Gordon Brown Urges The World's Wealthiest Oil Nations To Pay A Carbon Price

The Ex-PM has advocated for a worldwide windfall tax on the world's biggest oil states to assist developing countries in their fight against climate change.

He described the increase in the price of oil as a "lottery like windfall" for several nations, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Norway.

Brown believes a $25 billion fee would improve the chances of reaching an agreement on a climate fund for developing nations. His comments are timely with the long-anticipated November's COP28
conference in Dubai.

Brown added that the recent increase in the price of oil has allowed "petro-states" to reap "nearly unfathomable profits," with the five wealthiest countries seeing their oil income double by 2022.

He cited data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that showed how oil and gas income had increased from $1.5tn before the Coronavirus outbreak to a record $4tn after. To provide some
perspective on these staggering numbers, $4 trillion is equivalent to 20 times the total global humanitarian budget.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres also proposed a global climate solidarity agreement amongst the world's largest polluters to help developing countries cut their own emissions.

According to the upper estimate from a research conducted earlier this year, the high price of oil and gas has been the primary cause in driving an extra 141 million people throughout the globe into
severe poverty.

According to Gordon Brown’s recent proposal, the richest oil nations should pay $25 billion in 2022, or 3% of their export revenues.

 

Source: bbc.com