Belém, Brazil – The long-awaited release of the ‘Baku to Belém Roadmap to US 1.3 trillion’ for climate finance has not pushed forward the accountability of developed countries to deliver promised public finance for climate action in developing countries.
Carolina Pasquali, Executive Director, Greenpeace Brasil: “The inequalities left behind by the inadequate climate finance goal agreed at COP29 have not been resolved with this roadmap – we still need significantly more public finance for mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.”
“While the roadmap rightly recognises the gap in concessional finance, including for nature and providing direct access to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, it does not go far enough in holding developed countries accountable. We still need to see the money for real support to developing countries if we are serious about climate justice.”
Agreed at last year’s UN Climate Conference (COP29), the Baku to Belem Roadmap is an initiative overseen by the COP29 and COP30 presidencies – Azerbaijan and Brazil – to develop a concrete pathway for ‘scaling up’ to at least USD 1.3 trillion annually in climate finance for developing countries by 2035.
The roadmap is supposed to detail strategies to increase climate finance to developing countries to support low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development pathways and implement the climate action plans (NDCs) and national adaptation plans.
Rebecca Newsom, Global Political Expert, Greenpeace International said: “It’s notable that the Roadmap recognises new taxes and levies as key to unlocking public climate finance. Given reported profits from just five international oil and gas giants over the last decade reached almost US$ 800 billion, taxing fossil fuel corporations is clearly a huge opportunity to overcome national fiscal constraints.
“The roadmap’s recognition that the UN tax convention provides an opportunity to raise new sources of concessional climate finance is also highly welcome, and is an opportunity governments must now seize. ”
“Governments must now build on the roadmap through an agenda item at COP30 that drives forward tangible action on public international climate finance, while sending a powerful signal that they are ready to make polluters pay for the climate damages they have caused.”
Belém, Brazil – Carrying on its mast the message “Action, Justice, Hope,” Greenpeace’s iconic ship, the Rainbow Warrior, arrived in Belém, Pará, ahead of the United Nations Climate Conference COP30. At this critical moment for the planet, the ship returns to the Amazon alongside Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and social movements to urge global leaders to adopt ambitious climate targets, end global deforestation by 2030, and advance a just energy transition.
Carolina Pasquali, Executive Director, Greenpeace Brazil said: ““The Rainbow Warrior arrives in Belém carrying the courage that drives Greenpeace’s activist actions, joining organisations, peoples, and social movements at COP30. The real solutions to the climate crisis already exist. They are in the forest, in the Indigenous territories, and in the wisdom of forest peoples. This must be heard and taken into account by leaders at COP30, who bear the responsibility to turn hope into action.”
On board the Rainbow Warrior, holding banners calling for respect for the Amazon, were Brazilian Indigenous leaders, including Dinamam Tuxá, Executive Coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB); Chief Megaron Txucarramãe of the Kayapó People; Angela Kaxuyana, Representative of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB); and Carolina Pasquali, Executive Director of Greenpeace Brazil.
Dinamam Tuxá, Executive Coordinator, Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB): “The arrival of the Rainbow Warrior in the Amazon, at this historic moment of COP30, symbolises the union between global struggles and ancestral ones. Indigenous Peoples are here to remind the world that there is no climate justice without justice in the Indigenous territories. We are the guardians of the biomes, the waters, and biodiversity, and it is time for governments to listen and act alongside us — with courage and a real commitment to the planet’s future.”
Angela Kaxuyana, Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) said:“We arrived at COP30 with a clear message: there is no possible future without Indigenous Peoples at the center of global discussions. Addressing the climate crisis requires recognising, guaranteeing, and protecting Indigenous territories, as well as acknowledging the contributions of Indigenous Peoples to maintaining climate balance. We are the answer!”
Chief Megaron Txucarramãe of the Kayapó People said: “Our presence at COP30 represents the unity of Indigenous Peoples for life on the planet. We unite to guarantee a future for the next generations. What we want to show at COP30 is that we, the Indigenous Peoples, are truly responsible for keeping the Amazon and other biomes standing. Indigenous lands are the most effective solution to protect nature and face the climate crisis.”
“Leaders attending COP30 must advance simultaneously on the elimination of fossil fuels and the protection of forests, while ensuring adequate public climate finance for developing countries. That is why, in Belém, Greenpeace will urge global leaders to ensure that COP30 ends with an action plan to end forest destruction by 2030 , and to accelerate a just energy transition away from fossil fuels. Connecting these two agendas—and ensuring respect for Indigenous Peoples and local communities—is urgent. It is what can make COP30 the conference that kept the 1.5°C goal alive” explained Carolina Pasquali.
After anchoring at the UFPA port, Greenpeace will hold a press conference on board to present its expectations and demands for COP30.
Just five international oil and gas giants – ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies – are responsible for over $5 trillion in projected climate damages based on their emissions since the Paris Agreement was adopted (between 2016 and 2025).
