It’s hard to fathom how much money the fossil fuel industry is making from destroying the planet.
Around the world, big coal, oil and gas corporations are rolling in their profits, but it’s ordinary people – from Vanuatu, to Bangladesh, to here in Australia – who are feeling the extreme and horrifying impacts of a climate crisis driven by fossil fuels.
Who pays the cost of the climate crisis?
Fossil fuel companies take billions in government handouts, and they often pay less tax in Australia than your average teacher or nurse. They make mega profits, sending most overseas, and they don’t contribute to the costs of dealing with their climate pollution.
Meanwhile, it’s women and communities that are paying the price for climate change through increasing food prices, huge recovery costs from more severe storms, drought, bushfires and floods and rising insurance premiums. In fact, the cost of climate disasters in Australia is now $38 billion, equivalent to $3,500 per household on average each and every year.
These costs are even higher in the Global South where for decades, big fossil fuel corporations have polluted land, water and air: robbing women of their livelihoods and their access to clean drinking water and healthy food.
Many communities directly hit by disasters may never recover financially or emotionally. In Vanuatu, a shocking three severe cyclones hit in 2023, costing nearly 70% of their annual GDP in recovery costs. Ni Vanuatu women are doing everything they can to rebuild their lives, but the resourcing gap is stark and grows bigger as every new climate disaster hits.
In addition to these material costs, climate change is directly threatening culture, heritage, and the very way communities live their lives. Climate impacts have destroyed important cultural sites, endanger foods and activities that rely on the seasons and weather we’ve known for centuries, and are displacing communities from the lands and waters that have shaped their languages and cultural traditions.
This is about fairness
It’s past time big polluting corporations paid their fair share to fix the damage they’ve caused.
That’s why we’re proud to co-launch the Make Big Polluters Pay Alliance, made up of dozens of development, environment, First Nations, faith, social sector and Pacific organisations from across our region.
Together, we’re calling for the Australian government to make polluters pay – by introducing a levy on big coal, oil and gas corporations to raise money for a fund that would support women and communities facing climate impacts.
The government must hold these big corporations to account by making them pay for their climate pollution. Will you join our call? Sign our pact to make big polluters pay.