View previous stories
	Understanding today’s violent weather extremes by Dr Simon Bradshaw, Clara Thompson Greenpeace, Public Services International   Feb. 2026   Understanding today’s violent weather extremes, by Dr Simon Bradshaw - Climate Advisor at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.   In mid January 2026, Australians watched in disbelief as an extreme downpour and violent flash flood swept cars on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road into the sea. Just days earlier, the state was in the grip of catastrophic fire conditions and the most dangerous heatwave since the infamous Black Summer of 2019-20. Once again, Victoria is in the grip of an extreme heatwave, this one even more intense than the last.   These wild swings between weather extremes – between hot and dry to heavy rains and back again – have become all too familiar to Australians and to vulnerable communities around the world.   Sometimes climate science can seem fiendishly complex. But in essence things are very simple. By burning coal, oil, and gas we have thickened up the blanket of heat trapping gases in our atmosphere, meaning that today our atmosphere is not only hotter, but also wetter and packing more energy.   It means that heatwaves are hotter, longer and more frequent, rainfall is more intense, and fire seasons are longer and more dangerous. Moreover, with more energy to fuel powerful storms, and the ability of our warmer atmosphere to soak up more moisture, the swing from one extreme to another has become more rapid and intense.   The change in the background conditions driving our weather means that past weather patterns are no longer a good guide for the present. We are seeing extreme events unfold in places and at times where they never have before, at least not in living memory, meaning communities are more likely to be caught off guard. Cyclones are tracking further south, large wildfires are happening way outside of the usual season, shifting rainfall patterns are wreaking havoc with food production.   The term “climate whiplash” emerged during our 2023-24 summer, when an early and ferocious fire season, driven by an El Niño pattern, gave way unexpectedly to record breaking rains. A deadly Queensland blaze in October 2023 destroyed more homes in that state than the infamous Black Summer fires did. Just weeks later, nearby weather stations registered their highest November rainfall on record. Down south, early and highly destructive fires in Gippsland, Victoria were followed almost immediately by extreme rainfall and flash flooding.   For many, this has come to epitomise the lived experience of climate change. And not just in Australia. On the east coast of the US, 2025 saw many communities face multiple spells of dangerous heat and humidity. Today, many of those same communities are gripped by a deadly winter storm and extreme low temperatures.   On the west coast, in California, years of severe drought were followed by exceptionally wet winters in 2022-23 and 2023-24, leading to explosive growth of vegetation. When this record wet period was followed by California’s hottest summer on record and a record-dry start to 2025, the conditions were set for the horrific LA fires.   On the other side of the world, in Mozambique, a prolonged dry period in 2024 and 2025 saw the country face significant food insecurity due to crop failure. In January 2026, Mozambique is tragically facing a severe humanitarian situation due to extreme downpours and catastrophic flooding. Over a hundred people have died, and close to a million affected.   Put simply, climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas, is catapulting vulnerable communities from one catastrophe to another. Hit by a succession of compounding disasters, with little or no time to recover, many are seeing their resilience pushed beyond its limits. The toll on our mental health has been profound.   The first duty of governments is to keep our communities safe. But right now, many are doing exactly the opposite. In Australia, our State and Federal Governments continue to enable the dangerous expansion of fossil fuel production. In December 2025, the Victorian Government, alongside Federal authorities, opened new areas for gas exploration in the Otway Basin, off the Victorian coast.   Every new fossil fuel project increases the future risks for communities in Australia, the Pacific and around the world.   Pacific Island countries have been working for many years to spearhead a global phase-out of coal oil and gas. In a few short weeks, Vanuatu and Tuvalu will be among dozens of countries gathering in the coal port Santa Martha for the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuel, a powerful new initiative led by the Government of Colombia.   Meanwhile, as Australia prepares to take on the role of President of Negotiations for COP31, we have the responsibility to lead. Now more than ever.   The science is unequivocal: we must transition away from fossil fuels at emergency speed, while doing far more to support our communities with adapting to this new era of climate whiplash.   http://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/80908/climate-whiplash-understanding-todays-violent-weather-extremes/   The UN Tax Convention could be a game-changer. So why is ambition still stuck in first gear, by Clara Thompson - Global Tax Justice Lead at Greenpeace International.   If you’ve been following global climate and finance politics lately, you’ll have noticed a strange contradiction.   On the one hand, governments keep telling us we need more climate finance, fairer taxation, and new public resources to deal with climate breakdown, inequality and crumbling public services.   On the other hand, when it comes to the one global forum designed to actually fix international tax rules – the UN Tax Convention – that bold ambition doesn’t translate.   