SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
oxfam
As Pollution-Fueled Climate Disasters Intensify, Flood Deaths Hit 13-Year High
Deadlier flood disasters "are the foreseeable consequences of a fossil-fueled economy in which those who pollute most are also the best protected from its consequences," said one campaigner.
Nov 12, 2026
An analysis released Thursday by anti-poverty group Oxfam juxtaposed the soaring number of flood-related deaths worldwide with the ultrawealthy's ability to insulate themselves from the climate disasters that are growing more common and devastating as oil and gas emissions continue.
The group found that as monthly temperature records were shattered in more than 100 countries this year, flood deaths reached a 13-year high—driven largely by catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet in August, when a glacier collapse sent a "wall of water more than 100 meters high, traveling at 180 kilometers per hour," which swept through a valley and killed more than 1,500 people, with 5,600 still missing.
The flooding disaster, which the chief of the United Nations Office for Project Services said last month should be a "defining moment" for an international community grappling with how to mitigate the impacts of the climate emergency, accounted for about three-quarters of the 8,000 people who died in floods this year.
"Deaths from flooding are seven times higher in more unequal countries," noted Oxfam, while people in the Global South are far less likely to have contributed meaningfully to the carbon pollution that scientists say is heating the planet, putting the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris Agreement in 2015 out of reach, and causing the loss of glaciers and more extreme weather disasters.
"The carbon pollution of a person in the richest 1% has contributed 34 times more to today's extreme heatwaves than the average person, and 100 times more than someone in the poorest 50%," said Oxfam.
In September, the UN found that with countries contributing far too little to efforts to reduce carbon emissions, the planet is now expected to overshoot the 1.5°C threshold, and said policymakers must now focus on ensuring the overshoot is temporary.
But on Thursday, as world leaders gathered in Antalya, Türkiye for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), a report warned that the Earth could in fact be heading for an "irrevocable" breach of the 1.5°C limit.
"The carbon pollution of a person in the richest 1% has contributed 34 time more to today's extreme heatwaves than the average person, and 100 times more than someone in the poorest 50%."
The record number of flooding deaths this year, said Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, "are not accidents of weather. They are the foreseeable consequences of a fossil-fueled economy in which those who pollute most are also the best protected from its consequences."
Oxfam also emphasized that while flooding deaths are soaring, one trend at COP31 demonstrated how the ultrarich are making devastating disasters in communities around the world more likely.
The group analyzed data from Polluterjet, finding that 87 private jets landed at Antalya Airport since November 7, just before COP31 began, emitting an estimated 777 tons of carbon dioxide.
"Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote’s private jet flew approximately 4,370 kilometers from Lagos to Antalya, emitting an estimated 30 tons of carbon, roughly as much as the average person emits in six years," said Oxfam. "During COP30 last year, 66 private jet journeys were recorded."
According to the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, taxing private jets owned by about 250,000 people around the world could raise $45 billion per year, "nearly 12 times the amount rich countries gave to UN climate funds in 2025."
“While families mourn loved ones killed by floods and endure blistering heat, the ultrawealthy carry on flying in private jets, high above the devastating consequences,” said Behar. “Governments must stop treating the extraordinarily polluting luxuries of the superrich as an untouchable privilege. Taxing private jets is an obvious first step.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'A Crime of Extreme Inequality': Richest 0.1% Generate More Carbon Pollution Than Half of Humanity
“The ultra-rich are setting the planet on fire and then charging the rest of us for the extinguishers."
Oct 27, 2026
The richest 0.1% of humanity generates more planet-heating carbon pollution than nearly half of the global population combined, according to an Oxfam analysis released late Monday as world leaders prepared to gather in Türkiye next month for the United Nations climate summit.
The new analysis provides an updated look at global elites' outsized contribution to a climate crisis that disproportionately impacts the poorest segments of the global population through increasingly devastating heatwaves, droughts, flooding, and other extreme weather, causing death, destruction, and mass displacement worldwide.
Oxfam estimates that a person in the richest 0.1% "has contributed nearly 400 times more to today’s extreme heatwaves than someone in the poorest 50%." The 8 million richest people in the world combined produce "over three times more carbon pollution than the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa"—around 1.3 billion people.
"The climate crisis is often described as a shared human challenge. It is not," said Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International's executive director. "Those who have done the least to cause it are losing their homes, their harvests and, increasingly, their lives. Meanwhile, the super-rich can buy their way out of danger—by retreating to high-tech underground survival bunkers, hiring private firefighting crews, and securing private insurance—and are actively profiting from the consequences of their pollution. This is not a tragedy of shared fate; it is a crime of extreme inequality."
