Oxfam logo
The Future is Equal
Oxfam logo in green

News & Media

Remarks Delivered by Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Policy Lead, at the UN Security Council Emergency Session on Gaza

“History will remember whether this Council acted with urgency, courage and humanity. History will judge. But people in Gaza cannot wait for some future reckoning.”

Bushra Khalidi
Oxfam

Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Policy Lead Bushra Khalidi – a Palestinian mother from Jerusalem living in the West Bank – addressed the UN Security Council in New York today, warning that the ceasefire in Gaza is failing and urging member states to uphold their obligations under Resolution 2803. It was aired live at webtv.un.org/

Bushra is in New York this week and in Washington DC next week, and she is available for interview.

This is the text of her speech to the UNSC.

Madam President, thank you for your gracious invitation to brief this council,

I am here as a humanitarian – to speak today as Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Policy Lead. I bear witness to what Oxfam’s colleagues, local partners and communities in Gaza share daily. Palestinians are being denied the basic conditions to survive.

I speak also as a Palestinian mother from Jerusalem, living in the West Bank. My husband’s family is trapped in Gaza. For years, my son knows his family through separation, forcible displacement and loss.

I am one of the few Palestinian women able to access this chamber. I share this not because my story is exceptional. But because it reflects a wider Palestinian reality. Gaza is not separate from Jerusalem or the West Bank. It is governed by the same system of Israel’s unlawful occupation. A system that regulates and denies movement. Restricts crossings. Threatens homes. Divides families. We cannot travel freely. And Gaza is where that system reaches its most devastating expression.

Madam President, the humanitarian emergency in Gaza continues.

The ceasefire is failing. Israeli forces continue to kill Palestinians. Gaza is being carved up again, with more of its entire population squeezed into a shrinking fraction of the Strip. Civilians remain trapped, displaced, hungry, unprotected.

Peace cannot be measured by declarations. It must be measured by whether people can live. Whether parents can feed their children, families can sleep without fear, people can access clean water, patients receive medical care and communities rebuild.

This Council knows the devastation. You have been briefed for almost three years. Knowledge is not the issue. Action is.

Madam President, pallets, tonnage and trucks are often pointed to as evidence of access.

But a truck crossing a border is not the same as aid reaching a family. It does not tell us whether its cargo was humanitarian or commercial. Whether aid reached those most in need across Gaza. Progress must be measured against humanitarian outcomes. Do hospitals have medicine and fuel? Are water and sewage systems being repaired? Can children return to safe learning spaces? Can families sleep without sewage and waste surrounding them? Without their children waking up to rats biting their cheeks? By these measures, Gaza is not recovering.

My colleagues and I hear from people like Eman, a mother of three, living with her family in a cloth tent says: “Mice and rats eat through the tent and contaminate our food”

Tahrir, a grandmother, walks for hours for water tells us: “Every cup has become precious.”

Some goods can be found in markets, we’re told. But availability is not access when most families have no income and can’t afford food. Wheat is more than five times its pre-war price. Eggs cost four to five times more. Cooking gas has more than doubled. Basic medicine remains out of reach. Since March 2025, Israel has blocked Oxfam and other humanitarian actors from bringing any goods into Gaza. Limited entry through a handful of approved channels is no match for the scale of need. Palestinians in Gaza are not asking others to rebuild their future. They want to lead it.

Gaza needs systems restored: Water. Hospitals. Shelter. Sanitation. Schools. Electricity. Public services. Protection. Under impossible circumstances, my colleagues and our Palestinian partners continue to deliver essential aid: Water and sanitation, food, hygiene kits. The bare minimum. Since October 2023, we have reached almost 1.5 million individuals.

Madam President, the humanitarian architecture necessary for recovery has been deliberately dismantled.

Credible humanitarian actors, including UNRWA, are blocked from doing their jobs. Despite being audited, transparent, accountable, bound by humanitarian principles. They coordinate, serve people according to need, speak when civilians are harmed or in danger. That includes condemning the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians on 7 October and speaking clearly about the genocide and collective punishment imposed on Palestinians in Gaza. Yet, they are obstructed, restricted, deregistered, killed in shocking numbers. These are the experienced professionals that parties should want in a response. Blocking principled humanitarians is part of a wider collective punishment. When they are blocked, opaque and unaccountable actors fill the vacuum. Prioritization collapses, coordination erodes, communities are left to navigate scarcity and survival on their own.

