Private jets typify the callous indifference of the super-rich who profit from destroying the planet, then jet off to air-conditioned mansions to hide from the consequences.

Our friends at Inequality.org and the Institute for Policy Studies have given us access to a new tool that tracks private jets. As this week’s Bulletin reveals, climate disasters haven’t held rich polluters back.

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Private jets in numbers

Plane awful. So far in 2026, there have been almost 2 million private jet flights, 8,906 on average per day. Emissions from these jets total 9.4 million tonnes of CO2, that’s more than the average annual emissions of 2 million people.

Or, if you prefer your stat in cow form…it’s equivalent to the belching and farting of 5.4 million cows.

Short haul. 22% of the flights travelled less than 300 km, 1 in 14 flights were less than 30 minutes. Have these people not heard of a train or a bus?

There’s been almost 3,000 London/Paris flights so far this year (13 per day), a journey that takes just over 2 hours on the Eurostar. 858 flights have done the Madrid/Barcelona trip which is just 2 ½ hours by rail.

Taking off. 2026 follows the ever-growing trend of private jets. Compared to 2025, there have been 6% more flights and emissions have increased by 7%. On a totally different note, the world is set to cross 1.5°C global warming within a few years.

A carry-on summer. You’d think that the wildfires in Europe, especially around Madrid and Bordeaux, would be a visceral deterrent for billionaire climate vandals. Yeah right!

Private jet departures around Madrid during the fires (July and August) increased by 12% compared to last year.

President Emmanuel Macron described France’s wildfires as the toughest situation the country has faced since World War II. That didn’t stop private jets during their summer. While the total departures from Bordeaux were down by a quarter compared to 2025, overall private jet flights increased in France by 4%.

Coolcation. England and Wales faced back-to-back heatwaves, so tourists have been heading to Scotland for a ‘coolcation’ – private jets arriving in Scotland from England were up by 16% in June and July compared to the same period last year. Global flights into Iceland were up by 19%.

Fear not, there’s a better solution, the rich are now building snow rooms for their mansions.

Having a ball. During the World Cup, the team at Private Jet Accountability Project tracked the increase in private jets around games. They found that over 90,000 private jets flew in and out of World Cup host cities.

In a flap. It’s fair to say billionaires don’t like it when they’re held to account. In the US, private jet owners can now anonymise their registration information, a longstanding demand of the wealthy elite. Bernard Arnault, CEO of the LVMH luxury goods company, sold his private jet to avoid being tracked. He said, ‘the result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes’.

They also probably don’t appreciate the successful campaigning efforts by colleagues at Oxfam Scotland, where the government has now committed to introduce a Private Jet Tax from April 2028. In 2024, the UK government increased air passenger duty by 50% for private jet users following pressure from civil society, including Oxfam.

Many thanks to the team at the Institute for Policy Studies and Private Jet Accountability Project for access to their fantastic database so that we could do this analysis.

Something to read/listen to

Read this article in the Lancet that finds that implementing wealth redistribution policies could mitigate the health impact of the current Official Development Assistance (ODA) defunding crisis.

Meet the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize winners who amassed evidence that upper-class people are more likely to steal candy from a child…and other kinds of unethical behaviour.

Read this article in DW on how climate change and food insecurity could fuel more conflicts.

Note on methodology

The code for the private jet tracker is available on Github. We used the private jet emissions trackers’ EUROCONTROL Fast Model using CO2e tank-to-wake only which is direct fuel combustion, for the date range 1 January 00:00 UTC to 13 August 00:59 UTC (unless states). The distances were calculated by using the great circle between the take-off and landing airport coordinates rather than the route actually flown. Global average CO2 emissions are 4.73 tonnes CO2. We assume 1.75 tonnes CO2e/cow/year.

I hope this finds you well.

Please see below an email sent yesterday from Joe Stiglitz asking academics worldwide to show their support for the establishment of an International Panel on Inequality- through signing the open letter and other potential actions. Please sign the letter and pass the email on to your networks. We have a real chance of securing and IPI in the next few months which is very exciting.

(French, Spanish and Arabic translations below)

Dear Friends,

We need your help to get a new International Panel on Inequality at the United Nations.

I am writing you to ask for your support. We share a deep concern about the scale and trends in global inequality. High inequality represents a crisis that undermines all aspects of human endeavor and indeed the future of our planet.

Last year, I was privileged to chair the Extraordinary Committee on Inequality commissioned by the Government of South Africa as part of their presidency of the G20. A main recommendation was to establish an International Panel on Inequality (IPI) at the United Nations to address the global inequality crisis.

This panel would play a similar role to the IPCC in tackling the climate crisis; bringing together the important work of academics to develop a strong and clear consensus on the scale of the inequality crisis, its drivers, its consequences and the potential policies that can be put in place to reduce inequality to safe levels.

The good news is that our recommendation was enthusiastically taken up by the governments of South Africa, Brazil, Spain and Norway, and also fully supported by the UN Secretary-General. We have spent the first half of this year working with the four governments to sketch out the design of this panel, its work program, where it will sit in the UN system, its potential composition, and when, to whom, and how it will report.

Many of you have been involved at various times in supporting this, whether by attending meetings or consultations, signing supportive letters or helping speak in favor of it to policymakers and the media. Thank you. It has already made a big difference.

The next key milestone is an UNGA High-Level Leaders’ Event in New York in support of an IPI on September 23rd at 10:30 a.m., with the Secretary-General and the leaders of the four governments. We need as many world leaders to attend as possible.

A Save the Date has gone out to all World Leaders from the South African government on behalf of the four founding governments. Your government will have received this through their New York mission. An invitation letter from the leaders of the four governments will follow early next week. All world leaders have been invited to attend, and in addition have been asked to consider endorsing a short vision statement and concept note in support of the IPI, which they have also received through their New York mission, from the South African government.

We now ask for your help to ensure that as many leaders as possible do three things:

1. Attend the High-Level Leaders event on September 23rd,

2. Sign the vision statement for an IPI and

3. Join the coalition of governments supporting the urgent establishment of an IPI.

We have one month to do this. We would be extremely grateful if you could help make this happen.

There are some key steps you could take to show your support.

First, if you would sign up to, and share, this open letter (also copied below) in support of the IPI, which will be sent to all member states calling on them to attend the High-Level event and support the vision statement. By clicking on this link you can sign up very quickly and easily, and please share this email and open letter within your academic networks and encourage others to sign.

Second, if you could help by mobilizing at the national level, using what contacts you have with your political leadership to support this initiative, and using whatever private and public channels you have access to, we would be grateful. To give one example, an open letter was sent by over 40 leading academics to the new UK Prime Minister to encourage him to attend the UN meeting and support the IPI initiative, and was on the front page of the Guardian. It would be wonderful to have similar letters and opinion pieces in the media in countries all over the world to signal global support.

If you need more information on any of this or any additional support, please contact us at anthony@inequalitycommittee.com.

We have the chance to secure a victory in the fight against inequality and to provide governments with the scientific knowledge to take concrete action and suggest effective and efficient tools and policies. Please do all you can to express your public and private support. Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Joe.

sign the letter here

An International Panel on Inequality | Academics Letter to World Leaders

Dear World Leaders,

We write to you as academics and inequality experts from XX countries to call for your support for the creation of an International Panel on Inequality, an independent, scientific body tasked with assessing the state of knowledge on inequality, with an uncompromising commitment to academic rigor, independence and credibility. Inspired by the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an IPI would stand in a strong tradition of scientific bodies that have contributed to policymaking in crucial areas through rigorous presentation of evidence and analysis.

The establishment of an International Panel on Inequality was the primary recommendation of last year’s G20 report on inequality, written by a group of inequality experts chaired by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz at the request of President Ramaphosa during South Africa’s chairing of the G20. This proposal has received widespread international support, including that of the UN Secretary-General, and the Governments of South Africa, Brazil, Norway and Spain have been working with the academic experts on the committee towards the founding of the IPI.

High levels of inequality within and between countries drive many of the economic, political, societal and environmental challenges we face today, leading many to conclude that we have an inequality crisis just as we have a climate crisis.

As experts from a wide range of disciplines, including economists, political scientists, climate scientists, sociologists, epidemiologists, anthropologists, historians, geographers and philosophers, we all recognise that inequality touches every aspect of human life and progress. We are profoundly concerned that extreme concentrations of income and wealth translate into undemocratic concentrations of power, unravelling trust in our societies and polarising our politics.

We believe too that inequality is a policy choice and can be reversed. To address these extreme concentrations of wealth and income requires a shared scientific consensus on inequality. An International Panel on Inequality would help the world to create such a consensus. It would provide the knowledge basis for addressing the inequality crisis in the most effective way.

There are three ways you can show your support.

South Africa, on behalf of the four founding governments, has invited you to attend a key High-Level Leaders’ Event on the morning of the 23rd September with the UN Secretary- General. We urge you to attend this High-Level Leaders’ event on 23rd September, to express your support for the creation of an International Panel on Inequality.

We also call on you to support the vision statement for an IPI, also circulated to you by the South Africa on behalf of the four governments.

Finally, we urge you to agree join them in a growing coalition of governments in support of establishing this panel as soon as possible.

We believe that the establishment of an IPI is in the interests of all policymakers and leaders who recognise the importance of this issue and understand the need to base our international response on sound data, evidence and analysis, wherever they are on the political spectrum. It would be a vital first step towards building a more just and equal world.

Yours,

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Queridos Amigos,

Me dirijo a usted para solicitar su apoyo. Compartimos una profunda preocupación por la magnitud y la tendencia de la desigualdad global. La elevada desigualdad representa una crisis que socava todos los aspectos de la actividad humana y, de hecho, el futuro de nuestro planeta.

El año pasado, tuve el privilegio de presidir la Comisión Extraordinaria sobre la Desigualdad, creada por encargo del Gobierno de Sudáfrica en el marco de su presidencia del G-20. Una de las principales recomendaciones fue crear en la ONU un Panel Internacional sobre la Desigualdad (IPI) para poder hacer frente a la crisis global de desigualdad.

Este panel desempeñaría un papel similar al que ha desempeñado el Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC) a la hora de abordar la crisis climática: reunir el importante trabajo de los y las académicas para desarrollar un consenso sólido y claro sobre la magnitud de la crisis de la desigualdad, sus factores impulsores, sus consecuencias y las posibles políticas que pueden ponerse en marcha para reducir la desigualdad a niveles seguros.

La buena noticia es que nuestra recomendación fue acogida con entusiasmo por los gobiernos de Sudáfrica, Brasil, España y Noruega, y también recibió el pleno apoyo del Secretario General de la ONU. Hemos dedicado la primera mitad de este año a trabajar con los cuatro gobiernos para esbozar el diseño de este panel, su programa de trabajo, su ubicación dentro del sistema de la ONU, su posible composición, y cuándo, a quién y cómo rendirá cuentas.

Muchos de ustedes han participado en distintos momentos para apoyar este proceso, ya sea a través de sus investigaciones, asistiendo a reuniones o consultas, firmando cartas de apoyo o ayudando a defender la causa ante los responsables políticos y los medios de comunicación. Gracias; estas acciones ya han marcado una gran diferencia.

El próximo hito clave será un evento de alto nivel de líderes, que se celebrará en Nueva York en el marco de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas, en apoyo al Panel Internacional sobre Desigualdad (IPI), el 23 de septiembre a las 10:30 a. m., coorganizado por el Secretario General y los líderes de los cuatro gobiernos.

El Gobierno sudafricano, en nombre de los cuatro gobiernos fundadores, ha enviado una invitación para que se reserve la fecha a todos los líderes mundiales. Su gobierno la habrá recibido a través de su misión en Nueva York. Se ha invitado a todos los líderes mundiales a asistir y, además, se les ha pedido que consideren la posibilidad de respaldar una breve declaración de visión y una nota conceptual en apoyo de la IPI, que también han recibido a través de su misión en Nueva York por parte del Gobierno sudafricano.

Ahora solicitamos su ayuda para garantizar que el mayor número posible de líderes hagan tres cosas:

1. Asistir al acto de alto nivel que se celebrará el 23 de septiembre

2. Firmar la declaración de visión para un IPI y

3. Unirse a la coalición de gobiernos que apoyan la creación urgente de un IPI.

Tenemos un mes para hacerlo. Por favor, considere dedicar un tiempo a hacer lo que pueda para que esto sea posible. Hay algunas medidas clave que podría tomar para mostrar su apoyo.

En primer lugar, le agradeceríamos que firmara y compartiera esta carta abierta en apoyo del IPI, que se enviará a todos los Estados miembros instándoles a asistir al evento de alto nivel y a respaldar la declaración de visión.

En segundo lugar, le agradeceríamos que ayudara a movilizar a la opinión pública a nivel nacional, utilizando los contactos que tenga con sus líderes políticos para respaldar esta iniciativa, así como cualquier canal público o privado al que tenga acceso para lograrlo. Por poner un ejemplo, más de 40 destacados académicos/as enviaron una carta abierta al nuevo primer ministro del Reino Unido para animarle a asistir a la reunión de la ONU y apoyar la iniciativa del IPI, y apareció en la portada de The Guardian. Sería estupendo contar con cartas y artículos de opinión similares en los medios de comunicación de países de todo el mundo para demostrar un apoyo global.

Si necesitas más información sobre cualquiera de estos temas o necesitas ayuda adicional, no dudes en ponerte en contacto con nosotros; puedes enviarnos un correo electrónico a ati@inequalitycommittee.com.

Tenemos la oportunidad de lograr una victoria en la lucha contra la desigualdad y para proporcionar a los gobiernos los conocimientos científicos para actuar de forma concreta y les sugieran herramientas y políticas eficaces y eficientes. Por favor, haz todo lo que puedas para expresar tu apoyo, tanto en público como en privado.