Oxfam's report notes that the same investors and firms profiting massively from the fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis are also benefiting from disaster preparedness and recovery. The analysis places those investors in what it calls a "Destroy and Rebuild" index.
"Six major asset managers (including Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street) make up more than one-quarter of all the Destroy and Rebuild corporations," the report states. "BlackRock and Vanguard are invested in 92% of the corporations in the index: The pair’s total investments in these corporations are more than $1 trillion."
“The ultra-rich are setting the planet on fire and then charging the rest of us for the extinguishers," said Behar. "They profit from the pollution. They profit from the disaster. And they profit again from the clean-up.”
"While ordinary people are forced to grapple with the consequences of emergencies they bear little responsibility in fueling, billionaires are busy outrunning the reality they and their private jets created."
In the United States—where the country's billionaire president has taken a sledgehammer to domestic and international efforts to combat the climate crisis—a person in the richest 0.1% emits 48 times as much carbon dioxide as the average American.
"The country’s richest 0.1% (333,271 people) emit 108 times more CO2 per person than the poorest half of the population (166.6 million people)," Oxfam's analysis shows. "In just under four months (118.3 days), someone in the richest 0.1% emits more CO2 than someone in the poorest half of the U.S. has emitted over the last 30 years."
Rachel Carle, senior advisor on climate justice at Oxfam America, said in a statement that the global climate emergency is "an inequality crisis at its core."
"While ordinary people are forced to grapple with the consequences of emergencies they bear little responsibility in fueling, billionaires are busy outrunning the reality they and their private jets created," said Carle. "Mark Zuckerberg can hunker down in his Hawaiian bunker at the first sign of chaos, but the rest of us don’t have that luxury. Addressing this glaring inequality is the first step to mitigating climate disaster, and that starts with making ultra-rich polluters pay their fair share."
In view of its findings, Oxfam urged governments to use the upcoming COP31 summit in Türkiye to:
- Make rich polluters pay to significantly and rapidly curb their carbon emissions, including through permanent wealth and income taxes, a permanent tax on fossil fuel corporations, and punitive taxes on high-emitting luxury items like private jets;
- Substantially increase climate finance for the Global South, prioritizing public, grant-based finance rather than loans that deepen debt. The amount for adaptation should be tripled by 2035;
- Radically reduce inequality within and between countries, including through climate-resilient public infrastructure and public services; and
- End profiteering from climate disasters. Governments need to curb corporate power in emergency response, reconstruction, and food systems during disasters.
"Another future remains possible," Oxfam's report concludes. "Creating a more equal world would enable emissions to fall rapidly, food systems to become fairer and more resilient, and the creation of public systems to protect people from crisis and adapt to the effects of climate change. Achieving that future will require bold political choices to curb excessive wealth and corporate power while investing in the resilience, rights, and livelihoods of the majority. Climate justice and equality must now become the foundation of climate action."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israel's Intensified Ethnic Cleansing of West Bank Spurs Calls for 'Urgent Action'
“The world cannot stand by as Israel continues its assault on Palestinians, waiting for yet more neighborhoods to be emptied and erased before intervening,” said the Israeli rights group B'Tselem.
Oct 26, 2026
Human rights groups on Monday implored the international community to act in the face of Israel's accelerating ethnic cleansing of West Bank Palestinians following a resistance attack that killed two Israel Defense Forces soldiers and ahead of Tuesday's Israeli elections.
Al Jazeera reported that more than 3,000 Palestinians have been forced from their homes in Hebron in the illegally occupied West Bank, a city long beset by Israeli settlement expansion and displacement. In addition to a military lockdown, Israeli occupation forces have detained scores of Palestinians since two IDF soldiers were shot dead on Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—whose far-right coalition is trying to shore up support ahead of Tuesday's elections—and other senior officials have openly indicated plans to ramp up the ethnic cleansing of the area. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have vowed to treat the West Bank like Gaza, where more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded and around 1.9 million others have been forcibly displaced amid a "complete siege" since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023.
“This is not only a humanitarian crisis but a deliberate assault on the economic foundations of Palestinian life, as families lose their homes and livelihoods," Mustafa Tamaizeh, Oxfam International's West Bank response lead, said Monday. "The destruction of factories, workshops, and business premises is wiping out years of investment and hard work."
"These illegal actions amount to collective punishment and are accelerating the forced displacement of Palestinian communities across the West Bank," Tamaizeh continued. "They come during the olive harvest, one of the most important sources of income for Palestinian farming families."