Madam President, Resolution 2803 was adopted to uphold the ceasefire and address the apocalyptic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

But adoption is not implementation. Seven months later, even these basic objectives are not being met. And implementation is not the ceiling of what Palestinians are owed under international law. It is a baseline. It must be judged by whether people in Gaza are safer, whether aid is reaching them at scale, whether Palestinian rights are upheld.

By these measures, implementation is failing. The Council must hold the parties accountable now. Not after further political negotiations, not after disarmament, not as a reward for compliance. Now.

Are civilians protected? Are crossings open? Is aid independent? Are services restored? Can people move, return and rebuild safely? Those questions require independent, transparent processing at Gaza’s crossings and reporting verified by the UN and humanitarian actors

Not once every six months, not based on announcements by the parties, and not treated as a substitute for action.

If benchmarks are ignored or dismissed, this Council must act by using all available political, diplomatic and legal tools to end atrocities, to end the occupation

Madam President, the drivers of this humanitarian catastrophe are political.

Political choices produce humanitarian consequences: Siege, settlement expansion, denial of movement, obstruction of humanitarian actors, destruction of civilian infrastructure, annexation, dispossession. Palestinians are being denied self-determination. In Gaza, they are being denied even the basic conditions to survive.

These conditions will not end while the unlawful occupation that produces and sustains them continues. While impunity continues.

Member states cannot call for humanitarian relief while allowing economic, trade, business or military ties deepen Palestinian dispossession and need.

Madam President, the people of Gaza do not need another framework that manages their destitution and basic survival.

They need a ceasefire that holds, all crossings open, aid at scale, protection, accountability, support for women and children living with trauma, loss and repeated displacement, the right to return, rebuild and determine their future.

On July 3, we will mark 1,000 days of this war. This month also marks 19 years of Israel’s siege on Gaza. Palestinian voices must not only be heard – they must be centered in every decision about Gaza’s future.

Our lives and futures are too often shaped in rooms where we are absent. States must uphold international humanitarian law, the ICJ provisional measures, the ICJ Advisory Opinion, and commitments made through the New York Declaration. They must protect civilians and humanitarian workers, secure access and ensure their trade, business and military ties do not sustain further violations.

Excellencies,

History will not remember how many reports were filed, or how many meetings were convened. It will judge whether, when confronted with lives and futures being obliterated, this Council acted with urgency, with courage, with humanity.

As teams from countries around the world gather here to play football, Palestinians are asking for something far more basic.

To live, to move, to return, to rebuild, to see children not having to risk their lives to kick a ball. To see our children simply survive another day.

We must be protected. These atrocities must be stopped. But people in Gaza cannot wait for some future reckoning. They are trapped in the present, surviving it, or being killed in it.

Contact information:

For more information or to arrange an interview contact: [email protected]

Scale of Ebola virus outbreak likely under-estimated – Oxfam

Humanitarian response lags behind a month into the largest Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak on record.

Only one in five health facilities in Ituri, one of the epicenters of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has access to enough clean water, according to new Oxfam field data. The findings raise urgent concerns about the spread of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus —access to clean water remains the first line of defense against transmission— raising fears that the true scale of the outbreak is underestimated.

Oxfam’s field data shows that in Mongbwalo, a town of nearly 140,000 people and one of the outbreak’s epicenters in Ituri province, only 20 percent of people have access to clean water while just 25 percent have access to functional sanitation and hygiene infrastructure. Many families are forced to use water contaminated by chemical runoff from mining operations.

These findings highlight a wider crisis across Ituri province: contaminated water sources, collapsed handwashing infrastructure and healthcare centers struggling to safely dispose of infectious waste, while many frontline workers still lack basic protective equipment. These conditions are hampering efforts to contain the spread of the virus.