Atentamente,

Joe

Un panel internacional sobre la desigualdad | Carta de académicos a los líderes mundiales

Estimados líderes mundiales:

Les escribimos en calidad de académicos y expertos en desigualdad de XX países para solicitar su apoyo a la creación de un Panel Internacional sobre la Desigualdad, un organismo científico independiente encargado de evaluar el estado de los conocimientos sobre la desigualdad, con un compromiso inquebrantable con el rigor académico, la independencia y la credibilidad. Inspirándose en el papel del Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC), un Panel Internacional sobre la Desigualdad (IPI) se inscribiría en una sólida tradición de organismos científicos que han contribuido a la formulación de políticas en ámbitos cruciales mediante la presentación rigurosa de pruebas y análisis.

La creación de un Panel Internacional sobre la Desigualdad fue la recomendación principal del informe del G20 del año pasado sobre la desigualdad, redactado por un grupo de expertos presidido por el economista y premio Nobel Joseph Stiglitz, a petición del presidente Ramaphosa durante la presidencia sudafricana del G20. Esta propuesta ha recibido un amplio apoyo internacional, incluido el del Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas, y los gobiernos de Sudáfrica, Brasil, Noruega y España los cuáles han estado colaborando con los expertos académicos del comité para la fundación del IPI.

Los elevados niveles de desigualdad dentro y entre los países son la causa de muchos de los retos económicos, políticos, sociales y medioambientales a los que nos enfrentamos hoy en día, lo que lleva a muchos de nosotros a concluir que nos encontramos ante una crisis de desigualdad, al igual que nos encontramos ante una crisis climática.

Como expertos de una amplia gama de disciplinas —entre los que se incluyen economistas, politólogos, climatólogos, sociólogos, epidemiólogos, antropólogos, historiadores, geógrafos y filósofos—reconocemos que la desigualdad afecta a todos los aspectos de la vida y el progreso humano. Nos preocupa profundamente que la concentració extrema de ingresos y riqueza se traduzca en una concentración antidemocrática de poder, que socave la confianza en nuestras sociedades y polarize nuestra política.

Creemos también que estos altos niveles de desigualdad son el resultado de decisiones políticas que pueden revertirse. Para hacer frente a esta concentración extrema de riqueza e ingresos se requiere un consenso científico compartido sobre la desigualdad. Un Panel Internacional sobre la Desigualdad ayudaría al mundo a crear dicho consenso. Proporcionaría la base de conocimientos necesaria para abordar la crisis de la desigualdad de la manera más eficaz.

Hay tres formas en las que pueden mostrar su apoyo.

Sudáfrica, en nombre de los cuatro gobiernos fundadores, le ha invitado a asistir a un importante acto de alto nivel para líderes que tendrá lugar el 23 de septiembre por la mañanacon el Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas. Le instamos a que asista a este acto de alto nivel para líderes el 23 de septiembre, para expresar su apoyo a la creación de un Panel Internacional sobre la Desigualdad.

Asimismo, les instamos a que respalden la declaración de visión para un IPI, que también les ha sido remitida por Sudáfrica en nombre de los cuatro gobiernos.

Por último, le instamos a que se sume a la creciente coalición de gobiernos que apoyan la creación de este panel lo antes posible.

Creemos que la creación de un IPI redunda en beneficio de todos los responsables políticos y líderes que reconocen la importancia de esta cuestión y comprenden la necesidad de basar nuestra respuesta internacional en datos, pruebas y análisis sólidos, independientemente de su posición en el espectro político. Sería un primer paso fundamental para construir un mundo más justo e igualitario.

Atentamente,

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Chers Amis,

Je vous écris pour solliciter votre soutien. Nous partageons une vive inquiétude face à l’ampleur et aux tendances actuelles des inégalités dans le monde, dont les niveaux élevés constituent une crise fragilisant l’ensemble des activités humaines ainsi que l’avenir même de notre planète.

L’an dernier, j’ai eu le privilège de présider le Comité extraordinaire sur les inégalités, mandaté par le gouvernement d’Afrique du Sud dans le cadre de sa présidence du G20. L’une de ses principales recommandations proposait la création, au sein des Nations Unies, d’un Panel international sur les inégalités (PII) afin de répondre à la crise mondiale des inégalités.

Ce panel jouerait un rôle similaire à celui du Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat (GIEC) face à la crise climatique. Il rassemblerait les travaux des chercheur·euses afin de construire un consensus solide et clair sur l’ampleur de la crise des inégalités, ses facteurs déterminants, ses conséquences, ainsi que sur les politiques à mettre en œuvre pour ramener les inégalités à des niveaux acceptables.

Notre recommandation a heureusement été accueillie avec enthousiasme par les gouvernements d’Afrique du Sud, du Brésil, d’Espagne et de Norvège, et bénéficie également du plein soutien du Secrétaire général de l’ONU António Guterres. Nous avons consacré la première moitié de l’année en cours à travailler de concert avec ces quatre gouvernements pour esquisser la structure de ce panel, son programme de travail, son ancrage au sein du système des Nations Unies, sa composition potentielle, ainsi que le calendrier, les destinataires et les modalités de remise de ses travaux.

Nombre d’entre vous ont apporté leur soutien à cette initiative à divers moments, que ce soit en participant à des réunions ou des consultations, en signant des lettres d’appui ou en prenant la parole en sa faveur auprès des dirigeant·es politiques et des médias. Je vous en exprime toute ma gratitude : votre engagement a déjà eu un impact significatif.

La prochaine étape clé est un événement de haut niveau réunissant des leaders mondiaux pour soutenir la création du PII lors de l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies (AGNU), qui se tiendra à New York le 23 septembre à 10 h 30. Cet événement sera coorganisé par le Secrétaire général de l’ONU et les leaders des quatre gouvernements précédemment mentionnés.

Le gouvernement d’Afrique du Sud a transmis une invitation à l’ensemble des leaders mondiaux au nom des quatre gouvernements fondateurs. Votre gouvernement l’aura reçue par l’intermédiaire de sa mission auprès des Nations Unies à New York. Tous les leaders mondiaux ont été conviés à y participer et invités à signer un bref énoncé de vision ainsi qu’une note conceptuelle en soutien du PII, également transmis par le gouvernement sud-africain via leur mission à New York.

Nous sollicitons aujourd’hui votre aide pour veiller à ce que le plus grand nombre possible de leaders puisse accomplir les trois actions suivantes :

1. Assister à l’événement de haut niveau le 23 septembre ;

2. Signer l’énoncé de vision du PII ;

3. Rejoindre la coalition de gouvernements en faveur de la création d’un PII dans les plus brefs délais.

Nous disposons d’un mois pour atteindre cet objectif. Nous vous serions très reconnaissants de contribuer activement à sa concrétisation.

Voici quelques démarches clés que vous pouvez entreprendre pour manifester votre soutien:

Tout d’abord, nous vous prions de bien vouloir signer et partager cette lettre ouverte en faveur de la création du PII. Elle sera adressée à l’ensemble des États membres pour les inviter à assister à l’événement de haut niveau et à apporter leur soutien à l’énoncé de vision.

Ensuite, vous pourriez contribuer à renforcer l’appui à cette initiative dans votre pays en mobilisant vos dirigeant·es politiques et en recourant à tous les canaux publics et privés à votre disposition. À titre d’exemple, une lettre ouverte signée par plus de 40 chercheur·euses de renom a été adressée au nouveau Premier ministre britannique Andy Burnham pour l’encourager à assister à l’événement de haut niveau de l’AGNU et à soutenir la création du PII. Celle-ci a fait la une du Guardian. Il serait hautement souhaitable que des lettres et articles d’opinion similaires paraissent dans les médias du monde entier.

Si vous souhaitez obtenir davantage d’informations ou bénéficier d’un appui supplémentaire, nous vous invitons à nous contacter à anthony@inequalitycommittee.com.

Nous avons aujourd’hui l’opportunité de remporter une victoire majeure dans la lutte contre les inégalités en mettant à disposition des gouvernements les connaissances scientifiques nécessaires pour agir de façon concrète et en proposant des outils ainsi que des politiques efficaces et adaptés. Nous vous remercions par avance pour tout ce que vous entreprendrez afin de manifester votre soutien, tant dans l’espace public que dans vos échanges privés.

Sincèrement,

Joe

Un Panel international sur les inégalités | Lettre de chercheur·euses adressée aux leaders mondiaux

Mesdames et Messieurs les leaders mondiaux,

En tant que chercheur·euses et expert·es des inégalités issu·es de XX pays, nous vous écrivons afin de solliciter votre appui à la création du Panel international sur les inégalités (PII). Cet organisme scientifique indépendant aura pour mission d’évaluer l’état des connaissances sur les inégalités, selon les plus hauts standards de rigueur, de neutralité et de crédibilité académiques. S’inspirant du rôle du Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat (GIEC), le PII s’inscrirait dans la lignée d’organismes scientifiques qui, par la présentation de données et d’analyses rigoureuses, contribuent à éclairer les décisions publiques sur des enjeux majeurs.

La création du Panel international sur les inégalités constitue la recommandation phare du rapport sur les inégalités présenté lors du dernier sommet du G20. Ce rapport a été rédigé par un groupe d’expert·es présidé par l’économiste et prix Nobel Joseph Stiglitz, à la demande du président Cyril Ramaphosa durant la présidence sud-africaine du G20. Cette proposition a reçu un large appui international, notamment de la part du Secrétaire général de l’ONU António Guterres. Les gouvernements d’Afrique du Sud, du Brésil, de Norvège et d’Espagne travaillent désormais aux côtés des chercheur·euses du comité chargé de concrétiser la création du PII.

Des niveaux élevés d’inégalités au sein des pays et entre eux alimentent nombre des défis économiques, politiques, sociétaux et environnementaux actuels, amenant beaucoup à considérer que nous traversons une crise des inégalités, au même titre qu’une crise climatique.

En tant qu’expert·es issu·es de disciplines variées – économistes, politologues, climatologues, sociologues, épidémiologistes, anthropologues, historien·nes, géographes et philosophes –, nous faisons toutes et tous le même constat : les inégalités traversent toutes les dimensions de la vie humaine et du progrès de nos sociétés. Nous nous alarmons de constater que la concentration extrême des revenus et des richesses se traduit par une concentration antidémocratique du pouvoir, une dégradation de la confiance au sein de nos sociétés et une polarisation de notre vie politique.

Nous croyons également que les inégalités résultent de choix politiques et peuvent être réduites. Faire face à la concentration extrême des richesses et des revenus requiert un consensus scientifique sur les inégalités. Le PII aiderait la communauté internationale à construire ce consensus et à constituer la base de connaissances nécessaire pour lutter contre la crise des inégalités de la manière la plus efficace possible.

Vous pouvez manifester votre soutien de trois façons différentes.

Au nom des quatre gouvernements fondateurs, l’Afrique du Sud vous invite à participer à un événement de haut niveau réunissant des leaders mondiaux aux côtés du Secrétaire général de l’ONU. Nous vous invitons vivement à assister à cette rencontre, qui se déroulera dans la matinée du 23 septembre, afin d’exprimer votre soutien à la création du PII.

Nous vous appelons également à apporter votre soutien à l’énoncé de vision du PII, transmis par l’Afrique du Sud au nom des quatre gouvernements fondateurs.

Enfin, nous vous invitons à vous joindre à la coalition grandissante de gouvernements en faveur de la création de ce panel dans les plus brefs délais.

Nous sommes convaincu·es que la mise en place du PII est dans l’intérêt de l’ensemble des décideurs et leaders politiques qui reconnaissent l’importance de cet enjeu et comprennent la nécessité d’appuyer notre action internationale sur des données et des analyses rigoureuses, quelles que soient leurs orientations politiques. Il s’agirait d’une première étape essentielle vers un monde plus juste et plus égalitaire.

Sincèrement,

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أصدقائي الأعزاء

رسالة إرفاق:

أكتب إليكم لأطلب دعمكم في اغتنام فرصة بالغة الأهمية. نشاطركم قلق عميق إزاء حجم واتجاهات عدم المساواة في عالمنا.

فالمستويات المرتفعة من عدم المساواة تمثل أزمة تقوّض جميع جوانب المساعي البشرية، بل ومستقبل كوكبنا نفسه.

في العام الماضي، تشرفت برئاسة اللجنة الاستثنائية المعنية بعدم المساواة التي كلفتها حكومة جنوب أفريقيا في إطار رئاستها لمجموعة العشرين. وكانت التوصية الرئيسية هي أنه لمعالجة أزمة عدم المساواة العالمية، نحتاج إلى إنشاء هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة (IPI) في الأمم المتحدة.

وستؤدي هذه الهيئة دورًا مماثلًا للدور الذي أدته الهيئة الحكومية الدولية المعنية بتغير المناخ (IPCC) في معالجة أزمة المناخ؛ حيث ستجمع بين العمل المتميز الذي يقوم به أكاديميون مثلكم في جميع أنحاء العالم لبلورة توافق قوي وواضح حول حجم أزمة عدم المساواة، والعوامل الدافعة لها، وعواقبها، والسياسات المحتملة التي يمكن وضعها لتقليل عدم المساواة إلى مستويات آمنة.

والخبر السار هو أن توصيتنا تبنّتها بحماس حكومات جنوب أفريقيا والبرازيل وإسبانيا والنرويج، كما حظيت بدعم كامل من الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة. وقد أمضينا النصف الأول من هذا العام في العمل مع هذه الحكومات الأربع لوضع الخطوط العريضة لتصميم هذه االهيئة، وبرنامج عملها، وموقعها ضمن منظومة الأمم المتحدة، وتكوينها المحتمل، ومواعيد تقديم تقاريرها، والجهات التي ستُقدَّم إليها، وكيفية تقديمها.

وقد شارك الكثيرون منكم في أوقات مختلفة في دعم هذه الجهود، سواء من خلال حضور الاجتماعات أو المشاورات، أو التوقيع على رسائل الدعم، أو المساعدة في التعبير عن التأييد أمام صانعي السياسات ووسائل الإعلام. نشكركم على ذلك؛ فقد أحدث هذا بالفعل فرقاً كبيراً.

