.
David Hillman, the director of the Stamp Out Poverty campaign and co-author of the report, said the proposed measures were ‘surely the fairest way to boost revenues for the loss and damage fund to ensure that it is sufficiently financed as to be fit for purpose’.
The report outlines how a new extraction levy could boost the loss and damage fund for climate-vulnerable counties that was agreed at the COP28 summit in Dubai. This followed months of campaigning, which Quakers were instrumental in, briefing COP28 representatives. If the tax was introduced in OECD countries in 2024, at an initial rate of $5 a tonne of CO2 equivalent, and increasing by $5 a tonne each year, it would raise a total of $900 billion by 2030, say the authors. Of this $720 billion would go to the loss and damage fund, while the remaining $180 billion would support a ‘just climate transition’ for communities within wealthier countries.
Greenpeace backed the report, along with Power Shift Africa and Christian Aid, highlighting how ‘extreme weather is claiming lives and causing catastrophic damage around the world’, while ‘the fossil fuel industry continues to rake in massive profits with no accountability for its historic and ongoing impact on our climate’.