“In recent days, high-ranking Israeli officials have openly acknowledged they are considering plans for the largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967, with calls for operations in the West Bank to be conducted like those in Gaza," he added. "Against this backdrop Oxfam is calling for urgent action by the international community to stop Israel’s campaign of mass forced displacement, demolitions, and state-backed settler violence, which amount to a policy of ethnic cleansing.”
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) said Monday that it "strongly condemns the escalation of Israeli occupation crimes across the occupied Palestinian territory, including the siege, raids, home demolitions, and forced displacement of residents in Hebron and other areas of the West Bank."
"These violations coincide with raids on more than 15 towns and cities in the northern West Bank, the arrest of numerous Palestinians, escalating settler attacks, and road closures, alongside the continued mass killings and war crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip," ICSPR continued.
"ICSPR calls on the United Nations and the states parties to the Geneva Conventions to take immediate and binding measures to halt Israeli occupation crimes and provide international protection for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and occupied East Jerusalem," the group added. "It calls for an end to forcible evictions, home demolitions, settler attacks, and settler terrorism."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres weighed in Monday, invoking the "specter of ethnic cleansing" and calling for "the realization of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination."
Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a Christian human rights group, also condemned Israel's actions, issuing a statement Monday asserting that “families should never have to live in fear of being forced out of their homes or separated from the places where they have built their lives."
CPT stressed that "every Palestinian has the right to live safely and with dignity in their own home." The group urged the international community "and diplomatic missions to act now to protect civilians in Hebron," and "people of faith and conscience to contact their elected representatives and call for action to protect Palestinian civilians."
At least one Israeli rights group also condemned the government's and IDF actions.
“The world cannot stand by," B'Tselem said, "as Israel continues its assault on Palestinians, waiting for yet more neighborhoods to be emptied and erased before intervening."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Making a Killing, Literally and Figuratively': Big Oil Profits Set to Double Amid Deadly Heat
"Big Oil’s greed is incompatible with a livable planet and unless governments rein it in, they will make a mockery of international climate targets,” said one Oxfam campaigner.
Jul 28, 2026
An analysis published Tuesday highlights how the world's top fossil fuel companies are expected to rake in nearly twice as much in second-quarter profits as they did during the first quarter of 2026, a windfall that comes as their polluting products help fuel extreme heat that kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world annually.
Oxfam International's analysis warns that the profits of the world’s six largest oil and gas companies are on track to skyrocket from $23 billion during the first quarter of the year to $45 billion in Q2 as emissions from their products intensify deadly heatwaves.
"Projected full-year profits of BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies amount to $147 billion, more than their combined profits over the previous 21 months (Q2 2024 to Q4 2025)," the report states. "Among the biggest winners, Chevron is expected to report that it has quadrupled its profits to $1,200 a second in the last three months, while ExxonMobil’s profits are expected to have tripled to $1,800 a second."
"Oil and gas corporations share an outsized responsibility for the climate crisis," the publication continues. "Emissions from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies were sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023—heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change."
New Oxfam analysis finds that emissions from 5 major fossil fuel corporations were enough to cause 1 in 4 heatwaves between 2000 and 2023. Heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without climate change.It’s time to #MakeRichPollutersPayMore: bit.ly/BigOilQ2prof...
[image or embed]
— Oxfam International (@oxfaminternational.bsky.social) July 28, 2026 at 12:00 AM
Conflicts like the US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and the ongoing Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine, as well as Big Oil greed, are among the leading factors blamed for spiking fuel costs.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that top US fossil fuel executives have sold nearly $400 million in their own companies' stock since Trump launched the Iran War on the last day of February.
“Fossil fuel corporations are making a killing, literally and figuratively," Mariana Paoli, Oxfam's climate policy lead, said in a statement Tuesday.
"As extreme heat, floods, and storms devastate communities across the world, the industry is preparing another bonanza of profits," she continued. "Families are paying the price three times over—through destroyed homes and harvests, through soaring energy prices, and through a cost-of-living crisis worsened by dependence on fossil fuels."
"Big Oil’s greed is incompatible with a livable planet, and unless governments rein it in, they will make a mockery of international climate targets,” Paoli added.
The report comes amid a summer of dangerous heat events in the United States, including prolonged “heat domes” that have pushed temperatures to life-threatening levels and contributed to at least dozens of deaths, as well as more record heatwaves in Europe that have left thousands dead and fueled massive wildfires.
"Yet rather than scaling back fossil fuel production and accelerating the transition to renewable energy, the six largest fossil fuel corporations plan to increase oil and gas production by 14% by 2030 compared to 2024 levels, equivalent to pumping an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil a day," Oxfam noted.
