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 international
International Survey Shows 81% Back Forcing Big Oil to Pay for Climate Destruction
"People are no longer buying the lies. They see the fingerprints of fossil fuel giants all over the storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastating their lives, and they want accountability," said the head of one green group.
Jun 19, 2025
Large majorities of people around the world support both taxing oil, gas, and coal companies for the environmental damage made worse by fossil fuels and using higher taxes on polluters to support communities most impacted by the climate crisis, according to the results of an international survey released Thursday.
The study, which was jointly commissioned by Greenpeace International and Oxfam International, surveyed roughly 1,200 people in each of these 13 countries: Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom, and the United States. The research was conducted by the data company Dynata, and field work was done between May 9-28, 2025. Greenpeace noted that, taken together, the countries represent close to 50% of the globe's population.
The results of the survey showed a whopping 81% of those surveyed would support taxes fossil fuel companies to pay for damages wrought by "fossil-fuel driven climate disasters."
"These survey results send a clear message: people are no longer buying the lies. They see the fingerprints of fossil fuel giants all over the storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastating their lives, and they want accountability," said Mads Christensen, the executive director of Greenpeace International.
"It's only fair that those who caused the crisis should pay for the damage, not those suffering from it," he added.
The study findings come as individual states in the U.S. show a growing interest in passing legislation to force fossil fuel companies to help pay for the recovery cost of climate-related disasters. Vermont became the first state in the country to pass a climate "Superfund" law in 2024, and New York followed suit later that year. Several other states are considering such legislation, according to March reporting from Stateline.
The survey also found that 86% of respondents support channeling revenues "from higher taxes on oil and gas corporations towards communities most impacted by the climate crisis."
Climate campaigners have long sought international financial arrangement that would see rich countries transfer money to developing countries in order to help the latter cut their emissions and adapt to climate change. Last year's United Nations climate negotiations ended with a pledge by donor countries to set at least $300 billion annually for that purpose. That amount was criticized for being inadequate.
The study was launched Thursday at the UN Climate Meetings in Bonn, where government representatives are discussing climate policies, including ways to raise at least $ 1.3 trillion annually for climate mitigation, adaptation, and recovery by 2035 across the Global South.
According to Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, "a new tax on polluting industries could provide immediate and significant support to climate-vulnerable countries, and finally incentivize investment in renewables and a just transition."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Oxfam Warns Israel's 'Annihilation Campaign' Is 'Entirely Erasing Gaza'
"The pattern suggests not an effort to neutralize a threat, but a deliberate campaign to dismantle and depopulate Gaza—a process of forced displacement which is a war crime."
May 29, 2025
Israel's U.S.-backed mass displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip "is entirely erasing Gaza," a leading international charity said Thursday as the United Nations' Middle East peace envoy warned that ongoing airstrikes, forced starvation, and general despair have plunged the embattled coastal enclave into "an abyss."
Since unilaterally breaking a cease-fire on March 2, "Israel issued nearly one displacement order every two days, strangling people into isolated areas covering less than 20% of the Gaza Strip," Nairobi, Kenya-based Oxfam International noted.
"Combined with deliberate deprivation, this reveals a strategy not of targeting militants, but of dismantling and erasing Gaza itself," Oxfam added. Some Israeli leaders have explicitly called for Gaza's "erasure" to avenge the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
"People are so exhausted, many would rather face death than flee again."
"For over 600 days, Israel has been saying it's targeting Hamas, but it is civilians who have been corralled, bombed, and killed en masse every day," said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam's policy lead in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
"The displacement orders follow a clear and calculated pattern: using the threat of violence to herd civilians into ever-shrinking zones of confinement," Khalidi added. "This isn't counterterrorism, as Israel alleges—it's the systematic clearing of Gaza through militarized force into enclaves of internment."
📽️ WATCH: This map visualizes #Gaza’s systematic erasure. Since breaking the ceasefire, Israel issued nearly one displacement order every two days, strangling people into isolated areas covering less than 20 percent of the Gaza Strip. Find out more: oxf.am/3Hbshlz
[image or embed]
— Oxfam International (@oxfaminternational.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Oxfam analyzed Israel's more than 30 displacement orders, which, combined with Israel Defense Forces (IDF)-designated "no-go zones," cover more than 80% of the 141-square mile Gaza Strip.
"The sheer scale and relentless frequency of these orders have made it virtually impossible for people to find refuge," the charity said. "The pattern suggests not an effort to neutralize a threat, but a deliberate campaign to dismantle and depopulate Gaza—a process of forced displacement which is a war crime."
As Oxfam noted:
In just the last week (15–20 May), over 160,000 people were displaced—part of a broader total of nearly 600,000 people displaced since March 18, many of them repeatedly. One of the most significant recent orders, issued on 20 May, covered 34.9 square kilometers, roughly 10% of Gaza's land area, that affected 150,000–200,000 people in North Gaza's Beit Lahia and Jabalia. The effect of such orders on already-displaced populations has been devastating.
"Imagine trying to move with four children or an elderly parent in the middle of the night, with no transport and nowhere to go," said Oxfam gender adviser Fidaa Alaraj, who has been displaced with her family several times. "People are so exhausted, many would rather face death than flee again."