These negotiations, currently underway in New York, present a unique chance to hold corporate tax avoiders and polluters accountable, unlocking trillions in public funds for climate action, nature protection, and vital public services. Instead of rising to that moment, however, the process risks failing to deliver the transformative change many countries are calling for.   The latest draft of the UN Tax Convention includes articles on sustainable development and taxing high-net-worth individuals (HNWI). That’s good news. A few years ago, neither would even have made it into the room. But here’s the catch: they’re still written mostly as ‘principles’, not commitments.   The sustainable development article remains declaratory. It acknowledges that tax cooperation should support social, economic and environmental goals, without spelling out how, or what kinds of mechanisms would be needed to deliver them. No change to this article since the Terms of Reference were set out.   The article on high-net-worth individuals has improved on paper (it uses ‘shall’ instead of ‘agree’ now), but still stops short of what’s actually needed to tax extreme wealth effectively and fairly.   In short: governments agree that something should happen, but appear reluctant when it comes to the details of how to actually make it happen. That’s like agreeing to catch smugglers, but banning customs from opening the luggage.   This is where things get awkward. In other international forums (COP30, G20, FfD4 to name a few examples), many of the same governments are already making much bolder statements. For example:   Calling for progressive environmental taxation, Demanding new climate finance sources, Warning about the social and political risks of inequality, and even (occasionally) saying the words ‘tax extreme wealth’ out loud.   In 2025, at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville, Spain, governments committed to improving tax cooperation and transparency, explicitly referencing progressive taxation to fund social protection and integrate undeclared wealth, and in written submissions, countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Germany, France, Spain and Sierra Leone have explicitly supported stronger cooperation on HNWI taxation in the UN process.   Many African countries, including Zambia and Nigeria, have repeatedly highlighted in their interventions how our broken global tax system undermines development and climate action.   Since the UN Tax Convention negotiations began in 2025, at least 17 countries have made supportive statements for more detail to be added on the issue of sustainable development, several of whom have explicitly endorsed inclusion of environmental taxation and the polluter pays principle.   And yet, when negotiations move from statements to drafting, ambition narrows. Not all elements raised in countries’ submissions find their way into the Chair’s text, and several governments continue to defer to high-level, non-committal language.   Political choices are reframed as technical questions by some countries, while the potential of the Convention to support climate action and sustainable development through tax policy remains underexplored. Issues with clear distributional complexities are quietly treated as beyond the Convention’s scope.   Whenever ambition stalls, one word inevitably appears: sovereignty. We’re told that taxing the super-rich is a domestic issue. That coordinated standards on taxing polluters would infringe national autonomy. That global rules somehow threaten democratic choice.   But here’s the inconvenient truth: there is nothing sovereign about a tax system you can’t enforce. Here’s the problem: in today’s world, money, profits, and assets move faster than national laws, often through loopholes and tax havens, and across borders, while information about these assets does not.   Countries trying to take action alone end up competing with each other, lowering standards, and losing billions in the process. These are funds that could have supported climate finance and sustainable development.   Real sovereignty isn’t the right to say “no” alone. It’s the ability to withstand pressure together to enforce rules that protect public resources and the planet. This is why we need global tax reform.   The old era of club-based tax governance (dominated by a handful of rich OECD countries) is cracking under its own contradictions. At the same time, multilateralism itself is under attack, with institutional deadlock and unilateral action increasingly replacing cooperation, from the UN Security Council to climate negotiations.   That’s precisely why the UN Tax Convention matters. It’s the only forum in international tax governance where every country has a seat, decisions aren’t hostage to unanimity, and tax cooperation can be anchored in sustainable development, not just capital mobility. In short: it’s the one place where we can move from fair taxation by permission to fair taxation by right.   If the Convention is to live up to its mandate, four things need to happen:   Moving beyond “exploring” coordination. On taxing extreme wealth, governments need to commit to developing coordinated approaches including minimum standards, progressive elements and redistributive options, not just endlessly discussing them.   Naming the preconditions. You can’t tax what you can’t see. That means committing to transparency tools like beneficial ownership information, asset registries and effective exchange of information, especially for high-net-worth individuals. It means fair taxing rights based on economic activity. It means true sovereignty.   