At Bonn talks, G77 group floats a 5% sales tax on tech, fashion and defence firms to fund green spending in the Global South
Developing countries want rich nations to give them hundreds of billions of dollars for climate action, suggesting this could be raised by taxing defence, technology and fashion companies, as well as financial transactions.
At UN talks on a new post-2025 climate finance goal in the German city of Bonn, the umbrella group for 134 developing countries said wealthy governments could raise $1.1 trillion a year, needed by poorer nations to curb emissions, adapt to climate change and deal with the damage it causes.
An unpublished position paper by the G77+China, seen by Climate Home, maintains that rich countries would “only” need to spend 0.8% of their GDP per year to raise $441 billion. That would mobilise enough private finance to reach $1.1 trillion a year, it adds.
It notes that 0.8% of GDP is much less than the 6.9% of GDP developing countries currently spend paying interest on their debt.
The paper says developed countries can raise $441 billion “without compromising spending on other priorities entirely by adopting targeted domestic measures” such as a “financial transaction tax”, a defence company tax, a fashion tax and a “Big Tech Monopoly Tax”.
It argues that “the matter in question is not whether the resources exist, it is whether there is political will to prioritise climate change”...
[Click the link below to read the full article]
