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Last week, TotalEnergies announced a donation of food and hygiene kits to communities affected by devastating floods in Mozambique. Framed as an act of corporate responsibility, the company presented this support as proof of its commitment to people facing climate-driven disasters.

But let’s be clear: this is not climate justice. It is climate impunity, disguised as generosity.

The company’s contribution, worth around $500,000, amounts to less than one dollar per person for the more than 700,000 people affected by flooding. Families who have lost their homes, farmland, livestock, and livelihoods are being offered symbolic relief from a corporation whose core business model is driving the very crisis destroying their lives.

TotalEnergies is leading a $20 billion liquefied natural gas project in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique. This project has already displaced communities, intensified insecurity, and locked the country into decades of fossil fuel dependence. Over its lifetime, the project is expected to produce 3.3 to 4.5 billion tonnes of carbon pollution  more than the yearly emissions of every EU country added together.It was suspended after violent attacks in 2021 and has now been restarted, despite serious human rights and environmental concerns.

At the same time, Mozambique is on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Floods, cyclones, droughts, and extreme heat are becoming more frequent and more deadly. Over 450,000 hectares of farmland have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of animals have died. Communities are being pushed deeper into poverty.

The aerial view of the flooded village in Mozambique after a cyclone. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

$500,000 in humanitarian aid cannot outweigh the harm these projects cause. Limited investments in renewables or selective humanitarian gestures are often presented as evidence of transition, while overall fossil fuel expansion continues. This pattern, sometimes described as transition-washing, allows companies to preserve social licence while delaying the structural changes that climate science requires. And Mozambique is just one among many examples.  And yet despite overwhelming harm, the companies like Total, who are most responsible for fuelling this crisis continue to extract massive profits. This is the pattern we see everywhere: profits are privatised and protected, while the damage is socialised and borne by ordinary people

Climate disasters are not unexpected side effects of fossil fuel extraction. They are foreseeable, scientifically documented consequences of continued oil and gas expansion.

For decades, companies like TotalEnergies have known that their products destabilise the climate. They have funded misinformation, lobbied against regulation, and delayed action while expanding production. When a fossil fuel company offers emergency aid after a climate disaster, it is responding to harms that are built into its own business model.

What Mozambique needs, and what communities across the Global South are demanding are not occasional donations, dependent on corporate goodwill. They need guaranteed, predictable, and adequate funding for loss, damage, and adaptation.

That is why 350.org and our partners are calling for binding climate levy and damage contribution mechanisms. These would require major polluters to pay, in proportion to their emissions and profits, into global funds that support communities before and after disasters. In other words: the costs must be upstreamed.

Instead of communities paying with their lives, land, and futures, polluters must pay as part of doing business.

This is the principle behind “Make Polluters Pay.” And it is the only fair response to a crisis they helped create. Today (19th of February) sees the opening of France’s first major climate trial against an oil and gas multinational, as proceedings begin at the Paris Court of Justice.

Since 2020, a coalition of advocacy organisations, Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, France Nature Environnement  alongside the City of Paris, has asked French courts to require TotalEnergies to drastically cut its greenhouse gas emissions and reduce hydrocarbon production. 

As one of the world’s largest historical emitters and among the top global oil and gas companies, TotalEnergies continues to plan production growth of around 3% per year, while maintaining the majority of its investments in fossil fuels until at least 2030. The company is linked to dozens of major new fossil fuel projects worldwide, despite clear scientific consensus that no new expansion is compatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C.A ruling in this case could mark a turning point, helping shift climate litigation from a focus on governments alone to cases capable of reshaping the business models of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. What the Paris court decides may influence similar cases far beyond France.

A genuine phase-out is not a distant net-zero pledge. It is a planned and enforceable decline in fossil fuel production, starting immediately and continuing year after year.

According to the joint analysis by 350.org and Observatoire des multinationales in “This is what a total phase-out looks like,” ending fossil fuel expansion requires more than voluntary commitments. It requires governments to reclaim control over companies whose business models depend on continued extraction.

That means binding regulation aligned with climate science, strict limits on new approvals, and mandatory production decline pathways. It means removing shareholder primacy from decisions that determine the fate of communities. And where companies refuse to comply, governments must be prepared to use public-interest tools — including stronger regulatory intervention or public control — to redirect corporate capacity toward renewable energy and climate repair.

Phase-out also means accountability for past harm. Transparency through independent climate and human rights audits, and enforceable contributions toward loss and damage, are essential. Stopping future extraction does not erase decades of damage already inflicted.

Responsibility means:

• • Ending new oil and gas projects
  • A binding production decline plan with annual reduction targets
  • Full transparency on climate & environmental impacts
  • Ending fossil fuel lobbying and political interference
  • Redirecting capital expenditure from fossil expansion to renewable energy at scale
  • Mandatory contributions into global loss and damage mechanisms proportional to emissions and profits
  • Respecting community land and consent rights
  • Supporting a just transition to renewable energy
  • Being held legally and financially accountable for climate harm

Locals stand outside TotalEnergies in Kenya to demand an end to fossil fuel projects. Photo: 350.org

Thats why 350.org has launched our petition, momentum is building to finally move beyond coal, oil, and gas. The shift now underway internationally recognises that voluntary corporate pledges are insufficient. Governments are increasingly acknowledging that fossil fuel phase-out must be coordinated, binding, and enforceable, not left to corporate discretion. More than 80 countries are now working together on concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels and accelerate clean energy. This is exactly the kind of leadership that communities on the frontlines have been demanding for decades.