Oxfam’s Field Response Coordinator in Ituri Province, Manel Rebordosa, who is based in the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC, said:

“Water —the absolute first line of defense in any public health emergency— is simply not available. Miners working in the surrounding areas have no toilets and handwashing stations, then they return home to communities already battling the virus. Clean water costs two dollars for 20 liters. For most families here, that is far beyond what they can afford.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed that this is now the largest Bundibugyo outbreak on record. The DRC Ministry of Health has reported 782 confirmed cases and 181 deaths across 25 health zones, but Oxfam warns the real toll is likely far higher. Unlike the 2018 outbreak, there is no licensed vaccine or approved therapeutic for the Bundibugyo strain, making clean water and sanitation a critical component of the fight against this virus.

Contact tracing, the backbone of any Ebola response, has fallen to just 43 percent coverage. This sits far below the 79 percent recorded one month into the 2018-2020 outbreak in the same region.

“One month into the 2018 outbreak, health care workers achieved contact tracing rates where nearly eight in ten known contacts were successfully monitored. Today, following the withdrawal of US funding for disease surveillance and severe funding shortfalls, contact tracing is reaching fewer than half of the contacts. That gap is not just a statistic, it is a painful reality that allows the virus to spread undetected through communities,” said Rebordosa.

With only 0.2 doctors per 1000 people and more than 70 health facilities destroyed by conflict, the DRC’s health authorities are struggling to identify new infections fast enough to interrupt transmission. In North Kivu, deaths are being reported in communities before patients are ever identified as Ebola cases. More families are caring for sick relatives at home, unknowingly exposing others to the virus.

Global humanitarian funding for the DRC has been slashed by 46 percent -from $2.58 billion in 2024 to $1.4 billion in 2026- the lowest coverage rate in a decade, forcing aid agencies to drastically scale back. Local organizations, often the primary responders during outbreaks, have received less than 6 percent of recent humanitarian funding according to the DRC NGO forum.

The aid cuts have forced organizations to reduce outreach community teams stripping away a critical pillar of the response. Furthermore, the severe shortage of personal protective equipment, sanitation facilities and clean water infrastructure continue to constrain response operations, making it increasingly difficult to combat both misinformation and the spread of the virus.

“When trusted community outreach teams disappear, rumors spread faster than the virus. People now fear healthcare facilities, which they see as deathtraps. Families are turning to traditional remedies, which risks delaying treatment and allowing the virus to spread further. Every day without funding, the virus takes more lives,” said Rebordosa.

Tibakanya Mireille, a mother of five in Ituri, said: “I brought my child to the hospital when I noticed she had a fever and she is now being tested. We are very worried. Here, two houses have been quarantined, and one family lost several relatives after caring for a sick relative, which caused others to be sick. The disease has already killed several people in our community of Shari, in Bunia.”

Oxfam is working with partners and has scaled up its response to the Ebola outbreak, mounting an initial $11.6 million six-month intervention to provide clean water and hygiene kits to 200,000 people in Ituri province and to support community-led awareness.

However, this falls far short of what is needed.

Notes to editors

According to WHO and DRC’s Ministry of Public Health the contact tracing rate was at 43,2% on 8th June, 2026 whereby it was at 79% one month into the 2018 Ebola outbreak in DRC (in French).

According to DRC’s Ministry of Health as of 13 June, there are 782 confirmed cases and 181 confirmed deaths.

The outbreak is caused by a rare Bundibugyo version of the Ebola virus, which has no approved vaccine or therapeutics. The current Bundibugyo outbreak is the largest of its kind and the third largest Ebola outbreak on record according to the CDC, only behind the 2018-20 Kivu Ebola epidemic in the DRC and the 2014-16 West African epidemic.

Humanitarian funding requirements for the DRC fell from $2.58 billion in 2024 to $1.4 billion in 2026, (nearly 46 per cent).

According to the Conseil National des Fora des ONG humanitaires et de Développement in DRC (CONAFOHD DRC), less than 6 percent of resources for the Ebola response has been allocated to local organizations in DRC.