Paoli said Tuesday that "while Big Oil fuels extreme weather events, rich countries are refusing to increase the public climate finance that poorer countries urgently need to cope with the climate crisis."
“Until governments make the richest polluters pay, fossil fuel corporations will keep driving us deeper into climate chaos," she added. "Taxing the richest polluters could help close the gap in funding for climate adaptation and speed the transition towards renewable energy. Fossil fuel corporations must feel the heat, not us."
Oxfam contends that the "rich polluter profit tax" it has modeled could raise as much as $400 billion globally in its first year based on 2024 figures, compared with the estimated $290 billion to $1 trillion needed annually by 2030 to compensate for the loss and damage caused by climate change in the Global South. Unlike one-off windfall profits taxes, the rich polluter profit tax would be permanent.
"We are facing a climate emergency, therefore governments should each impose this tax swiftly," Oxfam said last month. "Countries across all continents should form a ‘coalition of the willing’ to coordinate and speed up their efforts and counter fossil fuel company lobbying and tax avoidance."
The Oxfam analysis follows the release earlier this month of a World Health Organization (WHO) report showing nearly 500,000 annual heat-related deaths worldwide in the years 2000-19—a figure expected to grow as extreme temperatures driven by the climate emergency become the new normal.
"Mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions is imperative and urgent to limit the magnitude of human costs from extreme heat," WHO said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'A New Pinnacle of Oligarchy': Elon Musk Poised to Become World's First Trillionaire
“The new Gilded Age won’t end itself," said Oxfam America. "This is a trillion-dollar alarm bell that should wake governments up to the need to take action."
Jun 11, 2026
With Elon Musk's SpaceX set to go public on Friday, the world's richest man could soon become the first-ever trillionaire—an achievement that one leading humanitarian group called "a new pinnacle of oligarchy and a dark day for democracy."
Whether Musk reaches trillionaire status in the coming days will depend on the success of SpaceX's initial public offering (IPO), which critics warn is a potentially massive threat to market stability and Americans' retirement savings. The company plans to sell 555,555,555 shares at a price of $135 each, aiming for a staggering $1.75 trillion valuation. Musk, who is the company's board chair and owns 42% of its common stock along with options, will see his net worth skyrocket if SpaceX achieves its IPO targets.
Oxfam America noted in an analysis released Thursday that a $1 trillion net worth would mean that it would take Musk 2,740 years to spend $1 trillion if he spent $1 million per day. The group estimated that a 10% tax on $1 trillion "could end global extreme poverty for a year, lifting over 800 million people above the extreme poverty line."
Nabil Ahmed, senior director of economic justice at Oxfam America, said in a statement that "this moment of dramatically concentrated wealth was not inevitable."
"Musk will be a government-backed trillionaire whose fortune was fueled by an era of regressive public policy choices—decisions rigged by a tiny few to fuel their fortunes, and overwhelmingly supported by political leaders," said Ahmed. "A trillion dollars in the hands of one man is incompatible not only with an affordable economy, but also with a healthy democracy. Economic inequality begets political inequality, and ordinary people bear the brunt while billionaires continue to write the rules for their own benefit."
“The new Gilded Age won’t end itself," he added. "This is a trillion-dollar alarm bell that should wake governments up to the need to take action. Never has it been more urgent to curb the accumulation of extreme wealth—overhauling the economic policies that have created not just trillionaires, but billionaires and the obscene inequality we see today."
Oxfam highlighted Musk's brief but immensely destructive tenure in the US federal government at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which took a sledgehammer to foreign aid programs and assailed the Social Security Administration, among other actions whose consequences are expected to reverberate for years to come. Oxfam has warned that the Musk-led decimation of the US Agency for International Development means that "a child under 5 could die every 40 seconds by 2030."
Musk was given the role at DOGE after using a tiny fraction of his wealth to boost President Donald Trump and Republican candidates in the 2024 election. Musk is spending big again to boost the GOP in the 2026 midterms.
"Musk’s ability to pour money into elections allowed him to use his wealth and power in ways that embody the corrosive effects of billionaire control," Oxfam said Thursday.
The group's statement came amid mounting anxiety about the impact of SpaceX's IPO, beyond potentially pushing Musk's wealth past the trillion-dollar mark.
In a letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) raised "extreme concern" about the possibility that the IPO could flop. Major stock index providers, she observed, are "rewriting their rules to fast-track SpaceX’s entry into their indexes—and into the investment funds that power millions of Americans’ retirement savings."