A critical international meeting in Colombia this April could help turn these commitments into binding action. If governments step up, it could mark the beginning of the end for fossil fuels, while speeding up the affordable renewable solutions that cut energy bills, create jobs, and protect our shared future.

Some major emitters, including Canada, Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, and Türkiye, have yet to join this effort. They must do so.  The choice before us is stark. We can allow companies like TotalEnergies to continue profiting from destruction while offering token gestures in return. Or we can seize this moment to build a system where polluters pay, communities are protected, and clean energy serves the public good.

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Crossposted from the Daily Observer
Written by Amanullah Porag, 350 Bangladesh Coordinator and Youth for NDCs Founder/Executive Director 

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) victory in the country’s first democratic elections in 17 years was built on promises to restore democracy, stabilize the economy, and reform governance. But the new government has another urgent mandate: to protect people from a climate crisis that has driven at least 10 million Bangladeshis from their homes. For us, climate protection is a matter of national survival. With a staggering two-thirds of the country less than 15 feet above sea level, it is estimated that by 2050, one in seven people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change. For many years, I’ve worked with farmers who have lost their lands and homes because of encroaching sea waters. Most of them are forced to eke out a living in the sweltering streets of Dhaka, or else migrate abroad. We went to the polls hoping to correct past injustices-not just political corruption, but also systemic injustices that determine who suffers when floods destroy homes, when heatwaves turn factories into boiling rooms, when rising seas swallow farmland.

The BNP’s campaign manifesto included surprisingly clear environmental commitments: a “National Green Mission” that includes 25 million trees over five years, green jobs for youth, and a concrete target of 20% renewable electricity by 2030. Especially for a youth electorate starved of change, those green commitments matter. The question now is whether these promises will survive the BNP’s contact with power. A 20% renewable energy target by 2030 is not insignificant. If achieved, it can begin to transform an energy sector too long dominated by mega fossil fuel projects that have left people stranded with costly, unreliable electricity they can’t afford, and the country with debt it can’t pay. Unfortunately, the BNP also emphasized oil and gas exploration and refinery expansion as part of Bangladesh’s energy security measures. If the new government continues to lean into fossil fuels, it will fall prey to the same corrupt forces that doomed the nation. It should instead reform procurement, modernize grid infrastructure, and dismantle distortions that locked Bangladesh into expensive power deals.

Sure, planting trees is a good policy. But climate justice requires more. It means protecting coastal communities without displacing them for infrastructure projects. It means ensuring river erosion victims receive rehabilitation, not just temporary relief. It means designing urban heat action plans that protect workers and low-income communities. It means ending environmentally destructive projects that undermine long-term resilience. Bangladesh does not fall short on climate rhetoric, but on implementation failures. If the BNP wants to redefine governance, climate policy is where that promise will be tested most visibly. In its first 100 days, the new government must demonstrate its seriousness in addressing the energy and climate crisis that is eroding our capacity for progress.

First, it must audit all existing power purchase agreements and move to lower electricity prices. Second, it must revise the energy master plan, aligning it with climate science, economic rationality, and a just transition framework. Third, it must operationalize the national climate plan-moving beyond targets to delivery strategies, budget alignment, and accountability mechanisms. The greatest risk now is complacency. Governments often begin with reformist language but gradually slide into short-term stabilization politics, negotiated deals, and environmentally risky mega-projects justified in the name of development. We cannot allow that to happen again.

This is not yet a moment for antagonism. Youth activists, climate researchers, policy practitioners, and civil society are not adversaries of the newly elected government. Many of us have worked on climate governance and adaptation planning long before this election. If the BNP is serious about its green commitments, climate advocates stand ready to support with research, monitoring, implementation, and community engagement. But support does not mean silence. It means measurable progress, transparency, and accountability. It means speaking up when commitments drift.

The BNP’s victory reshaped the political landscape. Now it must decide whether it will reshape Bangladesh’s climate trajectory. This government has inherited more than power. It has inherited responsibility in one of the most climate-exposed countries on Earth. The elections are over-but Bangladesh’s climate test has just begun.

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The cyclone-induced flood that destroyed rice farms across Sumatra, Indonesia in late-November last year, doesn’t show up in any economic model. Neither do the weeks families spent in emergency shelters, or the infections from contaminated water, or the lost harvests farmers will spend years repaying. 

People wade through the floodwater in the aftermath of flash floods at Tukka village, Central Tapanuli, North Sumatra province, on December 2, 2025.  Photo: YT HARIONO / AFP via Getty Images

What does show up is Indonesia’s 5.11% GDP growth in 2025, a number widely deemed as proof the country was thriving. Ironically, the 51.8 trillion rupiah ($3.2 billion) the government is spending to rebuild what the floods destroyed is not really registered as a loss, in the language of economics. Recovery from massive destruction now counts as progress, as long as money changes hands.

This is a core flaw at the heart of how we measure progress in our current global economic and political systems. And now a new study involving 68 climate scientists from 12 countries, reveals we’ve been drastically underestimating the economic toll of climate change.

We hear about progress and economic growth constantly. From headlines to election promises and budget announcements. It’s presented as proof a country is doing well, and if the country is doing well, our lives must be improving too.

In practice, growth actually measures almost entirely one number: GDP, or gross domestic product. It adds up the total value of goods and services produced in a country over a given period. When GDP rises, businesses are assumed to be producing more, hiring more workers, paying more wages. When it falls in hard times, like during the 2009 global financial recession and COVID-19., companies cut back, jobs vanish, incomes shrink.

