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Begin New Search Topic Environment Content Type Policy Brief Publishing Institution Oxfam Publishing Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Footing the Bill: Fair finance for loss and damage in an era of escalating climate impacts

Author:
Tracy Carty and Lyndsay Walsh
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The world has entered a new and dangerous era of climate change impacts, causing huge loss and damage and driving up inequality in the world’s poorest countries and communities that have contributed least to the climate crisis. New research by Oxfam estimates that funding requirements for UN humanitarian appeals linked to extreme weather are eight times higher than they were 20 years ago, and over the past five years nearly half of appeal requirements have gone unmet. Funding for emergency humanitarian response is piecemeal and painfully inadequate, as is broader support to address loss and damage such as rebuilding homes and vital infrastructure. Scaled-up financial support from governments, corporations and individuals most responsible for causing the climate crisis, and most able to pay, is an immediate necessity. A new finance facility must be created to help ensure that finance to address loss and damage is accessible and sustained, is additional to adaptation, mitigation and ODA commitments, and is delivered in accordance with the principles of climate justice.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Infrastructure, and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Climate Finance in West Africa: Assessing the state of climate finance in one of the world’s regions worst hit by the climate crisis

Author:
Norman Martin Casas and Azara Remalia Sanogo
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In West Africa/Sahel, countries and their communities are experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Elsewhere, Paris Agreement climate finance commitments are set to prioritise the countries that are most impacted by climate change. However, new research by Oxfam shows that, despite West Africa/Sahel being one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions, the international climate finance received falls far short of meeting national climate finance needs and is being significantly over-reported in favour of debt instruments. Adaptation finance is also insufficient. Reported climate finance does not place gender equality at the centre, and only a small part directly reaches local actors. In light of this, developed countries and other donors should scale up grant-based adaptation finance that reaches the local level and responds to the real needs of particularly hard-hit regions such as West Africa/Sahel.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Environment, and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa, West Africa, and Sahel

3. Unaccountable Accounting: The World Bank’s unreliable climate finance reporting

Author:
Jason Farr, James Morrissey, and Christian Donaldson
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Despite being the largest multilateral provider of climate finance, the World Bank supplies very little evidence to support its claims about the amount of climate finance it provides. Oxfam has attempted to recreate the Bank’s reported climate finance figures using public information for projects in the Bank’s FY2020. Oxfam found that the Bank’s current climate finance reporting processes are such that its claimed levels of climate finance cannot be independently verified and could be off by as much as $7bn, or 40%. Without better disclosure practices, the World Bank is asking us to take much on faith. Climate finance funding is too important for us to do that. The World Bank must be more transparent in its reporting so that it can be held to account.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, International Cooperation, World Bank, Climate Finance, and Banking
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Climate finance in Asia: Assessing the state of climate finance in one of the world’s most climate vulnerable regions

Author:
Christopher Roy
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Asia is particularly vulnerable to climate hazards including extreme temperatures, flooding, droughts, cyclones, and sea level rise. The most vulnerable communities need financial support to help adapt to the climate crisis – they cannot do so alone. Developed countries have promised $100 bn in climate finance to developing countries every year until 2025. This promise has not been met. Asian countries have outlined the support they require and delivering on these needs is integral to bringing climate justice to those most vulnerable to – yet least responsible for – the climate crisis. We find that the climate finance provided to Asia is woefully inadequate to support the necessary adaptation actions and vulnerable communities are suffering as a result.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Finance, and Climate Finance
Political Geography:
Asia

5. Shining a Spotlight: A critical assessment of food and beverage companies’ delivery of sustainability commitments

Author:
Emma Fawcett and Suzanne Zweben
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
From 2013 to 2016, Oxfam's Behind the Brands campaign called on the world’s 10 biggest food and beverage companies to adopt stronger social and environmental sourcing policies and spurred significant commitments on women’s empowerment, land rights and climate change. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic worsens inequality and food insecurity around the world, we assess whether the companies have taken meaningful steps to implement the commitments they made in response to the campaign. In this report we find that while companies have taken action at the global level, progress stalls in translating those approaches to countries and through supply chains. There are positive examples and innovations happening in key sourcing countries. But key blockages must be addressed – including by providing the right incentives, disclosing suppliers and supporting suppliers to take up the agenda – to create change at scale.
Topic:
Environment, Food Security, Land Rights, Supply Chains, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Development – A Private Affair? The involvement of the Italian private sector in rural development cooperation programmes