That’s the shocking finding from experts from Stanford and Delaware universities, who used the social cost of carbon methodology, alongside emissions data from the Carbon Majors Database. They calculated the economic value of damages hitting communities between now and 2300, as a result of carbon dioxide that was added to the atmosphere by these five companies over the last decade.
This robust methodology, used regularly by policy analysts and former US administrations, puts a monetary value on the enormous costs that just a small fraction of the fossil fuel industry’s emissions over the last decade are responsible for.
We’re talking about things like human health costs, rising sea levels, disruption to energy supplies, agriculture and labour productivity. It is important to note that no economic metric can ever truly measure the real cost, which is priceless – from lost friends and relatives, to damaged heritage and culture.
Using this calculation, alongside representative examples sourced from the International Disaster Database EM-DAT of some of the most extreme weather events to hit the world over the past 10 years, Greenpeace International has designed a Polluters’ Climate Bill addressed to the fossil fuel industry.
The Polluters’ Climate Bill is travelling around the world – from Climate Week in New York, to Africa Energy Week in Cape Town, Total Energies’ office in Copenhagen, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage meeting in Pasay City, Piazza di Spagna in Rome, Altadena in California, the UN Tax Convention negotiations in Nairobi, and COP30 in Belém. Its purpose is to send a simple message to politicians: it is time to make the fossil fuel industry pay up.
The case for making polluters pay
Making polluters pay for climate damages has never been more important in the context of the climate finance outcome at COP29 last year. Tangible plans are now urgently needed, which is why Greenpeace International is calling for a dedicated agenda item at COP30 and beyond – to deliver on the commitment for ‘developed countries’ to mobilise at least US $300 billion per year by 2035 for ‘developing countries.’
Concessional, grant-based public finance commitments also need to scale up to at least US$1 trillion per year for the most vulnerable and least responsible countries and communities, in line with needs. Making polluters pay is an innovative way, grounded in basic principles of justice, to ease pressure on public budgets while delivering on these vital obligations.
Bolder taxes for multinational corporations and high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) are also vital to help clamp down on their polluting activities. At the moment, global tax rules are full of loopholes, meaning countries are losing US$492 billion in tax a year to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals using tax havens (according to the Tax Justice Network), and annual global revenue losses from profit shifting in the extractives sector – including oil, gas and mining – reportedly amount to at least US$44 billion. Governments are also giving out subsidies for fossil fuel production to the tune of billions of dollars per year. This completely undermines efforts to deliver a global fossil fuel phaseout.
There’s no shortage of cash, given reported profits from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies alone amounted to almost US$ 800 billion over the last 10 years. This is a matter of political will. That’s why Greenpeace is calling for ambitious taxes on the biggest corporate polluters and the super-rich to unlock the funding that’s urgently needed and speed up an equitable global fossil fuel phaseout.
Don’t just take our word for it. Here’s a snapshot of the growing political pressure for action:
The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on climate changeconcluded that governments must use all policy tools available to them, including taxes, to ensure that the most polluting corporations, such as fossil fuel companies, align their activities with limiting global warming to 1.5ºC and are held to account for their contribution to climate change.
The 4th UN Financing for Development conference outcomecommitted to ‘promote progressive tax systems,’ ‘encourage effective taxation of natural resources,’ and promote ‘taxes on environmental contamination and pollution.’
38 former world leaderssigned a letter calling for permanent polluter profit taxes on high-emitting industries like the fossil fuel industry to deliver climate justice.
The Africa Group, France, Germany, Kenya, Morocco, Spain and Vanuatu, have spoken out in support of this agenda via their consultation submissions for the UN Tax Convention and the UNFCCC Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3 Trillion.
8 in 10 people support taxing oil and gas corporations to pay for climate damages, according to a global survey across 13 countries.
Priorities for policymakers
Greenpeace is calling on world leaders and negotiators at COP30 and the UN Tax Convention to urgently act on the following:
Within climate finance outcomes at COP30: support progressive environmental taxation in line with the Polluter Pays Principle and the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), in the context of innovative sources of public finance. Ensure there is space under any climate finance (NCQG) agenda item to advance these mechanisms.
Global Solidarity Levies Taskforce: ensure that the taskforce’s COP30 commitments publicly endorse bold global fossil fuel profit taxation for international climate finance under the UN Tax Convention, alongside bolder fossil fuel profit taxes and extraction levies at the national and regional levels to help communities at home and around the world rebuild from climate disasters and invest in climate solutions.
Under the UN Tax Convention: support bold commitments on progressive environmental taxation in line with the Polluter Pays Principle and CBDR-RC, and on the effective taxation of high net worth individuals, in line with their ecological debt. Revenues from both commitments should go towards multilateral climate action and sustainable development. Also support the creation of an international Polluter Pays tax on the global profits of highly polluting industries, beginning with fossil fuel companies, channeling revenues from this mechanism towards existing UN climate funds to ensure the countries and communities least responsible for the climate crisis receive support to build resilience.
The fossil fuel industry and other major polluters driving the climate crisis must be held financially accountable for harm caused. COP30 and the UN Tax Convention must take decisive action: it’s time to make polluters pay.
Polluters Pay Pact
