Oxfam reaction to IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (WGI AR6)

Responding to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam GB Chief Executive said:

“We are trailing dismally in this race against time - climate change is already turbocharging extreme weather events and driving hunger, poverty and inequality all over the world. The evidence is unimpeachable – governments have to act now and drastically cut emissions further and faster.

“As host of COP26, the UK has to demonstrate global leadership. The Prime Minister should stop the proposed Cambo oil field and block the new Cumbria coal mine. He needs to urgently implement the policies needed to meet the UK’s bold climate change targets and rapidly decarbonise our economy. He also has to ensure that COP26 delivers a significant increase in financial support to the world’s poorest countries, to help them respond to escalating and deadly climate impacts.

“The richest 10 per cent of people in the world are responsible for over half of global emissions compared to the poorest half that are responsible for just 7 per cent. People with money and power will be able to buy some protection against the effects of global warming for longer than people without these resources - but not forever. No one is safe. This report is clear that we are at the stage now when collective action is fundamental to self-preservation”.

Ends

Notes to editor

Oxfam’s report Tightening the Net says that many ‘net zero’ promises are relying too much on vast swathes of land to plant trees in order to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. At the same time, governments and companies are failing to cut emissions quickly or deeply enough to avert catastrophic climate breakdown

Extreme weather events were the number one driver of internal displacement over the last decade, forcing more than 20 million people a year ―one person every two seconds― to leave their homes. As set out in Oxfam’s briefing, Forced from Home, climate change is driving this scale of displacement.

Over the past 10 years, more people have been forced from their homes by weather-related disasters than for any other single reason ―20 million a year, or one person every two seconds. The number of weather-related disasters has tripled in 30 years. Since 2000, the UN estimates that 1.23 million people have died and 4.2 billion have been affected by droughts, floods and wildfires.

According to the UN, a sharp rise in the number of droughts, floods and wildfires has claimed 1.23 million lives and affected 4.2 billion people since 2000.

The richest 10 per cent of the world’s population (approx. 630 million people) accounted for over half (52 percent) of the emissions added to the atmosphere between 1990 and 2015. During this time, the richest 10 per cent also blew one third of our remaining global 1.5°C carbon budget, compared to just 4 percent for the poorest half of the population (approx. 3.1 billion people).

Oxfam’s Climate Finance Shadow Report 2020 offers an assessment of progress towards the $100 billion goal. It considers how climate finance is being counted and spent, where it is going, how close we are to the $100 billion goal, and what lessons need to be learned for climate finance post-2020.

Oxfam recently reported that there has been a six-fold increase in people suffering famine-like conditions since pandemic began due to covid, conflict and climate change.

Oxfam supports a range of climate projects across the world, and works with local communities most impacted by the climate crisis. For example, we are helping rural farming communities in Uganda and Zimbabwe build resilience against the effects of changing rainfall patterns, supporting Indigenous people and communities to defend their forest and land rights in the Amazon, restoring degraded lands through agroforestry in the Sahel and Bolivia, and helping rural farming communities in Timor-Leste earn a decent income.