Author:
Oxfam Publishing
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Investment in small-scale agriculture is needed in order to meet the ambitious objective set by the United Nations and signed by the world leaders in 2015: to eradicate hunger, ensure food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030 (SDG 2). However, reaching this ambitious goal with the current level of resources committed will not be possible without concerted action on global challenges such as worsening climate change, fluctuating energy prices, diversification of diets in emerging economies and a growing pressure on natural resources such as land and water for purposes other than food. In the world today, 795 million people – one in nine people – still experience limited access to healthy and nutritious food; essential for children to develop properly and for fostering good health. Most of the people affected live in developing countries – 98 percent –and in Africa, one person in four suffers from hunger.1 Paradoxically, those who suffer from hunger are mainly farmers or people who depend on agriculture as their main source of income. To end the injustice of hunger in the world, there is therefore a need for a shared effort from public and private players, geared to allocate more and better investment for the promotion of sustainable agricultural development. In this paper, Oxfam investigates the flows of official development aid (ODA) committed by Italy in the last ten years to promoting food security, sustainable agriculture and rural development in its partner countries. The analysis aims to identify the main features of Italian ODA in this sector in order to evaluate its level of transparency and accountability. It also aims to verify the coherence, in financial terms, between the real allocation of resources and the political importance that Italy has historically assigned to food security issues. In parallel, this paper examines the involvement of Italian agri-food industries in rural development programmes financed through Italian ODA. In light of the wide- ranging debate which aims to promote a greater involvement of the private sector in development, Oxfam investigated the experience gained to date by Italy in one of the priority sectors of its development cooperation policy. The paper’s analysis focuses on three case studies featuring different modalities and objectives for private sector involvement, with the aim to assessing the impacts of their contribution in terms of the reduction of poverty and food insecurity in local communities. Oxfam’s purpose is to contribute to the ongoing national debate in Italy on the eligibility criteria that would promote private sector support for co- financed cooperation initiatives in partner countries; in line with the objectives and goals of the Italian International Development Cooperation policy.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Environment, Poverty, United Nations, Food, Hunger, and Rural
Political Geography:
Europe, Italy, and Global Focus

7. Money Talks: A Synthesis Report Assessing Humanitarian Funding Flows to Local Actors in Bangladesh and Uganda

Author:
Anita Kattakuzhy and Chloe Parrish
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
International humanitarian agencies and donors have made a series of global commitments to local actors as part of the localization agenda, including to increase their access to greater direct funding by 2020. This briefing paper reviews 2015 national financial data for Bangladesh and Uganda to better understand how to target international investments in localization. It presents key findings from Oxfam-commissioned research on which factors affect local actors’ ability to access international humanitarian funding. It concludes that in order for global commitments to translate into practice, investments should look at changing the terms of the funding relationship, as well as be based on a context-specific, national analysis of the financial environment.
Topic:
Climate Change, Disaster Relief, Environment, Humanitarian Aid, Refugee Crisis, and Displacement
Political Geography:
Uganda, Bangladesh, Africa, and Asia

8. Climate Finance Shadow Report 2018: Assessing Progress Towards the $100 billion Commitment

Author:
Tracy Carty and Armelle Le Comte
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Climate finance efforts by developed countries are at a critical juncture. There are only two years before the deadline by which developed countries have committed to jointly mobilize $100bn per year to support climate action in developing countries. This $100bn commitment has a pivotal role to play in supporting developing countries to reduce their emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. This year will also see governments at the 24th Conference of Parties (COP24) in Katowice agree new rules to govern how climate finance is accounted under the Paris Agreement – rules that will shape the quality and transparency of climate finance provision for many years to come. This briefing paper offers an assessment of progress towards the $100bn goal. The second in a series, it looks at the latest donor figures for 2015-16, with a strong focus on public finance. It considers how close we are to the $100bn goal; where the money is coming from; where it is going; what it is being spent on; and how donors are counting the money they report.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Environment, International Cooperation, and Paris Agreement
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. The AIIB’s Energy Opportunity: How the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s Energy Lending Can Chart a New Path of Sustainable Development

