Media Releases

Oxfam Aotearoa: NDC announcement a betrayal to Pacific Island countries

October 31, 2021

The New Zealand government’s NDC announcement is a betrayal to Pacific Island countries and those on the frontlines of climate change says Oxfam Aotearoa Executive Director Rachael Le Mesurier. The Government’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target sets the bar for New Zealand’s contribution to keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees under the Paris Agreement. However, Le Mesurier says that the target is not good enough:

“Let’s be real here, this is not our fair share. The government has changed the way they count our emissions reductions to make them look like they are doing more than they are. This is a government that has said time and again that climate change is our nuclear-free moment. Instead of leading the fight against climate breakdown, they are hiding their inaction by changing the goal posts.

“Our previous target was to reduce emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 on an emissions budget basis. The Climate Change Commission (CCC) recommended that to be consistent with 1.5 degrees, New Zealand’s new target needed to be ‘much more than 36 per cent’ measured on an emissions budget basis, yet it is only 41 per cent,” Le Mesurier said.

Rather than showing the ambition we need, what the government have done today is change the way they measure their emissions from an emissions budget basis to a point year basis. This means they can make it look like they have increased the target by more than they have.

Last year, an Oxfam report found that to meet its fair share, New Zealand’s updated target needed to be between 80–133 per cent emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2030. Le Mesurier says that the government has had all the science, advice and the tools to get this right, but this time has failed Aotearoa, failed our Pacific whanau and failed as a global citizen:

“We’ve shown that we can play our part in global efforts with a recent four-fold increase in climate finance for countries most vulnerable to climate change. But now we need to get our own house in order. Each Minister in Cabinet needs to take responsibility for that fact that our current plans for domestic action are completely inadequate. New Zealand is not taking the action necessary for the country to do its bit to protect our planet and our people from significant harm.”

Earlier this year the harrowing sixth IPCC report revealed human influence has warmed the planet almost beyond repair, issuing what the UN Secretary General called a “red alert” for humanity that world leaders must urgently act on.

“The New Zealand government has shown us today that they are not committed to limiting the worst effects of climate change for people on the frontlines, nor to keeping a 1.5 degrees future in reach. For that to change, some bold action needs to happen to tackle our industries with the biggest footprint domestically, including the agriculture sector.”

/ENDS

Notes:

New Zealand’s NDC target of 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 on a point year basis equates to 41 per cent on an emissions budget basis. This is a mere 5 per cent beyond the Climate Commission’s absolute bottom line.
The Government’s creative accounting is compounded by the fact that New Zealand continues to measure its net reductions against an inflated baseline by using gross emissions in 2005. On a net-net basis, this target is more like 27-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Oxfam Aotearoa is calling the new NDC target a “scandal” as the vast majority of it is being met by offshore carbon credits – no country in the world is planning to rely on these to the extent that New Zealand is to meet their NDC.
Ardern claims that this new NDC target is New Zealand’s fair share; however, it is not consistent with keeping global heating to 1.5 degrees under the Paris Agreement, let alone our fair share of effort

ILO report a “stark reminder” that vaccine inequality is “economic self-harm”, People’s Vaccine Alliance says

October 27, 2021

Responding to an International Labour Organisation’s report, “ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the World of Work”, campaigners have called global vaccine inequality “a collective act of social and economic self-harm”.

The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of more than 75 organisations including Oxfam, UNAIDS, Global Justice Now, and Amnesty International, is calling on governments to support a waiver of intellectual property rules on COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments at the World Trade Organisation, and to pressure pharmaceutical companies to share the technology and know-how behind their vaccines with the World Health Organisation.

Commenting on behalf of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, Alex Maitland, Oxfam’s Private Sector Senior Advisor:

“This report is a stark reminder that allowing COVID-19 to run rampant in the Global South is a collective act of social and economic self-harm that devastates jobs, businesses, and communities across the world. Women and young people have borne the brunt of job losses while pharmaceutical companies have reaped billions from vaccine monopolies.

“Governments like the UK and Germany, who are defending vaccine patents at all costs, must stop holding up the global recovery. If they want to avoid an ever-deepening global jobs crisis, they need to waive intellectual property on COVID-19 vaccines and force pharmaceutical companies to share their vaccine technology with the world.”

BioNTech and Moderna’s African vaccine announcements “pittance”, People’s Vaccine Alliance says

October 27, 2021

Vaccine equity campaigners have called news that Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer BioNTech will start building a vaccine production facility in Rwanda next year “far too little; far too late”.

