Disaster Divide: How climate chaos deepens inequality and enriches the few

Overview

Oxfam’s report Disaster Divide demonstrates how climate disasters are not experienced equally and impact poorer people the most. With each flood, fire and drought, they become more exposed and vulnerable and less able to recover and rebuild their lives. In short, inequality turns extreme weather events into climate disasters, while climate disasters drive up inequality, trapping poorer people in a vicious cycle of inequality. The rich people, on the other hand, with their high-emitting investments and consumption patterns that burn carbon at an extraordinary rate, directly contribute to increased climate disasters. Wealth can insulate the rich from climate impacts while ordinary people hit by successive climate shocks struggle to recover and rebuild their lives. Oxfam’s new research shows how the super-rich also cash in on climate pain – making massive profits from food prices and profiting from disasters. Our report shows that breaking this vicious cycle and minimizing the human harm of climate disasters is possible. The only ways to do this are by drastically reducing the emissions of the richest people, radically reducing inequality and taking urgent actions to adapt to climate change that have equality at their centre.