"The net result could be disastrous," Warren wrote, "a scenario where retirees’ and families’ investment accounts take a hit if SpaceX’s valuation falters, with little recourse for any corporate misconduct, while the wealthiest man on earth becomes even wealthier due to a lack of oversight."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Oxfam Warns Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Could Help Kill More Than 9 Million People by 2030
"Governments must restore their aid budgets, and shore up the global humanitarian system that faces its most serious crisis in decades," said an advocate with the international charity Oxfam.
Apr 10, 2026
The global anti-poverty group Oxfam International warned this week that US President Donald Trump’s decision to slash foreign aid by more than half could kill nearly 10 million people by the end of the decade.
Responding to new data released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showing the largest annual drop in the history of official development assistance, Oxfam said “wealthy governments are turning their backs on the lives of millions of women, men, and children in the Global South.”
The OECD released preliminary data on international aid that was provided last year by member countries of the organization's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), finding the largest annual drop in the history of official development assistance.
OECD member countries provided $174.3 billion in aid last year, according to the new data, representing 0.26% of the countries' combined gross national income.
In 2024, the countries sent $215.1 billion, or 0.34% of their gross national income to developing countries, including across the Global South—helping to provide nutritional assistance and healthcare initiatives among other programs.
US foreign aid spending dropped by 56.9% after Trump dismantled the US Agency for International Development, cut smaller aid programs, and pushed Congress to rescind previously approved foreign assistance.
"At a time when aid cuts are already driving instability and fostering greater inequality, government donors are cutting life-saving aid budgets while financing conflict and militarization."
Overall, wealthy OECD countries provided 23.1% less in foreign aid last year than they did in 2024—a greater decline than what the Institute of Global Health in Barcelona projected in February when it released a study in The Lancet, evaluating the impact of development assistance funding declines around the world.
The institute found that aid cuts in 2025 alone, which it assumed would represent a 21% decrease in funding, would lead to 695,238 excess deaths. If cuts continued at the same rate, an estimated 9,416,417 people could die of preventable diseases like malaria and AIDS, starvation, and other impacts by 2030.
The drop in foreign aid spending would suggest even more people could be killed by the cuts over the next four years.
“We are in a time of increasing humanitarian needs; strong pressures on the poorest and most fragile countries; and facing growing global uncertainties and massive insecurity," said Carsten Staur, chair of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which compiled the data. "In this situation, the world needs more ODA, not less—to help fight extreme poverty, improve resilience, and mobilize more private resources."
Trump's cuts helped make Germany the largest provider of development assistance for the first time ever, providing $29.1 billion to countries in need. The US sent $29 billion while the United Kingdom provided $17.2 billion, Japan sent $16.2 billion, and France sent $14.5 billion. All five of the top ODA providers reduced their foreign aid spending, accounting for 95.7% of the total decline.
Eight out of the DAC's 34 member countries either maintained or increased their development aid spending, and four countries—Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden—exceeded the United Nations' target of spending 0.7% of their gross national income on ODA.
Didier Jacobs, development finance lead for Oxfam, emphasized that while "recklessly" cutting foreign aid, "the Trump administration has been preparing to ask Congress for tens of billions in additional funding for bombs, ammunition, and other military equipment relating to its unlawful war against Iran."
"At a time when aid cuts are already driving instability and fostering greater inequality, government donors are cutting life-saving aid budgets while financing conflict and militarization. Cuts from donors including Germany, France and the UK will be felt by the world’s poorest," said Jacobs.
In addition to slashing military spending instead of crucial foreign aid, he said, "there are other ways to find tens of billions, such as by taxing the $2.84 trillions of dollars that the super-rich hide in tax havens.”
"Governments must restore their aid budgets," he said, "and shore up the global humanitarian system that faces its most serious crisis in decades."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Oxfam Warns Record $18.3 Trillion in Billionaire Wealth 'Highly Dangerous' to Democracy
"Governments are making wrong choices to pander to the elite and defend wealth while repressing people’s rights and anger at how so many of their lives are becoming unaffordable and unbearable."
Jan 19, 2026
A report released Monday as global elites convened in Davos, Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum found that the collective wealth of the world's billionaires hit a record $18.3 trillion last year, a marker of supercharged inequality that is threatening democracy across the globe.
Oxfam International's report, Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom From Billionaire Power, found that the total number of billionaires worldwide surpassed 3,000 for the first time in history in 2025. Billionaire wealth rose by $2.5 trillion, over 16%, last year. That sum, Oxfam observed, would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.
The new report focuses on the dire political consequences of allowing a small fraction of the world's population to capture so much wealth.
As Oxfam put it:
It is one thing for a billionaire to buy an enormous yacht or many luxury homes around the world. This excessive consumption can be rightly criticized in a deeply unequal world where the majority of people have very little and our planet is suffocating from relentless carbon emissions and waste. But many would reject this criticism, describing it as the politics on envy.
