- Formal negotiations
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Franziska Mager is senior researcher and advocacy lead for climate and inequalities at the Tax Justice Network.
As the climate crisis accelerates, global fault lines widen. Wealthy nations gut aid budgets while pouring fortunes into their militaries. Their climate finance commitments ring hollow, hidden behind claims that public funds have run dry.
But the money is there – and a bold tax justice agenda can unlock it. Reclaiming tax sovereignty – the power to decide how wealth is taxed and where it goes – can shift resources from billionaires and corporate giants to real climate solutions.
Tax Justice Network analysis shows governments could raise an extra US$2.6 trillion a year by applying a modest wealth tax on the richest 0.5% and ending corporate tax abuse. This would more than cover global climate finance needs and still leave most countries with billions to invest in care, education and green jobs at home.
Coalition set sights on taxing luxury air travel to fund climate action
The climate crisis is accelerating. Floods, heatwaves and crop failures are pushing more people into precarity. Climate adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage could cost US$9 trillion a year by 2030. Yet the global community is still scrambling to honour a US$100 billion pledge made over 15 years ago.
As attention turns from the Bonn climate talks to the fourth Financing for Development conference in Seville, climate finance remains a structural void that policy declarations alone cannot fill.
On the road to COP30 in Belém, governments face a critical choice: keep chasing inadequate voluntary climate finance handouts, or finally confront the rigged tax systems that let the super-rich and big polluters amass obscene wealth while the planet burns.
Plugging leaky tax systems
As our research shows, fair taxes on extreme wealth and curbing multinational tax abuse could raise more than double the UN’s US$1.3 trillion annual climate finance goal for 2035. The real issue isn’t where new money comes from, but why governments let public resources leak through a broken tax system.
Applying a modest annual wealth tax of 1.7-3.5% and reclaiming tax from multinationals that underpay could unlock revenue equal to 2.4% of global GDP. This money could be raised today if governments closed loopholes and took action.
Our modelling based on countries’ historic emissions responsibility shows striking results: with a US$300 billion global climate finance fund, 89% of countries could cover their share and still have billions left for public services. Even with a US$1.5 trillion fund, 58% would contribute their fair share and have money to spare.
Take the United States. It could raise enough additional revenue to contribute US$365 billion a year towards climate finance and still be left with US$412 billion to spend at home. China, India, the United Kingdom and Brazil follow the same pattern.
This is the core message of our climate finance slider tool. Taxing extreme wealth and curbing tax abuse does not pit climate justice against development. It enables both. The interactive tool shows how much countries could raise and how much they could contribute if tax rules were rebalanced in favour of people and planet.
Governments lose tax control
So why are countries still acting like climate finance is unaffordable?
The answer lies in decades of eroded tax sovereignty. Governments have signed away their taxing rights through unfair treaties, handed out corporate tax breaks under economic coercion, and let wealth pour into secrecy jurisdictions. In doing so, they’ve stripped themselves of the power – and the will – to tax the richest and biggest polluters driving the climate crisis.
Brazil’s environment minister suggests roadmap to end fossil fuels at COP30
Today, 61% of countries have an “endangered” level of tax sovereignty or worse — meaning they are failing to collect tax revenue worth at least 5% of what they already raise, largely from their richest households and from multinational corporations that underpay tax.
Nearly a fifth of countries fall into the “negated” category, missing out on the equivalent of 15% or more of their annual tax revenue. These are not natural constraints. They are political outcomes shaped by an unequal global financial system.
Across the Global South, the consequences are especially severe. Governments face impossible tradeoffs between education and adaptation, debt service and disaster response. Climate finance cannot be separated from this wider fiscal injustice.
When forced to borrow for every disaster or rely on aid pledges, governments lose both agency and time. The race to build resilience becomes a race against the clock – one they cannot win without revenue.
Wealth taxes popular with voters
It’s time to reframe the debate. Climate finance can’t rely on broken promises or voluntary pledges. It must come from fair, redistributive tax systems that reflect both capacity to pay and responsibility for emissions.
The upcoming UN Tax Convention is a once in a generation opportunity to rebalance global tax rules. Done right, it could help countries tax their richest residents and corporations fairly, ending tax havens, profit-shifting and billionaire impunity.
Comment: A global wealth tax is needed to help fund a just green transition
But we do not need to wait for negotiations to conclude. Countries can act now by introducing wealth taxes, renegotiating exploitative tax treaties, increasing transparency and aligning fiscal policies with climate goals.
These reforms are not only possible. They are popular. Polling consistently shows widespread support for taxing extreme wealth to fund public goods.
Extreme wealth fuels climate inaction, rising debt and inequality. In a world on fire, refusing to tax those who profit most is no longer neutral – it’s a global risk.
The post There is no climate finance gap – only a tax sovereignty gap appeared first on Climate Home News.
There is no climate finance gap – only a tax sovereignty gap
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Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to ensure this transition will create jobs, lower costs and not cause undue environmental harm.
“Here, sectors representing a broad range of interests have laid the groundwork for those outcomes, clearly outlining what is needed to create a future for WA that is good for the environment, for the climate, for workers and for the economy.
Summary
The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan sets out a strategic roadmap to position Western Australia as a global clean energy superpower while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
The report establishes three overarching goals:
- Creating local employment.
- Maintaining industrial competitiveness.
- Lowering household energy costs
To realize this vision, the framework details actionable measures to follow on from the recent WA Government announcement of a 75% Renewable Energy Target by 2031 for the South West Interconnected System. This includes developing a statewide Renewable Energy Target, coordinating statewide workforce and training pipelines, strategically planning regional infrastructure to safeguard high-value biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring equitable benefit-sharing through household electrification incentives and First Nations equity partnerships. Ultimately, the plan highlights that establishing clear policy and regulatory certainty will unlock lower energy bills, boost power reliability, and secure the state’s global competitiveness in emerging green commodity export markets.
Key Findings
- Statewide Renewable Energy Target and Emissions Reduction Targets: The report calls for a statewide RET and 1.5°C aligned emission reduction targets to remove policy risk, lower capital costs, and attract clean energy investment.
- Transformative Job Creation: Accelerating the transition offers massive employment prospects, including up to 8,800 solar and battery jobs by 2050, as well as 24,000 ongoing and 11,000 construction jobs in a commercial green iron industry.
- Industrial Electrification & Competitiveness: Requiring large gas users to adopt binding electrification timetables and providing concessional financing will protect existing energy-intensive manufacturers from rising energy costs and impending domestic gas shortfalls.
- Green Commodity Export Leadership: Western Australia can build new export markets in green iron, green ammonia, and offshore oil/gas decommissioning by constructing shared common-user infrastructure and setting dedicated Green Commodity Export Targets.
- Coordinated Workforce & Training Pipeline: To address critical skill shortages the plan recommends establishing a WA Clean Energy Jobs Plan 2050, three regional training hubs, and dedicated pathways for female and under-represented apprentices.
- Environmental Safeguards & Community Benefits: Fast-tracked development must be paired with State Planning Policies that avoid high-biodiversity and cultural heritage lands, mandate new data centres to run on additional renewable power, and deliver household electrification rebates and First Nations equity partnerships.
What you can do
WA has an opportunity to lead on sustainable, clean energy and associated industries. You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature.