Governments across the globe are slashing public services, aid budgets, and claiming there’s not simply not enough money to go around.
Meanwhile, billionaires and fossil fuel giants are raking in record profits. Jeff Bezos has just spent tens of millions of dollars on his Venice wedding. Elsewhere in Europe, temperatures have reached a record 46C in the first heatwave of the summer.
But from classrooms in Coventry to climate-hit communities in Nairobi, the message is the same. The cupboard is bare.
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But scarcity is not a fact. It’s a fiction, and a dangerous one.
While leaders talk of belt-tightening, wildfires rage, floods displace millions, and heatwaves overwhelm health systems. The climate crisis is accelerating faster than governments are acting. Every delay costs lives and livelihoods. The truth? We can afford to act. What we cannot afford is inaction.
This week’s UN Financing for Development Forum in Seville is a critical moment to face the real problem. A global financial system built to concentrate wealth, reward pollution, and fuel inequality. These rules aren’t natural laws — they’re political choices.Now, leaders must decide whether to rewrite the economic rules.
Across the world, the story of scarcity takes different forms. In Europe it’s austerity, to justify cuts to climate spending and social protection. In the Global South it’s crushing debt, rigged tax rules, and extraction disguised as development. But the outcome is the same: ordinary people pay the price, while the ultra-rich accumulate more.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies — some of the biggest contributors to climate breakdown — are posting obscene profits. Billionaires are launching themselves into space as millions face rising seas and lost homes. This system isn’t broken for everyone. For a privileged few, it works perfectly.
Let’s stop pretending we can’t afford a fairer world. Let’s tax the super-rich.
There is more than enough wealth to address the climate crisis, end energy poverty, fund education and healthcare, and build just, thriving societies. What’s missing is political will.
That must change in Seville. This is more than a policy forum — it’s a chance for governments, especially G7 nations, to step up. They must form a coalition of the willing to tax the super-rich and unlock the trillions needed to tackle climate and development crises.
The U.S., in particular, is pushing a dangerous agenda — equating corporate profits with global well-being. But ExxonMobil’s bottom line doesn’t reflect peace. Amazon’s stock price says nothing about whether teachers are paid or flood defences are built. We must reclaim public finance to serve people and planet, not billionaires.
There are so many things wealth taxes could pay for around the world.
A tax on extreme wealth isn’t radical. What’s radical is allowing a tiny minority to hoard unimaginable fortunes while the planet burns. Wealth taxes on the super-rich — combined with a strong UN Tax Convention and a crackdown on tax evasion — could raise trillions every year. Those funds could:
- Insulate homes and cut energy bills
- Fund affordable, renewable energy systems
- Create green jobs in fossil-fuel-impacted regions
- Rebuild overwhelmed health systems
- Deliver climate finance to the Global South
- Cancel unjust debt and fund education and food security
Make rich polluters pay — and we can fund the just transition they’ve made necessary.
In Europe, the benefits would be immediate and transformative.
Wealth taxes could fund thousands of new care workers, affordable housing, and clean transport in Germany and the UK. In France and Italy, they could help rebuild health and education systems worn down by years of underinvestment. Globally, this is about justice — making those who profited from the crisis pay for the solutions.
Climate change is not just an environmental crisis. It’s a justice crisis, driven by those who profit from pollution and pass the bill to those least responsible. The window to act is closing fast.
People are waking up. And in Seville this week, leaders must act.
Movements — from youth climate strikers to unions, economists, and even progressive millionaires — are demanding change. They know it’s time for the ultra-wealthy to pay what they owe.
The political class now faces a choice: stand with fossil fuel executives and tax avoiders, or with teachers, nurses, and the climate generation. At the UN Financing for Development Forum in Seville, leaders can begin fixing a rigged system. That starts by rejecting the myth of scarcity and embracing a bold vision of shared abundance.
The money is there. The science is clear. The urgency is now. It’s time to tax their billions — and fund our future.
Take action: Sign the petition to the UK Prime Minister