This pattern has made GDP become the dominant yardstick of success. Governments pursue it, economists track it, politicians campaign on it. What began as a technical economic measure has become shorthand for whether a society is moving forward or falling behind.

Which means key government decisions including budgets, rest on economic models built around the GDP. These models shape how much governments spend on healthcare, housing, schools, transport, climate action and other public services to make life better for ordinary citizens. 

Despite their widespread use, economists have long acknowledged that GDP doesn’t measure wellbeing, health, inequality, or quality of life, the actual, vital indicators that show whether people are doing well.

Now, a study led by the University of Exeter has revealed that these models have an additional, critical blind spot: they fail to account for the cascading shocks of climate change which are the extreme events and tipping points that can rapidly unravel livelihoods, infrastructure, and entire economies.

Most economic models treat climate damage as slow, gradual, manageable. They focus on global average temperatures, which are projected to rise steadily from around 1.2°C of heating today toward 2°C in coming decades, and estimate damages based on those smooth trends.

But that’s not how climate impacts unfold in the real world.

Climate change doesn’t raise your local temperature by 1.5°C and wait politely for you to adapt. It floods your city on a Tuesday in March. It burns your forest in a week. It kills your crop in a single heatwave while economists debate smooth curves and average temperatures.

The study shows that we and the systems we rely on suffer most from such sudden shocks and local and regional disasters, not from small, gradual shifts in global average temperaturs. A sudden flood destroys crops, leading to food prices spiking. Power stations go offline so factories shut down. Heatwaves overwhelm hospitals and workers fall ill. Roads and ports close, breaking supply chains. One shock triggers another in what the researchers call “cascading failures.”

Going a step further, the study also argues that GDP-based metrics give a fundamentally warped picture of progress because they miss what matters most to people: lives, health, ecosystems, social stability. In fact, after disasters, GDP can even rise because rebuilding and emergency spending count as ‘economic activity’. Destruction can register as success, and this is dangerous. 

For instance, in the US, climate-related costs – including disaster recovery, repairs, and surging insurance premiums- are responsible for $7.7 trillion, or 36%, of the country’s GDP since 2000, meaning a significant chunk of what we call “growth” is actually disaster recovery spending.

LAKE LURE, NORTH CAROLINA – SEPTEMBER 28: The Rocky Broad River flows into Lake Lure and overflows the town with debris from Chimney Rock, North Carolina after heavy rains from Hurricane Helene on September 28, 2024, in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Approximately six feet of debris piled on the bridge from Lake Lure to Chimney Rock, blocking access. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

By missing the cascading failures and compounding shocks that define climate risk, today’s economic models create a false sense of safety. Precise-looking numbers incentivise governments and investors into delaying action — playing down impacts, skipping hard choices, and chasing short-term wins like political successes over long-term protection for citizens. Meaning we skip early planning and investment. We leave people unprotected. Governments underfund prevention while spending vastly more on disaster response after it’s too late.. For example, Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico in 2017 and caused $90 billion in damage. The island had received minimal pre-disaster mitigation funding because models suggested the risk was manageable. Pakistan’s 2022 floods displaced 33 million people and caused $30 billion in damage; early warning infrastructure that could have saved lives had gone unfunded for years.

Destroyed homes and vehicles sit in floodwaters after Hurricane Maria in this aerial photograph taken above Hamacao, Puerto Rico, on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. Photo: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg

By the time governments react, lives are already lost, damage costs have skyrocketed, and recovery drags on for years while displaced families wait for aid that’s never sufficient. Prevention looks expensive until disaster strikes, but when it does then recovery costs six times than what prevention would have required. And this is crucial extra public money that could have been spent on schools, hospitals, housing, and the basic services communities need to thrive.

The consequences of this miscalculation are staggering. The study’s findings reveal that missing catastrophic shocks and cascading failures could lead to GDP losses as high as 50% between 2070 and 2090–losses that don’t appear in the models guiding policy decisions today.

If growth is supposed to mean progress, then our metrics must reflect the conditions that make life better — safety, health, stability, and jobs. And there are ways to measure these conditions directly: is housing affordable? Do people have access to clean air and water? Are we prepared for climate disasters?

The pieces for such a different approach are already in place. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the world’s accounting systems fail to place real value on the environment, and that the global economy must stop rewarding pollution and waste disguised as production and growth.

Around the world, governments, economists, governments and researchers are testing and developing alternative measures of progress that incorporate long and healthy life indicators including environment and social factors like the Human Development Index and Genuine Progress Indicator, inclusive wealth measures that track natural and human capital alongside economic production, and emerging climate-risk-adjusted indicators like Climate Risk Index designed to reflect the he human and economic toll of extreme weather that existing models ignore.

What’s needed now is for decision-makers to abandon the incomplete and dangerous models currently shaping vital societal decisions that don’t serve the world we live in now, and move toward more realistic and inclusive measures that also account for the reality of the climate crisis. Investors, too, should recognize that every dollar flowing into fossil fuel infrastructure today accelerates the very shocks that will destroy portfolio value tomorrow.

Indonesia’s GDP may be rising, but families are still repaying loans for harvests that have drowned. India is losing more people to pollution each year while economists celebrate a ‘booming’ economy. These oppositions may have found a place in our current accounting systems, but they mustn’t in our real lives.