المحطة الرئيسية التالية هي في 23 سبتمبر، خلال الاجتماعات الرفيعة المستوى للجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة في نيويورك عند الساعة ال10:30 صباحًا، حيث سيعقد حدث رفيع المستوى للقادة، دعماً لمبادرة IPI «الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة»، يستضيفه الأمين العام وقادة الحكومات الأربع.

وقد أرسلت حكومة جنوب أفريقيا، نيابة عن الحكومات المؤسسة الأربع، “إشعارًا لحفظ الموعد“ إلى جميع قادة العالم. وستكون حكومتكم قد تلقت هذا الإشعار عبر بعثتها في نيويورك. وقد دُعي جميع قادة العالم للحضور. كما طُلب منهم النظر في تأييد بيان رؤية موجز ومذكرة مفاهيمية لدعم مبادرة IPI «الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة»، والتي تلقوها أيضًا عبر بعثاتهم في نيويورك من حكومة جنوب أفريقيا.ونحن الآن بحاجة ماسة إلى مساعدتكم لضمان قيام أكبر عدد ممكن من القادة بثلاثة أمور:

1. حضور فعالية القادة رفيعة المستوى في 23 سبتمبر،

2. التوقيع على بيان الرؤية الخاص بمبادرة IPI «الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة»،

3. والانضمام إلى تحالف الحكومات الداعم لإنشاء مبادرة IPI «الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة» بشكل عاجل.

أمامنا شهر واحد للقيام بذلك. يرجى التفكير في تخصيص بعض الوقت للقيام بما في وسعكم لتحقيق هذا الهدف. هناك بعض الخطوات الأساسية التي يمكنكم اتخاذها لإظهار دعمكم.

أولاً، نرجو منكم التوقيع على هذه الرسالة المفتوحة الدعمة لمبادرة IPI «الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة» ومشاركتها، حيث سيتم إرسالها إلى جميع الدول الأعضاء لدعوتها إلى حضور الحدث الرفيع المستوى ودعم بيان الرؤية .

ثانياً، نرجو منكم المساعدة من خلال حشد الدعم على المستوى الوطني، بالاستفادة من علاقاتكم مع القيادات السياسية لدعم هذه المبادرة، واستخدام أي قنوات خاصة أو عامة متاحة لكم لتحقيق هذا الهدف. على سبيل المثال، أرسل أكثر من 40 أكاديميًا بارزًا رسالة مفتوحة إلى رئيس الوزراء البريطاني الجديد لتشجيعه على حضور اجتماع الأمم المتحدة ودعم مبادرة IPI «الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة»، وقد نُشرت هذه الرسالة على الصفحة الأولى من صحيفة «الغارديان». ونأمل أن نرى رسائل ومقالات رأي مماثلة في وسائل الإعلام حول العالم للتعبيرعن دعم هذه المبادرة.

إذا كنتم بحاجة إلى مزيد من المعلومات حول أي من هذه الأمور أو أي دعم إضافي، يرجى الاتصال بنا — يمكنكم مراسلتنا عبر البريد الإلكتروني علىanthony@inequalitycommittee.com

هذه فرصة رائعة لتحقيق انتصار حقيقي في الكفاح ضد عدم المساواة، وتزويد الحكومات بالمعرفة العلمية التي من شأنها تحفيزها على اتخاذ الإجراءات اللازمة واقتراح أدوات وسياسات فعالة وذات كفاءة. نأمل أن تبذلوا كل ما في وسعكم للتعبير عن دعمكم علنًا وفي قنواتكم الخاصة.

مع تحياتي،

جو

هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة | رسالة من الأكاديميين إلى قادة العالم

قادة العالم الأعزاء،

نكتب إليكم بصفتنا أكاديميين وخبراء في مجال عدم المساواة من XX دولة، لنطالبكم بدعم إنشاء هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة -International Panel on Inequality (IPI)-، وهي هيئة علمية مستقلة مكلفة بتقييم المعرفة المتاحة حول عدم المساواة، مع الالتزام الراسخ بالدقة الأكاديمية والاستقلالية والمصداقية. مستوحاة” من دور الهيئة الحكومية الدولية المعنية بتغير المناخ (IPCC)، ستسير الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة على نهج الهيئات العلمية الراسخة التي أسهمت في صنع السياسات في مجالات حاسمة من خلال تقديم الأدلة والتحليلات على نحو يتسم بالدقة والصرامة العلمية.

كان إنشاء «هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة» التوصية الرئيسية لتقرير مجموعة العشرين حول عدم المساواة الصادر العام الماضي، والذي أعده فريق من خبراء في مجال عدم المساواة برئاسة الاقتصادي الحائز على جائزة نوبل جوزيف ستيغليتز، بناءً على طلب الرئيس رامافوسا خلال رئاسة جنوب أفريقيا لمجموعة العشرين. وقد حظي هذا الاقتراح بتأييد دولي واسع النطاق، بما في ذلك تأييد الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة. وتعمل حكومات جنوب أفريقيا والبرازيل والنرويج وإسبانيا مع الخبراء الأكاديميين في اللجنة من أجل تأسيس هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة.

وتُعد المستويات المرتفعة من عدم المساواة داخل البلدان وفيما بينها من العوامل المحرّكة للعديد من التحديات الاقتصادية والسياسية والمجتمعية والبيئية التي نواجهها اليوم، مما دفع الكثيرين إلى استنتاج أننا نواجه أزمة عدم المساواة تماماً كما نواجه أزمة المناخ. وبصفتنا خبراء من مجموعة واسعة من التخصصات، بما في ذلك الاقتصاديون وعلماء السياسة وعلماء المناخ وعلماء الاجتماع وعلماء الأوبئة وعلماء الأنثروبولوجيا والمؤرخون والجغرافيون والفلاسفة، فإننا ندرك جميعًا أن عدم المساواة يمس كل جانب من جوانب حياة الإنسان وتقدمه. ويساورنا قلق عميق من أن يؤدي التركّز المفرط للدخل والثروة إلى حصر السلطة في أيدي قلة على نحو غير ديمقراطي، مما يقوض الثقة في مجتمعاتنا ويؤدي إلى استقطاب سياسي.

ونعتقد أيضًا أن عدم المساواة هو خيار سياسي ويمكن عكس مساره. ويتطلب التصدي لهذا التركّز المفرط للثروة والدخل توافقًا علميًا بشأن عدم المساواة. ومن شأن تشكيل «هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة» أن يساعد العالم على التوصل إلى مثل هذا التوافق. وستوفر هذه الهيئة الأساس المعرفي اللازم للتصدي لأزمة عدم المساواة بأكثر السبل فعالية.

هناك ثلاث طرق يمكنكم من خلالها إظهار دعمكم.

دعتكم جنوب أفريقيا، نيابة عن الحكومات المؤسِّسة الأربع، لحضور فعالية رئيسية رفيعة المستوى للقادة صباح يوم 23 سبتمبر/أيلول بحضور الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة. نحثكم على حضور هذه الفعالية رفيعة المستوى للقادة يوم 23 سبتمبر، للتعبيرعن دعمكم لإنشاء «هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة».

كما ندعوكم إلى دعم بيان الرؤية الخاص الهيئة الدولية المعنية بعدم المساواة، الذي عممته عليكم جنوب أفريقيا أيضًا نيابةً عن الحكومات الأربع.

وأخيرًا، نحثكم على الموافقة على الانضمام إليهم في تحالف متنامٍ من الحكومات الداعمة لإنشاء هذه الهيئة في أقرب وقت ممكن.

ونعتقد أن إنشاء «هيئة دولية معنية بعدم المساواة» (IPI) يصبّ في مصلحة جميع صنّاع السياسات والقادة الذين يدركون أهمية هذه القضية وضرورة أن تستند استجابتنا الدولية إلى بيانات وأدلة وتحليلات موثوقة بصرف النظر عن توجهاتهم السياسية. وستكون هذه خطوة أولى بالغة الأهمية نحو بناء عالم أكثر عدلاً ومساواة.

مع تحياتنا،

The report paints a bleak picture and yet does not cover the severe disruption in global food production and affordability because of the war in the Middle East, and now again in Ukraine, as it is up to 2025- factors together with climate breakdown and El Nino, that are very likely to worsen global hunger.

Recent reductions in hunger but the world is still worse off than a decade ago

The number of people facing moderate or severe food insecurity fell by 86 million between 2024 and 2025 to 2.1 billion people. Despite this welcome reduction, this still means one in four people worldwide is food insecure today, compared to 1 in five in 2015, an increase of more than half a billion people from a decade ago.

While the gap between the share of men and women facing food insecurity narrowed between 2024 and 2025, the proportion of women facing food insecurity is still slightly higher than that of men.

Food insecurity is highest in poorer countries; for instance, it affects 56% of Africans. But ordinary people in rich countries are also increasingly facing food insecurity. In North America and Europe, nearly 100 million people, or 1 in ten, are food insecure.

Healthy food is unaffordable for a third of the global population

Having food to eat is one thing, and affording a healthy meal is another. A lack of healthy meals costs lives, leads to preventable diseases, and costs economies. For children, it has lifelong impacts on well-being, health, educational outcomes, and lifetime earnings. Globally, 2.7 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.

Food is more expensive in poor countries than in rich ones

The cost of a healthy diet has risen sharply over the past few years and is 37% up compared to 2019. Higher food prices disproportionately affect ordinary people and low-income earners because food makes up the largest share of their incomes.

Food costs more in poorer countries than in rich ones. In Africa, a healthy diet costs a fifth more than in Europe and North America. This means that people in poor countries not only have lower incomes, but they face higher food costs than those in rich countries.

The world is producing enough food, so why are billions hungry?

Hunger is a problem of inequality, not of overall levels of available food. Farmers are producing enough food for everyone in the world. However, rising food prices, the financialisation of global food markets, low and stagnating incomes, unfair global trade rules, and weak social protection systems mean hundreds of millions of people cannot afford it, even when it’s available. Wars, export bans, and a lack of basic infrastructure to move food from farmers to consumers hinder access. As much as 20% of the food produced goes to waste.

Climate change is making food production more expensive and impacting farmers’ livelihoods. Dismal public investment in food security in poorer countries adds another layer that perpetuates food crises, leaving them at the mercy of the global food system.

The people making money out of global hunger

An exploitative global food market and profiteering deliver bumper profits to global multinationals and their wealthy owners.

In 2022, when the world faced high food prices and disruptions to food supply and production that pushed millions into hunger, the food and energy billionaires made a $453 billion windfall, and 62 new food billionaires were created.

Multinationals and the wealthiest people have greater influence over policies and politics than ordinary people, so they can shape global food rules and food production in ways that benefit them.

Looming Food crisis from war, climate and now a super El Niño

A series of shocks are combining to drive up hunger in the next year. The looming El Niño is expected to worsen hunger. Unlike recent El Niños, this one is likely to be the severest in over a century an comes on top the rapidly growing impact of climate breakdown on food production. Excessive precipitation in some regions and severe droughts in others will severely disrupt food production and livelihoods. Yet governments and the international community are doing little, if anything, to avert this looming food crisis.

How to make the world food secure

No one on earth should be hungry. It is the ultimate inequality. Enhancing food production matters, as does ensuring food is accessible and affordable for everyone. So what can we do?

First, we must drastically reduce current high economic inequality and the influence of the richest and other mega corporations on the global food market. A fairer, more equal world is a food-secure one.

Secondly, we must prioritise universal social protection so people have income to buy food. This will also ensure that a failed harvest doesn’t push small-scale farmers into poverty. Low-income earners, women and children will benefit disproportionately. A universal social protection system could even increase food production because farmers can invest in improving their yields.

Thirdly is regulating the global food market, including its financialisation, speculation, and profiteering. Doing so will make food more affordable and accessible and ensure that mega global corporates and traders do not rip off farmers and consumers. On top of this, fair global trade rules will support food security for many countries of the Global South.

Fourthly is increased public investment in agriculture, especially in low- and lower-middle-income countries, many of which are net food importers. But many of these countries face a high debt burden, which transfers money to wealthy lenders while worsening food security as governments are left with nothing. Global support and cooperation in tackling debt burdens is therefore critical.

Lastly, rich countries must fulfil their climate finance commitments, which will help tackle food insecurity in developing countries, which are most vulnerable to climate and food shocks.

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In this week’s Bulletin we review inequality numbers for 2026 so far.

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2026 inequality… in numbers

Pollutocrat day. Unless you’ve been hiding under an air-conditioned rock, you’ll have noticed the planet is on fire. The world’s richest people can take a bow for their disproportionate contribution to that. Just 10 days into 2026 and the richest 1% had burned up their annual carbon budget. The top 0.1% used theirs up in 3 days.

Davos week. As sure as a setting sun will rise again or that the rich will dodge tax, January brings Oxfam’s blistering analysis of global inequality. Timed as world leaders and oligarchs meet at the Swiss ski resort to celebrate their winnings (which Oxfam kindly counts for them), it always captures l’essence of a divided world.

2025, was a record-breaking year for billionaires. Since Donald Trump came to office, billionaire wealth increased three times faster than the past five-year average. Trump’s agenda of championing deregulation and undermining agreements to increase corporate taxation has benefited the richest everywhere.

Resisting the rule of the rich. The events of 2025 made one thing painfully clear: the world’s super-rich have not only accumulated more wealth than could ever be spent – they have used this wealth to secure the political power to shape the rules that define our economies and govern countries and the world.

Oxfam estimates that billionaires are at least 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people.

Thank God the UK has a bin to take on the billionaires buying their way into politics.

