Rachel Kyte is professor of practice in climate policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. With spring in full bloom, the world’s finance ministers, development and financial leaders, and philanthropists met for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings in Washington, DC last week.   In their midst, Brazil, the current president of the G20, insisted on a balanced focus between ending poverty and food insecurity and combating climate change. President Lula makes no secret of his desire for a new international financial architecture, desig ..read more

UN climate chief Simon Stiell has said he hopes to see fewer people attend the annual COP climate negotiations after participants at COP28 in Dubai last December hit a record high of nearly 84,000. Stiell said this month that he personally “would certainly like to see future COPs reduce in size”, telling an audience at London’s Chatham House think-tank that “bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better”. In Dubai, where the 2023 summit was held from November 30 to December 13, the Expo City site was so large that important delegates were ferried around on golf buggies while electric scooters were av ..read more

As a budget freeze for Argentina’s public universities amid soaring inflation leaves campuses unable to pay their electricity bills and climate science under threat, the country’s researchers and students are taking to the streets in a nationwide demonstration on Tuesday. The dire outlook for Argentina’s renowned higher education system under President Javier Milei, a right-wing populist, was highlighted on April 22 – Earth Day – by Argentine plant ecologist Pedro Jaureguiberry, who was announced as a finalist in the prestigious Frontiers Planet Prize. ​“The current budget for universities in ..read more

The finance ministers of Brazil and France pushed this week for a tax on US-dollar billionaires of at least 2% of their wealth each year, with the $250 billion it could raise going to tackle poverty, hunger and climate change. Brazil’s Fernando Haddad and France’s Bruno Le Maire promoted their proposal at the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, alongside IMF head Kristalina Georgieva and Kenyan finance minister Njuguna Ndung’u. “In a world where economic activities are increasingly transnational, we have to find new and creative ways to tax th ..read more

The chair of this month’s penultimate round of talks to agree a global treaty on tackling plastic pollution is concerned that certain countries “seem to have forgotten” that all nations originally backed an ambitious pact. Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who will host the talks in Ottawa starting on April 23, said in an interview with Climate Home that all governments had “agreed collectively that we wanted an ambitious treaty to fight plastic pollution and to eliminate it by 2040”. But, he added, “unfortunately some countries seem to have forgotten that’s what we agreed upon ..read more

For over a decade, Indigenous and local communities have demanded a bigger share of international funding to protect nature and the climate, as well as easier access to that money. But progress has been limited, with only 1-2 percent of such finance reaching them directly, reports show.  Now frustrated Indigenous rights groups are trying a new tactic to speed up change: creating their own funds in a push to boost the flow of money to frontline communities and shift away from what some see as an outdated colonial-style model driven by donors in the Global North.  Since 2020 – and espe ..read more

Lidy Nacpil is coordinator of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD). Many countries in the Global South are burdened with huge public debts. These rising debts are a drain on public resources that are urgently needed for sustainable development programmes, and further pressure Southern governments to prioritise debt service over climate actions.  Global South countries allocate more funds for debt service – 65% in lower- income countries and 14% in lower-middle-income countries – than their combined budgetary spending for education, health and social protection ..read more

The spotless white-sand beach of Le Lamantin luxury resort in Saly, about 90 kilometres south of Senegal’s capital Dakar, is lined with neat rows of sun loungers and parasols. Here, holidaymakers enjoy jet-skiing, catamaran-sailing and spa therapy, unaware that their hotel is benefiting from international climate finance channelled through the World Bank Group. Just a few kilometres further south, however, local fishermen in Mbour, the country’s second-largest fishing port, are struggling. The beaches where they keep their boats are being progressively eaten away by rising seas that also threa ..read more

Chris Hocknell is the director of London-based sustainability consultancy Eight Versa. Tech giant Intel said in its 2023 Climate Transition Action Plan that it faces challenges in setting targets for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). The chip-maker is likely to be the first in a long list of companies to slowly break cover and admit that the SBTi is unfit for purpose. As a professional sustainability advisor, I know that of the 5,000 or so companies that have signed up for the initiative, only a startling minority have robust and rea ..read more

Silke Mooldijk works at the NewClimate Institute and is part of the core team behind the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor. A decade ago, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) was launched with the goal of mobilising the private sector for climate action. Today, it stands as the largest and most influential validator of corporate climate targets, having confirmed the 2030 goals of around 5,000 companies. Yet new analysis reveals a leniency within the initiative. According to the 2024 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor (CCRM), the emissions reduction commitments of 51 major g ..read more