Sources:

1. The public is losing patience with promises of economic growth – Public Finance, July 2025. https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2025/07/public-losing-patience-promises-economic-growth
2. GDP Over Breath: How Systemic Failure Chokes India’s $5 Trillion Dream – ESG News, January 16, 2026. https://www.esgnews.earth/latest-news/gdp-over-breath-how-systemic-failure-chokes-indias-5-trillion-dream/16263.html

1. Indonesia Expects $3 Billion Rebuild After Deadly Floods – Insurance Journal, December 8, 2025. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2025/12/08/850172.htm
2. Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria – The New England Journal of Medicine. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972

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The climate crisis doesn’t always arrive as a sudden headline-grabbing disaster. Sometimes, it creeps up quietly: in shrinking rivers, failing wells, and communities being forced to “use less” of what they barely have. But make no mistake: what looks like scarcity is actually theft. Theft of a stable climate. Theft of reliable rainfall. Theft of the water systems that have sustained life for millennia.

A new report from the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) “Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era”  warns that the world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy.” It means we are using and damaging freshwater systems faster than nature can replenish them and in many places, the damage is irreversible.

This is what the climate crisis looks like when it hits the systems that sustain life. And it’s being driven by the same forces destroying our climate: fossil fuel extraction, industrial agriculture, and an economic system that treats nature as an infinite resource to exploit for profit.

For decades, policymakers and researchers have described global water challenges as a “water crisis” or “water scarcity.” But scholars have long warned that this crisis framing fails to capture the reality of long-term, structural decline. The word “crisis” sounds temporary. Bankruptcy means something more permanent and more concerning. It describes a system that’s been used up so badly that it can no longer simply bounce back.

The UNU report documents a scale of loss that makes this distinction unavoidable:

• Roughly 70% of the world’s major aquifers (underground layers of rock and soil that store water) are in long-term decline. 
• Rivers that once flowed to the sea now run dry for months each year. 
• Over half of the world’s large lakes have lost water since the early 1990s. 
• The world has lost an estimated 410 million hectares of natural wetlands over the past five decades, nearly the size of the entire European Union. These were ecosystems that once stored water, buffered droughts, and regulated local climates.

Perhaps most alarming, the world has lost more than 30% of its glacier mass since 1970. These “frozen water towers” once released meltwater during dry seasons, sustaining billions of people. Their disappearance is the liquidation of nature’s water savings account — with no mechanism for repayment.

Almost all the world’s glaciers are shrinking and fast. Credit: Copyright 2011 Michael C Smith

Bankruptcy essentially means you can’t restore what’s been permanently lost. Compacted (squeezed out) aquifers can never store water again. Extinct species don’t return. Glaciers that took millennia to form won’t regrow in our lifetimes.

Water bankruptcy is being locked in by climate breakdown, which in turn is driven overwhelmingly by the burning of fossil fuels i.e. coal, oil, and gas. Here’s how climate change is destroying our water systems:

• Rising temperatures intensify the water bankruptcy spiral: Every fraction of a degree of global warming increases evaporation from soils, rivers, and reservoirs. Hotter air sucks moisture from the land, turning what would have been manageable dry spells into devastating droughts. The report documents how drought is increasingly “anthropogenic”, meaning it’s not just about lack of rainfall, but about human-caused warming, land degradation, and over-extraction combining to create permanent water deficits.

An Indian man takes bath under the tap of a water tanker on a hot day in Ahmadabad, India. Heat wave conditions prevailed as temperature rises in many parts of India. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

• Extreme rainfall creates the cruel paradox – floods without recharge: At the same time, climate change is intensifying rainfall. Storms arrive in violent bursts that flood cities and wash water away before it can infiltrate soils. More than half of global agricultural land is now moderately or severely degraded, meaning it cannot absorb and store water. Communities experience the cruel paradox of flooding and water shortage in the same year or sometimes in the same month.

• Melting glaciers: short-term surge, long-term catastrophe: Glacier melt illustrates the danger of mistaking short-term increases for security. As glaciers melt faster, rivers may briefly swell. But once glaciers shrink past critical thresholds, dry-season flows collapse permanently. For the 1.5 to 2 billion people who depend on glacier-fed river systems such as the Indus, Ganges-Brahmaputra, and Andean rivers, this means water supplies that sustained entire civilizations are disappearing.

• Industrial agriculture and extractive industries devour and pollute water: Around 70% of global freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture, much of it for water-intensive monocultures in regions that cannot sustain them. Meanwhile, mining, fossil fuel operations, and industrial pollution render vast volumes of remaining water unusable. Water may still exist on paper, but functionally it is gone, too contaminated for drinking, farming, or healthy ecosystems.

The scale of water bankruptcy is quite extensive and ever- growing: 

• Nearly 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity at least one month per year
• 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water
• 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation
• Over 1.8 billion people were living under drought conditions in 2022-2023
• Drought-related damages cost over $307 billion per year worldwide — more than the annual GDP of three-quarters of UN member states.

But statistics only tell part of the story. Water bankruptcy shows up in daily realities no one should have to face. Farmers watch wells fail after generations of reliability and go into debt drilling deeper into aquifers that will soon collapse. Girls walk farther for water instead of attending school. Informal settlement residents pay more for less reliable water from tanker trucks while wealthy neighbourhoods maintain green lawns. Entire communities are forced to move as water sources disappear. Rising food prices as irrigation fails and harvests decline, pushing the poorest households into deeper poverty and hunger. 

Young women and girls carry water in Nigeria. Credit: Flickr

And here’s the brutal irony: the communities facing water bankruptcy today are often those who’ve contributed least to the climate crisis but are protecting the water systems everyone depends on like Indigenous water guardians stewarding watersheds, small-scale farmers practicing sustainable agriculture and communities resisting extractive industries and defending rivers from pollution.

