Tax oil firms to pay for climate damage, island nations say

Tax oil firms to pay for climate damage, island nations say

A group of small island nations joined calls on Tuesday for a windfall tax on oil companies to compensate developing countries for the damage caused by climate change-induced natural disasters.

Developing nations have pressed their case at the UN's COP27 climate summit in Egypt for the creation of a "loss and damage" fund, arguing that rich nations are to blame for the biggest share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Oil companies have scored tens of billions of dollars in profits this year as crude prices have soared in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"It is about time that these companies are made to pay a global COP carbon tax on these profits as a source of funding for loss and damage," the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, told fellow leaders at the summit in the seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"While they are profiting, the planet is burning," said Browne, who was speaking on behalf of the 39-nation Alliance of Small Island States, many of whose very existence is threatened by rising sea levels and increasingly intense tropical storms.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called Monday for a 10 percent tax on oil companies to fund loss and damage.

The contentious issue