This week the GB News host and former UKIP leader said he was launching a campaign for a public referendum on the UK’s net zero policies, under the slogan “Vote Power, Not Poverty”.
He repeats familiar talking points from public figures blocking climate action, including the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs, who argue that the war in Ukraine means the UK should extract more fossil fuels and overturn its moratorium on fracking. Farage went further – arguing for coal extraction at the proposed mine in Cumbria.
Farage, who has a long record of rejecting climate science, is running the referendum campaign with Richard Tice, a millionaire property developer who bankrolled campaigns for the UK to leave the European Union. “Vote Power, Not Poverty” has received widespread media coverage, especially in Brexit-supporting outlets like the Daily Mail.
Farage has likened his net zero campaign to his push for Brexit and clearly hopes to repeat the populist tactics used ahead of the 2016 EU referendum. DeSmog has verified that the “Vote Power, Not Poverty” Twitter account is the old Brexiteer “Leave Means Leave” Twitter account with a new name.
Police have charged 74 people over Insulate Britain protests.
The charges relate to demonstrations at the Port of Dover and the Dartford Crossing, which caused heavy traffic tailbacks, in September and October.
There are a total of 104 charges, 73 for public nuisance, 29 for obstruction and two for criminal damage, a further 19 people who were arrested were released without charge.
Crawley Magistrates’ Court will begin hearing the charges from April.
[It is difficult to take only quote a small section of this article since it is so short.]
The UN’s expert climate science organization has criticised the “vested interests” obstructing efforts to cut emissions for the first time this week.
The world’s leading climate scientists warned of the “irreversible” impacts of global warming in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), describing the window of opportunity to act as “brief and rapidly closing”.
The review, which focuses on adaptation, said that despite scientific certainty around human-caused climate change, “vested economic and political interests” were delaying efforts to tackle it.
These have “generated rhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency”, it noted, resulting in “public misperception of climate risks and polarised public support for climate actions”.
A Tory MP leading a backbench revolt against climate action recently received £5,000 from the chair of the UK’s most prominent climate science denial group.
Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, insists that his Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) of MPs accepts climate science and is only concerned about the cost and efficacy of the UK’s 2050 net zero target.
But the parliamentary register of interests shows that Baker received £5,000 from Neil Record, a Tory Party donor and chairman of both the climate science-denying Global Warming Policy Forum and the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, which has received funding from oil giant BP, and has a record of opposing government climate policies.
Tens of thousands of people protested across France on Saturday to call for more attention to the climate crisis in the runup to the presidential election next month.
“Look up,” read one message in giant orange letters demonstrators held up in Paris, urging politicians to make protecting the planet a priority.
The sign was a nod to Netflix hit Don’t Look Up, in which astronomers who discover a comet will wipe out the Earth try in vain to get politicians to take the threat seriously. “When are we going to talk about it?” read another sign.
The climate crisis took up only 1.5% of talking points in media coverage of the election campaign from 28 February to 6 March, a recent survey by climate justice NGOs has found.
Even if we manage to stop the planet warming beyond 1.5℃ this century, we will still see profound impacts to billions of people on every continent and in every sector, and the window to adapt is narrowing quickly. These are among the disturbing findings of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
At 1.5℃ warming above pre-industrial levels, the new report projects that, for example, children under 12 will experience a fourfold increase in natural disasters in their lifetime, and up to 14% of all species assessed will likely face a very high risk of extinction. This is our best-case scenario.
Impacts such as these will not be evenly spread, with countries in Africa, Asia and low-lying island nations set to be hardest hit. Yet these nations are among the least able to adapt.
We are three vice-chairs of the IPCC, and helped guide the hundreds of scientists worldwide who authored this report. As the second in a set of three, this report gives the most up-to-date synthesis of what we know about the impacts of climate change, and how to adapt to them.
The previous report, published last year, confirmed Earth has already warmed by 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times as a result of human activity.
Adaptation, such as through sustainable building development, can help humanity manage the increasing risks. But adaptation alone will not be enough, it must be paired with a drastic and urgent reduction in global greenhouse emissions if we’re to avert the extraordinary crises that unmitigated planetary heating would bring.
Cascading climate crises
As the peak climate science body of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC is the global authority on climate change.
Our new report paints a worrying picture of climate impacts already affecting the lives of billions of people, our economies and the environment, from the poles to the Equator and from the tops of mountains to the ocean floor.
Global warming of 1.09℃ has already caused widespread impacts globally. In the past several years, we’ve seen enormous wildfires sweep across Australia, Chile, the United States and Greece. We’ve seen global, back-to-back mass coral bleaching events. And we’ve seen unprecedented heatwaves and cold events such as in British Columbia, Canada and in Texas, US.
Even if we manage to reduce global emissions and meet the Paris Agreement target of only temporarily exceeding 1.5℃ this century, this could still have severe and potentially irreversible impacts, although less so than for higher temperature rises.
This includes species extinction, especially in low-lying islands and mountainous areas. Ice sheets will further break down in Greenland, West Antarctica and now even East Antarctica, raising global sea levels about half a metre or more by 2100.
Every small increase in warming will result in escalating losses and damages across many systems. For example, the report found:
under a high-emissions scenario (where global emissions continue unabated), more frequent and extreme disasters will lead to over 250,000 unnecessary deaths each year worldwide.
up to 3 billion people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to droughts at 2℃ warming, and up to 4 billion at 4℃ warming, mostly across the subtropics to mid-latitudes
projected flood damages may be up to two times higher at 2℃ warming and up to 3.9 times higher at 3℃, when compared with damages at 1.5℃
up to 18% of all those species assessed on land will be at high risk of extinction if the world warms 2℃ by 2100. If the world warms up to 4℃, roughly every second plant or animal species assessed will be threatened
even warming below 1.6℃ will see 8% of today’s farmland become climatically unsuitable for current activities by 2100.
Take Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires as an example. Climate change exacerbated drought and heatwaves, which generated catastrophic fire conditions causing over 18 million hectares to burn.
The drought also reduced water availability for firefighting; the heat exhausted the firefighters in their protective clothing; and the fires generated their own fire weather, spreading the fire faster while also disrupting communications, power networks, and fuel and banking systems – all of which severely hampered the disaster response.
The fires also released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, adding to warming and future fire risk.
The Australian bushfires in 2019-2020 directly killed 33 people and caused almost 450 more deaths from smoke inhalation. Shutterstock
Who will be hit hardest?
A key message from the report is how climate change increases inequities across the globe. Existing climate change impacts are already disproportionately hitting the poor and disadvantaged.
For example, reductions in food production have been greatest in those areas where poverty is already rife. This pattern is projected to worsen, with significant risk of large-scale food and nutrition insecurity.
Across Africa, for example, the report found climate change has already reduced agricultural productivity growth by 34% since 1961 – more than any other region on the planet. Further warming will shorten growing seasons and the availability of water. In particular, warming above 2℃ will result in significant yield reductions for staple crops across most of the continent.
By 2050, reduced fish harvests could leave up to 70 million people in Africa vulnerable to iron deficiencies, up to 188 million for vitamin A deficiencies, and 285 million for vitamin B12 and omega-3 fatty acids.
Climate change is also a dire threat to lives and livelihoods in small island nations, such as in the Caribbean and Pacific. For example, the report found warming above 1.5℃ will see up to 90% of tropical coral reefs severely damaged. This jumps to 99% of coral reefs for warming over 2℃. Many rely on coral reef ecosystems for their livelihoods, and this will contribute to climate-related displacement, which is expected to increase.
And to rub salt into the wounds, developing nations, communities and people generally play only a negligible role in emitting the greenhouse gases driving the temperature up, with per capita emissions often only a tenth of those in developed nations.
Even if we meet the Paris goal, up to 90% of tropical coral reefs will be severely damaged. Shutterstock
Adapting isn’t enough
To avoid the projected mounting losses, we require urgent, accelerated action to adapt to climate change.
There are adaptation options for every region and every sector. These could include removing houses and other infrastructure from floodplains to slow river flows and increase water retention, or improving building standards so our homes are suited to warmer climates.