Yet far fewer people would disagree that when a billionaire uses their wealth to buy a politician, to influence a government, to own a newspaper or a social media platform, or to out-lawyer any opposition to ensure they are above the law, that these actions undermine progress and fairness. Such power gives billionaires control over all our futures, undermining political freedom and the rights of the rest of us.
Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International's executive director, said Monday that "the widening gap between the rich and the rest is at the same time creating a political deficit that is highly dangerous and unsustainable."
“Governments are making wrong choices to pander to the elite and defend wealth while repressing people’s rights and anger at how so many of their lives are becoming unaffordable and unbearable,” Behar said. “Being economically poor creates hunger. Being politically poor creates anger."
Oxfam's report notes that highly unequal countries are seven times more likely to experience forms of democratic backsliding, such as the erosion of the rule of law and the undermining of elections.
Both are currently taking place under President Donald Trump in the United States, which is home to more billionaires than any other nation.
That includes Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, the world's richest man, who reportedly just dumped a personal record $10 million into the US Senate race on the side of a pro-Trump candidate vying to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Musk was the largest single donor in the 2024 election, deploying his wealth to help propel Trump to the White House for a second term.
“No country can afford to be complacent. The pace that economic and political inequality can hasten the erosion of people’s rights and safety can be frighteningly fast."
Oxfam pointed out that billionaires also use their wealth to influence politics in ways other than bankrolling their preferred candidates. The group observed that "billionaires own more than half the world’s largest media companies and all the main social media companies."
Billionaires are also an estimated 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people, the report states.
"The outsized influence that the super-rich have over our politicians, economies, and media has deepened inequality and led us far off track on tackling poverty," said Behar. "Governments should be listening to the needs of the people on things like quality healthcare, action on climate change, and tax fairness."
Oxfam urged governments around the world to pursue a number of reforms aimed at redressing massive inequities in income, wealth, and political power, including "effectively taxing the super-rich," establishing "stronger firewalls between wealth and politics including by tougher regulations against lobbying and campaign financing by the rich," and creating "realistic and time-bound National Inequality Reduction Plans, with well-established benchmarks and regular monitoring of progress."
“No country can afford to be complacent," Behar said. "The pace that economic and political inequality can hasten the erosion of people’s rights and safety can be frighteningly fast."
Keep ReadingShow Less
A Young Child Could Die Every 40 Seconds by 2030 Due to 'Cruel and Illegal' Trump Aid Cuts
"We are seeing years of progress unravel, and more children suffer and die preventable deaths because of these cuts."
Jan 15, 2026
President Donald Trump's shuttering of USAID last year will have a long-term negative impact on children throughout the world, according to a report released on Thursday by Oxfam.
In its analysis, Oxfam estimates that a child under the age of five could die every 40 seconds by 2030 thanks to the Trump administration's dismantling of American foreign aid programs.
Oxfam says it's basing its projections on "calculations in [the] Lancet’s impact evaluation and forecasting analysis from last July, which projected "4,537,157 child deaths by 2030."
The report also pointed to estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Gates Foundation, which calculates "an additional 200,000 child deaths" for children under five last year. This lines up with data published by the Boston University School of Public Health last year estimating over 250,000 child deaths caused by the drastic slashing of foreign aid funding under the Trump administration.
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said that "we have run out of words to describe the depths of suffering" caused by Trump's destruction of "the entire global aid system."
"We are seeing years of progress unravel, and more children suffer and die preventable deaths because of these cuts," Maxman added.
The report also highlighted the specific impacts cuts have had in Sudan, the Philippines, and Syria.
Mayfourth Luneta, deputy executive director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness Foundation, an Oxfam partner in the Philippines, said that due to the Trump aid cuts, her organization had to cancel programs across eight communities that were impacted by floods and earthquakes last year.
"The Philippines was hit with the most powerful storms on Earth recorded last year," Luneta said. "Communities were devastated, families were left with nothing."
Shabnam Baloch, country director for Oxfam in South Sudan, described the impact that aid cuts have had on a country that is undergoing a horrific civil war.
"Water borne illnesses are spreading rapidly, starvation is imminent for many, and while needs are rising, lifesaving organizations are working with a fraction of the resources we had in previous years," said Baloch. "Oxfam, along with many other vital organizations, will be forced to scale down our programs without immediate intervention."
Sara Savva, deputy director-general the alliance of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East and the Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development (GOPA-DERD), an Oxfam partner in Syria, said her organization had "to drastically reduce the scale and scope of our programs for Syrian families and Iraqi refugees residing in Syria" in the wake of the Trump administration's cuts.
