2024 ‘Virtually Certain’ to Be Hottest Year on Record: EU Climate Agency
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
A new report contained “the bleakest news possible, especially with a climate denier U.S. president in office for the next four years,” said one climate scientist.
A day after U.S. voters elected climate-denying Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race, soon ushering in an administration that is sure to expand fossil fuel drilling, the European Union’s Earth observation agency announced that 2024 is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year on record and to hit a worrying temperature milestone.
The year is expected to be the first on record in which the temperature is more than 1.5°C hotter than before the Industrial Revolution, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (CCCS). The Paris climate agreement of 2015 urged countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C by the end of the century.
Over the past 12 months, said CCCS, global temperatures were 1.6°C warmer than the yearly average from 1850-1900.
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“The average temperature anomaly for the rest of 2024 would have to drop to almost zero for 2024 to not be the warmest year,” said CCCS.
Last month was the second-hottest October ever recorded, with temperatures 1.65°C higher than preindustrial levels. It was the 15th month in the past 16 to be hotter than 1.5°C over preindustrial temperatures.
While a single year above the 1.5°C mark does not necessarily indicate that the Paris climate goal is out of reach, CCCS director Carlo Buontempo said the planet has “never had to cope with a climate as warm as the current one.”
“This inevitably pushes our ability to respond to extreme events—and adapt to a warmer world—to the absolute limit,” he told The Guardian.
Climate scientist Bill McGuire called the Copernicus report “the bleakest news possible, especially with a climate denier U.S. president in office for the next four years.”
Trump has pledged to expand fossil fuel extraction and do away with climate regulations introduced by the Biden administration, telling oil executives he would do so if they contributed $1 billion to his campaign in what was described as a quid pro quo.
The CCCS—which based its analysis on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations—noted in its report that October saw numerous extreme weather events tied to the warming planet. Heavy rains led to severe flash flooding in Spain, killing more than 200 people. Above average precipitation was also seen in Norway, France, China, southern Brazil, and parts of Australia, while Florida faced Hurricane Milton just two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed more than 230 people.
The World Meteorological Organization last week announced that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are accumulating faster than at any other time in human history, rising more than 10% in the last two decades.
“The most effective solution to address the climate challenges is a global commitment on emissions,” Buontempo told The Guardian.
BBC journalist Navin Singh Khadka said on the news network that if the 1.5°C breach continues “in the long term, then we are warned there will be catastrophic consequences.”
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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Israel Bombs Refugee Camps After Inking $5.2 Billion Deal for US F-15 Fighter Jets
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Despite overwhelming evidence that the Democratic Party’s most devoted constituents wanted to end sales of weapons to Israel, the Biden administration kept sending them.”
The Israeli military on Thursday bombarded refugee camps in northern and central Gaza hours after inking a $5.2 billion deal with the United States to acquire more than two dozen F-15 fighter jets made by the American aerospace giant Boeing.
The agreement, part of a broader military aid package approved by the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress earlier this year, was finalized hours after Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election to Republican nominee Donald Trump following a campaign in which she resisted calls to support an arms embargo against Israel.
Though Trump at times tried to posture as a pro-peace candidate during the race, he publicly and privately signaled support for Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon, telling far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a recent call, “Do what you have to do.”
Israel’s Ministry of Defense called the F-15 deal “a landmark transaction” for fighter jets “equipped with cutting-edge weapons systems.” The ministry said deliveries of the aircraft will begin in 2031.
“While focusing on immediate needs for advanced weaponry and ammunition at unprecedented levels, we’re simultaneously investing in long-term strategic capabilities,” the ministry said. “This F-15 squadron, alongside the third F-35 squadron procured earlier this year, represents a historic enhancement of our air power and strategic reach—capabilities that proved crucial during the current war.”
Shortly following the announcement, Israeli forces killed at least 22 people in attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza—where Israel is engaged in an active campaign of ethnic cleansing—and on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the Palestinian territory.
Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general Jan Egeland, who traveled to areas of northern and central Gaza this week, said in a statement Thursday that the “complete destruction” he witnessed there was “worse than anything I could imagine as a long-time aid worker.”
“What I saw and heard in the north of Gaza was a population pushed beyond breaking point,” said Egeland. “Families torn apart, men and boys detained and separated from their loved ones, and families unable to even bury their dead. Some have gone days without food, drinking water is nowhere to be found. It is scene after scene of absolute despair.”
“This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of ‘self-defense’ to dismantle armed groups, or warfare consistent with humanitarian law,” he added. “What Israel is doing here, with Western-supplied arms, is rendering a densely populated area uninhabitable for almost two million civilians.”
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Israel’s latest deadly attacks on Gaza came after the conclusion of a U.S. election in which Gaza featured prominently, with Palestinian rights advocates warning that continued American support for Israel’s assault would be politically damaging for Democrats—on top of being morally reprehensible and unlawful, given Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian aid and repeated targeting of civilians.