Their knowledge and their resistance are being ignored while their water is being stolen by the same systems driving climate chaos.

Every year governments delay ending coal, oil, and gas, ordinary people pay the price, not in abstract climate targets, but in higher food prices, worsening health, lost livelihoods, and growing insecurity. Water bankruptcy is another consequence that makes those costs impossible to ignore.

The solution is not complicated. End fossil fuel expansion. Phase out coal, oil, and gas. Invest in clean energy and resilient, public, community-led water systems. Set binding limits on industrial water extraction. Align climate policy with the reality that there is no livable future without functioning water systems.

What happens next depends on whether leaders continue protecting polluters or finally choose people, justice, and a livable planet.

Sources

• Global Water Bankruptcy Report – UNU-INWEH (2026)
• Fossil Fuels Did This: How the Industry Drives Drought – 350.org
• The Planetary Boundaries Framework – Stockholm Resilience Centre
• Water Conflict Chronology – Pacific Institute
• UN 2023 Water Conference Outcomes

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This is a guest article written by Jean McLean, Director of Engagement at the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), a global movement for green and fair economies.

Results from the Green Economy Coalition’s latest Global Green Attitudes Survey reveal a loud and consistent demand: People around the world, want more radical and transformative government action – not just on the environment, but on the economic systems driving the climate and nature breakdown.

And they don’t just want small “green tweaks” either, they want economies reshaped to serve the people and the planet, not pollution and profit.

Despite today’s shaky politics, the survey, which polled over 10,000 people across 10 countries, is clear: support for climate action is strong across countries and income levels. What’s missing now isn’t public backing, its political courage.

Compared to the same survey in 2024, the political and economic context has become even more challenging. Since our first wave of research, the cost-of-living crisis has continued to bite. Trump’s re-election has emboldened right-wing populists and their pro–fossil fuel agenda, while “green hushing” has crept into government, corporate, and even civil society spaces, with sustainability quietly reframed, deprioritised, or hidden.

Yet even in this climate of economic anxiety and political retrenchment, our survey found that the public has not turned away from environmental action. Instead, people increasingly recognise that today’s economic model is failing them as well as the planet — driving inequality, locking in pollution, and leaving households exposed to rising costs and environmental risk.

And crucially, the survey shows just how deep that support runs: 84% of people globally would choose stronger environmental protection even at the cost of slowed economic growth.

The polling reveals a powerful and consistent message: people want governments to lead a systemic economic transformation, not rely on voluntary action or individual sacrifice.

• 88% of people globally say governments should be doing more to combat climate change.
• 82% support prioritising public investment in clean energy, even when this requires significant government spending.

These are not abstract environmental preferences. They reflect a growing understanding that public investment, regulation, and economic planning are essential to building resilient, fair economies: ones that deliver decent jobs, affordable energy, and healthy environments.

And yet, only 42% of people believe their government is taking more action now than last year to protect the environment. The result is a widening credibility gap between what people know is needed and what governments are prepared to do.

Crucially, the survey shows that people do not see the green transition as something households can, or should, carry alone. The biggest barrier to more sustainable choices is not apathy or unwillingness, but lack of government support, cited by 52% of respondents globally.

This is especially pronounced in lower-income countries, where citizens are often most exposed to environmental harm while having the least influence over global economic rules. In countries such as Nigeria, Turkey, and South Africa, over 60% identify government inaction as the main obstacle.

When asked what would help, people pointed to:

• Better laws and stronger regulation
• Increased funding for environmental programmes
• Support for green jobs and environmentally responsible businesses

In other words, people are asking governments to reclaim their role in shaping the economy, rather than outsourcing responsibility to individuals and markets that reward pollution and short-term profit.

Trust in political leadership remains worryingly low. Just 39% of people globally trust political leaders to make the right decisions for a sustainable future. But this collapse in trust has not dampened ambition.

Instead, people are calling for bold reforms that challenge business-as-usual: stricter regulation of pollution, stronger accountability for corporations, and public investment to steer economies towards long-term wellbeing, even if this means economic trade-offs in the short term.

This reflects a growing public understanding that an economy designed around endless growth, extraction, and inequality is neither sustainable nor desirable. People are ready for a new direction — one that measures success by health, resilience, and shared prosperity, not just GDP.

Taken together, the findings leave no room for doubt. Governments already have a clear public mandate to act on climate, on nature, and on the economy itself.

Reclaiming our economies means: 

• • putting people and the planet back at the centre of decision-making.
  • using public policy to reward care, restoration, and long-term value  and to hold polluters to account. 
  • moving beyond rhetoric, towards real investment, regulation, and reform.

People are already doing their part. They are ready for change. The question is whether political leaders are willing to listen, and to finally use the tools they have to build economies that work for everyone.

What do we want? Economies that serve people and the planet. When do we want them? Now.

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The world can feel like it’s moving in two directions at once. One day, leaders talk about climate action and the next, we see fresh drilling pushes and new fossil deals, from the Arctic to Asia and South America. But the bigger truth is this: the ground is shifting beneath the polluter industry, because the world is leaving fossil fuels behind and already rapidly moving onto clean, renewable energy. 

That’s why January 26, the International Day of Clean Energy, is fitting a moment to celebrate progress, and to double down on a just energy transition that works for everyone. Here are eight reasons we should feel hopeful today:

Clean energy isn’t “emerging” anymore, it’s already outcompeting fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency projects around $2.2 trillion in clean energy investment in 2025, compared to roughly $1.1 trillion going into oil, gas, and coal. That’s the transition happening in real time. And it’s not slowing down: clean investment has outpaced fossil investment for years, and the gap keeps widening as technology improves and costs fall.