Defaulting on development. After all those tax cuts for the rich, there was clearly nothing left for investments into health, education, and fighting climate change. The Global South faces a mounting debt crisis while aid spending is been slashed.

5.2 billion people live in countries where debt payments are higher than total social spending. The World Bank rates over half of low-income countries as “at high risk of debt distress” or “in debt distress”. Debt holders are doing nicely, rich bondholders of six countries that recently restructured their debt made an average profit of 38%.

Aid budgets plummet. Aid has fallen by 28% between 2023 and 2025. The United States is the biggest scrooge, but many other countries including France, Germany and the United Kingdom are to blame as well. They have announced further cuts through 2030. Projected aid cuts will kill about 9 million people by 2030.

A celebration for CEOs or the working class? International Workers’ Day is a time to celebrate victories for worker organisations. This year, however, Oxfam and the ITUC revealed that CEO pay soared 20 times faster than workers’ pay in 2025.

But hey, when we win the fight to tax the rich, those fat cats will be nice and plump.

Who wants to be a trillionaire? The moment we’d been waiting for. The Oxfam statistical rage-bait team were refreshing the Forbes billionaire list like they were tickets for Glastonbury. Rocket man, Elon Musk, saw this wealth officially reach the stratosphere (if only he’d go there and not come back), becoming the world’s first (temporary) trillionaire.

For a while there, Musk was wealthier than the combined wealth of 3.8 billion people.

Spoils of war. Big Oil have been making Big Bucks, an exclusive Equals investigation found. The second quarter combined profits of the Big 6 increased to $50.6 billion - a 220% increase on Q1.

But how to spend all that war money? Perhaps ramping up investments in renewables (after all, the world is on fire)? Of course not, time to Drill Baby, Drill! By 2030, the six corporations plan to increase oil and gas production by 14% compared to 2024 levels. Big Oil’s emissions were sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023 – heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change.

Of course, we’re the ones feeling the heat, not rich polluters.

Scope for hope? While members of the Equals team specialise as prophets of doom, we are becoming increasingly up-beat about the momentum behind taxing the rich. Wealth tax economists are becoming household names, and people are marching in the street calling for taxes named after them! Just in the last few years, wealth taxes on the super-rich have been introduced or strengthened in Norway, Spain, Tunisia, Argentina and Bolivia. And new proposals are popping up everywhere.

I agree. But I think there is a missing question. What makes a demand powerful?

Institutional advocacy often assumes the room is neutral, its occupants await a proposal, and the limits of what we can ask are fixed rather than shaped by politics and power. But a demand is not powerful simply because it is radical. Radicalism can clarify, but it can also avoid the harder work of organising, negotiating and winning change. In my view, moral clarity must come from evidence, judgement, law and lived experience.

For Palestinians, this is not abstract. During a genocide in Gaza and accelerating ethnic cleansing, demands once treated as beyond the pale have become the minimum required by law, morality and reality. End occupation. Ban settlement trade. Halt arms transfers. Pursue accountability. Recognise apartheid and name genocide. The question is not whether we are radical enough, but whether we are clear about what is right and strategic enough to make it harder to ignore.

None of these demands are extreme. What is extreme is that they had to be fought for while civilians were starved, bombed and displaced. For too long, debates on pauses, access, corridors, trucks and fuel obscured the choices driving mass death.

Advocacy should not make cruelty more efficient, occupation more tolerable or aid delivery more compatible with siege. I don’t think we should be campaigning for more comfortable slave ships. We should be demanding freedom. But neither should we stand safely on shore while people already aboard go without food, water or protection.

Abolition was not won by the right words alone. It took organising, legal strategies, campaigns, alliances, risk and sacrifice. A bold demand in a press release is not a movement.

Building another room cannot mean abandoning every existing one. Sometimes a technical point, made in the right room at the right moment, can be revolutionary. For someone facing bombardment or hunger, an achieved incremental demand can matter more than a perfect demand dismissed. Not everyone has thirty years to wait for justice to become realistic.

Moral clarity is not power on its own. Demands become forceful when carried by organised communities, partners, coalitions, unions, legal networks, students, diaspora groups and movements. They must be owned by those affected, not borrowed for institutional credibility.

In my view, Oxfam is not a grassroots or liberation movement, trade union or mass membership organisation. Mistaking reach for power is dangerous. Nor should we confuse sharper language with building power, bringing partners into rooms with sharing power, or alignment with movements with accountability.

Oxfam’s added value is not that we are the movement, but that we can connect the field, the street and the room. We can translate demands into policy, carry information from decision-making spaces back to those organising outside, and help make partners’ demands harder to ignore. Used well, our presence, expertise, relationships and access can turn moral clarity into political, legal and economic pressure.

This is what the Palestine work has shown. Oxfam did not invent these demands. Palestinians, partners and movements were already making them. Our role was to make them harder to dismiss through presence, technical knowledge, coalition work, legal argument and access. It was not moderation. It was strategy.

This is why operational presence and technical work matter. Communities demand humanitarian response when local systems are overwhelmed or attacked. Used badly, humanitarian work can narrow advocacy to access without confronting siege, displacement without occupation, aid without accountability, or hunger without naming starvation as a method of war. Used well, it exposes the political choices hidden behind technical language.

I don’t think the answer is to choose between being in the room, in the field or in the street. Humanitarian work can reproduce colonial power when it manages suffering without confronting what causes it. But it can also demonstrate solidarity, support protection and challenge power relations. The point is influence. It is about shifting power, resources and decision-making to community-rooted actors.

Our task is not to perform radicalism. It is to build the conditions in which radical demands become unavoidable by connecting presence to pressure, evidence to accountability, partners’ demands to political openings, and access inside institutions to power built outside them.

Saying genocide, apartheid, occupation and ethnic cleansing matters. But so do concrete demands and actions. Stop arms transfers. Ban settlement trade. Uphold international courts. End the siege. Protect UNRWA. Fund GBV protection. Resource women-led organisations and organisations of persons with disabilities. Reject displacement and containment.

So, in my view, the question is not whether we used the most radical word or demand available. It is whether we shifted power. Did we help partners’ demands travel further? Did we make it harder for governments to hide behind ambiguity? Did we connect humanitarian evidence to political accountability? Did we use access to open space, not close it? Did we strengthen the people closest to the crisis, or borrow their legitimacy?

Radical demands need power behind them, and a strategy to build it. Oxfam’s role is not to pretend it is the source of that power, but to use its evidence, presence, relationships, voice and access to help build it.

The task is not only to enter the room. It is to build power outside it, carry that power inside when needed, and never forget who the room was built to exclude.

END.

Author: Bushra Khalidi is the Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Policy Lead.

Disclaimer: This piece reflects author’s views and should not be read as an institutional position of Oxfam.

Njoki dedicated her life to building a more just world. She was a Pan-African feminist, a fearless organizer, and one of the most influential voices in the global fight against inequality. Her passing leaves an enormous void, but her ideas, courage and generosity continue to inspire movements across the world.

To honour her memory, we’re resharing one of the most personal conversations we’ve ever recorded.

In this special Valentine’s episode, Njoki and her late husband, fellow activist Soren Ambrose, reflected on 23 years of love and activism. They spoke about meeting in the struggle against the World Bank and IMF, building movements together, sustaining a marriage while challenging injustice, and finding hope in collective action.

It’s a conversation that reminds us that movements are built not only on strategy and conviction, but also on friendship, care, joy and love.

Rest in power, Njoki. Thank you for showing us that another world is possible—and that it is built together.

This conversation was originally published on 14 February 2020 as EQUALS' Valentine's Day special. Today, we reshare it in loving memory of Njoki Njehû and Soren Ambrose, whose lives and partnership continue to inspire us.

As ever, do subscribe to the podcast, and do share with your friends and your family! Email us your ideas, suggestions and feedback to equals@oxfam.org

A major new investigation by Equals reveals how fossil fuel corporates have reaped huge windfall profits following the US and Israel war against Iran. It also highlights the impacts of their carbon emissions on extreme heatwaves and outlines the revenue potential for a ‘rich polluter profits tax.’

Exclusive new analysis of Big Oil reveals that:

• Their 2026 second quarter (Q2) profits are expected to nearly double, compared to the first quarter (Q1). Corporate polluters like ExxonMobil are making up to $1,800 a second.

• They are forecast to make more profit this year than the previous 21 months combined.

• Their emissions sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023 – heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change.

• They plan to increase oil and gas production by 14% by 2030, the equivalent of producing an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil a day.

• A ‘rich polluter profits tax’ could raise up to $400 billion and help phase out fossil fuels.

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Equals Investigates...Big Oil profits

Windfall war profits. The six Big Oil corporate: BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies, will publish their Q2 financial results over the coming week. Equals’ new research, based on financial analysts’ projections, finds that, overall, their Q2 net profits are expected to have almost doubled in the last three months (compared to Q1 profits) from $23 billion to $45 billion. Q2 results fully reflect the spike in oil prices following the unlawful US and Israel war against Iran.

Bumper profits for US corporations. The two corporations headquartered in the US are expecting especially massive windfall profits. Chevron’s Q2 profits are predicted to be over four times higher than in Q1, while ExxonMobil’s profits are forecast to more than triple.

ExxonMobil has made $1,800 a second in profits during the last three months. Chevron has pocketed $1,200 a second, and Shell $1,000.

The war against Iran has driven bumper profits for major oil and gas corporations. In 2026, the six Big Oil corporations are expected to make $147 billion, more than their combined profits over the 21 months from Q2 2024 to Q4 2025.

Profits driving inequality and the climate crisis. Big Oil’s windfall profits are being used to drill for even more planet-destroying fossil fuels and to enrich wealthy shareholders.

Shareholder payouts. In 2025, the six corporations paid out a total of $55 billion in dividends and $62 billion in share buybacks, which went to line the pockets of shareholders who are predominantly the world’s richest people.^[i] In the US, the richest 1% own more corporate shares than the other 99% of the population combined.^[ii] 85% of people globally are “capital destitute” (i.e. they get no income from financial assets).^[iii]

Bumping up production. By 2030, the six corporations plan to increase oil and gas production by 14% compared to 2024 levels, equivalent to producing an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil a day.^[iv] Just a 6% increase in global oil and gas production could lead to a 2.9º C increase in global temperatures by the end of the century.^[v] In 2025, major oil and gas companies BP and Shell cut their targets for future low carbon investments by 73% and 37% respectively.^[vi]

Emissions adding fire to heatwaves. Analysis of peer reviewed data^[vii] finds that, of the 213 heatwaves recorded between 2000 and 2023, 55 would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change. The historical emissions of Chevron, BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies (data for Eni not available) were, on their own, enough to cross the threshold that made nearly all those heatwaves over 10,000 times more likely (50 heatwaves for TotalEnergies, 51 for the four others). This means that the emissions of any of those five companies were enough, on their own, to cause around 1 in 4 of the heatwaves.

Costing the world. The same research shows that the emissions of 180 largest carbon majors (fossil fuel and cement producers) contributed to roughly half of the increase in global heatwave intensity since pre-industrial times. The five oil corporations alone account for 8% of this increase in intensity. Their contributions to global warming, as a whole, was about 0.1°C (6.5%) in 2023 and caused about 8% of global warming between 2000 and 2023.

Massive direct emissions. In 2025, BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies reported emitting a combined 358.3 million tonnes of scope 1 and 2 CO2e emissions from their operations (this doesn’t include their supply chain or customers). This is equivalent to the annual emissions of 55 million people. The estimated direct and indirect environmental damage costs, calculated by translating the quantity of resources used and pollutants emitted into monetary terms (using S&P Capital Trucost figures) $60 billion in 2025.

Disasters across the world. Big Oil’s quarterly profits come as record-breaking temperatures sweep across Europe and North America — extreme heatwaves that climate scientists warn would have been virtually impossible without the climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels.^[viii]

India and Pakistan have also faced sustained extreme heat in 2026. In May, 97 of the 100 hottest cities in the world were in India.^[ix] Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and other West African countries are experiencing devastating flooding.

The worst is likely yet to come. A “Godzilla El Niño” is forming over the Pacific Ocean which is forecast to drive global temperature to record highs, bringing with it extreme weather events. Poorer communities, already vulnerable to climate impacts, are bracing themselves for extreme heat, droughts and floods. The UN’s World Food Programme is appealing for funds for drought-resistant seeds, flood defences, water storage systems and cash transfers to avert a global hunger crisis before it happens.^[x]

Compounding global crises. Global crises are compounding, each piling onto the last. There is a global debt crisis: half of low-income countries are “at high risk of debt distress” or “in debt distress”.^[xi] At the same time, official development assistance has been gutted, with aid has falling by 28% between 2023 and 2025^[xii]. With food and energy prices already out of reach, those already vulnerable to extreme weather events are left even more dangerously exposed. Many countries are poorly prepared for the unfolding crises ahead.^[xiii]

Rich countries derailing progress. Against the backdrop of compounding global crises, last month’s essential Bonn Climate negotiations, which sets the groundwork for COP31, were derailed by rich countries.^[xiv] Negotiations to scale up cuts to global emissions and fund climate adaptation faced “gridlock.”^[xv]

Case for rich polluter profit tax. Oxfam has modelled a ‘rich polluter profit tax’^[xvi] which could raise up to $400 billion globally in its first year (based on 2024 figures), comparable to the estimated $290 billion to $1.045 trillion needed annually by 2030 to pay for the loss and damage caused by climate change in the Global South. This type of tax would be permanent, unlike one-off ‘windfall profit taxes’.

Political momentum for taxing rich polluters is building. Finance ministers in Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Austria have called for a new windfall tax on energy profits^[xvii]. In Australia, where Oxfam research found that one in three coal, oil and gas corporations are paying no corporate income tax^[xviii], the government is considering options to tax the windfall profits from liquefied natural gas.^[xix]

Our research into the positions of 60 countries finds that 28% have implemented a temporary windfall tax on excess profits from fossil fuel companies, with a further 13% supportive. Just 12% are explicitly against the move.^[xx] Most countries that recently supported windfall taxes on fossil fuel producers/energy companies did so in response to energy price surges following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Rich polluters must be made to feel the heat. Not us.

