Listening to the overseas aid cuts being announced by France, the Netherlands, and last week from the UK, you might think European countries are in big trouble.
With people struggling to pay energy bills and put food on the table, governments are giving the impression public finances are tight too. Political leaders say they’re stepping up to the plate by making the real “hard choices” to keep us afloat.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is twofold — and here are three reasons why.
1. Rich European countries have never been richer.
Firstly, rich European countries have never been richer. The economic downturns of the past couple of decades have not made a lasting dent into our continent’s wealth.
If it doesn’t really feel like that for you and me, that’s because the money has kept trickling up, not down. Fossil fuel companies continue making outrageous profits while wrecking our planet – the US and European oil and gas giants having exceeded $281bn since the war in Ukraine began in 2022. Meanwhile, the richest 1% have become even richer – in the EU, billionaire wealth grew by €138bn last year alone. There is plenty of money sloshing around in our economy – it’s just been accumulating in the wrong pockets.
2. Government spending is about political choices.
Public spending is not entirely the result of inevitable external factors outside of our governments’ control. It has been and remains for the most part the result of very deliberate political choices. Take a few of these choices. Like continuing to dole out subsidies to fossil fuel companies. Or the de facto tax breaks to the world’s billionaires, who continue paying real tax rates that are a fraction of the rest of the population.
Graphic via Statista: https://www.statista.com/chart/31016/volume-of-global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-timeline/
What matters the most, our political leaders are saying through their choices, is not to keep the rest of us afloat. It’s to uphold a broken system that has delivered for very few people off the backs of everyone else, while destroying our climate.
3. The public want climate action.
Our governments are actually completely out of step with public opinion. Despite growing polarisation around climate change issues, support for action on climate is still very high. People want to see more renewable energy, not less. The public is also very supportive of taxing the super rich, and making sure big polluters pay their fair share to fix the crisis they caused. The climate crisis knows no borders. It has hit the orchards of California, the lagoons of Vanuatu, and the plains of central Italy.
People take action in Germany with 350’s Tax Their Billions campaign
Investments into renewable energy, and away from fossil fuels, need to happen not just in Europe but everywhere. Particularly in parts of the world that have less financial resources, and whom we owe a historical debt to. And we must do this quickly and keep justice in mind. Let’s avoid replicating the exploitative energy systems that got us into this climate crisis in the first place.
Who are they really putting first?
Cutting overseas aid, and climate finance within it, is as shortsighted of a move as it gets. It doesn’t do anything except make the energy transition we sorely need harder, slower, and more unjust. It’s a lose-lose, for those of us in Europe and for the many in the rest of the world. So next time a European government cuts international development spending, ask yourself: who are our political leaders really putting first – ordinary people or the super rich?
Take action: Sign the Tax Their Billions petition