Paris, France – President Macron’s Summit for a New Global Financing Pact ends with very limited progress to make polluters pay for the escalating costs of the climate crisis. Governments failed to commit to concrete and ambitious action to make the fossil fuel industry pay.  

Tracy Carty, Climate Politics Expert at Greenpeace International, said:

“The Summit ended with mild recognition of the need for new taxes to pay for climate action and identified a role for the G20 and COP28 to take them forward.  Taxing big polluters should be top of the agenda for these global moments, but rich country governments don’t have to wait to act – they already can and must introduce taxes on big polluters, above all the fossil fuel industry, to pay for loss and damage now.

“Silence on the fossil fuel industry paying for the mess they have caused was deafening at this Summit. Fossil fuel companies are racking up obscene profits, while millions in low-income countries pay the price as drought, floods, sea level rise and other climate catastrophes wreak havoc.” 

Pierre Terras, Head of Climate and Energy campaigns at Greenpeace France, said:

“President Macron’s promotion of fossil gas as an energy of transition during this Summit was totally irresponsible and resonates with his poor record of domestic climate in-action. Unsurprisingly, he also has fallen short in recognising the need to tax the fossil fuel companies to pay for the damage they have caused. Both nationally and globally, the French president seems stuck on protecting the wealthiest and the polluters.”

Photo and video of the action is available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

ENDS

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