But the more global warming that occurs, the fewer and less effective these options will likely be. Thus, as climate change proceeds, there will be ever-tightening limits on our capacity to adapt.
For example, in many subtropical and mid-latitude regions such as the Mediterranean, Chile and Mexico, hot temperature and drought conditions are likely to increase. Irrigation is obviously an adaptation option for high-value crops.
However, the likely lower water availability and increased demand across sectors will reduce water allocations, and constrain irrigation options. What’s more, the efficiency of water use will reduce under hotter, dryer conditions with lower relative humidity of the air. This means for a given amount of water, there’ll be less benefit to crop growth or even for other sectors, such as for cooling power stations.
Adapting to drought via more irrigation has clear pitfalls under climate change. Shutterstock
Faster adaptation depends on getting the right support. We need firm political commitment and follow-through, robust institutions with diverse input, research and development which provides new adaptation options, and access to adequate financial resources.
Indeed, developed countries have agreed to mobilise US$100 billion per year to finance adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. But while climate finance is increasing overall, it’s not enough to enable adaptation to keep pace with climate change. Only a tiny fraction (an estimated 4-8%) is targeted at enhancing climate adaptation – most is aimed at emissions reduction.
Even a well-designed and implemented global adaptation program won’t fully address the increased risks from climate change, and so losses and damages will likely mount. Action we take to adapt to climate change will require parallel reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – adaptation cannot do it all.
Adaptation can only be effective if paired with deep cuts to global emissions. Shutterstock
Where possible, adaptation actions should simultaneously reduce net emissions, and reduce climate risk. Clearly, adaptations that increase emissions – such as turning on our air-conditioners if they use fossil-fuel-generated electricity – are self-defeating.
Similarly, emission-reduction activities will increasingly need to adapt to the changing climate.
For example, higher temperatures and lower rainfall projected for southern Australia will lower the amount of carbon forests can soak up, because the forests’ growth rate will reduce and more fires will lead to greater losses. Alongside enhanced fire management, choosing a mix of plant species that are adapted to a warmer climate could help offset some of these effects.
It’s clear reducing global emissions alongside effective adaptation will put us on a trajectory of lower costs and damages. But at a global level, we’re doing neither of these things to the necessary extent. We’re at risk of missing a brief and rapidly closing window to secure an equitable and sustainable future.
Tony Gosling and Martin Summers discuss politics on the Not the BCFM politics show. It’s four hours long, I’m only a third of the way through but seems particularly impressive this week. Martin Summers has PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics, the degree that UK Prime Ministers often have) at Oxford. This podcast is often carp about the climate crisis.
2149-1-Not_the_BCFM_Politics_Show_11_Mar_2022.mp3
What can we do about our oligarchy in the United States? President Biden’s blueprint for ones in Russia is a good place to start.
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) licence. Note by dizzy: There’s a photo of Jeff Bezo’s superyacht at the original article. He’s got a new one now of course requiring an historic bridge to be dismantled in Rotterdam.
12/3/22 ed: I’ve emphasized one paragraph in red typeface. That part is particularly important showing that we do not live in democracy. 13/3/22 The West is imposing it’s model of oligarchs on Russia by imposing sanctions. Western oligarchs control and dictate to Western governments but that’s not the case in Russia.
Tonight I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who have bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: no more.
The U.S. Department of Justice is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of Russian oligarchs.
We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.
With these words, the president unintentionally laid out a blueprint for responding to the American oligarchs, superpredators who dwarf their Russian counterpoints in wealth and political power.
America’s oligarchs, like their Russian counterparts, have bilked billions—no, make that trillions—from their own regime.
Oligarchs in a Violent Regime
About that “violent regime” business: It’s possible to condemn the violence perpetrated by Russia’s government while at the same time recognizing and condemning of our own. Our direct attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, among other countries, have been matched by the proxy violence we have funded in nations like Palestine and Syria. Our sanctions have taken countless lives around the world, a form of bloodshed we pretend isn’t warfare.
America’s oligarchs, like their Russian counterparts, have bilked billions—no, make that trillions—from their own regime. Some of their bilking comes directly from its violence, in the form of “defense” contracts to entities like Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, and the Carlyle Group.