The People’s Vaccine Alliance has also said that Moderna’s new commitment to produce 110 million doses for the African Union as “barely worth the paper it is written on” after the company failed to deliver promised vaccines to COVAX, calling on the US government to step in and mandate the company to commit to technology transfer.

The alliance, a coalition of more than 75 organisations including Oxfam, UNAIDS, Global Justice Now, and Amnesty International, has called on BioNTech and Moderna to share the technology and know-how for its vaccine with the WHO’s Covid-19 technology access pool (C-TAP) and mRNA hub in South Africa.

While the alliance calls more global south manufacturing a “positive development”, it says BioNTech’s offer of 50 million doses from the middle of next year is “pittance” compared to the amount produced in the company’s facilities in Germany.

Reacting to BioNTech’s announcement, Anna Marriott, policy lead for the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said:

“After huge public pressure, BioNTech has finally committed to manufacturing vaccines in the global south. While this is a positive development, it’s far too little, far too late from a company that has made a killing from the pandemic.

“Offering to only start building a facility in Africa in the middle of next year that will then at some point produce just 50 million doses – enough for just 2 per cent of the continent’s population – is a pittance when just one of their factories in Germany produces more than that each month.

“If BioNTech really wants to change the course of this pandemic, it should immediately share the technology and know-how for this publicly-funded innovation with the WHO’s technology pool and mRNA hub in South Africa, so that more developing country manufacturers can produce these game-changing vaccines.”

Reacting to Moderna’s announcement, Anna Marriott, policy lead for the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said:

“After having so far delivered zero of their committed doses to COVAX, this new Moderna Memorandum of Understanding with the African Union to at some point deliver 110 million more vaccines is barely worth the paper it is written on.

“This is a publicly funded vaccine and should be available to all as a public good. It is beyond time that the US government step in and insist the vaccine technology is shared immediately with the WHO mRNA technology hub.”

Notes

Read The People’s Vaccine Alliance full report: “A Dose of Reality: How rich countries and pharmaceutical corporations are breaking their vaccine promises“.

A report last month from Amnesty International found that large pharmaceutical companies, including BioNTech and Moderna, were fuelling an unprecedented human rights crisis through their refusal to waive intellectual property rights and share vaccine technology.

Breaking Through Red Lines Report

October 27, 2021

Oxfam Aotearoa along with Oxfam Australia, and Oxfam in the Pacific have released a new report titled Breaking through red lines. Oxfam says that the report draws attention to gaps in the latest funds announced for overseas climate action by the New Zealand government. The funds will go towards supporting efforts to reducing emissions in the Pacific.

Oxfam in the Pacific’s Climate Justice Lead Ilisapeci Masivesi says that while funds to support community adaptation and mitigation are crucial, the report shows that climate change is causing unavoidable loss and damage, which needs distinct funds to help communities recover and restore what has been lost:

“New Zealand’s recent increase in support for adaptation in the Pacific is very welcome. However, while it is a huge help, it does not address the full picture of what we are experiencing in the islands.

“At COP26, it is crucial that governments around the world listen to the voices of those on the frontlines of climate change. Communities in the Pacific have been calling for loss and damage finance for 30 years.

“My country of Fiji is among the most disaster-prone in the world. To survive we are developing solutions that help farmers to restore their crops after a cyclone or villagers to shift their entire homes because of sea level rise. Communities are mostly paying for this themselves even though they did nothing to create the problems. Rich countries that are most responsible for causing climate change, including New Zealand and Australia, need to help more and support Pacific leadership that is calling for finance solutions to compensate these unavoidable impacts globally.”

The report, which outlines the loss and damage faced across the Pacific, includes the effects cyclones and flooding are having on Fiji. Despite efforts to adapt, climate-charged cyclones and flooding causes asset losses equivalent to five percent of GDP in Fiji each year. Cyclone Winston in 2016 caused damage equivalent to 20 percent of GDP. Oxfam says that these events are becoming more frequent and more intense pushing over 25,000 people into poverty every year in Fiji.

The report also shows that loss and damage is being experienced by Māori communities within Aotearoa, and that this needs a distinct response from the New Zealand government to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Alex Johnston, Oxfam Aotearoa Campaign Lead said that New Zealand’s policy position ahead of COP26 on loss and damage focuses on avoiding and mitigating loss and damage through adaptation finance but not addressing the unavoidable loss that is already occurring:

“New Zealand’s position does not align with Pacific Island countries’ policy position. At COP26, making progress to mobilise sufficient funds to address loss and damage requires political will, as well as new and innovative sources of finance.”