"We were notified we will no longer receive funding from the US government, and thousands of people are left without crucial services necessary to rebuild their lives after a catastrophic civil war," Savva said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
100 Days Into 'Ceasefire,' Israel Still Deliberately Depriving Gazans of Water, Other Essential Aid: Oxfam
"Needs in Gaza exceed far beyond the aid and reconstruction materials Israel is allowing in and the situation will worsen if Israel’s collective punishment and illegal blockade continues," said one water utility official.
Jan 14, 2026
Along with continuing its killing of Palestinians in Gaza and its destruction of civilian infrastructure more than three months after a "ceasefire" deal was reached, the Israeli government is violating the agreement by continuing to block humanitarian aid from entering the exclave—making it impossible for aid groups to ensure people there have adequate water as extreme weather makes the problem even worse.
As 100 days since the ceasefire agreement were marked Wednesday, international aid group Oxfam described the work it's been doing to try to restore water wells and other crucial infrastructure, but warned that Israel's decision to block 37 humanitarian organizations—including two Oxfam chapters—has made it difficult to provide Palestinians with a sustainable water supply.
As aid flows have continued to be restricted by Israel, Oxfam workers have been working "around the clock with experts from local partner organizations, to restore vital water wells—even sifting through rubble to salvage and repurpose damaged materials, including sheet metal," the group said.
They've managed to restore wells in Gaza City and Khan Younis and are now providing at least 156,000 residents with water, but parts of Gaza "remain inaccessible and construction costs have also doubled, due to the lack of materials being allowed in," said Oxfam.
“We did not just re-open these wells," said Wassem Mushtaha, Gaza response lead for Oxfam. "We have been solving a moving puzzle under the siege and restrictions to make the wells operational—salvaging parts, repurposing equipment, and paying inflated prices to get critical components, all while trying to keep our teams safe."
Mushtaha emphasized that Oxfam has over $2 million worth of "aid and water and sanitation equipment ready to enter Gaza," but Israeli authorities have repeatedly refused to allow the materials to enter since March 2025.
Oxfam has managed to reach more than 1.3 million people in Gaza with assistance since October 2023, when Israel began bombarding the exclave and blocking humanitarian relief in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, but 1.1 million people are still in "urgent need of assistance in the harsh winter conditions," which have included freezing temperatures and intense polar winds in recent days.
That storm killed at least seven children, and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder emphasized Wednesday that they died because the "man-made shortage" of food and medicine had left them defenseless against the conditions.
“We are talking about layers upon layers of rejection [of aid],” Elder told Al Jazeera.
A recent survey by Oxfam found that despite the ceasefire agreement, 87% of people in Khan Younis and Gaza City still had no access to basic essentials and 89% were depending on unsustainable water trucking "to get just the bare minimum level of water needed to survive."
A Palestinian refugee named Nahla told the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East that "water decides everything. How much we drink, how we cook, how we clean our children."
More than 80% of water networks, pumping stations, main lines, tanks, and wells have been destroyed, and of Gaza's three water desalination plants, just one is operational.
Damage to sewer systems has caused overflow which is compounded by flooding, raising the risk of the spread of diseases. Eighty-four percent of households reported members of their families had suffered from outbreaks of disease in recent weeks.
"Yet basic equipment like water pumps, sandbags, and construction materials such as timber and plywood needed to reinforce shelters and drainage are delayed or rejected under 'dual-use' restrictions and bureaucratic clearance processes," Oxfam said, with Israeli authorities claiming the materials can't enter Gaza because they could feasibly be used as weapons.
Monther Shoblaq, director general of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, one of Oxfam's partners, commended the group's staff for "going to such lengths to bring water access to those who need it so desperately," and noted that "the equipment needed is just across the border, blocked from entry."
"Agencies are having to resort to salvaging materials from the rubble of bombed water infrastructure and the remains of people’s homes, repurposing parts, and paying inflated prices," said Shoblaq. "This is the direct result of Israeli restrictions, last-resort measures forced by siege conditions."
"Needs in Gaza exceed far beyond the aid and reconstruction materials Israel is allowing in and the situation will worsen if Israel’s collective punishment and illegal blockade continues," Shoblaq added. "Water deprivation is just one of the many human rights violations Israel has undertaken with impunity. Oxfam and other organizations who have operated in Gaza for decades must be allowed to respond at the scale."
