Global Courant
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Oil-producing countries such as Norway, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have received very high incomes in recent years due to high oil and gas prices. Brown believes countries need to contribute much more to help poor countries reduce emissions and tackle climate change.
– These producing countries have literally done nothing to earn these windfalls, Brown tells the BBC.
– This is one of the largest transfers of wealth from poor to rich countries ever, he adds.
Several trillion dollars
Brown was Labor Prime Minister between 2007 and 2010. Before that, he was Minister of Finance for ten years.
To kick off the climate summit in Dubai in November, he is calling for a ‘wealth tax’ for countries that have benefited from high oil prices. He explains his position in an article in The Guardian.
The article continues below the advertisement– The windfall earnings have given energy exporters such as the Gulf states and Norway nearly a trillion dollars in revenue from sales abroad, he writes.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), profits for the global oil and gas industry totaled $4 trillion last year.
Brown points out that this is about twenty times the world’s entire aid budget.
– A scandal
The fact that the oil countries do not spend more of their income on helping the poorest countries in the world is one of the biggest scandals of our time, writes Brown.
According to the former Prime Minister, high oil and gas prices are the main reason why more and more people are affected by extreme poverty.
Brown believes it would be reasonable for the richest oil countries to spend 3 percent of their export earnings on helping poor countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. In total this will amount to NOK 270 billion.
For Norway, the compensation will amount to NOK 56 billion, according to Brown. Saudi Arabia must pay out NOK 112 billion.
– The money is there. World leaders just need to have the courage to use them. Now, writes Gordon Brown.(Conditions)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases via links that lead directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the contents may only be made with written permission or as permitted by law. For further conditions see here.
Former Prime Minister of Great Britain: Norway must pay 50 billion in climate taxes
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