Author:
Kiri Hanks
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will be a major new funder of infrastructure in developing Asia, where demand for power is growing faster than any other region in the world. Done right, its energy lending could promote an inclusive and sustainable Asian energy transition. This report sets out a vision for an AIIB partnership with the region’s most climate-vulnerable countries. This could forge a new path of economic development and confirm a new era of Southern climate leadership.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Natural Resources, Infrastructure, Sustainable Development Goals, Fossil Fuels, and Paris Agreement
Political Geography:
Asia and Global South

10. Uprooted by Climate Change: Responding to the Growing Risk of Displacement

Author:
Simon Bradshaw and Julie-Anne Richards
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Climate change is already forcing people from their land and homes, and putting many more at risk of displacement in the future. Supercharged storms, more intense droughts, rising seas and other impacts of climate change all magnify existing vulnerabilities and the likelihood of displacement – disproportionately affecting low-income countries, women, children and Indigenous peoples. This paper describes the effects on communities and how responding to these growing realities demands far stronger action towards ending global climate pollution, supporting resilient communities, ensuring rights for people on the move and developing long-term strategies to ensure that those who are forced to move in the future are able to do so safely and with dignity.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Migration, Displacement, and Paris Agreement
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11. Beyond Safe Land: Why security of land tenure is crucial for the Philippines' post-Haiyan recovery

Author:
Daniel Fitzpatrick and Caroline Compton
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Following the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, the Philippines authorities pledged to 'build back better' – a vision designed to ensure that affected communities were stronger and more resilient in the face of future storms. Significant efforts and some important steps have been taken by various authorities to begin fulfilling that vision.
Topic:
Security and Environment
Political Geography:
Asia and Philippines

12. Food, Fossil Fuels and Filthy Finance

Author:
Hannah Stoddart, Lydia Prieg, and Joseph Zacune
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The world produces enough food to feed everyone. But every day more than 800 million people go to bed hungry. This is a scandal and climate change is set to make things even worse.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

13. Can't Afford to Wait: Why Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation plans in Asia are still failing millions of people

Author:
Steph Cousins
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Climate-related disasters and food crises are devastating thousands of lives and holding back development across Asia. A year on from the devastating super-typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Oxfam calls for governments across Asia, backed by regional and global institutions and fair contributions from wealthy countries, to ramp up efforts to address these challenges. Without greater investment in climate and disaster-resilient development and more effective assistance for those at risk, super-typhoon Haiyan-scale disasters could fast become the norm, not the exception.
Topic:
Climate Change, Disaster Relief, Environment, Humanitarian Aid, and Natural Disasters
Political Geography:
Asia and Philippines

14. Breaking the Standoff: Post-2020 climate finance in the Paris agreement

Author:
Tim Gore, Simon Bradshaw, Annaka Carvalho, Kiri Hanks, and Jan Kowalzig
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Negotiations are currently under way to develop a new international climate change agreement that will cover all countries and curb global warming to below the internationally agreed limit of 2 degrees. The new agreement will be adopted at the United Nations Climate Change Conference – Conference of the Parties 21, or COP21 – to be held in Paris in November/December 2015, and will be implemented from 2020.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Economics, and Environment

15. Growing disruption: Climate change, food, and the fight against hunger

Author:
John Magrath and Tracy Carty
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This briefing paper explores how the failure to tackle climate change threatens all aspects of food security – availability, access, utilisation, and stability. The changing climate is already jeopardising gains in the fight against hunger, and it looks set to worsen. It threatens the production and distribution of food. It threatens people's ability to access food by undermining livelihoods and destabilising prices, and it damages diets by harming human health and putting at risk the quality of food produced. Finally, the paper sets out how these impacts can be averted, through urgent action to avoid dangerous climate change, address our broken food system, and strengthen its resilience.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Climate Change, Development, Environment, Poverty, and Food

16. The Climate 'Fiscal Cliff': An evaluation of Fast Start Finance and lessons for the future

Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
After a year of extreme weather, developing countries face a climate 'fiscal cliff' at the end of 2012, as Fast Start Finance expires and the Green Climate Fund remains empty. New Oxfam analysis of Fast Start Finance reveals that much of it has been a false start. Governments have not delivered on commitments made in Copenhagen to ensure that the funding was new, additional, and balanced across adaptation and mitigation projects. Developed nations must scale up climate finance from 2013, consider innovative proposals to raise public climate finance, and make pledges to the Green Climate Fund which otherwise will remain an empty shell for the third year in a row.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Economics, Environment, Third World, and Financial Crisis

