By Jamie Livingstone
When Cynthia Houniuhi was a child growing up on a small island in the Solomon Islands, she never imagined she would one day be on the frontlines of the global fight against climate change.
But rising sea levels and heavy rains are placing her home under siege.
“In recent years, I’ve watched the sea swallow entire coastlines and people fight for their lives,” Cynthia told Oxfam. “We’ve contributed almost nothing to the climate crisis, yet we face its gravest consequences. My people are resilient, but how much longer can we fight and pay the price of big emitters?”
Cynthia is far from alone.
Across the world, millions of people are being punished by a growing climate inferno they did least to cause, facing fires, floods and famine.
Heat-related deaths, food insecurity and the spread of infectious diseases caused by the climate crisis have now reached record levels.
Researchers have found that during the scorching summer in 2022, climate change killed 10 times more people in Europe than murderers did.
And climate scientists say that climate change made the 10 deadliest extreme weather events over the past two decades worse, contributing to the deaths of more than 570,000 people.
In Valencia, the worst flooding in generations has claimed more than 200 lives, provoking public fury on a scale that should serve as a wake-up call to governments far beyond Spain.
After all, such devastation is unfolding when global temperatures are already 1.3°C of above pre-industrial levels. Without action, the world is on track for a catastrophic 3°C of warming by the end of the century.
Time for Trillions: Will COP29 Fund a Fairer Future?
As global leaders gather in Baku for tomorrow’s opening day of the UN’s annual climate conference – COP29 – the backdrop is beyond bleak.
The UN says that current national climate plans fall ‘miles short’ of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country.
It’s crucial that countries’ new national climate commitments – mostly due next year – go further, faster, particularly those of the richest and biggest polluting nations.
The UK is set to announce its new national climate commitment this year, with the Prime Minister signalling a push to reclaim climate leadership. As the world’s fifth-largest historical emitter, the UK’s pledge must be ambitious, credible, and unwavering.
Money is also high on the agenda at COP. For the first time in 15 years, rich countries will reevaluate the amount and type of finance they need to provide to low-income countries to help them reduce their own emissions and adapt to climate change.
The new goal will replace the previous $100 billion annual target set in 2009: a target rich countries have repeatedly missed, short-changing lower income countries for years by doing climate finance on the cheap.
For too long, low-income countries have been forced to rely on loans, locking them into cycles of debt and poverty. Today, they’re hit with a double injustice: first, suffering the climate damage they didn’t cause, and second, paying interest on loans they need to survive it.
A litmus test of COP29’s success will be whether it mobilises the trillions, not billions, needed with the new goal including money to address loss and damage caused by climate change.
Trillions of dollars a year can be raised through new progressive taxes on the wealth and income of the super-rich and from windfall corporate profits of rich and polluting companies.
The case for making the biggest and richest polluters cough up is as clear as their climate culpability. It is rich countries – and usually richer people within them – who are driving the climate crisis. Oxfam’s analysis reveals that globally, the richest 1% produce as much carbon pollution as two-thirds of humanity: that’s five billion people.
Scotland’s Climate Credibility Crisis
While the UK holds the official seat at UN climate talks, Scotland’s influence can be significant. At COP26 in Glasgow, the Scottish Government broke a global taboo by committing to loss and damage funding, a move that helped catalyse the creation of a global fund the following year.
Since then, Scotland has maintained its leadership by funding critical learning on how the new global Fund can best support climate vulnerable nations. With Scottish Government backing, Oxfam has partnered with communities in northern Kenya to help address the damage from recurring droughts and floods. The project reinforced that climate-impacted communities must control where and how money is spent.
But, of course, the best defence against loss and damage is slashing global emissions.
Scotland’s emissions are falling, but not only have 9 out of the last 13 targets been missed – the Scottish Government has now axed its crucial goal of slashing emissions by 75% by 2030. In a dismal double whammy, Ministers have also raided green budgets as part of a series of emergency spending cuts.
Such damaging steps are completely out of sync with increasingly deadly climate impacts.
Making Polluters Pay Up
Scottish Ministers must rebuild Scotland’s climate credibility by urgently and fairly raising the funds needed to invest in transformative climate action, starting with the climate wrecking behaviours of the ultra-wealthy.
At the recent UK Budget, the Chancellor announced an increase on the tax paid by the passengers on pollution spewing private jets. It was a welcome, if too timid, move given the global private jet fleet has ballooned by 133 percent in the past two decades, adding an average of 602 new jets each year.
The climate implications are staggering. Aviation is among the fastest-growing sources of carbon emissions, and private jets are one of the most polluting forms of transport. Shockingly, research indicates that about 40 percent of private jets fly empty, simply shuttling to pick up passengers.
Scottish skies are not immune from this climate vandalism, with nearly 13,000 recorded private flights to and from Scotland’s airports last year alone.
While legislation for a new Air Departure Tax in Scotland was passed seven years ago, it is still not in place. Scottish Ministers must urgently work with the UK Government to end this impasse, land a much more significant new tax on private jets leaving Scotland, and then invest the revenues in green initiatives – like public transport – that benefit us all.
Doing so would send a clear message: those who pollute the most – and who can afford it the most – will be held accountable for their climate-wrecking, lavish lifestyles.
It’s a sentiment that would resonate strongly with Cynthia Houniuhi, far away from Holyrood, COP29 and the corridors of climate power, who reminds us: “This is not just a fight for survival; it’s a fight for justice.”
This article originally appeared in the Sunday Post.