Palestinians, United Nations experts, international humanitarian groups, progressive U.S. lawmakers, and others including a former right-wing Israeli defense minister have called Israel's forced displacement ethnic cleansing.
Fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation—recently said that Israel will control all of Gaza after Operation Gideon's Chariots, a campaign to conquer, ethnically cleanse, and indefinitely occupy the strip.
Far-right members of Netanyahu's Cabinet and the Israeli Knesset want to permanently seize Gaza and reestablish Jewish-only apartheid colonies in the coastal enclave, which U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed taking over and turning into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
"There is one essential condition: We must not reach a situation of famine, both from a practical standpoint and a diplomatic one," Netanyahu said on May 19. "People simply won't support us."
While 82% of Israelis surveyed in a recent poll said they supported the ethnic cleansing of Gaza—and nearly half backed a biblical genocide of Palestinians—much of the world is aghast at Israel's annihilation of the strip, which has left more than 191,000 people dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, often more than once.
Meanwhile, the famine against which Netanyahu warned looms larger than ever as hundreds of Gazans, mostly children and the elderly, have recently died from malnutrition and lack of medical care, according to local officials.
On Thursday, Sigrid Kaag, the interim U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, warned that Gazans are "being starved and denied the very basics" by Israel, which in March tightened an already crippling "complete siege" of Gaza. The blockade has been cited in the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice.
"The entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine," she warned, likening the trickle of aid allowed into the strip by Israel to offering "a lifeboat after the ship has sunk."
Kaag highlighted the despair pervasive among Gazans, who she said bid farewell not by saying, "Goodbye, see you tomorrow," but rather with the words "see you in heaven."
"Death is their companion. It's not life, it's not hope," she said.
"Since the collapse of the ceasefire in March, civilians have constantly come under fire, confined to ever-shrinking spaces, and deprived of lifesaving relief," Kaag added. "Israel must halt its devastating strikes on civilian life and infrastructure."
"This annihilation campaign and the bloodshed must end."
Echoing Kaag's remarks, Oxfam's Khalidi said that "this annihilation campaign and the bloodshed must end. It is long past time for Western governments and other influential powers to move beyond statements and apply meaningful pressure on Israel to lift the siege and abandon any designs on annexing Gaza."
"Peace cannot be brokered on the ruins of Gaza nor the theft of Palestinian land," she stressed. "Ahead of the Two-State Solution Summit planned in New York next month, world leaders must urge Israel to lift the siege and abandon any annexation plans of Gaza or the West Bank."
"What's at stake is not only Palestine's future," Khalidi argued, "but the integrity of every nation that claims to uphold international law."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Grotesque Spectacle' on May Day: CEO Pay Up 50% Since 2019 Compared to 0.9% for Workers
"This isn't a glitch in the system—it's the system working exactly as designed, funneling wealth ever upwards while millions of working people struggle to afford rent, food, and healthcare."
May 01, 2025
As people worldwide filled the streets Thursday to celebrate International Workers' Day and mobilize against attacks on the working class, a new analysis showed that average global CEO pay has surged 50% since 2019—56 times more than the pay of ordinary employees.
The Oxfam International analysis examined figures from nearly 2,000 corporations across 35 countries where CEOs were paid more than $1 million on average last year, including bonuses and stock options. Across those companies, the average pay of chief executives reached $4.3 million in 2024, up from $2.9 million just five years ago.
By contrast, average worker pay in those 35 nations rose just 0.9% between 2019 and 2024.
"Year after year, we see the same grotesque spectacle: CEO pay explodes while workers' wages barely budge," said Amitabh Behar, Oxfam's executive director. "This isn't a glitch in the system—it's the system working exactly as designed, funneling wealth ever upwards while millions of working people struggle to afford rent, food, and healthcare."
According to Oxfam, global billionaires "pocketed on average $206 billion in new wealth over the last year," or $23,500 an hour. That's more than the average annual income globally—$21,000—in 2023.
To begin redressing global economic inequality, Oxfam called for top marginal tax rates of at least 75% on the highest earners and wage increases to ensure worker pay keeps up with inflation.
"It's time to end the billionaire coup against democracy and put people and planet first."
Luc Triangle, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said in a statement that the "outrageous pay inequality between CEOs and workers confirms that we lack democracy where it is needed most: at work."
"Around the world, workers are being denied the basics of life while corporations pocket record profits, dodge taxes, and lobby to evade responsibility," Triangle added. "Workers are demanding a New Social Contract that works for them—not the billionaires undermining democracy. Fair taxation, strong public services, living wages, and a just transition are not radical demands—they are the foundation of a just society."
"It's time to end the billionaire coup against democracy and put people and planet first," he added.
In addition to spotlighting the growing chasm between CEO and worker pay, the Oxfam analysis warned that the global working class "is now facing a new threat" in the form of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff regime. The humanitarian group argued that "these policies pose significant risks for workers worldwide, including job losses and rising costs for basic goods that would stoke extreme inequality everywhere."
"For so many workers worldwide, President Trump's reckless use of tariffs means a push from one cruel order to another: from the frying pan of destructive neoliberal trade policy to the fire of weaponized tariffs," said Behar. "These policies will not only hurt working families in the U.S., but especially harm workers trying to escape poverty in some of the world's poorest countries."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular