When floods destroy homes, heatwaves claim lives and droughts devastate harvests, we often describe these events as natural disasters. Oxfam’s new report, ‘Disaster Divides’, arrives ahead of COP31 and shows a very different reality.

The main takeaway is that climate disasters are increasingly the result of inequality, and they disproportionately punish those who have done least to cause the crisis. 

According to the report, the world’s richest 0.1% emit more carbon pollution than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined – while many of that 0.1% are also investors in polluting industries.

Scientists at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine recently estimated that over 50,000 people died prematurely because of high temperatures across 854 European cities between June and August this year, making it Europe’s deadliest summer heat on record.

By 2050, as many as one billion people could be displaced by the climate crisis, most of them in the Global South. Oxfam’s research also finds that deaths from flooding are seven times higher in more unequal countries. It can be hard to put faces to the numbers, but it’s crucial to be aware that it is ordinary families who pay the price. 

Perhaps most disturbing of all is that some of the same wealthy investors and corporations helping to drive climate breakdown are also profiting from the aftermath. Oxfam’s new “Destroy & Rebuild Index” reveals how major investors are making money both from polluting industries and from the recovery efforts that climate disasters make necessary.

After floods, storms, fires and other disasters; governments, insurers, development banks and aid agencies spend enormous sums rebuilding homes, infrastructure and services. Climate-related droughts, floods and crop failures reduce food supplies and push up prices. Large agribusinesses and investors can benefit from increased market volatility, while low-income households are pushed deeper into poverty.

Ireland may not be among the world’s biggest emitters, but we are not spectators. As a wealthy country with a long-standing commitment to international development, we have a responsibility to stand with communities experiencing the worst impacts of a crisis they did not create. We are also experiencing our own warning signs through increasingly frequent storms, disastrous flooding – particularly in Midleton, Co. Cork – and rising costs associated with extreme weather. 

That means showing leadership at COP31 and beyond. Ireland should increase its climate finance contribution to at least €500 million annually, provide dedicated support for loss and damage, and champion grant-based finance that helps vulnerable countries adapt without sinking deeper into debt.

We should also ensure that those ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations most responsible for pollution contribute more towards the solutions. Major polluters must pay their fair share in taxes.

The climate crisis is often presented as an environmental issue, but it is also an issue of injustice. If we are serious about tackling the climate crisis, we must be equally serious about tackling the extreme inequalities that are driving it and exacerbating its impact.

A just transition away from fossil fuels domestically and internationally is the only way forward.

The floodgates have already opened – but it’s never too late to take action.