Agreeing new rules to tax polluters. That starts with a new global agreement that countries will deliver – nationally and internationally – progressive environmental taxation in line with the polluter pays principle and the principle of equity (common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities). From there, new mechanisms can be established, like a global tax on the profits of fossil fuel companies to boost international climate finance.   Embedding the articles in the bigger goal. Taxing the super-rich and corporate polluters aren’t side issues. They are central to funding climate action, protecting nature and rebuilding trust in public institutions. The Convention should say so, clearly.   The tools exist. The political arguments are already being made elsewhere. And the costs of inaction are painfully visible. What’s missing isn’t expertise – it’s alignment.   If governments are serious about climate justice, social cohesion and sustainable development, the UN Tax Convention is not the place to be cautious. It’s the place to be honest.   Because in a world where crises are global and wealth is mobile, collective action isn’t a loss of sovereignty – it’s the only way to reclaim it. And yes, taxing the super-rich and corporate polluters is part of that story.   http://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/81233/the-un-tax-convention-could-be-a-game-changer-so-why-is-ambition-still-stuck-in-first-gear/   Feb. 2026   New Research shows Global Corporate Tax Reforms would boost Public Revenues by 50%   The research, commissioned by Network of Unions for Tax Justice and the Vienna Chamber of Labour and is the first to model the global impact of unitary taxation; a reform which would see multinationals taxed as single entities with their tax obligations split among states through a formula based on factors such as sales and labour force.   Current rules allow multinationals to use accounting tricks and subsidiaries to artificially shift trillions in profits away from where they are actually generated and into tax havens.   The study is being presented to negotiators currently meeting at the UN in New York to draft a Global Tax Convention.   The reports findings challenge the narrative that reform would harm major economies, instead showing that countries like the US, Germany, the UK, and Australia stand to gain significantly from ending profit shifting. Tax revenues in high-income countries would grow by almost 70%, reflecting the restoration of taxing rights over real economic activity that is currently booked in tax havens.   Haley Quinn Acting Deputy Director for Health Issues at the American Federation of Teachers said: "Healthcare workers faithfully pay their taxes while caring for our most vulnerable populations. So why, then, should wealthy private health corporations be afforded tax havens, all while claiming they can’t afford to pay workers more?"   Tax havens which currently enable multinationals to artificially shift profits would face dramatic losses. Pure tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands risk losing 80-90% of their tax base under most scenarios, exposing the fragility of economic models built on paper profits rather than genuine economic activity and production.   When employment is weighted more heavily in determining where profits should be taxed, labour-intensive economies gain a fairer share. India's tax base more than doubles, while Indonesia and Brazil see increases of over 40% each — recognition of their substantial but previously under-valued role in global value chains.   This restored fiscal space could fund infrastructure investment, new essential workers such as doctors and teachers and expanded social protections — benefits flowing directly back to workers and communities.   For the vast majority of companies, including small businesses and domestic competitors, the reforms would change nothing while levelling the playing field. Average tax increases for the biggest global multinationals would be around 8%, with the largest jumps concentrated among corporations currently engaged in aggressive profit shifting through tax havens.   Contrary to the myth that cutting corporate taxes creates jobs, recent research shows countries with stronger corporate tax systems achieve better employment outcomes and fairer wage distribution. Meanwhile firms engaging most aggressively in tax avoidance rarely reinvest savings in jobs or productive capacity.   Jayati Ghosh, co-chair of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT):   Multinationals should be taxed in a way that recognises the economic reality that these are single global entities, not a collection of separate units strung together in ways that reduce their tax footprint. Governments must now take action to collect the hundreds of billions of unpaid taxes left on the table in the current system and come up with a fair formula to ensure that companies pay what they owe, where they do business.   Daniel Bertossa, General Secretary of Public Services International:   "Workers pay taxes on their wages where they work - so why should corporations be allowed to dodge taxes where they make their profits. These urgent reforms would chase hidden profits out of offshore havens, into public coffers and onto corporate balance sheets to be invested in better jobs and wages for workers.   Jose Antonio Ocampo, ICRICT commissioner and Professor at Columbia University:   For the first time, we have empirical evidence that shows what many economists have long suspected: getting rid of the broken transfer pricing system would immediately undercut tax havens. A new global tax system must be designed so that countries can tax profits where value is created, which includes where their workers are located. Only when the global tax rules recognise the labour and resources utilised in the South, will our countries get their fair share of tax revenue to support development and public services.   http://publicservices.international/resources/news/our-new-research-shows-global-corporate-tax-reforms-would-boost-public-revenues-by-50-?id=16364&lang=en http://www.socialeurope.eu/will-democracy-govern-capitalism-or-be-consumed-by-it Visit the related web page