A 2014 Princeton political science study showed that government actions nearly always conform to the wishes of wealthy and powerful US elites. “Our central finding was this: Economic elites and interest groups can shape U.S. government policy — but Americans who are less well off have essentially no influence over what their government does,” wrote co-authors Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page.
America’s oligarchical influence extends from healthcare and fossil fuels to the industry of war itself. American companies account for more than half of all arms sales worldwide. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that “in the past two decades, (the arms industry’s) extensive network of lobbyists and donors have directed $285 million in campaign contributions and $2.5 billion in lobbying spending to influence defense policy.”
Arms manufacturers (more commonly known by the Orwellian appellation, “defense industry”) shrewdly concentrate on hiring ex-government officials to advance their agenda and pump up their “ill-begotten gains.” This ensures that their interests are represented by people who know the officials they’re lobbying. Even more importantly, it puts those officials on notice that there is a lucrative future in store for them if they play along. Arms oligarchs have hired more than 200 lobbyists who, in the report’s words, “have worked in the same government that regulates and decides funding for the industry.”
Arms manufacturers played a dominant role under Trump, but are also well-represented in the Biden Administration:
While Biden has touted strict ethics rules that attempt to thwart the influence of lobbyists on the administration, several of his earliest appointees, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken consulted for a private equity firmthat emphasized its “access, network and expertise” in the defense industry. Austin also had a seat on the United Technologies and Raytheon board, earning more than $250,000 from the now merged companies.
“Ill-Begotten Gains”
It’s not just the arms industry, of course. Other oligarchs have bilked the people of the United States in more creative ways. Jeff Bezos built his Amazon empire off his ability to sell products online without charging sales tax. This government-granted loophole made him an oligarch, a position he has used to further cement his power and influence. He has purchased the most influential paper in the nation’s capital—an oligarch’s move if there ever was one—while constantly extending his monopolistic power into new markets.
Despite the fact that he already possessed great wealth, Elon Musk has received billions in subsidies and contracts for his automobile and space ventures. Bill Gates parlayed a government contract and some aggressive patent strategies into his own oligarchical status. Insurance executives have bilked billions from the violence of our privatized healthcare system, which takes an estimated 45,000 lives per year.
Money, of course, is only part of an oligarch’s wealth. President Biden also mentioned the property that belongs to Russian oligarchs: “your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.” (He meant “ill-gotten,” but I suppose you could call such malapropisms part of Biden’s charm.)
If a “supertax” were levied against America’s oligarchs by the federal government, it would produce as much as $755 billion in revenue.
Russians own an estimated 7-10 percent of the world’s superyachts, leaving plenty for their American counterparts. Luxury apartments? Check out “New York Condo Sells for Close to $190 Million; Hedge-Fund Billionaire Doubles His Money.” Private jets? Jeffrey Immelt, job outsourcer and financial predator at GE, used to taketwo jetswhen he traveled so that he’d have a spare—and charged it back to GE’s shareholders.
Little Oligarchs, Big Oligarchs
We’re told that the Russians whose yachts have been seized include Alisher Usmanov, whose net worth is $20 billion, and Alexei Mordashov, whose wealth is described as “nearly” $30 billion. Compare that with Elon Musk, who’s worth nearly $300 billion, or Jeff Bezos at $202 billion. These guys are pikers.
Globally, in the US-led world financial order, billionaires have gained $5 trillion in wealth since the pandemic began. Think of our economic leadership as a “global endowment for oligarchy.” Oxfam reports that the ten richest men in the world (yes, they’re all men) own more wealth than the bottom 3.1 billion people (“six times more, in fact”). Oxfam also notes that “if the 10 richest men”—nine of whom live in the US—”lost 99.999% of their combined wealth, they would still be richer than 99% of the world.”
Now that’s oligarchy.
Making a Killing
No industry has taken more advantage of government-granted patent monopolies than Big Pharma. Even when its oligarchs misled the country into an opioid epidemic—one of the largest mass-casualty events in American history—they are able to escape criminal culpability for their actions.