“New Zealand and Australia have contributed funds to help set up insurance schemes to support Pacific Island communities recover from cyclones and extreme weather, but to be maintained these rely on payments from affected communities and on the private market to make a profit. Very little has been done to help communities cover the costs of slow-onset events like sea level rise, and what has been done is treated as adaptation – not loss and damage finance.

Johnston said, “Oxfam Aotearoa is calling for the New Zealand government to align with Pacific Island Countries’ positions on loss and damage at COP26, scale up financial support to existing loss and damage finance solutions in the Pacific, and develop distinct responses in the Climate Adaptation Act to the loss and damage that Māori experience on these shores.”

See the full report here.

OECD tax deal is a mockery of fairness: Oxfam

October 13, 2021

In response to the OECD’s tax deal announced today, Oxfam’s Tax Policy Lead Susana Ruiz said: “Today’s tax deal was meant to end tax havens for good. Instead it was written by them.”

“This deal is a shameful and dangerous capitulation to the low-tax model of nations like Ireland. It is a mockery of fairness that robs pandemic-ravaged developing countries of badly needed revenue for hospitals and teachers and better jobs. The world is experiencing the largest increase in poverty in decades and a massive explosion in inequality but this deal will do little or nothing to halt either. Instead, it is already being seen by some wealthy nations as an excuse to cut domestic corporate tax rates, risking a new race to the bottom.

“Calling this deal ‘historic’ is hypocritical and does not hold up to even the most minor scrutiny. The tax devil is in the details, including a complex web of exemptions that could let big offenders like Amazon off the hook. At the last minute a colossal 10-year grace period was slapped onto the global corporate tax of 15 percent, and additional loopholes leave it with practically no teeth.

“This deal is an unacceptable injustice. It needs a complete overhaul. The OECD and the G20 must bring fairness and ambition back to the table and deliver a tax plan that won’t leave the rest of the world to pick up their crumbs and scraps.”

Notes to editor

140 countries have been negotiating the two-pillar tax framework under the OECD-G20 umbrella. The first ‘pillar’ aims to make the world’s largest corporations pay more taxes in the country where they earn profits. Based on current proposals, Oxfam estimates that it will affect only 69 multinationals and would only apply on ‘super profits’ above 10 percent. Loopholes could let the likes of Amazon and ‘onshore’ secrecy jurisdictions like the City of London off the hook. Extractives and regulated financial services are excluded from the deal.

New analysis by Oxfam estimates that 52 developing countries would receive around 0.025 percent of their collective GDP in additional annual tax revenue from the ‘Pillar One’ proposal endorsed today.

The second ‘pillar’ seeks a global minimum corporate tax rate. The OECD tax plan dropped “at least” from a proposed minimum global corporate tax rate of “at least 15 percent” and further delayed its full implementation from the previously planned 5 years to 10 years.

The 15 percent rate is well below the UN Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI) Panel recommendation made earlier this year, which called for a 20- to 30-percent global corporate tax on profits. The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) has called for a 25 percent global minimum tax to be applied. 

A 25 percent global minimum corporate tax rate would raise nearly $17 billion more for the world’s 38 poorest countries (for which data is available) than a 15 percent rate. These countries are home to 38.6 percent of the world’s population.

Developing countries are more heavily reliant on corporate tax. In 2018, African countries raised 19 percent of their overall revenue from corporate tax, compared to just 10 percent for OECD nations.

Detention as the Default Report

October 7, 2021

Greece is turning more and more to the practice of administrative detention to manage people who arrive in Greece to claim asylum. This is according to the new report, Detention as the Default, from the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) and Oxfam. The report found:

An excessive use of administrative detention with nearly 3,000 migrants in detention as of June 2021.
7 out of 10 irregular migrants are put in administrative detention with the majority remaining detained when applying for asylum.
1 in 5 people are detained for a long period of time in police cells which are designed to only hold people for just a few hours.
Pregnant women, children and people with vulnerabilities are being placed in detention without the appropriate access to health care and legal aid.
Nearly half of migrants (46%) in administrative detention remain there for over 6 months.

