Oxfam France climate inequality advocacy officer Selma Huart called for taxes on wealthy polluters to pay for disaster protection, arguing that people facing the greatest losses have the fewest resources to recover.
In a France 24 interview published Nov. 3, Huart described how investors can benefit from industries linked to both climate damage and rebuilding. “They are burning the planet, benefiting from it, but they are also benefiting from rebuilding,” she said.
Oxfam says wealthy investors hold stakes in carbon-polluting businesses as well as companies supplying goods or services for climate adaptation and disaster recovery. Its Destroy & Rebuild Index catalogs 217 companies across those activities, as detailed in our coverage of Oxfam’s Oct. 27 report.
The report says BlackRock and Vanguard together have investments in about 92% of the companies in the index, worth more than $1 trillion combined. Oxfam argues that investors with holdings in both types of business may have a financial incentive to slow climate action.
Oxfam estimates that disaster recovery is a $70 billion annual market worldwide and projects it could reach $92 billion a year by 2029. The group says families with fewer resources can lose homes, crops or income in a disaster and use up savings while rebuilding. Its report also finds that flood deaths are seven times higher in countries with greater inequality.
Huart’s proposal is part of Oxfam’s wider call for governments to raise taxes on wealthy people and polluting businesses.