Despite weak consensus outcomes at the annual UN talks, COP30, in Brazil this past November, the diplomatic track is shifting. During the Summit, more than 80 countries from the Global South and Global North jointly called for a roadmap to phase out coal, oil, and gas. That matters because it shows unanimous agreement isn’t a necessary condition for political momentum for climate action. Countries are increasingly treating fossil fuel phaseout as a shared destination, and building the political alignment to get there. For instance, A growing “coalition of the willing” is building real phaseout architecture. Hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands’, the world’s first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels this year in April aims to design “legal, economic, and social pathways” for a just transition beyond coal, oil, and gas. The goal isn’t a theoretical one-size-fits-all exit, it’s a practical, achievable roadmap tied to jobs, protection, and real opportunity.

Investor behavior too, is shifting in a clear direction. Not because “green” is fashionable, but because fossil-heavy assets look increasingly risky in a changing world. In a Morgan Stanley survey of 950+ major investors, most said they plan to increase sustainable investing over the next two years. The logic is straightforward: future-ready assets look safer and more profitable over time, while fossil dependence creates volatility, stranded assets, and reputational risk. 

Big investors are no longer willing to bankroll fossil companies that can’t prove they have a credible plan for the transition. That shift is already visible: in December 2025, Swedish pension fund AP7 cut off investments in companies it judged incompatible with climate goals. This is how the phaseout accelerates in practice, not just through speeches, but through capital discipline. “Business as usual” is becoming a financial liability, not a safe bet.

The legal “reasonableness standard” is moving upward, closer to what climate science actually requires. On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion strengthening what states owe on climate action, including on fossil fuel production and subsidies. It’s not binding, but it’s directional: the legal centre just shifted. That means more pressure, more scrutiny, and more risk for governments and corporations that keep expanding fossil fuels.

Clean energy is not only about cutting carbon. It’s about making daily life safer and more affordable: lower bills, cleaner air, and resilience in the face of energy and price shocks. When communities can generate and control power locally, through distributed solar, storage, and public renewables, they’re less exposed to global fuel price spikes and corporate profiteering. The transition becomes real when people can feel it: stability, dignity, and control over essential services like energy.

Campaigners and climate activists aren’t the only ones saying “stop drilling.” Even the International Energy Agency, one of the world’s most mainstream energy institutions, has made the case in its Net Zero pathway: a future where no new oil and gas fields should be approved for development beyond those already committed. That’s not radical politics. It’s basic risk management in a world that can’t afford more fossil lock-in. The safest investment now is building the clean energy system faster.

A fast energy transition is now the cheapest option on the table. A University of Oxford study found shifting to renewables by 2050 could save the global economy at least $12 trillion in energy system costs, even before counting avoided climate disasters. That’s because renewables are technologies, not commodities: costs fall as we scale. Over the last decade, solar fell ~90%, wind ~70%, and battery storage ~85% — while the sun and wind stay free. 

As we celebrate real progress toward a 100% renewable future, we can’t forget this: climate disaster is already here, and stopping fossil fuel expansion is the bare minimum for survival.

Clean energy is rising. But so are floods, fires, heatwaves, bill shocks, and fossil disasters. So the path forward has to do two things at once: end the harm, and build the alternative.

Governments and regulators must stop approving new oil, gas, and coal projects — and end fossil subsidies. When floods, fires, heatwaves, or bill shocks hit, alongside the media, we must connect the dots fast: this damage is driven by political choices that protect polluters. Courts must enforce climate and liability laws, hold governments and companies accountable for harm, and unlock compensation through litigation. Insurers must price climate risk honestly, withdraw cover from new fossil projects, and stop shielding polluters from the real costs of their damage.

Fossil fuel companies shouldn’t profit while communities pay the price. Governments must enforce real accountability through liability, levies, and an end to fossil impunity — so recovery and resilience are funded by those who caused the damage.

Governments, regulators, utilities, and cities must deliver affordable, resilient clean power people can feel. That means investing in distributed renewables, storage, and grids — plus tools like lifeline tariffs and free basic electricity where possible. 

Investors, banks, and insurers must stop financing expansion and shift capital toward clean energy solutions that are credible, community-backed, and built to last.

We make the shift away from fossil fuels real by organizing locally and forcing decision-makers to act. When a crisis hits, we show up, naming who’s responsible and demanding protection and justice. 

This is how we win: make fossil expansion harder, and make real alternatives easier.

The post 8 reasons to celebrate on this International Day of Clean Energy appeared first on 350.

A new report from Oxfam Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power shows billionaire wealth reached $18.3 trillion in 2025, the highest level in human history. That’s more than the GDP of China, the world’s second largest economy. In fact, since 2020, billionaire wealth has increased by 81%.

All of this happens while one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat, and nearly half the world lives in poverty. Families face rising costs for basics like food, rent, and electricity. Public services are stretched thin. Climate disasters hit harder and more often.

But what is worrying is that this small group holding extreme wealth, isn’t just buying luxury. They are buying control. Political outcomes. And of course, more fossil fuels. Billionaire power is building a dystopian, unliveable world with many government allies helping lock it in. Here is how: 

Oxfam’s report is clear: extreme wealth doesn’t sit quietly in bank accounts. It gets turned into political control. Alongside getting richer, billionaires are tightening their grip on the institutions meant to serve the public.