New York Times writer Peter Beinart argued in a column Thursday that the election’s outcome appeared to show that such concerns were justified.
“Despite overwhelming evidence that the Democratic Party’s most devoted constituents wanted to end sales of weapons to Israel, the Biden administration kept sending them, even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel expanded the war into Lebanon,” Beinart wrote. “And not only did Ms. Harris not break with Mr. Biden’s policy, she went out of her way to make voters who care about Palestinian rights feel unwelcome.”
“There is only one path forward,” Beinart continued. “Although it will require a fierce intraparty brawl, Democrats—who claim to respect human equality and international law—must begin to align their policies on Israel and Palestine with these broader principles. In this new era, in which supporting Palestinian freedom has become central to what it means to be progressive, the Palestinian exception is not just immoral. It’s politically disastrous.”
Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, co-founders of the Uncommitted National Movement, said in a statement Wednesday that “while there are many factors at play” in Harris’ loss, “one undeniable truth remains: Neglecting the voices of those impacted by war has consequences.”
“Today, our message is clear: This moment requires more than resilience; it demands decisive action,” said Elabed and Alawieh. “The Biden-Harris administration must put an end to the flow of weapons that fuel this cycle of violence. If they do not, the Democratic Party risks saddling our coalition of voters with the ever-increasing weight of a legacy intertwined with endless war and suffering.”
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Progressives Say Trump Win Spotlights Rot of Political System ‘Bought and Paid for by Billionaires’
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
“These monied interests are on the frontlines of destroying our democracy, taking away the power of voters through their unprecedented spending in elections,” said the executive director of Justice Democrats.
As progressives in the United States and around the world assessed the dire implications of Donald Trump’s victory and prepared to fight his coming administration, the advocacy group Justice Democrats said Wednesday that the Republican’s win is a devastating indictment of a political system “bought and paid for by billionaires and corporations” committed only to accruing more wealth and power for themselves.
“These monied interests are on the frontlines of destroying our democracy, taking away the power of voters through their unprecedented spending in elections—while those in power refuse to stand up and fight back,” Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats, said in a statement, condemning the leadership of both major parties as servants of corporate power.
“It’s time to end the era of career politicians and the corrupt campaign finance laws that keep them in power,” Rojas added.
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The 2024 contest was the most expensive in U.S. history, according to the watchdog organization OpenSecrets, which noted in an Election Day blog post that outside spending in the race reached a record-shattering $4.5 billion. More than half of that spending, OpenSecrets observed, came from “groups that do not fully disclose the source of their funding.”
Such dark money groups have proliferated widely since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which—along with other rulings and congressional inaction—allowed torrents of untraceable cash to flood the nation’s political system, warping and undermining the electoral process.
“It’s Citizens United’s world, we’re just living in it,” researcher Becca Lewis wrote Wednesday morning.
“As long as our party has cozied up with corporate CEOs, right-wing billionaires, and big money super PACs, everyday people in this country have seen Democrats’ populist platitudes as hypocrisy at best, and outright deceitful at worst.”
As OpenSecrets’ Tuesday analysis made clear, both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris—and their parties—benefited from massive sums of dark money and super PAC cash, as well as donations from billionaire families.
“Super PACs aligned with each major party’s leaders in the House and Senate have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from dark money groups funded by anonymous donors during the 2024 cycle,” the watchdog reported. “During the 2024 election cycle, the four main nonprofits aligned with Republicans and Democrats in Congress churned about $250 million from anonymous donors to allied super PACs. Senate Democrats’ flagship dark money group, Majority Forward, accounted for over $113.2 million of that, more than any prior election.”
Despite that massive influx of cash, Democrats lost control of the U.S. Senate after the GOP flipped seats in Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia—underscoring Justice Democrats’ call for a “new era” of Democrats “not beholden to corporations and billionaires.”
Rojas acknowledged Wednesday that “there are no easy answers for where we as a country and movement go from here” following such a decisive win for Trump and his far-right Republican Party, which has no interest in reforming the federal campaign finance system.
“But what is clear to us is that politically courageous leaders at the federal level are needed now more than ever,” she said, warning that the Democratic Party is “rapidly losing its legitimacy amongst the everyday people and marginalized communities continuously used as stepping stones to win elections.”
“For as long as our party has cozied up with corporate CEOs, right-wing billionaires, and big money super PACs,” Rojas added, “everyday people in this country have seen Democrats’ populist platitudes as hypocrisy at best, and outright deceitful at worst.”
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, argued Wednesday that the Democratic Party “needs institutional reform, a return to the principles of economic justice, and a commitment to prioritizing the needs of the working class and young voters.”
“We can no longer afford to be held hostage by the donor class,” said Geevarghese.
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).