Two Years On from Conflict in Gaza

July 7, 2016

ActionAid’s Response in Gaza

July 8th marks two years since the 2014 Israeli conflict in Gaza, which left over 2,000 dead and 100,000 Gazans displaced. In response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a consequence of the war, ActionAid began an emergency programme with a number of local partners in Gaza supporting approximately 16,870 individuals (2,410 families).

One of the people aided through the emergency programme was a 37 years old woman from Rafah. She has been entrenched into poverty most of her life; she is a mother of five and she was divorced due to her ex-husband’s unending abuse.

She said “now I have a small project, I am so proud that I have become a productive woman in the society. I can secure food to my children. I have a bank account and I am saving money for my children and the future. I am working all the time and I have produced different types of embroideries. Together with another woman, we established small scale project. She provided the place and I provided all materials and sewing machines that I received from ActionAid. I am happy I helped another woman to start her dream as well. We are dreaming to enlarge and develop our business and to promote our products effectively”.

To date ActionAid Palestine has worked with different local partners:

WEFAQ Association for Women and Child Care has:

Provided free legal consultations for affected women and family mediations
Provided group therapy sessions for affected women
Conducted legal awareness workshops
Organised public hearings on domestic violence and advocacy
Developed legal awareness materials
Produced research on the barriers and opportunities for women’s leadership in disasters/conflict situation

The Palestinian NGO’s Network (PNGO) has produced accountability tool kits with English and Arabic version being distributed to relevant UN, INGOs, Clusters and NGOs.

The Agriculture Development Association (PARC) produced the 5th fact sheet on Israeli Forces’ violation of Agriculture and access to farms. The 2nd global online petition that demands full access to land for farmers and a documentary film on food security/livelihood are ongoing.

Al Aqsa Club a community based organisation conducted community orientation to start a Local Rights Programme to enhance the resilience of four communities in Middle Area, Gaza, and conducted a series of meetings establishing women and youth groups.

Photo, R K, 37, from Rafa Gaza (Initials only given)

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.

Two Years On from Conflict in Gaza

ActionAid’s Response in Gaza

WEFAQ Association for Women and Child Care has:

The Profit Driving the Crisis

The Global Human Impact

The Risk of Inaction

About This Research

Summary of Recommendations

Further reading

Your Support in Action

The Reality of Occupation in the West Bank

World Cup is a risk for increased gender-based violence against women