According to World Bank Data, DRC has approximately 0.2 physicians per 1,000 people

Uganda has now recorded 19 confirmed Ebola cases, including eight newly confirmed infections and two deaths. Oxfam is providing protective equipment and supporting with infection prevention and community engagement efforts

Contact information:

For more information or to arrange an interview contact: [email protected]

G7 energy billionaires pocket $300 million a day since start of unlawful US and Israel war against Iran

  • Billionaire wealth has so far surged by nearly $10 trillion amid the fifth global economic crisis since 2020.

  • G7 countries slashed aid to the world’s poorest countries by $48 billion between 2024 and 2025 —a sum G7 billionaires accumulated in just nine days.

  • Oxfam calls on the “G6″ to stop using US intransigence as an excuse for inaction, urging taxes on excessive profits and the super-rich, debt suspension, more aid, and new Special Drawing Rights.

41 G7 energy billionaires have increased their wealth by $23.5 billion since the unlawful US and Israel war against Iran began, reveals new Oxfam analysis published ahead of the G7 summit in Evian, France. This is equivalent to about $1,000 in the time it takes to blink. Billionaires globally have gained $9.8 trillion since 2020.

Soaring energy and food prices are devastating households worldwide, particularly across low- and middle-income countries already battered by years of economic turmoil, debt crises, and climate shocks.

At the same time, six oil majors’ profits are projected to skyrocket by 80 percent ($68 billion) over pre-war forecasts. Their profits are on track to hit $152 billion in 2026, equivalent to $416 million a day. This windfall extends to other industries: three of the world’s top fertilizer corporations are expected to see profits jump by 23 percent ($928 million) compared to pre-war estimates. Overall, combined profits for some of the largest G7-headquartered corporations are expected to exceed pre-war projections by $413 million on average.

“Conflict devastates countries and costs countless lives, yet for some it is extraordinarily profitable,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar. “This is a brutal system that redistributes wealth upwards —from workers to shareholders, from the poorest to the richest, from those with the least power to those who already have far too much of it. While families are skipping meals and governments slash lifesaving aid, we are witnessing a grotesque billionaire bonanza.”

This fifth major global crisis since 2020 is being met with political paralysis and retreat. Unlike the coordinated international action seen in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine —when governments temporarily suspended debt service payments and the International Monetary Fund provided emergency lending—, G7 leaders are doing less than ever to help poorer countries.

Crucially, Oxfam warns that the remaining “G6” leaders —Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK— must stop using the US administration’s destructive actions in the global economy and in fueling conflict as an excuse for their own inaction. The G6 possesses immense, independent financial and diplomatic leverage that they are choosing to withhold.

Between 2024 and 2025, the G7 presided over the largest reduction in official development assistance (ODA) in its history, slashing aid to the world’s poorest countries by $48 billion. This is equivalent to the wealth accumulated by G7 billionaires in just nine days during that same period.

The human cost of the G7’s inaction is catastrophic. Since France last chaired the G7 summit, 44 people have fallen into a humanitarian emergency every single minute. From the preventable Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo to the ongoing genocide in Gaza —the most extreme and devastating example of G7 inaction, where not a single G7 country has imposed an arms embargo on Israel, let alone cut off arms being used in atrocities— multilateralism is being actively destroyed.

“To secure President Trump’s attendance at this summit, President Macron agreed to ignore discussions on climate breakdown, spiraling inequality, and the need for coordinated responses to overlapping global crises,” said Behar. “Even words like ‘gender’ or ‘climate’ have been expunged from the agenda to appease Washington. Rather than defending collective governance, Macron and his peers are accommodating its destruction. This will have consequences measured in lives.”

“The G6 can’t plead powerlessness,” Behar added. “They can cancel debt. They can tax windfall profits and extreme wealth. They can advocate for a new issuance of Special Drawing Rights. They can provide poorer countries with aid. Refusing to act simply because Washington will not join them is not diplomacy —it is cowardice. And it will only accelerate the G6’s slide into global irrelevance.”

Oxfam is calling on G7 leaders —and the G6 independently if necessary— to immediately implement a four-part response to protect ordinary people from the crisis:

  • Tax the excessive profits of corporations and the super-rich to reduce inequality.