The research finds that billionaires are now 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people. That imbalance shapes real decisions, deciding what gets funded, what gets blocked, and whose voices are ignored.

And when billionaire political interests dominate, the consequences are brutal and predictable:

• climate action slows, fossil fuel expansion is protected, regulation is weakened, and public money gets funnelled into corporate profit instead of community needs.
• People demanding justice face crackdowns, shrinking civic space, and rising repression.

Oxfam points to the US Trump administration as a warning sign: a pro-billionaire government agenda that slashes taxes for the super-rich, undermines global cooperation to tax corporations, rolls back action on monopoly power, and boosts billionaire portfolios. But this isn’t confined to one country. Oligarchy is going global, and it’s undermining societies everywhere.

And it doesn’t stop at economic policy. Oxfam warns that civil liberties and political rights are being rolled back globally. 2024 marked the nineteenth successive year of decline, with a quarter of countries curtailing freedom of expression. When people protest, governments increasingly respond with violence.

In 2025, billionaire wealth surged by $2.5 trillion which is what is held by the bottom half of humanity (4.1 billion people). Oxfam estimates this money would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.

At the same time, people are told there’s “no money” for clean energy, resilient infrastructure, or strong public services. Communities are pushed to accept austerity and “tough choices,” while extreme wealth concentrates at record speed.

Oxfam links these choices to real harm: governments slash aid budgets, directly hitting people living in poverty and potentially contributing to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030.

The result is a world where life feels more unaffordable and more unstable, and where climate action gets treated like an optional extra, instead of a survival plan.

Billionaire lifestyles are high-emitting, and that matters. But the deeper problem runs through the economic model itself: billionaire wealth is built on extraction and climate plunder.

Many billionaires profit directly from industries tied to pollution and destruction: fossil fuels, mining, deforestation, and corporate land grabs. Their money shapes the political decisions that keep these industries protected, subsidized, and expanding.

And the fallout hits everyone else: higher bills, weaker public systems, polluted air and water, and escalating climate risks. Communities in the Global South and frontline regions pay first and worst while the people most responsible stay insulated from the damage.

Billionaire power doesn’t stop at politics. It reaches into the media and the information systems we rely on every day.

The Oxfam report shows how billionaire power doesn’t stop at politics — it spreads into the media and information systems we rely on every day. Billionaires now own more than half of the world’s largest media companies, and they also control all the main social media platforms, giving a tiny group of ultra-rich people enormous influence over what information gets amplified, what gets buried, and how public debate is shaped.

Oxfam points to examples like:

• Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X, and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s ownership of the Los Angeles Times.
• In France, the report highlights how far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré took control of CNews and reshaped it into a French version of Fox News.
• And in the UK, Oxfam notes that three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by just four super-rich families.

This concentration of media power matters because it doesn’t just influence what people read, it shapes what people believe is possible, normal, or worth fighting for. Oxfam warns that when billionaires dominate media and social platforms, minority voices and dissenting perspectives get pushed out, while scapegoating and disinformation spread more easily. The report points to structural exclusion too: only 27% of top editors globally are women, and just 23% belong to racialized groups, reinforcing whose stories get centered, and whose get ignored.

This also fuels polarization, making it harder to build the public pressure needed for real climate action, and easier for fossil fuel interests to keep operating in plain sight. And while we’re distracted, the fossil fuel machine keeps running.

Oxfam also shows how governments enable this captured information ecosystem. Governments allow billionaire control of platforms to deepen, and in some cases even use these platforms to track, punish, and silence critics. Oxfam points to Kenya, where authorities use X to track, punish, and even abduct and torture government critics. And after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X, one study found hate speech increased by around 50%, showing how billionaire control over platforms can rapidly reshape what’s normal, visible, and tolerated online.

When billionaires control the narrative, they don’t just defend their wealth, they protect the system that keeps them on top.

The climate crisis demands more than good targets and speeches. It demands a shift in who holds power. Governments need to stop pandering to the ultra-rich and start delivering for people and the planet. That means:

• taxing extreme wealth to reduce its political dominance
• investing in renewable energy, clean transport, social housing, and strong public services
• protecting civic space and the right to organize and protest
• building real firewalls between wealth and politics

People are already pushing for this shift. Across countries, communities are organizing, demanding accountability, and refusing to accept a world run by billionaires and fossil fuel corporations.

Billionaire power is real. But people power is bigger. And when we move together, the future changes.

The post Billionaire Wealth Just Hit $18.3 Trillion. Why that’s bad news for the rest of us. appeared first on 350.

This is a guest article written by Jean McLean, Director of Engagement at the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), a global movement for green and fair economies.

With the cost of living spiralling out of control, affordability is now the key factor determining whether climate action gains public support or faces opposition.

Zohran Mamdani’s recent successful mayoral campaign in New York was based on concrete affordability pledges to make life more affordable to New Yorkers: rent freezes, fare free buses, city owned grocery stores, raising the minimum wage, baby baskets for newborns and no-cost childcare. The UK and Australian governments have taken note of this success and have prioritised addressing the cost of living and affordability as key to electoral success. Climate leaders need to take note. 

This success can be replicated! We know that the money exists to prioritise affordability for the general public, what we need is political will. Leaders must urgently switch to cleaner energy alternatives as they are proven to be cheaper than fossil fuels, bringing down energy costs for everyone. Taxing big polluters, the ultra-rich and using those funds towards public investment is a popular and necessary action.