More than 440 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the so-called "ceasefire" began, and more than 2,500 residential buildings have been destroyed.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Gaza No Longer Officially Facing Famine—But 1.6 Million Palestinians Still in 'Man-Made Hunger Crisis'
"To end this catastrophe, supplies must be let in at scale and humanitarians allowed to do their job," said the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Dec 19, 2025
While the global initiative that tracks hunger crises concluded Friday that the Gaza Strip is no longer facing "famine," the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report echoed warnings from United Nations leaders and humanitarian groups that "the situation remains critical" for Palestinians who have endured over two years of an Israeli assault and blockade.
Famine was declared in August, sparking a worldwide outrage over what one research group called "genocidal starvation." The new IPC report—released after an October ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel—says that "following a significant reduction in conflict, a proposed peace plan, and improved access for both humanitarian and commercial food deliveries, food security conditions have improved in the Gaza Strip."
However, the report also notes that between mid-October and the end of November, "around 1.6 million people (77% of the population analyzed) faced high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above)," including "more than half a million people in emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 100,000 people in catastrophe (IPC Phase 5)."
Those conditions—over three-quarters of Gaza's population at risk of famine—are expected to continue through April. In other words, as Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), put it, "Gaza remains in a man-made hunger crisis."
The latest IPC report "underscores how fragile the gains have been since the ceasefire began in October," he said on social media. "To end this catastrophe, supplies must be let in at scale and humanitarians allowed to do their job. UNRWA has food parcels for 1.1 million people and flour for the entire population waiting to enter the Gaza Strip."
As the Associated Press reported Friday, while Israeli government agencies rejected the IPC findings, humanitarian leaders and Palestinians have highlighted all that the people of Gaza continue to endure because of Israel's war on the strip:
"This is not a debate about truck numbers or calories on paper. It's about whether people can actually access food, clean water, shelter, and healthcare safely and consistently. Right now, they cannot," said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam's policy lead for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
People must be able to rebuild their homes, grow food, and recover, and the conditions for that are still being denied, she said.
Even with more products in the markets, Palestinians say they can't afford it. "There is food and meat, but no one has money," said Hany al-Shamali, who was displaced from Gaza City. "How can we live?"
Earlier this week, the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which brings together heads of UN entities and over 200 nongovernmental organizations, urged the international community to "take immediate and concrete actions to press the Israeli authorities to lift all impediments," including a new registration process for NGOs, that continue to undermine lifesaving operations, "or risk the collapse of the humanitarian response, particularly in the Gaza Strip."
The team emphasized that "humanitarian access is not optional, conditional, or political. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, particularly in Gaza, where Israel has failed to ensure that the population is adequately supplied. Israeli authorities must allow and facilitate rapid, unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief. They must immediately reverse policies that obstruct humanitarian operations and ensure that humanitarian organizations are able to operate without compromising humanitarian principles. Lifesaving assistance must be allowed to reach Palestinians without further delay."
Israel has killed at least 70,669 Palestinians in the strip and wounded 171,165 others since launching its retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday. Experts have warned that the true death toll is likely far higher.
Winter storms are exacerbating already dire conditions in Gaza, including by damaging and destroying shelters of displaced people. Oxfam's humanitarian director, Marta Valdes García, said Friday that "with 1.6 million people found to be facing acute food insecurity... we are incredibly concerned that winter is already bringing flooding and more misery to thousands of hungry people with little or no money, who are now exposed in terrible living conditions."
Multiple infants have died of hypothermia in recent days, including a 14-day-old named Mohammed, whose family is living in a tent after being displaced from their home in the east of Khan Younis. His mother, Eman Abu al-Khair, told Al Jazeera that "I can still hear his tiny cries in my ears... I sleep and drift off, unable to believe that his crying and waking me at night will never happen again."
"His body was cold as ice. His hands and feet were frozen, his face stiff and yellowish, and he was barely breathing... I woke my husband immediately so we could take him to the hospital, but he couldn't find any means of transportation to get us there," the 34-year-old recalled. "As soon as daylight broke, we rushed with an animal-drawn cart towards the hospital... But unfortunately, we arrived too late. His condition was already critical."
Another 29-day-old baby, Saeed Eseid Abdeen, was declared dead at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Thursday, according to Drop Site News and Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
A fourth child has frozen to death in Gaza in just 10 days—two of them babies—as Israel continues blocking tents and winter shelter aid, despite UN supplies pre-positioned at the border that could immediately shelter more than 1.3 million displaced Palestinians.
[image or embed]
— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) December 18, 2025 at 7:41 PM
"Children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival," Bilal Abu Saada, nursing team supervisor at Nasser Hospital, said in a statement from MSF. "Babies are arriving to the hospital cold, with near-death vital signs: Even our best efforts are not enough. They say the war has ended, but people are still having to fight for their lives."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy