Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has proposed that the wealthiest oil-producing nations should pay a global windfall tax to assist less affluent countries in their fight against climate change. Brown argues that countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Norway have benefited significantly from the surge in oil prices, akin to a lottery-style windfall, over the past year.
Brown’s suggestion is a $25 billion (£20.4 billion) tax, which he believes would enhance the chances of reaching an agreement on a climate fund for developing nations. His proposal coincides with the upcoming COP28 summit scheduled for November in Dubai.
At the recent Climate Ambition Summit held at the United Nations in New York, Secretary General Antonio Guterres criticized world leaders for falling short in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions. He called for a climate solidarity pact among the world’s major emitters to both lower emissions and provide support to emerging economies.
Brown contends that his plan could prevent a potential stalemate and breakdown at COP28, particularly in the UAE, one of the wealthiest oil-producing nations. He emphasized that “petro-states” have reaped astronomical profits from the recent oil price surge, with the top five, including Kuwait, doubling their oil revenues in 2022.
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Drawing from data by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Brown noted that global oil and gas revenues skyrocketed from $1.5 trillion (£1.2 trillion) before the COVID-19 pandemic to an unprecedented $4 trillion (£3.3 trillion). To put this into perspective, $4 trillion is 20 times the entire global aid budget and exceeds the entire GDP of the United Kingdom.
Brown underscored that these oil-producing states did nothing to earn this unprecedented windfall, characterizing it as one of the largest wealth transfers from poorer to wealthier nations. He pointed out that the high oil and gas prices have been a major factor potentially pushing an additional 141 million people worldwide into extreme poverty, an estimate from a recent scientific study.
Brown called for the richest oil-producing nations to contribute 3% of their export earnings, totaling $25 billion (£20.4 billion) in 2022, emphasizing that “it is the very least they could do. (https://fleshbot.com/) ” As a UN envoy for global education and World Health Organization ambassador for global health financing, he highlighted that such a substantial gesture would provide hope to crisis-affected countries, something that has been lacking in recent summits.
