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Climate Change

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A woman walks in boots through a flooded street with her back to us.

At a glance

The world’s poorest countries and communities are hit worst by the climate crisis

Rich countries that have contributed most to the climate crisis need to urgently and significantly increase their emission reduction targets in order to limit global temperature increases to 1.5˚C. It is also vital that they uphold their commitments and obligations to support other countries’ efforts to adapt to climate impacts and develop in a low carbon way.

We work with others to raise awareness of the human impact of climate change and how climate change, inequality and poverty are linked and reinforce each other. We advocate for climate justice – making sure that the voices of those most impacted by the climate crisis are heard and drive the solutions, above all women.

We work with women and men to put in place adaptation and disaster risk reduction actions that also address the causes of vulnerability: inequality, gender injustice and poverty. We support people affected by the climate crisis to participate in adaptation, risk and development planning. And we work to ensure that development planning addresses the causes of vulnerability and the climate crisis – and so integrates the issue of climate change across all our work.

LAND IS VITAL TO OUR LIVELIHOODS AND IS THE BUILDING BLOCK FOR ACCESS TO OTHER RIGHTS AND SERVICES

Supporting Land Rights

In Depth: Land rights

Campaign report

Climate Equality: A planet for the 99%

20/11/2023

7 documents

136 pages long

Languages: Arabic, English, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

The world faces twin crises of climate breakdown and runaway inequality. The richest people, corporations and countries are destroying the world with their huge carbon emissions. Meanwhile, people living in poverty, those experiencing marginalization, and countries in the Global South are those impacted the hardest. Women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, people living in poverty and […]

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Briefing paper

Climate Finance Shadow Report 2023: Assessing the delivery of the $100 billion commitment

05/06/2023

8 documents

Languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

In 2009, high-income countries committed in the Copenhagen Accords to mobilize US$100 billion a year by 2020 in climate finance for low- and middle-income countries. Oxfam reported on the progress of this commitment in 2016, 2018 and 2020. This year’s report finds that high-income countries have not only failed to deliver on their commitment, but […]

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Issue briefing

Loss and Damage to Land: Voices from Asia

29/06/2023

3 documents

17 pages long

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

Oxfam listened to women and men from Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste who shared their stories on how the climate crisis caused loss and damage to their lands and impacted their lives. The stories demonstrate that land ownership is a key factor in determining people’s eligibility to receive assistance to overcome loss and damage. […]

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Research report

Towards a Just Energy Transition: Implications for communities in lower- and middle-income countries

07/12/2022

4 documents

47 pages long

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

More frequent or intense floods, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and typhoons devastate people’s homes, livelihoods and the natural world. A clean energy transition is urgently needed to reduce carbon emissions and prevent the impacts worsening. Wealthy countries have the prime historic responsibility for the climate crisis and therefore for its mitigation. But as the clean energy […]

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Briefing note

Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people

07/11/2022

5 documents

32 pages long

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

The world’s richest people emit huge and unsustainable amounts of carbon and, unlike ordinary people, 50% to 70% of their emissions result from their investments. New analysis of the investments of 125 of the world’s richest billionaires shows that on average they are emitting 3 million tonnes a year, more than a million times the […]

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Briefing paper

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

07/06/2022

8 documents

36 pages long

Languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

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 […]

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Briefing paper

Dangerous Delay 2: The cost of inaction

18/05/2022

7 documents

38 pages long

Languages: English, French, Somali, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

In 2011, Somalia experienced a devastating famine that killed over a quarter of a million people. Afterwards, leaders in the region made a commitment to end drought emergencies by 2022. The international community sought to ensure that there would be no repeat of the failures that led to famine. Next time, the world would heed […]

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Briefing paper

Tightening the Net: Net zero climate targets – implications for land and food equity

03/08/2021

6 documents

42 pages long

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Keywords

Overview

Many governments and companies are adopting net zero climate targets as they recognize the urgency of the climate crisis. Without clear definition, however, these targets risk being reliant on using vast swathes of land in low-income countries to capture carbon emissions, allowing the biggest emitters to avoid making significant cuts in their own emissions. ‘Net […]

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Research report

The UK Doughnut: A framework for environmental sustainability and social justice

19/02/2015

2 documents

72 pages long

Languages: English

Keywords

Overview

The world faces twin challenges: delivering a decent standard of living for everyone, while living within our environmental limits. These two concerns are brought together in Oxfam’s Doughnut model, which visualizes a space between planetary boundaries and a social floor where it is environmentally safe and socially just for humanity to exist. Here, The UK […]

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Book

Climate Change and Gender Justice

09/11/2009

1 documents

240 pages long

Languages: English

Keywords

Overview

Climate change is often framed as a problem that needs mainly technical and economic solutions. Climate Change and Gender Justice considers how gender issues are entwined with people’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change, and how gender identities and roles may affect women’s and men’s perceptions of the changes. The vivid case studies in […]

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Guidelines and toolkits

Finding Ways Together to Build Resilience: The Vulnerability and Risk Assessment methodology

15/01/2016

1 documents

53 pages long

Languages: English

Keywords

Overview

Oxfam’s Vulnerability and Risk Assessment (VRA) tool develops a holistic, landscape-wide understanding of vulnerability and links up actors across various levels of governance to jointly identify and analyse root causes of vulnerabilities for distinct social groups and later design programmes and risk reduction initiatives accordingly, ensuring that they are equitable, gender-sensitive and effective. Attention to […]

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Photo captions and credit

Mrs Abosede walks in boots on October 11, 2022 in Ilaje, Lagos State Nigeria. Due to the constant rainfall, Ilaje community is flooded and waterlogged, boots are advised. Taiwo Aina/Oxfam

Climate Change

At a glance

Supporting Land Rights

Related Resources

Photo captions and credit