Tax the polluters: Campaigners in Edinburgh demand increased financial support for low-income countries facing spiralling climate impacts

Date: 28 September 2022
Campaigns: Climate

• Outside the UK government building in Edinburgh today, campaigners dressed as oil and gas executives ‘drunk’ on oil and holding on tight to their profits faced protestors demanding financial support for the countries and communities worst affected by climate change
• Campaigners highlight the $30 billion of damage suffered by Pakistan in recent floods and say that rich, high-polluting nations, must provide finance to address the ‘losses and damages’ created by their past and present emissions
• They are calling on the UK government to tax fossil fuel companies for climate damages and use some of the funds to increase support to lower income countries.

Climate justice activists protested in Edinburgh today, calling on the UK government to help set up an international ‘loss and damage’ finance facility and to raise money for it by taxing fossil fuel companies.

The protest was part of a UK-wide day of action organised by Global Justice Now and the Make Polluters Pay coalition, also supported by Stop Climate Chaos Scotland.

Climate vulnerable countries, such as Pakistan that has recently been hit by severe flooding, have long argued that an international ‘loss and damage’ finance facility is necessary to help countries rebuild after climate disasters, and that rich countries, who are responsible for the most emissions, should pay into it.

Youth activists including Vanessa Nakate and Greta Thunberg have previously talked about the need for rich countries to support proposals for ‘loss and damage’ at UN climate talks.

At last year’s UN COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon became the first leader of a rich nation to pledge money to help address loss and damage in the global south. Announcing the £2 million contribution, she said the payment was: ‘not as an act of charity but as an act of reparation’.

While welcome, calculations show that the financial scale of adequate international assistance required to minimise and redress loss and damage needs to be at least $50 billion in 2022, rising to at least $300 billion in 2030.

At the COP26, global south countries agreed to prioritise cuts to carbon emissions on the back of promises that richer countries would finally set up a finance facility for loss and damage this year. The First Minister of Scotland broke the international taboo on committing money for loss and damage, following which Wallonia committed one  million Euros. Denmark, the first rich country that has a formal seat at climate negotiations, just this week announced it would give £11.7 million in  loss and damage finance which would be additional to its overseas aid spending.  The UK Government is lagging way behind in refusing to make a commitment to loss and damage and undermines its position as the outgoing COP President.

. Just five fossil fuel companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and Total) made £50 billion profit between April and June this year due to high energy prices. These companies have collectively contributed more than 10% of global historic carbon emissions, and campaigners say that some of those profits should be directed towards the ‘loss and damage’ finance facility to help address climate-induced loss and damage in countries facing climate disasters.

All rich, developed nations need to identify new and additional sources of finances, including taxing the fossil fuel companies, to address loss and damage rather than diverting existing climate finance commitments and overseas development assistance.

Liz Murray, head of Scottish campaigns at Global Justice Now said:“The same fossil fuel corporations that are making billions in profit from the cost of living crisis are also driving the climate crisis. These companies, along with rich countries like ours, are overwhelmingly responsible for the climate emergency. And yet countries like Pakistan, which is responsible for less than 1% of global emissions, are right now suffering the devastating consequences.

Those countries are, rightly, calling for finance to help them deal with the consequences of climate change – and the loss and damage they are suffering as a result. We stand with them and call on our government here in the UK to support a ‘loss and damage’ fund at the UN climate talks this November and to tax the fossil fuel companies to help finance the fund. It’s time to make polluters pay.”

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Photo: Maverick Press Agency, Callum Bennetts