The world’s fossil fuel addiction has thrown the environment into chaos, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday at the opening of Cop15, the UN biodiversity summit.
“We are treating nature like a toilet,” Mr Guterres said at the conference in Canada.
“Unsustainable production and consumption are sending emissions skyrocketing and degrading our land, sea and air.”
As talks begin this week on a new set of global goals to protect nature over the next decade, Mr Guterres stressed that Cop15 is an opportunity to halt “this orgy of destruction”.
He called on the private sector to recognise that profit and protection “must go hand in hand” and asked developed countries to provide bold financial support for the Global South, which should not be expected to shoulder the burden alone.
NEWS channel Al Jazeera formally asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) today to investigate the fatal shooting of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as she was reporting from a Palestinian refugee camp in May.
Al Jazeera has accused the Israeli government of specifically targeting its journalists, calling Ms Abu Akleh’s death a war crime.
The news outlet wants ICC prosecutor Karim Khan to include the reporter’s killing, as well as last year’s Israeli air strike on Al Jazeera’s offices in the Gaza Strip, in his ongoing investigation into allegations of war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza.
LABOUR’S plans to democratise Britain by devolving political and economic power from Westminster are incompatible with the party’s ongoing “purge of the left,” campaigners warned today.
Grassroots group Momentum largely welcomed Sir Keir Starmer’s proposals to “unbind the country from a centre that has not delivered,” but stressed the move must happen within a “pluralistic party culture.”
…
The Scottish Greens argued the concession would “do nothing to halt the momentum for independence” north of the border, while Plaid Cymru slammed the report for failing to tackle “inequalities across the UK.”
Momentum tweeted: “Reforming Britain’s antiquated and unequal democracy is the right goal — that must mean abolition of the House of Lords.”
However, the group stressed the need for a “pluralistic party culture,” adding: “You can’t democratise Britain while purging the left.”
Just Stop Oil supporters have stopped traffic on key routes in Central London today to demand that the government halts all new oil and gas licences and consents.
At 8:00am, around 15 Just Stop Oil supporters wearing hi-vis vests walked onto the road at Bricklayers Arms roundabout in South London and proceeded to march slowly along the Old Kent Road, causing delays to rush hour traffic. The march continued through South London, followed by at least 3 police vehicles and up to 10 police officers.
A further march followed at Bank junction in the City.
Sam Griffiths, 47, a Dad and designer from London said:
“I feel sick seeing how little is happening to address climate breakdown, the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced. And our Government is actively making things worse. Granting over 100 new oil licences is indefensible and goes against everything that science says we need to do.
“I started actively supporting Just Stop Oil after we had 40°C in the UK for the first time in recorded history. It scared the shit out of me. I looked at my boy and realised I couldn’t just continue to do nothing.
“I’m sick of the weasel words of our politicians. Fake crying at COP then getting back home to sign more oil deals. It’s disgusting and will kill everything we love… if we let it happen. I’m no longer prepared to just stand by and watch.”
Image: Just Stop Oil
Margaret Reid, 51, a former museum professional from Kendal who recently spent 7 weeks in prison for taking action with Just Stop Oil said:
“We are in a climate emergency right now. We no longer have the luxury of delay and indecision – that time is over. Against all humanity, morality and basic common sense, the government and the fossil fuel industry are taking actions that will continue to destroy us. They’ve been doing it for decades. So now, here, in 2022, we have to stand up for our own futures – and we have to take our own immediate action to stop them.
“The climate crisis will affect all of us and it will destroy all our futures so, like it or not we’re all in this together. We need to act right now, to act decisively and to act together. We have so little time left, I am willing to try anything that might work.”
Maybe not too soon, looking at Keir Starmer’s Labour Party’s recent announcements is proving difficult. I’ve not found the 155-page document prepared by Gordon Brown yet – don’t know that it exists tbh – and there’s not a press release about these issues at the Labour Party UK website.
Presented as pro-democracy, giving people more control it’s actually about imposing control on the UK politics domain. Mayors are not pro-democracy, giving people control and it’s instead handing huge power to – often pro-Starmer – bigots. Abolishing the House of Lords is just words from a politician who has proved himself to be untrustworthy and duplicitous. Proportional representation is missing – the obvious pro-democracy measure. This is about Starmer’s Labour party wanting to take the Tories’ place as the normal UK government. They’re even trying to get the Tories unfair bonus under first past the post.
It’s correct that the Tories are finished after Boris, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. Even financial markets have standards and hedge funds are not well regarded(!). The Tories being finished doesn’t mean that Starmer’s Stalinist Labour party will benefit without question, without opposition from quarters unknown. These measures are Labour’s attempts to impose a framework of control on the politics ‘market’.
2.40pm: A broad left / Green coalition could do well. It should be recognised that the Labour Party is very hostile to Socialists and may always be. Corbyn and his supporters showed that there is widespread support for left politics, expression of which is now denied as normal. “Get Brexit done” was about getting that oven-ready deal cooked, about finally finishing Brexit and moving on … Is that ever going to happen?
15/12/22: Been looking at Brown’s paper. It’s not really argued, more as if you’re expected to simply accept the assumptions on which it’s based which of course I don’t.
Brown proposes economic growth which I don’t accept being dare I say the ‘one’ member of the anti-growth coalition. Incessant growth is not necessary if you’re instead wise and focused.
Brown also proposes states that economic growth will return trust to politics. That seems an insane idea to me. There is no trust in politics because politicians are repeatedly exposed as lying sihts. Brown should be well aware of this since he was the other half of Bliar’s government. While Bliar and Boris are the biggest, most obvious liars I’m sure that politicians have always been lying sihts divorced from reality. It doesn’t help that they’re public schoolboys.
5/1/22 Keith Starmer has made a speech today pushing the ideas in this report. It means that I should probably read the rest of Brown’s nonsense report.
