Only $11.5bn (£9.2bn) of climate finance from rich countries in 2020 was devoted to helping poor countries adapt to extreme weather, despite increasing incidences of climate-related disaster, according to this report from the Oxfam.

We are living through an unprecedented moment of multiple crises. Tens of millions more people are facing hunger. Hundreds of millions more face impossible rises in the cost of basic goods or heating their homes. Poverty has increased for the first time in 25 years. At the same time, these multiple crises all have winners.

More frequent or intense floods, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and typhoons devastate people’s homes, livelihoods and the natural world. A clean energy transition is urgently needed to reduce carbon emissions and prevent the impacts worsening.

This Progress Report covers the period 2018 to 2022 – a period of challenges and change for the world, for Africa and for the Pan Africa Program (PAP). During that period the COVID-19 pandemic hit hard.

The world’s richest people emit huge and unsustainable amounts of carbon and, unlike ordinary people, 50% to 70% of their emissions result from their investments.

Asia is particularly vulnerable to climate hazards including extreme temperatures, flooding, droughts, cyclones, and sea level rise. The most vulnerable communities need financial support to help adapt to the climate crisis – they cannot do so alone.

Many rich countries are using dishonest and misleading accounting to inflate their climate finance contributions to developing countries – in 2020 by as much as 225%, according to investigations by Oxfam.

The 2022 Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) Index is the first detailed analysis published looking at governments’ policies and actions to fight inequality during the first two years of the pandemic. It reviews the spending, tax and labour policies and actions of 161 governments during 2020–2022.

In West Africa/Sahel, countries and their communities are experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Elsewhere, Paris Agreement climate finance commitments are set to prioritise the countries that are most impacted by climate change.

This brief focuses on how climate change acts as a threat multiplier, worsening the existing risks and vulnerabilities to hunger for already disadvantaged people, particularly women, agricultural workers, and small-scale farmers.