17. A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: Can we live within the doughnut?

Author:
Kate Raworth
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Humanity's challenge in the 21st century is to eradicate poverty and achieve prosperity for all within the means of the planet's limited natural resources. In the run-up to Rio+20, this discussion paper presents a visual framework – shaped like a doughnut – which brings planetary boundaries together with social boundaries, creating a safe and just space between the two, in which humanity can thrive. Moving into this space demands far greater equity – within and between countries – in the use of natural resources, and far greater efficiency in transforming those resources to meet human needs.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Environment, Poverty, and Natural Resources

18. Climate Finance Post-Copenhagen: The $100bn questions

Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Climate change is the single greatest threat to development – making the battle to overcome poverty ever harder and more expensive. Finance is urgently needed to help vulnerable communities adapt to a changing climate. Last year the World Bank estimated the costs of adaptation in poor countries were $75–100bn per year if global warming was kept to 2°C. The non-binding pledges from rich countries to cut emissions offered since Copenhagen would steer a course towards a catastrophic 4°C.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United Nations

19. Climate Change, Poverty and Environmental Crisis in the Disaster Prone Areas of Pakistan

Author:
Zehar Abbass
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This study was commissioned by Oxfam GB to review the impact of climate change on Pakistan's rural communities. The findings of the study are remarkably consistent with global, regional national climate change projections, and alarming.
Topic:
Climate Change and Environment
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

20. Tackling climate change, reducing poverty

Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Despite being a wealthy country, in the UK poverty is an ongoing problem. According to Oxfam GB today 1 in 5 people in the UK don't have enough to live on. There were 2.9 million children and 2.5 million pensioners living in poverty in the UK in 2006/2007. Children go to school hungry, or to bed without enough food. Poor communities are in poorer health and have shorter life expectancy.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

21. 4-a-week: Changing food consumption in the UK to benefit people and planet

Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Food shopping may seem an innocent, even mundane, chore. But the food we buy every week can have huge impacts on people and environments seemingly worlds away from our regular dash round the shops. The futures of some of the world's poorest people and of the global environment are intimately linked to the contents of our shopping baskets.
Topic:
Environment, Political Economy, and Food
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

22. Assessing the Alternatives: Financing climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries

Author:
Stephen Spratt
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The global climate is changing, fast. And this is the direct result of human activity. It is broadly accepted that we need to restrict global temperature increases to as far below 2°C as possible if we are to avoid triggering runaway, irreversible and catastrophic climate change. This is very probably the greatest challenge and danger that mankind has ever faced, and evidence is mounting that time is rapidly running out if we wish to “preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.” (Hansen, et al, 2008).
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and Third World

23. Sectoral Solutions or Carbon Cartels: Will global industry proposals result in a fair and safe climate deal?

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Climate change is already affecting the lives of people in the developing world. Increased floods and droughts, rising sea levels, changing patterns of rainfall and falling crop yields are making it harder and harder for poor people to escape poverty. Oxfam is projecting that, on current trends, the average number of people affected by climate-related disasters each year may have risen by over 50 percent by 2015 – to 375 million people – potentially overwhelming the humanitarian system.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Industrial Policy

24. Global Sectoral Industry Approaches to Climate Change: Helping or harming?

Author:
Jonas Meckling
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The World Business Summit on Climate Change provides an example of the leadership role that the global business community has assumed in paving the road to a post-2012 climate regime. Among various proposals from the business lobby for the creation of a policy for concerted action on climate change, the concept of co-operative sectoral approaches has risen to the top of the agenda. The Bali Action Plan of December 2007 put sectoral approaches officially on the negotiating table, with its proposal for 'cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions' as a means to 'enhance implementation of' articles in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC 2007: Art. 1 (b) (iv)).
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Industrial Policy