The full methodology note for the research is here.

Note: the calculations were based on estimates made before TotalEnergies’ Q2 profit announcement on 23 July 2026. For the corporation’s second-quarter results, see its website.

^[i] Eni has significant state ownership

^[ii] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?rid=453&eid=813804&od=# Share of Corporate Equities and Mutual Fund Shares in Q1 2026 Top 1% held 50.2%

^[iii] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2025/09/17/new-capitalism-in-america-part-iii/

^[iv] Oxfam analysis based on https://www.transitionpathwayinitiative.org/publications/uploads/2026-transition-planning-2026-decarbonisation-strategies-in-oil-and-gas-and-diversified-mining.pdf

^[v] https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2025

^[vi] https://www.ft.com/content/ce4da4e0-192a-494a-a1a7-bea940b146f3

^[vii] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09450-9

^[viii] https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/fossil-fuels-are-heating-americas-250th-birthday/ https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/fossil-fuel-emissions-have-rapidly-worsened-european-heatwaves-in-just-a-few-decades/

^[ix] https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/India/97-of-world-s-100-hottest-cities-in-india-why-balangir-banda-are-out-boiling-sahara-and-death-valley/ar-AA23OLGN?cvid=6a10edaccd5c4857b7409a05f90afb88

^[x] https://www.wfp.org/news/bracing-el-nino-fao-and-wfp-launch-joint-appeal-protect-88-million-people-extreme-weather

^[xi] https://www.equals.ink/p/default-on-debt-not-on-development?utm_source=publication-search

^[xii] https://www.equals.ink/p/rich-countries-turn-their-back-on

^[xiii] https://www.equals.ink/p/rich-countries-turn-their-back-on

^[xiv] https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/oxfam-reaction-2026-bonn-climate-negotiations

^[xv] https://unfccc.int/news/written-statement-of-unfccc-executive-secretary-on-closing-of-un-june-climate-meetings-sb64

^[xvi] https://www.oxfam.org/en/blogs/rich-polluter-profits-tax-could-raise-400-billion-and-help-phase-out-fossil-fuels

^[xvii] https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/04/Letter.pdf

^[xviii] https://www.oxfam.org.au/blog/freeloaders-how-gas-corporations-are-paying-little-tax/

^[xix] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/03/australia-gas-tax-lng-exporters-predicted-windfall

^[xx] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aocqBrvMKJJeF-F5hyKFnVWa2Pv8IHwH/edit?gid=798616290#gid=798616290

Too often, climate breakdown and economic inequality are treated as separate crises. But what if they’re two sides of the same problem, and one cannot be solved without confronting the other?

In this episode of EQUALS, Nafkote Dabi and Max Lawson speak with Anmol Somanchi, Moritz Odersky, and Cornelia Mohren (Nelly) from the World Inequality Lab about the Global Justice Report, an ambitious blueprint for building an economy that delivers shared prosperity while keeping global warming within planetary boundaries.

We explore the report’s most radical proposals, including a Global Justice Fund financed through progressive global wealth and income taxes, with wealth tax rates of up to 20% for billionaires and top income tax rates of up to 90% for the world’s highest earners. The authors argue that these measures could dramatically reduce extreme concentrations of wealth, progressively bringing an end to the billionaire class while financing investments in clean energy, healthcare, education, and sustainable development around the world.

The conversation also wrestles with the inevitable criticisms. Is such a transformation politically possible? Can societies move beyond an economic model built on endless growth? And how do we build public support for climate action that improves people’s lives rather than asking them to bear the costs of a crisis they did little to create?

Guests

Anmol Somanchi is an Indian economist, researcher, and PhD candidate at the Paris School of Economics. He is the Global Justice Coordinator at the World Inequality Lab.

Moritz Odersky is an economist and research fellow at the World Inequality Lab.

Cornelia Mohren is an economist, Environmental Coordinator at the World Inequality Lab, and a PhD candidate in Economics at Sciences Po Paris.

Together, they are among the core co-authors of the June 2026 report, A Plan for Equality & Prosperity Within Planetary Boundaries, coordinated alongside prominent economists including Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel.

If you enjoy the episode, please like, share, comment, and leave us a review. Follow us on X @EQUALShope, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook and on LinkedIn.

It was 1984. I was 12 years old, recording the pop charts religiously every Sunday on my shiny new cassette player. Every evening the family would gather around the television to watch the news. Every evening there would be stories of clashes between striking miners and their supporters and the police, with pictures of picket lines and running battles as the police attacked miners with truncheons and on horseback whilst they fought back.

The miners’ strike of 1984-1985 was a huge moment in British history. It lasted just over 11 months. The miners had the widespread support of the entire working class in Britain. Workers who felt that they were all under attack from the new Conservative government, led my Margaret Thatcher.

In the early seventies, the miners had struck successfully for higher wages and managed to bring down the previous Conservative government at the same time, with power stations closing and electricity blackouts forcing the country into a three-day week and darkness every evening.

Mrs Thatcher and the Conservative party were determined to have revenge. They first stockpiled huge amounts of coal, drew up contingency plans to use the army, and then deliberately provoked the strike. They were intent on starving the miners back to work- this was no exaggeration either as miners and their families had to endure tremendous hardship, especially in the harsh winter of 1984-85. My wife’s best friend’s father was a Scottish miner, and although only four at the time she remembers the many ‘poor days’ when they could only eat beans on toast because daddy was on strike.

Many support groups sprung up to raise money for miners and their families. In London, members of/activists from the LGBTQIA+ community got together and formed ‘Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM)’. LGBTQIA+ people in the UK were at that time subject to widespread discrimination, including in the workplace, often forced to live their lives in secret, or estranged from their families and subject to violence. The Conservative government under Mrs Thatcher also used state power to enforce this prejudice, banning the teaching of homosexuality in schools.

HIV/AIDS was also exploited to intensify homophobia, as growing numbers of young gay men started to die from AIDS-related illnesses, what was at that time a very poorly understood, feared, and incurable disease. Indeed, one of the founders and leaders of LGSM, Mark Ashton, died of the disease two years later in February 1987, aged only 26.

Pits and perverts

LGSM raised money from the LGBTQIA+ community in London and across the country for the miners; they provided support for a series of mining communities in the Dulais valley in South Wales. The Welsh valleys were one of the key areas of coal mining in the UK.

They took the money there themselves, staying with mining families and building relationships with the women and men organising and striking, and in turn miners came to London too, giving speeches at fundraising events, including a big concert in Camden London, where the Bronski Beat headlined (one of my favourite bands, then and now- their haunting synth pop song ‘Smalltown Boy’ about a young gay man having to leave his family and go to London is honestly one of the best songs ever). The concert was called ‘Pits and Perverts’, the name taken from a headline in the right-wing tabloid newspapers about LGSM and the miners.

Solidarity

It is a beautiful story of solidarity- a word that is not heard or used enough these days, I think. A recognition that two communities and movements, miners and the LGBTQIA+ community had far more in common than they had separating them.

Many of LGSM were themselves working class, and had grown up in similar communities, often experiencing prejudice and discrimination, but also very aware of the everyday realities of working-class life and struggle. Over the year, with the many visits, strong and lifelong friendships were formed, and walls of prejudice and division broke down through community and a common struggle.

Most importantly the two communities realised they had a common enemy. There is a scene in the wonderful 2014 film about LGSM, Pride, where one miner’s wife, who struggles with her homophobic prejudice, shows her husband a newspaper story about the gay community and HIV/AIDS. He says, ‘you know the lies they print about us miners daily-calling us the enemy within- why would you believe the lies they tell about these people?’.

This is the heart of solidarity: shared struggles without erasing differences, taking action knowing there is a cost of standing with others, especially when it is hard. It is about collective liberation, recognising that only in everyone’s liberation can you begin to transform conditions for yourself and for others. LGSM, despite their own huge struggles, chose to focus on supporting the miners, seeing their actions as part of a shared struggle.

The constant need to fuel division and hate

My own feeling is that prejudice, racism, homophobia, sexism; these are all things that need to be constantly maintained and manufactured; that they often rapidly crumble when people are able to meet, to talk and to understand each other better, to share common struggles. Not always of course- none of this is automatic or simple and prejudice can run very deep indeed. The point is more that I think there is definitely an ongoing need to prop up division, to constantly tell us that we have more that divides us than unites us.

I also feel that prejudice is actually perhaps more common within the upper and middle-classes. This is I think because of physical and financial distance from the ‘other’ and support for the status quo, plus often an additional level of class prejudice. These parts of society are also more likely to have the power to amplify and codify their prejudices through law and the media. For the working classes, it is true that competition for scarce jobs and public services is more common, and can be weaponised, but equally poverty, proximity and shared hardship can be a key source of solidarity and struggle too.

Victory in defeat

The miners lost the strike; it was a huge defeat, not just for them but for the whole labour movement and the working class in the UK. It is no coincidence that economic inequality shot upwards in the following two decades in the country, as the power of labour was cowed and the power of capital boosted.

But a year later, at the 1985 gay pride march in London, LGSM were joined by coachloads of miners from all over the country, who marched at the front of the Pride march. At the Labour Party conference that year, a motion supporting equal rights for gay and lesbian people was passed, in large part because of the unions coming in behind it in support, strongly pushed to do this by the National Union of Mineworkers.

In the years since then, there has been huge progress in securing equal rights for LGBTQIA+ people, both legally and within society as a whole. For my kids at school now, listening to them discuss these things so openly, the level of prejudice of those years feels like another world. But none of this can be taken for granted. In the UK in recent years, as in much of the world, there has been a dangerous roll back of rights and growing levels of homophobia and transphobia, amid poisonous rhetoric from politicians and the media. As always, the protection and expansion of rights and freedoms requires constant vigilance and constant struggle.

END.

Author: Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International and EQUALS podcast co-host. He is also a visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE International Inequalities Institute and the co-chair of the Global People’s Medicines Alliance.

Thanks so much to Amina and to Silvia for their help in writing this.

Now wealth tax economists are becoming household names, and people are marching in the street calling for taxes named after them!

Sure, among ordinary people there was widespread support. But the tide is turning among governments, mainstream economists and the media.

The idea that the rich should be taxed more was routinely dismissed as either extreme or unworkable - or both. Not so anymore.

In this week’s Bulletin, we’re going back to our roots and giving people some scope for hope. We’re winning the fight to tax the super-rich.

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Progress towards a wealth tax on the super-rich

Already being introduced. Just in the last few years, wealth taxes on the super-rich have been introduced or strengthened in Colombia, Norway, Spain, Tunisia, Argentina and Bolivia.

New proposals are popping up everywhere. In California, a state in the Western United States, voters will decide in November if the super-rich should pay a one-off 5% wealth tax. In Denmark, the Prime Minister of the party that abolished the country’s wealth tax 30 years ago just ran an election campaign on the promise to reintroduce the tax.

Multilateral shifts. The G20 under Brazil called for international coordination to tax billionaires. A binding tax convention currently being negotiated at the UN recognizes that countries need to work together to make sure that the super-rich are taxed more effectively.

Come a long way. It is difficult to understand just how seismic these shifts are without comparing them to what came before. In past decades, a relentless war on fair taxation led country after country to repeatedly cut taxes on the rich.

Wealth taxes were decimated. For example, in 1990 there were 12 OECD countries that had a wealth tax on the richest. In just three decades, that number collapsed to three. Meanwhile billionaire wealth has skyrocketed from 2.5% of global GDP in 1990 to 14.1% today.

Taxes on the income of the rich slashed. From 1980 to 2022 the top tax rate on the income of the richest fell from 59.5% to 40.4% – a drop of nearly a third. In the same period, the income of the richest 1% increased by 45%.

Offset by taxing everyone else. While taxes on the rich were being dismantled, taxes on everyone else were being raised. Today, whenever 1 dollar is raised in taxes, only 8 cents are raised from taxes on the wealth of the rich, while nearly 33 cents are raised from inequality-enhancing consumption taxes.

Trickle up economics. Tax cuts for the rich were made with promises that the gains would eventually trickle down through jobs, investments and growth, but research shows what most people already suspect: the only beneficiaries were the rich, while growing inequality harmed our democracy, climate and progress against poverty and hunger.

We’re now (cautiously) winning. As we continue to fight against those waging the war on fair taxation, we are hopeful that we are finally winning. In the age of the first trillionaire, it’s not a minute too soon.

What is giving you hope? Comment below.

Leave a comment

Something to read/listen to

Read Who wants to tax a billionaire? A light-hearted guide to the tax the rich characters. We love the idea of rebranding killer stats as statistical rage bait!

Read about how South Korea plans to tackle inequality by establishing a future fund using extra tax revenue generated by the semiconductor boom.

Watch Jayati Ghosh on why we must move beyond growth.

Watch How to get filthy rich with Gary Stevenson (only available in the UK).

Watch Patriotic Millionaire’s new wealth tax campaign video.

Read Growth, Democracy, or Climate Action? The new trilemma of advanced capitalism. We love the conclusion of degrowth for the rich, green growth for the rest.

Food crises were not a single event for us. They were a rhythm. A bad rain, then a thin harvest, then a hard season, then, if we were fortunate, recovery. Then the cycle again. The sky set the rhythm, but the sky was never the whole story. Communities like mine had little cushion against a bad year, and how much cushion a community holds is not decided by the weather. In a household already stretched thin by that rhythm, birth order was never neutral. I was the first child of a polygamous family, and that came with a role attached, not just a place in the line. I was watched to see what example I would set. I was expected, before long, to help carry the household. When the harvest was thin, a firstborn child was among the first hands a family would call on, not the last.

A firstborn child is not asked if they have time to help. They are simply expected to have made it.

