“In the first half of this year, six fossil fuel companies made more money than needed to cover the costs of major climate damage in developing countries, with nearly $70 billion in profits,” Gaston Browne said at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
“It is time for these companies to pay a global carbon tax on these profits to finance the losses and damages”, he demanded, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) threatened by rising waters.
This new position of the small countries joins the call, of the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who had called in September the rich countries to “tax the exceptional profits of the companies producing fossil fuels” to redistribute them to the countries victims of the impacts of the climate change and to the populations affected by the inflation.
The subject of the prejudices suffered by the countries of the South, very little responsible for global warming but which suffer cruelly from its effects, has been officially included in the agenda of the great UN meeting on climate.
“We must unequivocally establish a fund for loss and damage at this COP,” and it will be “only a modest token when our members lose up to 2% of their GDP in one day because of a single climate event”, he said.
Gaston Browne announced the creation of a “commission” registered with the UN and composed of small island states to “explore the responsibility of certain states for the injuries caused by their climate actions and failures to meet their obligations.
The Tuvalu Islands also called on Tuesday for the adoption of a “non-proliferation treaty on fossil fuels”.
The tiny archipelago joined Vanuatu, another Pacific nation, in its desire to create a mechanism to regulate the production of fossil fuels and prepare for the transition to renewable energy.
“The seas are warming and beginning to engulf our land, inch by inch. But the world’s addiction to oil, gas and coal will not drown our dreams under the waves,” said Tuvalu’s Prime Minister, Kausea Natano.
The desired treaty must ensure “a just transition away from fossil fuels,” he said.
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