25. EU Leadership or Losership? Time to beat the impasse on climate talks

Author:
Kirsty Hughes and Sarah Best
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The world, and most of all, its poor people, desperately needs a fair and safe climate deal to be agreed in Copenhagen in December. But currently, negotiations are proceeding at a snail's pace, hamstrung by a yawning deficit of trust between developing and industrialised countries, and crucially lacking a global leader – one that can bridge this divide by leading by example with commitments to cut its own emissions and to finance adaptation and mitigation in the South.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and Regional Cooperation

26. Hang Together or Separately? How global co-operation is key to a fair and adequate climate deal at Copenhagen

Author:
Antonio Hill, Julie-Anne Richards, and Richard King
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
A fair and adequate global climate regime requires a massive effort across the board to reduce the risks to lives and livelihoods that poor people face first and most. Rich countries must reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions first and fastest, with ambitious targets at home. High levels of rich-country pollution over the last century mean that even ambitious emissions-reductions targets will not be enough to avoid catastrophic climate change. Deep emissions reductions in rich countries are still critical, but climate security will now be won or lost as a result of co-operative efforts in which rich countries finance large-scale reductions in emissions in developing countries. Establishing a Global Mitigation and Finance Mechanism could achieve these reductions while respecting principles of equity, and delivering tangible development gains for poor people. This must be a centre piece of the Copenhagen deal in December 2009. But much greater political attention and support is needed for this vital part of the deal to be developed in time.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and International Cooperation

27. Turning up the heat: climate change and poverty in Uganda

Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
People in Uganda, whose contribution to global warming has been minuscule, are feeling the impacts of climate change first and worst. On the one hand there is more erratic rainfall in the March to June rainy season, bringing drought and reductions in crop yields and plant varieties; on the other hand, the rainfall, especially in the later rains towards the end of the year, is reported as coming in downpours that are more intense and destructive, bringing floods, landslides, and soil erosion. Climate scientists say that, in the future, one of the most likely effects of climate change will be more rain, especially during the second rains from October to December.
Topic:
Climate Change and Environment
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

28. The forecast for tomorrow: the UK's climate for change

Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The forecast for tomorrow is a snapshot of a country deeply torn by good and bad climate policies and actions among business, public and government - with each group inextricably bound by the actions of the others. Whether the UK succeeds in achieving its emissions reduction targets and in becoming a leader in international climate negotiations depends on whether good or bad policies prevail. At stake are the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor people around the world, who will suffer first and worst from climate change despite being the least responsible for it.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
United Kingdom

29. Drought Management Considerations for Climate Change Adaptation

Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Cambodia is one of the most disaster-prone countries in East Asia, with its vulnerability to annual floods and droughts. One of the reasons why it is vulnerable to natural disasters is that the livelihoods of the majority of people depend directly upon natural resources, with a large proportion of its population occupied in agriculture and related sectors, including animal husbandry. Extreme poverty, which limits access to food, water, and other basic amenities, increases vulnerability. These characteristics heighten Cambodia's exposure to the impacts of climate change too. The Mekong region has recently been showing signs of climate change, as illustrated in our previous report on VietNam ('Drought-Management Considerations for Climate-Change Adaptation: Focus on the Mekong Region – Report (VietNam)', October 2007). There is evidence of greater climatic extremes: both declining rainfall in the dry season and more violent rainfall in the wet season, causing flash floods. Increasingly powerful typhoons also appear to be occurring.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Energy Policy, Environment, and Non-Governmental Organization
Political Geography:
East Asia, Asia, Vietnam, and Cambodia

30. Climate, Poverty, and Justice: What the Poznan UN climate conference needs to deliver for a fair and effective global deal

Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
For the poorest and most vulnerable people in today's world, climate change is a 'triple whammy': they didn't cause it, they are most affected by it, and they are least able to afford even simple measures that could help protect them from those damaging impacts that are already unavoidable.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and Poverty

31. Turning Carbon into Gold: How the international community can finance climate change adaptation without breaking the bank

Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Poor communities in the developing world are hit hardest by the impacts of climate change, while they are least responsible for the problem and most vulnerable to climate impacts, such as severe floods, drought, and storms. At the climate change negotiations in Bali in December 2007, governments recognized that adaptation should be central to the negotiations. In the Bali Action Plan, adaptation is one of the four building blocks besides mitigation, finance, and technology transfer, and the Plan provides a mandate to negotiate on 'new and additional resources' and the use of 'innovative finance mechanisms' to address urgent and compelling climate adaptation needs.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Bali