The desire to make detention the norm is reflected in recent changes to Greece’s policy and practice. This is despite European law saying that administrative detention should only be used as a last resort. In 2019, the Greek authorities expanded the grounds for administrative detention of asylum seekers to include verification of identity. They also removed the need to examine alternatives to detention in certain circumstances and introduced an amendment to increase the duration of detention up to 3 years. This approach is in clear violation of European and Greek law.

Vasilis Papastergiou, Legal expert at the Greek Council for said:

“Administrative detention is just another tool to stop people from seeking safety in Europe. While the Greek authorities refuse to look at other less severe options to detention, like frequent check-ins, the Greek courts often turn down appeals to detention, even in the most shocking of circumstances like the appeal of a heavily pregnant woman. Europe’s hands are also not clean as the EU funds the new ‘closed and controlled’ quasi-detention centres, places where migrants are left to be forgotten.

“In Greece, the detention of migrants is the rule, not the exception. Not only is it against international and European asylum law, but it also carries with it a heavy moral and financial cost.”

Testimonies gathered by the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) expose the real story of people stuck in administrative detention.

Syrian man who spent 9 months in a cell.

The Greek authorities put Omar*, a Syrian national, into detention when he applied for asylum. Omar said: “we were locked in our cells for 22 hours a day – no mobile phone, no visits, disgusting food. We often had to beg the guards to unlock us to go to the toilet. And sometimes this was not even possible.”

The child trapped by the pandemic.

Mohammed* was a child when he arrived in Greece. He asked to join his family in another European country. His application was successful, but his flight to join his family was cancelled due to the start of the pandemic. While waiting for Covid-19 restrictions to lift, he turned eighteen and had to leave the child protection services and move into an apartment. After an incident, he rang the police fearing for his safety. Instead of helping him, the police put him in detention. He was in detention for months as the family reunification unit where unable to find him due to the Greek authority’s administrative failures. His mental health deteriorated, and he attempted suicide. Despite Mohammed’s poor physical and mental health, the authorities put him back in a cell after his hospitalisation. Following many interventions by GCR, he was finally allowed to be reunited with his family after eight months of being detained.

The detainee denied life-saving medical treatment.

Amir-Ali*, an Iranian asylum-seeker did not receive the vital medication needed to stop his body from rejecting a kidney transplant despite the detention centres doctor stating his condition was life-threatening. This left Amir-Ali fearing for his life while in detention. He is now out of detention after months of interventions from GCR and the Greek Ombudsman.

The survivor of violence still stuck in detention.

In Kos, the Greek authorities automatically put asylum seekers in detention if they come from a country with an asylum recognition rate below 33 per cent. Gloria* arrived to Kos, and as she was from Togo, she was automatically put in detention. Despite being classed as a person with vulnerabilities as she was a survivor of sexual and physical violence, the Greek authorities did not provide her with treatment. In detention, her mental health deteriorated, and Gloria attempted suicide. After being hospitalised, she was put back in detention where she remained until GCR successfully got her out.

Erin McKay, European Migration Campaign Manager at Oxfam said:

“These stories shine a light on the heartless and shocking conditions in detention. We see people die in detention from preventable illnesses and from taking their own lives out of complete desperation. We see children in detention and pregnant women. The people in detention speak of their sense of abandonment and the huge deterioration of their mental health. Detention of migrants and asylum seekers is not and cannot be the default. The Greek authorities must use alternatives to detention and not punish people for wanting to build a life in Europe.”

Notes to editors:   

Read the new report from the Greek Council for Refugees and Oxfam, Detention as the Default: How Greece, with the support of the EU, is generalizing administrative detention of migrants.

Spokespeople are available in Athens and Lesbos (English, Greek) and in Brussels (English).  

Nearly 3,000 (2,392) third-country nationals are in administrative detention as of June 2021 because they do not hold papers to be in Greece.

In 2016, the total number of persons detained was 14,864, of which 4,072 were asylum seekers. By 2019, this number had doubled to 30,007, of which 23,348 were asylum seekers. There was a decrease in 2020 (14993 people, of which 10.130 were asylum seekers). This decrease is due to the impact of the pandemic with less arrivals and restrictions on the amount of people in detention.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in two separate cases in 2018 and 2019 that the prolonged detention in police stations breaches the prohibition on torture as per Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, noting that ‘police stations per se … are places designed to accommodate people for a short time only’. Despite this, the Greek authorities continue this unacceptable practice.

Names of persons in testimonies changes to protect anonymity.  