Brazil has asked the UN to throw out plans for a new levy on global shipping that would raise funds to fight the climate crisis, despite playing host to the next UN climate summit.
Friederike Roder, director of the secretariat for the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, which brings together countries calling for levies to fund climate action, said Trump’s actions on freezing USAid showed the need for stable, predictable means of financing development, of the kind that only levies and similar mechanisms can provide.
Those supporting the deal, including the UK, the EU and Japan, are hoping the levy will raise billions of dollars a year, which could be used to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate breakdown.
John Maggs, shipping policy director at Seas At Risk, said: “Brazil is very sensitive, in thinking that because of its exports of large quantities of dry goods, the levy would have a greater impact.”.
They wrote: “A levy would not deliver a just and equitable transition [to low-CO2 shipping] and its adoption may trigger negative, economy-wide impacts … a levy is a fundamentally divisive proposal.”.