32. Drought-Management Considerations for Climate-Change Adaptation: Focus on the Mekong Region

Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
During recent years, drought has become a common occurrence in most areas in the Mekong River Delta of the Mekong region, including nine provinces in the Southern Central and Central Highland regions in Viet Nam. The Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), has estimated that between 1 and 1.3 million people (13–17 per cent of the total population) are affected by drought in these provinces and hence are in need of assistance. Ninh Thuan province is the worst affected of these provinces.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and Environment
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar

33. Bio-fuelling Poverty: Why the EU renewable-fuel target may be disastrous for poor people

Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In January of this year, the European Commission published its Renewable Energy Roadmap, proposing a mandatory target that biofuels must provide ten per cent of member states' transport fuels by 2020. This target is creating a scramble to supply in the South, posing a serious threat to vulnerable people at risk from land-grabbing, exploitation, and deteriorating food security. It is unacceptable that poor people in developing countries bear the costs of emissions reductions in the EU. To avoid this, the Commission must include social standards in its sustainability framework, and develop mechanisms by which the ten per cent target can be revised if it is found to be contributing to the destruction of vulnerable people's livelihoods.
Topic:
Energy Policy and Environment
Political Geography:
Europe

34. Up in smoke? Asia and the Pacific: The threat from climate change to human development and the environment

Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia, where over 60 per cent of the world's population, around four billion people, live. Over half of those live near the coast, making them directly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Disruption to the region's water cycle caused by climate change also threatens the security and productivity of the food systems upon which they depend. In acknowledgement, both of the key meetings in 2007 and 2008 to secure a global climate agreement will be in Asia.
Topic:
Climate Change and Environment
Political Geography:
Asia

35. Financing adaptation: Why the UN's Bali Climate Conference must mandate the search for new funds

Author:
Charlotte L. Sterrett
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Oxfam estimates that adapting to climate change in developing countries is likely to cost at least $50bn each year, and far more if global greenhouse-gas emissions are not cut fast enough. Yet international funding efforts to date have been woeful. In the year that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its direst warnings to date of the impacts of climate change on vulnerable developing countries, the rich and high-polluting countries increased their contribution to the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) for urgent adaptation needs by a mere $43m. This brings the total pledged to $163m – less than half of what the UK is investing in cooling the London Underground. Worse, only $67m has actually been delivered to the Fund – that's less than what people in the USA spend on suntan lotion in one month.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United Kingdom

36. Oxfam Analysis of the Bali Conference Outcomes

Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
There is a basis for moving forward on negotiations to achieve emissions cuts… The 'Bali roadmap' process has been launched, aiming for a long term agreement on emissions cuts, including commitments by the US Future actions by developing countries to reduce emissions are to be supported by scaling up finance, technology and capacity-building from rich nations Negotiations on further emissions cuts beyond 2012 have been launched under the Kyoto Protocol, for completion by end 2009, with a guideline for reductions of 25-40% by 2020 (from a 1990 base) Australia is now included in the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the US as the only major developed country outside these negotiations.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States and Australia

37. Adapting to climate change: What's needed in poor countries, and who should pay

Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
There is a deep injustice in the impacts of climate change. Rich countries have caused the problem with many decades of greenhouse-gas emissions (and in the process have grown riche r). But poor countries will be worst affected, facing greater droughts, floods, hunger, and disease.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and International Cooperation

38. Two degrees, one chance: The urgent need to curb global warming

Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Today, the observed impacts of global warming are becoming increasingly and rapidly obvious. They take the form of changing seasons, abnormal weather, heat waves, droughts, floods, marked changes in the behaviour of animals and plants. The world's poorest people living in places where the climate is already at its most extreme – such as the Inuit in the Arctic, pastoralist people in northern Kenya and across the Sahel, indigenous people and settlers in the Western Amazon – are already feeling serious impacts upon their lives and livelihoods. These are the communities least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and who, because of poverty, isolation and political marginalisation, are too often those least equipped to adapt. This is all happening when global average temperatures have not yet exceeded 1°C. Whilst not all of these changes can yet be rigorously attributed to human-induced climate change, they are consistent with what is expected and compel us to take them as warning signs of the first order.
Topic:
Climate Change and Environment