	The choice is ours: oligarchy or democracy? by Carlos Brown Sola Program Director at Oxfam Mexico   Jan. 2026   For over a decade, Oxfam has published an annual report on extreme economic inequalities to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, where global elites gather to discuss the future of our societies and economies in a notably exclusive and non-democratic setting.   A recurring theme in these reports has been how the wealthiest in our societies continue to grow ever richer, at the expense of the lives of billions of people around the world.   Oxfam’s most recent annual report, ‘Resisting the rule of the rich: defending freedom against billionaire power’, shows that we have reached a new peak in the concentration of extreme wealth – posing urgent questions for the future of democratic society.   In 2025, despite economic and geopolitical turbulence, the combined fortunes of billionaires – some 3,000 people worldwide with a net worth exceeding one billion US dollars – grew three times faster than the average of the previous five years, reaching an all-time high of US$18.3 trillion. Last year alone, their fortunes increased by $2.5 trillion, an amount equivalent to the entire wealth held by the poorest half of humanity.   Indeed, that sum would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over. One multi-billionaire, Elon Musk, became the first person in history to surpass the half-trillion-dollar mark and now has a fortune of nearly $766 billion (as of January 2026), closing in on becoming the first ever trillionaire.   This phenomenon is not exclusive to the United States or Europe. Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, currently boast a record 109 billionaires with a combined wealth of US$622 billion, equivalent to the combined annual GDP of Chile and Peru. These Latin American fortunes, of which slightly more than half are the product of inheritances, grew by 39% in the last year alone. Over the last five years, the richest man in Latin America and the Caribbean today, Carlos Slim Helu, earned each second what the average Mexican earned in a week’s work.   But it’s not just that billionaires have accumulated more wealth than they could ever spend. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that the extreme concentration of their fortunes is incompatible with a democratic society.   This is in part because the majority of resources in our societies are in the hands of a few who decide how they are used. But it’s also because economic power allows them to be politically powerful. We hear about this every day – from governments that are run by and for the wealthiest that make decisions to deepen a system that only benefits them (such as tax cuts while working people pay ever more) to aspiring presidential candidates whose only merit is having inherited fortunes that they use to cultivate a favourable public image.   This is not a new phenomenon. But the pattern is becoming increasingly clear: how the decisions of a few individuals are increasingly shaping the economic and political “rules of the game” – a game that, by its very nature, has worked for them.   The ultra-wealthy do this primarily in three ways: by buying political support, by investing in legitimising the power of the elites, and by guaranteeing themselves direct access to institutions. They are investing more and more money in elections and have greater control over the algorithms behind our newsfeeds and AI-generated content. Billionaires are also 4,000 times more likely to hold elected office than the average person. It’s one thing to buy a private jet or a mansion, but quite another to buy off a judge, a legislator, a social network or a newspaper.   In this way, governments end up siding with the wealthiest, prioritising the interests of big capital over the lives of billions of people around the world who not only remain in poverty or go hungry but also see their rights and freedoms increasingly repressed.   In short, governments have preferred oppression over redistribution, which is worrying because while economic poverty produces hunger, political poverty breeds anger and fear, a central driver (and tool of) authoritarian and reactionary politics.   It doesn’t have to be this way. These economic and political inequalities are the product of choices, so changing course to build a fairer future depends on making different economic and political decisions that place people, communities, and nature at the centre.   A growing political movement is demanding that governments drastically reduce economic inequalities, as well as curb the political power and influence of the ultra-wealthy. This is possible, for example, by effectively taxing their fortunes to reduce their economic power or by regulating lobbying practices and the algorithms that allow them to influence governments and societies.   It is urgent and necessary to resist the rule of the rich: to halt their growing power and influence and instead build a fairer economy while guaranteeing the future of our democracies. We can have extreme wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or we can have democracy, but we cannot have both, as the US Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis affirmed a century ago. The choice is ours: oligarchy or democracy?   http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2026/01/27/democracy-at-risk-resisting-the-rule-of-the-richest/ http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-wealth-jumps-three-times-faster-2025-highest-peak-ever http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/resisting-rule-rich Visit the related web page
	View more stories