PARIS, France — Today, ahead of the June 22-23 “Summit for a New Global Financial Pact” in Paris, 150+ economists and policy experts including Jason Hickel, Olúfémi O. Táíwò, Nader Habibi, Alyssa Battistoni, and Yanis Varoufakis sent an open letter calling on Global North leaders to ensure real global financial system transformation is on the agenda, starting by redirecting trillions each year from fossil fuels, unfair colonial debts, and the super rich.
The Summit’s goal is “building a new contract between the countries of the North and the South to address climate change and the global crisis.” In light of reporting that the Summit is off track to deliver, signatories argue Global North governments who hold both an outsized say in the global financial architecture and an outsized historic responsibility for climate change must come to the Summit ready to pay their fair share. They warn the Paris Summit is at risk of simply rebranding a failed approach of using incentivizing private banks and corporations to build solutions.
Taxing extreme wealth would yield about $2.5 trillion a year. Combined with two other key measures — canceling public external debts in low income countries and ending fossil fuel handouts and instead making companies pay for their damages — the letter shows concretely how Global North leaders can slow global crises while raising $3.3 trillion a year to start addressing them.
Read the full letter: https://wp.me/paO9Ct-aV4