  • Suspend and cancel debt. Replicate the COVID-19 playbook by immediately suspending all bilateral debt payments from low- and middle-income countries and use legislative mechanisms to force private creditors to do the same. Cancel unsustainable debt, which forces governments to make devastating cuts to essential public services.

  • Boost aid. Meet ODA commitments by returning to the 0.7 percent Gross National Income (GNI) target.

  • Unlock global liquidity. Support an immediate new issuance of Special Drawing Rights through the IMF —decoupled from quota shares— to inject much-needed liquidity into struggling economies without adding to their debt burdens. Concurrently, International financial institutions must deploy conditionality-free emergency lending, mirroring the crisis response deployed during the pandemic.

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam’s media brief and methodology note.

Overlapping crises since 2020 are deepening inequality, entrenching poverty and accelerating the concentration of wealth and power.

G7 energy billionaires increased their wealth by $23.5 billion since the war began. This is equivalent to $301 million per day, $3,487 per second or $1,046 every 0.3 seconds (average time it takes to blink).

The UNDP estimates that the unlawful US and Israel war against Iran could push more than 30 million people into poverty worldwide. The FAO Food Price Index —which tracks the international prices of a basket of globally-traded food commodities— rose more than three times faster during the February-April period in 2026 than it did during the corresponding months in 2025.

Billionaire wealth data is based on Oxfam’s analysis of Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire List as of 18 May 2026.

Corporate profit projections were calculated using 2026 consensus net income estimates —the average forecast of a corporation’s profits based on analyst projections— sourced from S&P Capital IQ. Pre-war estimates from 25 February 2026, were compared against the most current forecasts as of 26 May 2026. The analysis focused on the world’s “Big Six” oil corporations and the three largest publicly listed fertilizer corporations by 2025 revenue. For the broader G7 analysis, researchers evaluated corporations within the S&P 1,200 Index, filtering out non-G7 countries, corporations projected to post net losses, and those without available consensus estimates. This resulted in a final sample size of 691 corporations.

G7 countries account for around three-quarters of all official development assistance (ODA).

Across the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Lebanon, and Iran, Israeli military operations have killed over 78,000 people, injured more than 200,000, and displaced millions.

  • Gaza: over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed and 172,000 injured.

  • Lebanon: recent escalations have killed 3,185 people, injured more than 9,600, and forced over 1.2 million from their homes.\

  • Iran: UN agencies estimate that up to 3.2 million people have been displaced, alongside thousands killed and tens of thousands injured.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is hitting a country already stretched to breaking point. Ongoing conflict and years of aid cuts have deepened a humanitarian crisis of staggering scale: one in four people are going hungry. Those same aid cuts left DRC effectively exposed to Ebola, weakening the surveillance systems that should have detected this outbreak weeks earlier.

Contact information:

For more information or to arrange an interview contact: [email protected]

More Palestinians killed by Israeli military and settlers across occupied West Bank in last 3 years since Gaza hostilities than previous 17 combined – Oxfam 

More Palestinians killed by Israeli military and settlers across occupied West Bank in last 3 years since Gaza hostilities than previous 17 combined – Oxfam

More than one in five killed over last 20 years were children

More Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military and settlers across the occupied West Bank in the last three years than in the previous 17 years combined, analysis from Oxfam has found. The number of children killed over the last three years was also higher.

An analysis of United Nations data found that 1,036 Palestinians – including 225 children – had been killed by Israeli forces or settlers between 2006 and the end of 2022. However, in the last three years, from 2023 to the end of last year by comparison, 1,244 Palestinians – including 268 children – have been killed.

Over the 20 years, 22 per cent – more than one in five of those killed – have been children.

For the same periods analysed, in the 17 years between 2006 until the end of 2022, 86 Israeli settlers, including 12 children, were killed by Palestinians. In the last three years – from 2023 to the end of 2025 – 43 Israeli settlers have been killed, including ten children.

The West Bank continues to be subjected to Israeli policies and practices of fast-tracked annexation, amid record mass forced displacement, movement restrictions, killings by army and settler militias, and ongoing military operations. Checkpoints and closures are fragmenting the territory and limiting access to essential services and livelihoods, while repeated state-backed settler violence is driving mass displacement.

Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam International Humanitarian Policy Lead said: “The mounting killing of civilians in the West Bank is tragic and horrifying. While the eyes of the world have been on Gaza, attacks in the West Bank have been accelerating. Since the atrocities committed by Hamas and other armed groups in 2023, Israel has committed genocide in Gaza while also enabling an unprecedented surge of violence across the West Bank.

“Oxfam works with Palestinian families whose lives have been destroyed. It is devastating that scores of children are being killed. This is the human cost of impunity, Israeli violence and cruelty in full view, while world leaders look the other way”.

A record number of Palestinians in the West Bank – nearly 46,000 – have been forcibly displaced over the last three years, compared to just over 13,000 for the previous 14 years combined by Israeli military operations, settler violence, demolitions and access restrictions. Many families are having to live in unstable and insecure conditions, often with host communities or in informal shelter arrangements, with limited access to essential services.

Saed* is 50 years old and was forced out of his home in the Ein Samya community. He said: “We used to deal with settlers all the time, but over the past three years, settler violence has increased massively. Eventually we had to leave and now a settler is staying in my home. I saw him. He took over the community too. It breaks my heart to talk about the past.

“We went to another community in Jericho, but it did not stop there. Settlers closed the roads, carried weapons, harassed and terrified our children on their way to school, and grazed their livestock inside our community, next to our houses. In the worst cases they would steal our livestock under the protection of the army and police.”

Communities across the West Bank have experienced repeated demolitions and destruction not just of their homes but water pipelines, animal shelters and trees. Last year, the World Health Organisation documented over 230 attacks on healthcare facilities, including obstructed access, the vandalization of ambulances and harassment of medical staff.

There is now a record 925 obstacles that permanently or intermittently restrict the movement of over 3 million Palestinians across the West Bank including East Jerusalem. This is 43 per cent more than the annual average of 647 movement obstacles in the preceding 20 years.

In the first three months of this year alone there have been more than 540 settler attacks, 33 Palestinian people killed and more than 2,200 people displaced. More than 60 water and sanitation structures have been vandalized, including pipelines, irrigation systems and water tanks, which have undermined access to water in 32 Palestinian communities.

Despite Israel’s ongoing process of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Oxfam and its partners continue to support vulnerable communities across the West Bank with humanitarian assistance, including clean water, food, the rehabilitation of agricultural water cisterns and livestock shelters.

Oxfam is calling for an end to Israel’s unlawful occupation and further annexation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to the foreign complicity in the illegal occupation and settlement enterprise. A just and sustainable peace must be anchored in international law and the right to self-determination.

Ends

Notes to editor

Calculations are from data using the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2025 snapshot, which breaks down the number of attacks, deaths, injuries and people displaced. OCHA separately provided both the number of children and Israelis killed for the periods analysed

There were 2,280 Palestinians killed between 2006-2025, 493 of those killed were children, which is 22 per cent – more than one in five

The World Health Organisation statistics for West Bank healthcare attacks in 2025 are detailed here

Data for the number of obstacles is taken from the OCHA Movement and Access Snapshot

2026 data is taken from the OCHA 2026 snapshot and OCHA Humanitarian Situation Report

In line with the July 2024 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion, states are obliged to take meaningful measures, including by banning trade with illegal settlements, halting arms trade where there is a clear risk of misuse, and reviewing or suspending trade and cooperation agreements where these may contribute to violations of international law.

 

Contact information:

For more information or to arrange an interview contact: [email protected]

Governments falling 90 percent short of climate adaptation finance needs, Oxfam warns ahead of Bonn climate talks

Governments are falling 90 percent short of adaptation finance targets and leaving people in climate-vulnerable communities drastically under-equipped to cope with the devastating impacts of climate change, Oxfam warns ahead of Bonn climate talks (8-18 June).

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as of 2024, governments mobilized $32 billion in public adaptation finance – around 90 percent short of the $310 billion to $365 billion projected needs for developing countries by 2035. To bridge this gap, rich countries would have to increase their adaptation financing tenfold.

