MULTINATIONAL corporations will be able to sue any British government which introduces policies deemed detrimental to their profits under a new trade deal signed today by the Tories, trade unions have warned.
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) could jeopardise decisions such as increases to the national minimum wage, the TUC said.
It also warned that the deal could mean Britain turning “a blind eye” to exploitation and human rights abuses suffered by workers in the states covered by the agreement.
The agreement was signed by Tory Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch during a visit to New Zealand where she announced that it would “deliver billions of pounds in additional trade” despite the government’s own estimates showing that it will add only 0.08 per cent to the size of the economy over 10 years.
Activists at Scotland’s climate camp said they do not want to disturb the general public and have issued an invitation to anyone who wishes to visit.
Climate activists who have set up one of Scotland’s largest protest camps in a decade have said they do not wish to cause a disturbance to the general public.
Climate Camp Scotland officially opened their camp near the Grangemouth oil refinery on Wednesday evening, with speaker Leonidas Iza of Ecuador’s biggest indigenous organisation. There were about 100 people in attendance.
Campaigner Quan Nguyen told the PA news agency the group wanted the space in Kinneil Park in Bo’ness, near Falkirk, to be open and welcoming for people to discuss the climate emergency, even if they disagreed.
He said: “It’s really open and really supportive, we invite everyone to come in.
“We don’t want to take the space away, we want it to be a space where we can have an open discussion.
“We must act and act boldly. Our earth is warming rapidly. We see this every day, in every part of the world.”
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a stark call to action Thursday as heatwaves shatter global temperature records and extreme weather wreaks havoc across the planet, climate impacts that the senator called a mere glimpse of what Earth’s “dystopian future could look like” if governments remain subservient to the fossil fuel industry.
“Climate change is ravaging the planet,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an 11-minute address posted to his social media accounts. “If there is not bold, immediate, and united action by governments throughout the world, the quality of life that we are leaving our kids and future generations is very much in question.”
The senator ran through a litany of alarming statistics and recent real-world examples of the consequences of world leaders’ failure to rein in planet-warming fossil fuels, including two consecutive days of record-breaking heat just this week, unprecedented wildfires in Canada, rapidly rising sea levels on China’s densely populated coast, catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, drought and increasingly severe hunger in Somalia, and more.
“It is no great secret that human beings are not particularly anxious to address painful realities,” Sanders said. “This is especially true when it requires taking on powerful special interests like the fossil fuel industry and their endless amounts of money. But this time, this time, we must act and act boldly. Our Earth is warming rapidly. We see this every day, in every part of the world.”
Acknowledging that some progress was made toward speeding the development of renewable energy sources under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Sanders said that “obviously much much more needs to be done” and called on Congress to take legislative action “instead of doing the bidding of oil, gas, and coal companies” and “fomenting a new Cold War with China.”
“Mostly, to my mind, that means raising the level of urgency and bringing the world together now, not next year, not five years from now, but now to address this existential threat. Failure to act will doom future generations to an increasingly unhealthy and uncertain future,” the senator warned. “For the sake of our kids and our grandchildren, for the sake of our common humanity, we cannot allow that to happen.”
The senator’s remarks came hours after the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the hottest June on record globally “by a substantial margin.”
“This is alarming,” Jennifer Marlon, a climate scientist at the Yale School of Environment, toldCNN on Thursday. “It’s hard to imagine what summers will be like for our children and grandchildren in the next 20 years. This is exactly what global warming looks like.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 28th, 2022. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
‘There also must be impeachment on the table’
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Sunday warned of an “authoritarian expansion of power” by the Supreme Court and demanded that lawmakers on Capitol Hill use all of their oversight authority to probe and stop the corruption inside the Supreme Court.
“The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and, frankly, dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court,” Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN’s “State of the Union.’
“Which is what we are seeing now, from the overturning of abortion rights to the ruling that discrimination and, frankly, stripping the full personhood and dignity of LGBTQ people in the United States. … These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court,” the New York Democrat said.
CNN’s Dana Bash asked, “Are you saying that the justices’ power should somehow be limited?”
Ocasio-Cortez said, “I truly do. And this is not new; this is not a new development in history. This is part of our system of checks and balances. The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and frankly dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court, which is what we are seeing now from overturning abortion to the ruling for discrimination and frankly stripping the full dignity and personhood of LGBTQ people in the United States.”
She added, “There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach, and abuse of power and the Supreme Court which has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy. And in the process, being themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy.”