Then came Covid-19. As Forbes reported in January, US billionaires held an estimated $3.5 trillion before the pandemic struck, a figure that reached nearly $5.3 trillion two years later. That’s $1.8 trillion in gains, divided among only twenty oligarchs. Musk led the pack, with Bezos in second place. The billionaires’ list is a cavalcade of monopolists and speculators whose wealth has been fueled by their government’s benign view of their predatory business practices.
Once the pandemic hit, Big Pharma’s oligarchs were able to parlay their political power into exclusive patent rights for Covid-19 vaccines. Moderna made $17.7 billion from its vaccine in 2021 and anticipates making $22 billion this year, from a formula developed with $2.5 billion in funding commitments from the US government. The money from these government-granted profits could vaccinate the entire world, but they’ve been used to enrich shareholders instead. That’s oligarchy.
Restoring the Balance
What can Americans do about their oligarchy? President Biden’s blueprint is a good place to start. A “dedicated task force to go after the crimes of American oligarchs” is an excellent place to start. It could address questions such as:
1. Why have nine American billionaires acquired more than $755 billion during the Covid pandemic, while so many other people struggled?
2. What role did government and central bank policy play in this enrichment?
3. What unethical or illegal actions, if any, were undertaken in amassing this wealth?
4. What effect will these levels of economic inequality have on social justice, political power, social mobility, and the rights of consumers and workers?
5. Is there any reason why this money should not be taxed at 99 or 100 percent?
Item #4 would not be unprecedented. It would revive a proposal from President Franklin D. Roosevelt for a “100 percent war supertax” on extremely high incomes and would echo the 94 percent top tax rate passed during World War II. (The top marginal tax rate stayed above 90 percent for the next two decades.)
We certainly face a World War-level emergency. Oxfam observes that “a 99% windfall tax on the COVID-19 wealth gains of the 10 richest men could pay for enough vaccines to vaccinate the entire world and fill financing gaps in climate measures, universal health and social protection, and efforts to address gender-based violence in over 80 countries, while still leaving these men $8bn better off than they were before the pandemic.”
I don’t hate these oligarchs. I see them.
If a “supertax” were levied against America’s oligarchs by the federal government, it would produce as much as $755 billion in revenue. That’s enough to pay for the original, ten-year “Build Back Better” proposal—twice.
To See, and to Act
It’s striking that the current debate about American democracy ignores its biggest antagonist: the oligarchs who have undermined the political process and drained the nation of its wealth. Restraining the oligarchs would help build true democracy. It would be good politics, too.
“We know from polling that (anti-oligarchical) policies and rhetoric like these are wildly popular,” writes Eleanor Eagan of the Revolving Door Project. “In our deeply divided country, anger at elite impunity and a desire to see it end are among the rare uniting forces that we have left.”
Not that we can expect an anti-oligarchical agenda from this government any time soon. Politicians know that America’s oligarchs, unlike Russia’s, have the ability to crush their careers at any time. But the rest of us are free to speak out and demand an end to oligarchical rule anywhere in the world. Our condemnation of other country’s oligarchs will ring hollow until we do.
Someone once asked me, “Why do you hate billionaires?” The answer is, I don’t. I’ve met a few, and they were always sociable enough (unless you worked for them). I don’t hate these oligarchs. I see them. As we build the anti-oligarchical movement here in the US, Noah Liebman’s handy browser add-on (for Firefox only) helps everyone see them. It replaces the word “billionaire” with “oligarch” on every web page, producing headlines like “Bloomberg’s Oligarch Index,” “Forbes’ Oligarchs 2021,” “Inside the Financial Holdings of Oligarch Betsy DeVos” … you get the idea.
Another headline now reads, “Oligarch investor Bill Ackman says Russia’s attack on Ukraine means World War III has ‘likely already started.'” Maybe it has, or maybe it will start soon. The best way to prevent it is by eliminating all oligarchies, foreign or domestic, and replacing them with genuine democracy.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Richard (RJ) Eskow is a freelance writer. Much of his work can be found on eskow.substack.com. His weekly program, The Zero Hour, can be found on cable television, radio, Spotify, and podcast media. He is a senior advisor with Social Security Works.