“The New Zealand Government has failed to renew our climate finance commitment that ended in 2025. This is depriving our neighbours in the Pacific of at least $100 million every year,” said Nick Henry, Oxfam Aotearoa’s Advocacy and Policy Lead.

“While climate impacts on communities in the Pacific are accelerating, our Government is falling behind on our fair share of support for our neighbours.

“Oxfam Aotearoa calls on our Government and all political parties to commit to funding our fair share of climate adaptation needs for our Pacific neighbours.”

The total climate finance of $137 billion reached in 2024 is also just a fraction of what countries need to transition away from fossil fuels.

This shortfall highlights a stark global inequality, that those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are being hit by the heaviest damage and short-changed from the funding promised to help them deal with it. People living across the Global South, women, girls and Indigenous groups are overwhelmingly bearing the costs of environmental devastation.

Meanwhile, super-rich corporations and individuals — largely based in the Global North — have seen their wealth skyrocket.

The profits of the six biggest fossil fuel corporations are projected to hit $94 billion in 2026, continuing to attract mega-investors. Almost 60 percent of billionaire investments are classified as being in high climate impact sectors, such as mining or oil and gas corporations.

“For too long, governments have coddled a super-rich elite whose huge emissions and dirty investments in polluting industries are throttling climate action. At Bonn, leaders must tackle this unequal concentration of wealth and power. It’s time to make rich polluters pay, and channel that wealth into accessible, participatory climate finance in a way that reaches the communities who need it most,” said Mariana Paoli, Oxfam International’s Climate Lead.

Recent polling commissioned by Oxfam across seven countries found that approximately two-thirds (68 percent) of the public support increasing taxes on the profits of large oil and gas corporations to help fund a fair transition to renewable energy.

Oxfam urges governments to:

  • Slash the emissions of the super-rich and make the richest polluters pay, through taxation on extreme wealth, excess profits taxes on fossil fuel corporations, and a carbon capital levy on investments in polluting sectors.

  • Remove the financial barriers blocking a Just Transition by cancelling debt, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and overhauling a financial architecture systemically skewed against Global South countries.

  • Substantially increase climate finance to support communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. This means fulfilling the $300 billion annual target agreed at COP29, including tripling funding flows specifically for adaptation, and substantially increasing resources to address loss and damage.

ENDS

Notes to editors

According to the OECD, in 2024, wealthy countries mobilized $137 billion in total climate finance to support climate action in low- and middle-income countries. Of this, $102 billion came in the form of public finance, mostly as loans. Public finance for adaptation amounted to $32 billion.

The UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2025 calculates that the cost of adaptation finance needed in low- and middle-income countries is $310 billion per year in 2035, when based on modelled costs. When based on extrapolated needs expressed in Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans, this figure rises to $365 billion a year.

Oxfam research finds that six of the biggest fossil fuel companies (Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and TotalEnergies) are projected to earn $2,967 a second in profits in 2026. Download the methodology note.

Download “Climate Plunder: How a powerful few are locking the world into disaster”, the executive summary and the methodology note. The report is also available in Spanish, French and Portuguese.

The global poll, conducted by market research company Norstat in April 2026, gathered responses from people in seven countries (UK, France, Brazil, Turkey, Australia, the Netherlands and Colombia). The polling also showed that support for taxing oil and gas corporations to fund the renewable energy transition crossed party lines. In six of the countries, there were more far-right respondents who supported such a tax, than those who opposed it.

Contact information:

For more information or to arrange an interview contact: [email protected]

Oxfam Aotearoa reaction to the New Zealand Government’s release of Budget 2026

“This budget fails to deliver on New Zealand’s promises to stand by our neighbours in the Pacific who are struggling with the impacts of climate change.” said Nick Henry, Advocacy and Policy Lead for Oxfam Aotearoa.

“After cutting $100m a year from international climate action last year, the Government now promising $33m from June 2027 is too little, too late.

“Last year’s budget left a hole in funding for our neighbours in the Pacific. A promise to fill a third of that hole in a year’s time will not be much consolation to communities who are suffering now from the escalating impact of the climate crisis.”

 

Contact information:

[email protected]