That is the direction my life could easily have taken. Fetching water. Looking after younger siblings. Working land that needed hands more than it needed a child at a school desk. What kept me at that desk, more days than not, was a bowl.

At school, once a day, we were given a ration through a World Food Programme feeding programme. Almost none of it came from our own fields or even our own country. Bowls like mine were filled with what international food aid shipped in those years: a porridge of sorghum, maize or wheat, a protein supplement, and oil for calories. What I remember is the powdered milk, mixed with water, and the dried, salted fish, broken into small pieces over the grain. I did not know, then, what WFP stood for. I knew the smell of the fish and the particular chalky taste of the milk, and I knew that bowl was often the most certain meal of my day.

Except on the days there was no school. We hated Sundays. We hated public holidays. No school meant no rations, so a day off was not a rest. It was a gap. I did not have the language then to call that irony. I only had the hunger of a Monday morning that felt, strangely, like relief.

We did not long for the day off. We longed for it to end.

That gap taught me something before I had a word for it. Some days, a system outside my family decided whether I ate. Not shameful. Not undignified. Just a plain, physical fact, and one that gave my family a reason to let me carry my share of the household from a desk, rather than from a field.

I say this because I know how the debate about aid usually goes. Someone points to what it has fed, vaccinated, taught, and cured. Someone else points to the dependency it can create, the power it concentrates in the giver, and the conditions that can arise without anyone asking to sign them. Both are right, and both are talking about the same bowl from different distances. From where I sat, seven or eight years old, waiting for a Sunday to end, the debate about power and dependency was not wrong. It simply was not the question in front of me. The question before me was whether I would eat that day or wait until Monday.

A system can need deep reform and still keep a child fed. Both things can be true at once.

Let me be clear about what follows from that, because in a season of aid cuts, it is easily twisted. The answer to an imperfect bowl is not an empty one. Taking the ration away reforms nothing. It only returns the hunger. When I question how aid works, I am not arguing for less of it. I am arguing about who decides.

I carry that bowl with me now, in a very different seat, in conversations about funding models, partnership terms and the language we use for the work we do. It keeps me honest about two things at once.

First, that reform is not betrayal. Questioning how aid is designed, who decides its terms, and where the power sits, is not an insult to the people it once fed. It is a way of asking whether the next firstborn child gets to stay at their desk without carrying the costs my generation carried alongside that bowl: the waiting, the conditions, the sense that help always arrived from somewhere else, decided by someone else. Even the food in the bowl had made that journey.

Second, that reform without memory becomes its own kind of distance. It is easy, from a table far from any child, to speak of aid only as a system to be fixed or replaced. It is harder and more honest to remember it has also been someone’s bowl. Somewhere, right now, it still is. Some child, somewhere, is dreading Sunday for the same reason I did.

That is the real distance in this story. Not the miles the food travelled to reach my bowl, but the distance between a table where a decision is made and a child who eats, or does not, because of it.

Some of that distance has begun to close. School meals are increasingly bought from farmers near the schools they serve, so that the bowl feeds a community twice. That is the right direction. The question is why, fifty years after my bowl, it is still the direction and not yet the norm.

We do not have to choose between gratitude and criticism. I hold both. Grateful for a scoop of milk that bought me time at a desk. Clear that the next child deserves a bowl that is filled more fairly, and decided closer to home.

The bowl was never the whole answer. But it was enough of one, for one child, more days than not. That has to count for something, even as we build something that no longer asks a child to dread the day off.

END

References

• The Sahel drought, 1968–74: widespread famine and displacement across Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Niger, and Burkina Faso, with an estimated 100,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of people dependent on food aid.

Author: Adama Coulibaly is the Head of Programs at Oxfam International. He also write and speak on decolonisation, leadership, and the future of global development.

Listen to our latest episode with Olivier De Schutter as we explore whether we can end poverty without GDP growth.

In this episode, we speak with Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, about his groundbreaking roadmap to end poverty without relying on endless GDP growth. Drawing on years of country visits and a global collaboration involving hundreds of economists, academics, unions and civil society organizations, Olivier argues that governments have become trapped by an obsession with growth at the expense of people’s wellbeing.

Together, we unpack why rising GDP hasn’t stopped inequality from deepening, how extreme wealth concentration is undermining democracy, why “business-friendly” policies often leave people behind, and what a post-growth economy focused on meeting human needs could actually look like.

Join us for a conversation that challenges one of the biggest assumptions in economics and offers a bold vision for a fairer future.

This is the first episode in a two-part EQUALS series exploring some of the most ambitious ideas for building a fairer and more sustainable future. Next, we’ll examine the World Inequality Lab’s groundbreaking Global Justice Report, speaking with members of the team behind the report about their bold proposals to transform the global economy and confront inequality, climate change and global injustice.

If you enjoy the episode, please like, share, comment, and leave us a review. Follow us on X @EQUALShope, Bluesky and on LinkedIn.

Take a moment with the number. A trillion dollars. If you spent a million dollars every single day, it would take you two thousand seven hundred years to spend it. It is more than the entire GDP of Argentina or Nigeria. It is a figure so large that our brains are not really equipped to process it as a real thing.

According to Oxfam 60% of billionaire wealth globally is not earned in any sense you and I would recognise, but derived from inheritance, monopoly power, or crony connections. By UBS’s own count, the great wealth transfer is accelerating, with a record $297.8 billion passing to just 91 heirs in 2025. Musk’s own wealth did not surge through some new invention, but through a private-market revaluation of SpaceX and his AI company xAI, a paper merger that pushed his net worth from $500 billion to $800 billion in just four months. Tesla, the engine of much of his wealth, runs on public subsidy, tax incentives and regulatory frameworks his own companies have spent years bending into shape. The money does not materialise from genius. It is extracted from systems that workers built, that governments subsidised, and that the public is now invited to applaud.

Earlier this year while his companies held billions in government contracts, Musk was inside the US government running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE fired the regulators, hollowed out agencies, and dismantled the oversight structures that might otherwise have asked awkward questions of his own companies. A Yale model estimated Musk’s political activities cost Tesla between one million and 1.26 million US vehicle sales. He took that hit and kept going, which tells you what the access was worth to him. This is regulatory capture as a business model, dressed up as a public service.

But this is not about one man and his excessive wealth. It is systemic, and the same pattern recurs across every region. In South Africa, the Gupta brothers spent years so deeply embedded in Jacob Zuma’s government that a judicial commission concluded the state itself had been captured, with cabinet appointments and contracts steered to serve private interests. In India, Gautam Adani built one of the world’s great fortunes in lockstep with his proximity to Narendra Modi, winning state contracts and infrastructure concessions as his net worth soared, while those who called it crony capitalism were brushed aside. In Mexico, Carlos Slim became one of the richest men on earth almost overnight when the Salinas government privatised the state telephone monopoly and sold it to him, handing a public asset to a private fortune that has dominated the country’s telecoms ever since. Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens, and where they do not hold office outright, they buy the people who do. When wealth concentrates at this velocity, democracy is revealed as a sham.

Meanwhile the world that produced this wealth continues as it is. The World Inequality Report drawing on the work of 200 researchers found that the poorest half of humanity holds barely 2% of global wealth while fewer than 60,000 people at the very top control three times as much as that entire bottom half combined. This cannot be separated from the Musk wealth story. The systems that funnel money upward at this speed are the same systems that underfund public health, load poor countries with debt they cannot escape, and leave communities without the basics that governments once treated as obligations.

You will be told, as you always are, that taxing extreme wealth is complicated, that capital flees, that redistribution is a blunt and dangerous tool. These arguments are made by people who would be taxed more. A wealth tax sufficient to fund universal healthcare and education across the Majority World has been modelled, costed, and proposed repeatedly. The obstacle has never been the arithmetic. It has always been the politics, and the politics is owned by the people the tax would affect.

But here is what the first trillionaire does not want you to notice. Across the same world that produced his fortune, the 99% are organising. Carnegie’s Global Protest Tracker recorded more than 110 major anti-government protests across 70 countries in the last year. Most of them powered by the same anger at the same rigged system.

Young people forced a tax climbdown in Kenya, brought down governments in Nepal and Madagascar and took to the streets from Morocco to Indonesia demanding the rules be rewritten. They did it without trillion-dollar war chests. They did it themselves, alongside people like you and me, in solidarity, and an insistence that this is not inevitable.

That movement is the counterweight to everything this moment represents. Billionaires are feeling the pressure. In May, Jeff Bezos went on CNBC to insist the tax system isn’t crony capitalism, defend his peers against ‘vilification,’ and deny that the ultra-rich avoid tax at all, the sound of a class that suddenly feels the need to argue its case in public.

Every wealth tax now argued seriously in a parliament, every billionaire levy being debated at the UN, every debt cancellation demand making it onto a government agenda arrived there because people organised and refused to accept the terms being set for them from above. The 1% have the money and, for now, control of the politics. The 99% have the majority, the moral case, and a growing refusal to be distracted from who is actually picking their pockets.

12 June may be the day the first trillionaire is officially minted, but, let it also be the moment millions more people decide they have had enough.

END.

Author: Ed Pomfret, Communications & media lead, Fight Inequality Alliance.

This article was first published by Fight inequality Alliance here and on their Substack. It has also been republished by Inequality.org here.

Fight Inequality Alliance

What a trillion dollars tells us about who really runs the world

SpaceX filed paperwork last week for the largest stock market listing in history, seeking $80 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation, and analysts have pencilled in 12 June as the day Elon Musk officially becomes a trillionaire…

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3 months ago · 1 like · Fight Inequality Alliance

A revolutionary, racist, and revolting idea

A core idea on the right is that of the ”Great Replacement Theory”―that so called ‘globalist elites’ in charge of rich countries are deliberately seeking to undermine, reduce, and ultimately replace white people. Related to this is the concept of remigration, which refers to the mass deportation of non-white immigrants, regardless of their citizenship status.

Remigration as an idea began circulating in the early 2010’s but did not really break through until 2023-24. It is now well and truly in the mainstream and has been backed by far-right leaders across the EU, US, and beyond, parties who are either in government or leading in the polls. Relatively suddenly, the horrific, disgusting idea of the mass deportation of people because they are not white has become normalised.

Hayek had no friends for years

Friedrich Hayek, the godfather of neoliberalism, was a very lonely man for a long time. His ideas were deemed so revolutionary, so entirely out of step with the mainstream, that he struggled somewhat to get a job in any university.

To his huge credit, that never stopped him fighting for what he thought was right. I really wish he had given up. Yet he kept plugging away, fighting for what he thought was right, and what he thought should happen in the world. His ideas went on to become some of the most influential and of the last forty years.

A tale of two Frenchmen

The French economist, Gabriel Zucman has had extraordinary success in pushing to normalise the need to tax the super-rich. His main proposal is that the super-rich pay taxes equivalent to 2% of their wealth each year.

Conversely, his mentor and friend Thomas Piketty, together with the team at the World Inequality Lab, are calling for a tax on billionaires of 20%, in their recent Global Justice Report. (Zucman actually made this point too in his brilliant book with Emmanuel Saez, The Triumph of Injustice- saying that if the aim is to reduce inequality and deconcentrate wealth we need a rate of 10%, not 2%.)

These are of course two very different proposals- one moderate, one revolutionary. One would raise a lot of money for good things; one would eliminate billionaires in twenty years.

The question is do they conflict or are they complimentary?

Debates within Oxfam

A few years ago, our annual inequality paper, published for Davos, was called ‘Survival of the Richest’, and that year focused on the urgent need to tax the super-rich. When writing it we had to decide what we were going to call for ―what kinds of taxes and at what level.

Starting from first principles, we all agreed that we needed tax rates that were not just going to raise money, but that were actually going to reduce the level of wealth inequality in the world, not just slow its increase.

We did the numbers and found that rates of around 17% would achieve this. But then the debates began. We could not, many believed, call for such high rates of wealth taxation. These were pie in the sky. We would be “laughed out of the room.” Whilst we modelled what this would do to billionaire wealth, we in the end decided not to call for such high rates.

My own view is that as Oxfam, we should have, and that by doing so we should have pushed the boundaries of what was possible, in turn making the brilliant proposals of Zucman seem like the more palatable ones to politicians and decision makers. That by demanding these high rates we would be firstly demanding what was actually required to end the evils of extreme wealth concentration, and secondly stretching the bounds of what was politically possible and practical.

Laughed out of whose room?

Over the years, working on different topics, I have regularly heard that expression, ‘we will be laughed out of the room.’ For me it is quite revealing of a specific understanding of how change happens in the world, and one I think is wrong.

For a start, it presupposes that we are in the “room” in the first place. We are sometimes. It has happened to me a handful of times in my life. I remember working with Gordon Brown when he was UK Prime Minister with my colleague Anna, helping them create a plan to fund free healthcare in a series of countries in Africa. It was truly exhilarating ―every advocate’s dream. The plan was implemented, and millions of people got free public healthcare as a result.

But these moments are very few and growing fewer still.

The other thought behind this view is that we are in those rooms because of our moderate, technical and sensible proposals, and that conversely, if we start calling for radical, revolutionary things, we will not be invited back into the room again.

Demanding the stars

I really don’t agree with this. In fact, I think it is the opposite. That unless you demand the stars, you have no chance of getting the moon. If you go into the room with a sensible, technical proposal to go to the moon, then you will never leave the Earth.

Together with many others, we campaigned for years to make the case that healthcare should be free. That charging user fees for public healthcare, as insisted on by the World Bank at the time, contributed to killing huge numbers of people each year, denying healthcare to babies, to pregnant mothers, to the elderly. Together we built that room.

It is my strong belief that radical proposals are not just the right ones, but also by far the most tactical and strategic. They do not conflict with moderate ones. They create the space for them.

This is what the right do- their horrible, radical, and racist proposals do not prevent them becoming more powerful. They do not stop them being influential or being listened to. Quite the opposite- they build a new, racist room, that we all then have to operate in.

