Climate Home News

Brazil and France's finance ministers proposed a 2% tax on US-dollar billionaires' wealth to raise $250 billion for fighting poverty, hunger, and climate change. They presented the idea at the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Washington. “In a world where economic activities are increasingly transnational, we have to find new and creative ways to tax these activities [and] thus direct the revenues to common global endeavours such as ending hunger and poverty and fighting climate change,” said Fernando Haddad, Brazil's finance minister. 

"Imagine losing your home to catastrophic floods, your loved ones to unprecedented hurricanes, your livelihood to raging wildfires, or your ancestors’ graves to rising sea levels.  Then, to add insult to injury, imagine losing your voice and rights in the very UN institution mandated to alleviate the costs of these climate-related harms for the hardest hit in communities such as yours.  Technocrats talking about you, without you; decisions made – including, ironically, on participation and stakeholder engagement – while you have no meaningful say. Justice denied from the outset. " In this op-ed, Liane Schalatek, Lien Vandamme and Isatis Cintrón Rodríguez explore why limiting frontline voices in the Loss and Damage Fund is a recipe for disaster. Keep reading here.

Washington DC is always at its best in the spring and last week was no exception. But can the international financial system that calls DC home do better. There's plenty of responsibility to go around, but our focus must be on countries the speed, notwithstanding complex challenges, with which the need to pursue the reform agenda. Here are my thoughts thanks to Climate Home News Bellwethers Group and inspiration many at the meetings and doing the work, inside and outside the institutions. https://lnkd.in/eSgJeBKF

The number of people attending COPs has shot up in recent years. Close to 40,000 people went to COP26 in Glasgow, around 50,000 were in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27 and nearly 84,000 headed to Dubai last year. UN climate chief Simon Stiell has said he hopes to see fewer people attending #COP29: “Size does not necessarily translate to the quality of outcomes.”

As university students and teachers take to the streets in Argentina today to protest a budget squeeze imposed by President Javier Milei, Climate Home News takes a look at the threat to #climate science and weather forecasting from Milei's neoliberal economic reforms, which are supported by the IMF and the World Bank.

Argentine researchers and students protest budget cuts threatening public universities amid soaring inflation. With a freeze on government budgets, equivalent to an 80% spending cut in real terms, the University of Buenos Aires declares an "economic emergency". Demonstrations are planned nationwide on Tuesday to defend public education.

Progressive economists like Zucman and Stiglitz have long advocated for a billionaires tax, but it gained political traction under Brazil’s left-wing government led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Finance Minister Fernando Haddad and the French Minister for Economy, Finance, Industry and Digital Security Bruno Le Maire (L). Zucman introduced the proposal at a G20 finance ministers meeting in Sao Paulo, marking the first time such issues of inequality and wealth concentration were discussed at that level.

Canada's environment minister Steven Guilbeault said he's concerned that certain countries “seem to have forgotten” that all nations originally backed an ambitious pact to fight plastic pollution. He did not specify which countries appear to be backtracking, but noted that some “are in more of a hurry than others” to get a deal – “which is why you have a high-ambition coalition”. That coalition is pushing for a strong accord to end plastic pollution and includes all large developed countries except the United States, plus some developing nations. There are reasons to be concerned: in 2019, Global production of plastics generated 5.3% of total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and it accounts for around 12% of global oil demand and about 8.5% of global natural gas. At 4% annual growth, emissions from plastics production could hit 6.78 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050. That's equal to the emissions of more than 1700 coal plants. ✒️ Joe Lo

Indigenous groups demand more funding and easier access to protect nature and the climate. Reports show only 1-2% of finance reaches them. Frustrated, they create their own funds to boost support for frontline communities and move away from donor-driven models. Since 2020, over half a dozen Indigenous-led funds have emerged, mainly in forest-rich Brazil and other developing nations.

As the Spring Meetings of The World Bank and International Monetary Fund get underway in Washington, climate finance - and the urgent need to mobilise trillions of dollars for sustainable development - is in the spotlight. The World Bank President says far more private-sector investment will be required - but of what kind, and to what end? This Climate Home News investigation shows how World Bank Group guarantees are being used to help turn luxury hotels in Africa green, while vulnerable communities like Senegalese fishermen are failing to adapt to warming impacts due to a lack of funding. The challenge the world faces isn't just shifting money into green projects - it also has to be about using the low-carbon transition to tackle inequality and protect those on the frontlines of climate change. Our story reveals the gap between aspirations and reality.