For years, climate misinformation has tried to convince people that a green transition is a luxury not an inevitability. Despite the millions spent on disinformation, public opinion tells a very different story. Across countries and political contexts, people increasingly understand that clean energy is not the cause of rising costs — it is one of the most powerful solutions to them.

Our latest Global Green Attitudes polling shows a remarkably strong global public consensus: 

• 82%  per cent of respondents believe investment in clean energy should be a top government priority, even if it requires significant public spending. 
• An even larger share — 88%— agree that stronger laws are needed to support renewable energy like solar and wind.

Notably, this support has held steady despite inflation and increasing economic anxiety.  

As cost-of-living pressures deepen, people are judging energy choices on a simple test — will this lower my bills? As routine household bills become the main source of financial stress, renewable energy offers both an economic solution and a political opportunity for governments prepared to act.

Crucially, public perceptions are already shifting in clean energy’s favour. Many people already see clean energy as cost‑competitive or cheaper than fossil fuels. In the United States, a majority now believe clean energy costs the same or less than oil and gas. Globally, renewable electricity is routinely 30–50 per cent cheaper than new fossil fuel generation. 

In this context, this year’s polling data reveals an interesting dynamic between public support for environmental action and the perception of government performance: 

• People want lower bills and place responsibility for this squarely on governments. 
• The public wants transformative government action, such as public investment, fair rules, and accountability for polluters while also holding low trust in political leaders to deliver this. 
• Many are feeling  deeply frustrated  at political inaction as inflation and economic anxiety increase.

What is missing from climate action is not public backing then, but policy creativity. Clean energy can deliver affordability, good jobs, and energy security — if leaders choose to act. 

From free or discounted solar power programs to large‑scale investment in grids, storage, and clean industries, the solutions exist. Renewables already save countries trillions in avoided fuel imports and shield households from price shocks.

The choice facing leaders is stark. Continue delaying in service of fossil fuels  or unlock a future where clean energy is understood for what it truly is: clean, common‑sense, and cheap. The public is ready. The question is whether governments are willing to listen.

The post Affordability is the defining climate issue of 2026 appeared first on 350.

A climate deadline has arrived absurdly early this year. New research from Oxfam shows that by 10 January 2026, the world’s richest 1% had already used up their entire annual carbon budget. The budget is the amount of pollution they could generate over the whole year so that global heating stays below 1.5°C, the limit to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. 

The richest 0.1% blew past their limit even earlier, on 3 January. Oxfam calls this moment Pollutocrat Day. It puts a timestamp on a reality that’s impossible to ignore: a small, wealthy minority is driving the climate crisis, while everyone else pays the price.

To stay within the 1.5°C. limit, each person’s annual carbon allowance works out to about 2.1 tonnes of CO₂.

For the richest 1%, that fair share is exhausted almost immediately. Oxfam finds they emit 75.1 tonnes per person per year, or 0.206 tonnes per day, meaning it takes just 10.2 days for someone in the richest 1% to burn through an entire year’s carbon budget. In fact, this 75 tonnes of CO₂ per person each year is over 35 times the level compatible with 1.5°C.

The inequality becomes even more glaring at the very top. More data from Oxfam shows that a person in the richest 0.1% produces more carbon pollution in a single day than the poorest 50% emit in an entire year. If everyone polluted at the rate of the richest 0.1%, the global carbon budget would be used up in less than three weeks.

The consequences of this unchecked pollution are deadly. Emissions from this group in a single year are expected to cause 1.3 million heat-related deaths by the end of the century. Over time, this excess pollution is projected to cause $44 trillion in economic damage in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

To stay within 1.5°C, the richest 1% would need to cut their emissions by 97% by 2030. Meanwhile, those who have contributed least to the crisis — including communities in climate-vulnerable countries, Indigenous Peoples, and women and girls — are already facing the harshest impacts, from deadly heat to food insecurity, floods, and displacement.

Beyond their own lifestyle emissions from private jets and super-yachts, the super-rich are also bankrolling climate breakdown through their investments. Oxfam finds that the average billionaire’s portfolio is tied to companies producing 1.9 million tonnes of CO₂ every year, locking the world into fossil fuel expansion.

That economic power is reinforced by political influence. The wealthiest individuals and corporations are able to shape rules in their favour, ensuring polluting industries remain protected. At the most recent UN climate talks, COP30, in Brazil, for example, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered every national delegation except the host country, with around 1,600 lobbyists in attendance. This level of access makes it far easier to delay action and weaken climate commitments.

Extreme wealth does not just mean higher emissions, it sustains a system built around fossil fuels and profit. This moment calls for more than outrage. It raises a deeper question: whose interests are governments choosing to protect? 

As the year unfolds and climate impacts like heatwaves and wildfires continue to intensify around the world, governments must be willing to challenge systems that reward pollution and individuals that hoard extreme wealth. 

Instead of doubling down on and expanding fossil fuels, and competing for control over oil, gas, and other critical resources, there is another, clearly better option. Oxfam points the way forward for our governments to:

• Make the richest polluters pay through higher taxes on extreme wealth and income
• Impose excess-profit taxes on fossil fuel corporations
• Ban or heavily tax carbon-intensive luxury items such as private jets and super-yachts
• Shift investment toward renewable energy and people-centred solutions

Pollutocrat Day is a warning. The climate crisis will not be solved by asking everyone to do the same while a small elite continues to pollute without limits. Real action means ending fossil fuel expansion, confronting extreme wealth, and putting people and the planet before profit.

The post Pollutocrat Day appeared first on 350.