Conversely calling for moderate proposals on their own, without radical ones, is I think dangerous. It closes the space of possibility as politicians will often see them not as moderate but instead the outer edge of what is being demanded. It shrinks the room. Zucman agrees; his view is that his practical proposals are made more, rather than less likely to happen because of Piketty’s more radical ones.

Sticking only to moderate, technical proposals also stops us being able to do what the left is best at, which is tell a story of a radically more wonderful society for everyone. This in turn I think undermining our chances of success. I think it is no coincidence that the number of rooms is shrinking fast.

Our future is real. Theirs is a confidence trick

Radical ideas, expressed in ways that mobilise millions of people and make them emotionally commit to a different future, are what I think truly changes the world. They shift the whole understanding of what is politically “practical.”

I also think that as progressives, we have an advantage here, as our vision for a different world is inherently attractive to virtually everyone. No hunger, no poverty. An end to climate breakdown, a wonderful planet preserved forever. High quality public healthcare, education and housing for everyone. Less work, more happiness, more trust, more community, more caring for one another.

For the right, they constantly have to make a world that is only really attractive to the richest sound attractive to everyone. Hayek was very good at this, focusing on the universal desire for freedom from tyranny, and individual choice, and using that to promote a system where freedom was only really for the rich.

But it is very hard for them. The vision of a white Europe, free from anyone whose skin colour is different, or whose origins were in another continent, is not one that is positive or has wide appeal ―its main motivation is hatred and fear, not love.

It helps to have the billionaire owned media on your side, but it remains a constant confidence trick. The constant need to convince people that something would be good for them that wouldn’t, or that their troubles are the fault of x, y, or z rather than the rich and powerful, rather than presenting a genuine, positive and exciting vision of the future.

Building your own room

For me, our job, in the NGO, campaigning and advocacy world, is to focus mainly on building a new room, and then constantly pushing to expand it. Just like the vicious visionaries who dreamt up the dystopian “Great Replacement Theory” and came up with the idea of remigration. They weren’t trying to get into someone else’s room with moderate, ‘sensible’ proposals.

I was privy to an argument once between two of my bosses very early in my career. The debate between them was whether we should be calling for a pause in the bombing of Afghanistan to enable humanitarian aid to be delivered. One of my bosses said to the other, with a quiet fury, ‘The trouble is, X, if this were the campaign against slavery you would have us calling for more comfortable boats.’

This is what happens when you end up fighting in somebody elses room- instead we must always build our own one.

END.

Author: Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International and EQUALS podcast co-host. He is also a visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE International Inequalities Institute and the co-chair of the Global People’s Medicines Alliance.

In this episode, Nafkote Dabi and speak with Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, a Widjabul Wia-bal woman, climate justice advocate, and one of Australia’s leading campaigners for First Nations rights.

Drawing on her experience working across Indigenous justice, refugee rights, and climate advocacy, Larissa explores how structural racism continues to drive economic inequality for Indigenous peoples, not only in Australia but around the world.

From the fight to reclaim January 26 as a day of truth-telling, to the growing influence of far-right politics, climate negotiations, and the challenge of building genuinely community-led movements, Larissa explains why inequality cannot be separated from questions of race, history, and power.

The conversation also examines what meaningful inclusion really looks like, why Indigenous peoples are rights holders rather than stakeholders, and how building broad coalitions for justice may be essential to confronting today’s intersecting crises.

If we want a fairer economy, Larissa argues, we must first reckon with the systems that continue to exclude those on the frontlines of inequality.

Larissa Baldwin-Roberts is a Widjabul Wia-bal woman from the Bundjalung Nations and a leading advocate for First Nations justice and climate action. A veteran campaigner and community organiser, she is the co-founder of Seed and Common Threads.

If you enjoy the episode, please like, share, comment, and leave us a review. Follow us on X @EQUALShope, Bluesky and on LinkedIn.

Three months of the illegal U.S-Israel war against Iran have caused food, fuel and fertiliser prices to rocket, deepening debt pressure and pushing public services and humanitarian systems, already stretched beyond breaking point, to collapse.

The war doesn’t come in isolation. Since 2020, there have been at least five global-level shocks to the economic system. Each crisis compounds on top of the others, fuelling further inequality and suffering.

In this week’s Bulletin, we’re taking a stock check of who is benefiting and who is suffering from these compounding crises. Of course all of the estimates come with a high degree of uncertainty, which now hinges on whether the peace deal will hold. Regardless, there will be far-reaching consequences of the war.

Overlapping global crises…in numbers

1/ Soaring food prices. Food prices rose 3.4 times faster between February and April 2026 than during the same period last year. Before the war against Iran, 720 million people were already facing hunger. In March, the UN projected that if fighting continued until June, 45 million people will be pushed into extreme hunger. For women smallholder farmers —a huge share of food producers in the Global South— soaring fertiliser costs are a direct threat to their livelihoods.

2/ Vanishing aid. Between 2024 and 2025, G7 countries cut $48 billion from their aid budgets —a 29% drop, the largest decline in history. In 2025, 65% of UN humanitarian emergency plans went unfunded. The humanitarian aid G7 countries provided amounted to just 0.75% of their military spending in 2025. 44 people fell into a humanitarian emergency every minute since France last chaired the G7.

3/ The debt trap is set. 3.4 billion people now live in countries that spend more on sovereign debt interest than on healthcare or education. As US bond yields hit levels not seen since 2007, low- and middle-income countries that borrow in dollars face rising costs, too. Wealthy creditors win. Everyone else loses.

4/ Millions pushed into poverty. Before the war, the World Bank had projected global poverty would fall by 25.5 million people in 2026. Instead, the UNDP estimates the war will push more than 32.5 million into poverty by year’s end. The 2020s, already dubbed a “lost decade” on poverty reduction, are shaping up to be a golden era for the ultra-rich.

5/ War, who is it good for? Billionaires, as it turns out. Energy billionaires in G7 countries have pocketed $301 million per day since the US-Israel war against Iran began. Overall, billionaire wealth has surged by nearly $10 trillion across the fifth global economic shock since 2020. Energy billionaires alone have seen their wealth grow 14 times faster than billionaires overall.

6/…and Big Oil and fertiliser companies. The top six oil companies are on track to see profits surge 80% - or $68 billion - compared to pre-war forecasts. Six of the biggest fossil fuel firms are projected to earn $3,000 every second this year.

Three of the world’s biggest fertiliser corporations expect profits to jump 23% above pre-war forecasts. Fertilisers are now scarcer, and farmers across the Global South are being forced to plant less.

7/ Wealthy investors are doing well. More widely, the stock market has hit multiple highs in recent months. Major global financial institutions and banks are seeing profits surge amid heightened trading activity. UBS’ investment banking arm alone reported a 27% revenue jump in the first quarter of 2026 due to record trading activity. The wealthiest individuals control the stock market. In the US, the richest 1% own half of all corporate equities and mutual fund shares, while the bottom 50% hold just 1%. 85% of the world have no income from capital at all.

Something to read and listen to

Read Oxfam's briefing, “Ending Impunity and Inequality,” published ahead of the G7 in Evian.

The U.S-Israel war against Iran has inflicted significant damage on the world economy, and while the recently announced peace deal may ease immediate pressure, the fallout will linger. IMF officials have downgraded their 2026 global growth forecast from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent, and warned that if the conflict persists, that growth rate could drop to as low as 2 percent.

For many countries in the Global South, the economic crisis is not a future risk but a present reality. Although the peace agreement may help over time, oil, gas, and fertilizer prices remain elevated and continue to drive up food and energy costs, straining hospital, school, and public infrastructure budgets. Governments already squeezed by record debt repayments are being pushed closer to default.

People living in poverty are bearing the highest costs, while many at the top are reaping huge gains. Wall Street investment banks, arms manufacturers, AI firms, and energy and fertilizer corporations are enjoying enormous profits as a result of war-related market volatility and militarization.

The G20, which touts itself as the world’s premiere forum for international economic cooperation, should be playing a central role. And in fact, their response to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis offers important lessons, both positive and negative. G20 member countries, which represent 85 percent of global GDP, showed that a coordinated crisis response is possible — but they also demonstrated the risks of recovery efforts that prioritize financial markets over people.

The G20’s Emergence

During the 2008 financial meltdown, G7 countries acknowledged that recovery required the involvement of rapidly growing economies like China, India, and Brazil, leading them to elevate the G20 from a forum of finance ministers and central bank governors into a leaders’ summit process. Over the course of three summits, G20 governments coordinated the largest synchronized fiscal and monetary stimulus in history, committing trillions of dollars through increased public spending, expanded IMF resources, trade finance, and measures aimed at supporting growth and debt sustainability in affected countries.

Beyond macroeconomic stability, labor organizations and civil society groups fought hard — and successfully — to shape the recovery agenda to include measures to protect jobs and livelihoods. The financial crisis eliminated an estimated 34 million jobs globally, but coordinated stimulus measures helped avert a far deeper, depression-level collapse.

The Limits of Finance-Focused Crisis Management

Despite these achievements, G20 country recovery efforts exposed the limits of a crisis strategy focused primarily on stabilizing financial markets. Moves to regulate the financial sector were remarkably timid. Proposals to tax banks and global financial markets through a Financial Transaction Tax, proposed by the UK at the G20, were quietly shelved — a move that would have brought in hundreds of billions of dollars while helping curb excessive speculation and financial risk taking, which remain persistent challenges today.

The G20’s initial commitment to coordinated stimulus quickly gave way to fiscal consolidation and austerity, particularly after the European sovereign debt crisis in 2010. Following the global financial crash, several countries in Europe faced rising borrowing costs and fears that they would default on their debts. In response, European governments and international institutions imposed sweeping austerity measures — deep cuts to public spending, wages, and social services, along with weakened labor rights — in exchange for financial support.

The shift toward austerity and deregulation marked a turning point in the global recovery. Many governments moved away from protecting jobs and public services, focusing instead on reducing deficits, weakening worker protections, and reassuring financial markets. As former TUAC General Secretary John Evans later observed, this premature turn to austerity “led to stalling of global growth and job creation.”

The long-term consequences are still visible today. The decade after the financial crisis saw rising wealth concentration, growing corporate power, stagnant wages, and deepening sovereign debts. While financial markets recovered, ordinary families around the world faced years of heightened economic insecurity and weakened public services.

Lessons for the G20 Today

The response to the 2008 crash showed that the G20 can act quickly and mobilize enormous resources when the global economy is under threat. But while governments moved rapidly to stabilize markets, they paid far less attention to the inequalities and structural vulnerabilities that made the crisis so devastating to everyday people. The premature shift to austerity and deregulation undermined many of the gains of the initial response.

The COVID-19 crisis provides an additional example. G20 countries showed some learning within their own borders by providing significant emergency aid to households and workers. But the response overall deepened global inequalities. Vaccine distribution was highly unequal and while advanced economics invested trillions in stimulus, low-income countries remained constrained by debt and credit downgrades. The allocation of $650 billion in Special Drawing Rights in 2021 provided vital liquidity, but this aid was allotted based on IMF quotas rather than need. Africa – home to 18% of the world’s population – received only 5 percent of the total.

Our 2025 report, The G20 at a Crossroads, produced jointly with analysts from Brazil, South Africa, the UK, and elsewhere, concludes that the G20 has at times been effective at “fighting fires,” but far less successful at addressing the underlying conditions that produce instability and inequality.

Those lessons matter today. The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has raged alongside climate disasters, debt distress, food insecurity, and precarious work — interconnected pressures within a global economy already shaped by profound inequalities.

The G20 response to these challenges should focus not merely on preventing a deeper economic shock, but also on protecting people and building long-term resilience. Success should be measured not just by GDP growth or market recovery, but by whether countries — especially in the Global South — can maintain healthcare systems, protect food security, improve conditions for working people, reduce sovereign debt burdens, and preserve fiscal space for public investment.

There is no scarcity of practical proposals for moving the G20 in this direction.

A global civil society statement organized by Eurodad, for instance, identifies measures to counter the current war-related crisis, including immediate debt payment suspension for affected countries, cancellation of all unsustainable and illegitimate debts, and a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights, an international reserve asset maintained by the IMF, for countries most in need of support.

A statement to G20 leaders by the L20 group of international trade unions lays out an agenda for guaranteeing rights and reducing inequalities in ways that would make the world more resilient in the face of current and future crises. For example, they call on G20 governments to adopt national living wage targets as well as public investment targets as a percentage of GDP to address climate change and ensure quality public health care and education.

At this moment of escalating economic crisis, the central challenge remains political will. The Trump administration, which holds the G20 presidency this year, has set out an agenda that prioritizes the interests of the wealthy and big corporations, even as global instability deepens. G20 leaders face a defining choice: follow this path and let the burden continue to fall on the most vulnerable, or seize this moment to transform the G20 into a body capable of addressing the structural inequalities and vulnerabilities that weaken the global economy and amplify the human cost of crises.

END.

Authors: Reyanna James is a research associate at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, DC. Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at IPS. Both are co-editors of Inequality.org and its related weekly newsletter.

This is the second entry in our new G20 In Flux blog series, unpacking the key issues shaping the US-led G20. Our first entry explores how powerful countries compete over critical mineral supplies and how Latin America is being reshaped through mining, exports corridors, and threats to Indigenous lands.

Subscribe now and follow the series as we explore what’s at stake for the global economy and beyond.

Simultaneously, more than 5,000 kilometers south of the U.S. capital in the Brazilian city of Santarém, located in the Amazon, hundreds of members of more than 15 Indigenous peoples were mobilizing together in protests and occupations. They were confronting two measures by the Lula government: a federal decree that opened the way for the privatization of Amazonian waterways, and the authorization for the dredging of the Tapajós River — one of the main rivers in the Amazon.

The dredging aimed to increase transport capacity for products like grains and minerals, favoring export corporations at the expense of the Indigenous river and riverside communities. The struggle lasted more than thirty days and led Indigenous peoples to occupy the facilities of a large U.S. company operating in the country, which is facing civil lawsuits in Brazil following reports of labor conditions analogous to slavery within its supply chain. The Indigenous mobilization succeeded and led the federal government to revoke both measures.

The protests in Santarém anticipate conflicts that are likely to deepen. Despite the physical distance, Washington and Santarém reveal two sides of the same coin: while powerful countries dispute control over critical minerals, Latin American territories are pressured to adapt to the needs of extraction and transport.

Latin America is at the forefront of the race among countries and corporations to secure natural resources. The region is responsible for 35% of global lithium production, concentrating more than half of the reserves of this mineral in countries such as Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia. Brazil alone has the largest known reserves of rare earths outside of China.

The infrastructure works contested by Indigenous people in Santarém are part of a broader Brazilian federal agenda of construction, privatization, and improvement of export routes still underway. The data are alarming: there are requests to explore critical minerals in areas surrounding more than 270 Indigenous lands, or 44% of these territories nationwide, and may affect 31 Quilombola^[1] territories, equivalent to 24% of the Quilombola area in the Legal Amazon^[2].

A recent report published by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB, in Portuguese) is revealing. It details the pressure created by mining companies’ lobbying in the country and shows how mining interests have penetrated across all three branches of government, under the guise of energy transition, sovereignty, and sustainable development^[3].

Latin America’s immense resource wealth has made it a priority for U.S. foreign policy. Trump has resorted to direct military interventions, supporting right-wing governments, and pressuring countries directly, as in the case of the Panama Canal, where Panama’s Supreme Court reversed a concession previously granted to a Chinese company following Trump’s repeated claims that China was controlling the canal. Another recent episode was the purchase of the largest known rare earth reserve in Brazil, Serra Verde, by a U.S. company backed by the Trump administration. The region is also subject to Chinese influence. China is the main export destination of several countries in the region^[4] and has financed and operated key infrastructure projects, such as the Chancay megaport in Peru, which has faced allegations of regulatory and environmental irregularities.

New South American infrastructure projects bring back old questions about dependency, development, and regional integration.

For example, the South American Integration Routes, designed by the Brazilian government with other governments in the region, foresee five routes connecting the continent’s interior to Pacific ports. Although presented as integration and development, these works may reaffirm the region’s agrarian and extractive dependency by privileging the transport of grains, minerals, and other raw materials. They also raise questions about the viability of some routes and their impacts on Indigenous territories, not only in Brazil, but also in neighboring countries such as Paraguay. Once again, development appears as a promise. But development for whom? Under what parameters?

In this context, it is worth turning to an observation from a recent Oxfam panel, Beyond America First: U.S. International Economic Policy in a Multipolar World: the contradiction that Global South governments risk, under a discourse of anti-imperialism or nationalism, ending up defending policies that benefit local oligarchies and deepen national inequality. This warning helps us think beyond rhetoric, and instead ask what is the actual content of the policy and which sectors are affected by it.

In Latin America, these questions become urgent, especially given that imperialism also relies on local elites and other non-government actors. The advance of mining, infrastructure, and export corridors threatens to deepen violence against Indigenous peoples, riverside communities, Quilombola lands, workers, and poor populations. It also poses an environmental threat, given the Amazon’s essential role in regulating the global climate system. This is not a distant risk, but a process already underway. It is not enough to denounce foreign intervention, while projects presented as development extract wealth from these territories.

The mobilization in Santarém shows the strength of Indigenous resistance, but also the scale of the struggle ahead. Indigenous peoples have succeeded, yet remain largely alone in a complex scenario shaped by U.S. and Chinese interests, local elites, and a Brazilian government that presents this model as development. Supporting these struggles is therefore not secondary. Building common forms of defense with the people on the front line of this offensive is an indispensable part of any consistent anti-imperialism.

END.

^[1] Territories of Black communities whose history is rooted in resistance to slavery and whose struggle today centers on collective land rights, memory, and ways of life.

^[2] The Legal Amazon is a political-administrative concept used by the Brazilian government for public policy purposes and as a reference for deforestation measures. It encompasses an area larger than the Amazon biome itself and corresponds to about 59% of Brazilian territory.

^[3] In the Legislative branch, the report traces this offensive through bills that seek to weaken environmental licensing and Indigenous territorial rights; in the Judiciary, through disputes in the Supreme Court over the interpretation of Indigenous rights and “national interest”; and, in the Executive, through federal plans, programs and regulatory bodies that frame mining as public interest and national development.

^[4] According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) data, in 2024 China was the main destination for exports from Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Peru.

Author: Daphnae Picoli is a political economist. She holds a MA in Economic Development from the Unicamp (Brazil) and is currently a PhD candidate in Economics at the same institution.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Oxfam.

This is the first entry in our new G20 In Flux blog series, unpacking the key issues shaping the US-led G20. Subscribe now and follow the series as we explore what’s at stake for the global economy and beyond.

To contextualise this further, Musk is now $300 billion wealthier than 3.8 billion people in the world. If he were a country and his wealth were the GDP, the one-person Republic of Musk would be the 20th-largest economy in the world. If he were to spend $1 million per day, it would take him more than 3,280 years to exhaust his wealth. One of my friends said that for him losing $10 in one night would be a disaster for him. Feels like a joke, but not for billions of people.

In 2024, my colleagues and I at Oxfam projected that we would see the first trillionaire in a decade. We did not think it would happen quite as fast, but it’s no surprise to those of us who have been following and speaking about the dangerous inequality explosion.

Since the turn of this decade, we have seen a massive concentration of wealth at the top. In nominal terms, i.e. not adjusted for inflation, the world’s billionaires’ wealth is now 2.5 times higher than at the start of 2020, having grown from $8 trillion to more than $20.1 trillion as of 12 June 2026, according to data from the Forbes billionaires list.

Too much wealth and power in a few people

Just imagine what such wealth in the hands of a few people can do to the world. For a start, it can buy influence and political power. Politicians will do your bidding, and government policies can easily be used to appease you. The media – even if not under your full ownership and control (although much of it may be)- will be paying attention to every word you say, and the world will be keenly following it.

That could mean influencing an election in some distant land, sowing division and deciding what people talk about and how. These are not hypothetical examples: seven of the top 10 biggest media companies in the world are owned by billionaires.

No person should have such a massive amount of wealth-it’s too corrosive. Too dangerous.

Trillionaires and extreme poverty in the same world

Even as we get the first dollar trillionaire, the rest of the world is suffering. Globally, nearly 3.8 billion people are living in poverty, 2.3 billion lack enough food, and 3 billion people are facing a housing crisis. And governments are dealing with bankruptcies.

The ongoing war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have set food and energy prices soaring, hitting workers and poor people, especially in the world’s poorest countries, the most. Extreme hunger and poverty are expected to rise.

While this is happening, the stock market has hit a record high, further cementing the wealth of the richest. It’s the irony of the world we are living in: too much suffering and too much pain for the majority and too much wealth for a few.

This inequality is because of bad policies

This massive accumulation of wealth is due to bad policies by governments, especially the powerful ones. Mega corporations and their wealthiest owners have enjoyed lower taxes, benefited from deregulation and government subsidies. Musk himself is a big beneficiary of the American taxpayers. This has enabled him to build his empire.

Oxfam’s research shows that about 60% of billionaires’ money is not merited. It has been gained through cronyism, monopoly, and inheritance - these are takers, not makers

It’s a free market for the rest of us and a welfare state for the richest. Nobody should lie to you that billionaires are the most hardworking, most innovative people in the world.

It’s time to tax the super-rich

Tackling wealth accumulation and investing in the common good, like healthcare and decent, affordable housing, is what governments should be doing. It requires decisiveness and bold policy.

A permanent wealth tax on the super-rich can help keep inequality in check, especially if it is designed in a progressive way where the rates paid by billionaires and trillionaires are far higher than for those that are ‘merely’ multi-millionaires or centi-millionaires. A much higher rate of tax would be needed to actually reduce inequality- last week the economist Thomas Piketty recommended a permanent tax on billionaires of 20%.

The money generated from such a tax could mean a lot to billions of people and governments. Just as a thought experiment, a one-off 10% tax on Musk’s $1.2 trillion dollars would raise $120 billion-enough to end extreme poverty in the world for a year. He would still be a trillionaire.

Any wealth tax should be accompanied by other measures, such as regulations to break up monopolies and oligopolies that hinder fair competition and exploit consumers, and stronger protections for workers’ rights.

Finally, governments must set up clear timebound targets to rapidly reduce inequality and monitor progress. They should aim for a Palma ratio of 1 or below- this means the top 10% would not earn more than the bottom 40%. That means that, on average, a person in the richest 10% will still be 4 times richer than someone in the bottom 40%. So far from perfect equality, but much better than today, where the richest 10% can be 5, or 10 times richer than the bottom 40%.

The world cannot afford trillionaires, or indeed billionaires, while the majority of people sleep hungry and tens of millions die from preventable diseases. Governments need to take bold action. And we citizens must demand they do the right thing.

END.

Author: Anthony Kamande is Inequality Research and Policy Advisor at Oxfam International.

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Abolishing billionaires

The report identifies extreme inequality and, in particular, the extreme concentration of wealth in the world as the core problem- giving too much unaccountable power to a tiny group of rich people and leaving the rest of the world impoverished. It proposes high taxes on wealth and income, not just to raise revenue, but to fundamentally reshape the economy from one based on private wealth to one based on the public good. They propose, for example, a 20% tax on billionaire wealth, which would reduce the number of billionaires to zero in a matter of decades and, in so doing, raise a huge amount of money to transform the world.

Campaigning for convergence

At the heart of the report is a radical and fundamental reduction in global inequality; under their plan, the gap between average incomes in the Global North and in the Global South (currently around 16 to 1) would be reduced to zero, so that average national incomes would converge on 60,000 euros per capita for every country in the world. The share of wealth held by the bottom 50% globally would rise from 2% to 30%, and the share held by the billionaire class would fall from 6% to 0.05%.

Class matters more than country

This vision is not primarily about rich nations and poor nations, though- it is fundamentally about rich people and the rest of us. At the national level, the recommendations also necessitate a dramatic compression in inequalities of income and wealth, down to a scale of 5 to 1 for income and 10 to 1 for wealth. Every country will become radically more economically equal, which will bring big benefits to the majority in rich countries too.

Only reducing inequality can deliver a future for both people and planet

Absolutely core to their vision is constructing a global economy that can deliver prosperity for all, but still achieve the rapid decarbonisation needed to keep emissions within relatively safe limits of 1.8 degrees. This is in contrast to an absolutely disastrous 4 degrees of warming that they project under current policies of persistent inequality and slow decarbonisation. Their report shows most powerfully that politically the only way to save the planet is to, at the same time, massively reduce inequality.

Not degrowth but very different growth

Central to this is a dramatic reshaping of the economy. They do not come out in full support of degrowth but do support dramatic degrowth in some parts of the economy. They model a huge shift from the material sectors like manufacturing and construction to more immaterial factors, with global working hours dedicated to education and health rising from 11% today to 43% by 2100. We will all work less too, with the average number of working hours halved- this labour hours reduction in turn reduces carbon emissions. We will work less but have a better life because inequality will be massively reduced, and many things like health will be decommodified, provided free and universally.

From Private Profit to Public Power- the return of public wealth

Public wealth, that is wealth held by governments, has declined sharply in recent decades. Many governments are now net debtors. This has happened as private wealth has increased rapidly. In fact, the two things are closely linked as governments took on debt and printed trillions of dollars in new money to cope with the financial crisis of 2009 and the Covid-19 calamity- this in turn has sharply increased asset prices and private wealth. The Piketty Plan will see public wealth return to being 30% of total wealth, as it was around 1980. This is critical, as public wealth can be deployed democratically to transform the way things work deliberately, unlike private wealth, where profit is the only real incentive.

(Almost) everyone will benefit

All this means that 89% of the world will see their incomes double by 2100, with 95% gaining in the Global South and 85-95% in the Global North. When the benefits of greater leisure time and a rescued and revived planet are considered, over 99% of humanity will be better off.

A Global Justice Fund

The huge investment this will require will be paid by taxing the world's super-rich and using this to capitalise a new ‘Global Justice Fund’ which would reach 10.3% of world GDP on average. This would be a new global institution; one they propose would be ruled by a democratic system of double majority; all decisions would be approved by 55% of countries representing 60% of the world’s population. This will replace the ‘Global Plutocracy’ of the IMF and World Bank, where it is one dollar, one vote.

Want to pay for that in Euros, or in UN’s?

They also propose a new UN currency, which could be used by countries as their reserve currency, instead of the dollar and other ‘hard currencies’ like the euro, used today. At the moment, this gives the countries with those currencies a huge structural advantage, as they can borrow at much lower rates. It also leads to very large global economic imbalances, with a trillion dollars each year moving from south to north, and to the richest 1% in the global north in particular. Whilst they are most in favour of raising resources from taxing the global super-rich, further money could then also be raised to support the transformation by issuing the UN Currency, similar to the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights.

An equally divided pie in the sky?

Maybe, but they do lay out ways this plan could begin to happen politically, even if the world’s biggest economies refuse to take part. They point to similar radical, but peaceful reductions in inequality in many countries in the past. But political feasibility is not the main aim of this report. Instead, it is to describe, with concrete numbers and analysis, what a radically equal and climate breakdown-beating future could look like. In doing so, it is very successful. Ideas and visions of a positive future are vital to mobilise. We need things to fight for, and not just fight against, and the Piketty Plan is certainly one worth fighting for.

Read the report

Something to read/listen to

Read Branko’s new research on how the share of capital income – “unearned income” that does not require working – has increased in most countries.

Read about The Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth from the UN rapporteur De Shutter.