Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
The Green Party of England and Wales has announced it has surged past 80,000 members on the first day of the Labour Party conference – a record high for the party. The announcement was made by Green Party Leader, Zack Polanski, speaking at a campaign event in North London.
The new membership record marks a near 20% increase in membership since Polanski was elected leader less than a month ago. Green Party leader Zack Polanski said
“This is a huge milestone for the Green Party of England and Wales. The tired, old two-party system is over. More and more people are looking to a politics rooted in tackling the climate crisis and inequality. The Green Party is the party that wants to bring water into public hands, wants to lower bills, and wants to protect our National Health Service. Our party conference is just a week away. Our membership growth is a fantastic foundation from which to deepen our roots in local communities and build a bolder politics. This is just the beginning, and we have no time to waste.”
Zack Polanski said before the Labour Party conference opening, “When I said we intend to replace Labour, I meant it. As another Labour conference comes round, it’s another emergency government reset. It just confirms what we already know: Labour has failed. By his own standards, Starmer has broken the promises he was elected on, ditched the principles he claimed to stand for, and his government has made inequality worse, ignored the climate crisis and contributed to arming a genocidal Israeli government. And for all the talk, this conference isn’t a vision for the future. It’s a desperate attempt to rewrite the past.”
“People are crying out for bold leadership, not cautious tinkering. This will probably be Starmer’s last conference. Labour’s future candidates aren’t offering any of the solutions we need. The Green Party is offering these solutions. A wealth tax on the super-rich, investment in public services and action to protect our climate. We are ready to turn this country around by offering a bold, positive alternative to a crumbling Labour government.”
A Greenpeace sign projected on a building says, “Stop Drilling-Start Paying”—a message directed at the world’s fossil fuel companies. (Photo: Greenpeace)
“Pressure is mounting on today’s politicians to hold those most responsible for the climate crisis to account,” said one Greenpeace campaigner.
Thirty-eight former world leaders on Wednesday used the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York—as well as other global summits on the horizon—to demand a new global framework for steeper taxes on the world’s wealthiest and most powerful fossil fuel giants to pay for an urgent transition away from dirty energy sources toward a healthier planet and more equitable economy.
Under the auspices of the nonpartisan Club de Madrid, the world’s largest forum of former democratically-elected presidents and prime ministers, an open letter—signed by Carlos Alvarado, former President of Costa Rica; Mari Kiviniemi, former Prime Minister of Finland; Chandrika Kumaratunga, former President of Sri Lanka; former UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon; and dozens of others—calls the climate crisis “a defining challenge of our time” and urges current leaders to “place the question of fair taxation of fossil fuel company profits firmly on national and international agendas” before it is too late.
“With wealthier countries leading by example,” say the leaders, increased taxation of the world’s coal, oil, and gas giants coupled with a redirection of taxpayer subsidies away from the fossil fuel sector and toward a just renewable energy transition “could be transformative, enabling a faster and fairer global transition and strengthening public trust that climate action can deliver tangible benefits for all.”
“Taxing fossil fuel profits is not only fair—it is also essential to ease the economic burden of the climate crisis, felt by ordinary people through higher food prices, lost working days, pressure on energy bills and higher home insurance premiums.”
Citing the need for global cooperation and ambition to address the warming planet and ongoing climate breakdown, the open letter states:
It is time to consider innovative solutions that can simultaneously establish a clear incentive for companies to shift investment to renewable energy as quickly as possible, while mobilising significant funds to address climate damages and advance both equality and equity. Today, we call on you to consider permanent polluter profit taxes applied to high-emitting industries, designed to ensure contributions come from those with the greatest capacity to pay rather than from ordinary consumers of fossil fuels. With wealthier countries leading by example, these taxes should place the primary responsibility on those with the greatest capacity, not on middle- and low-income communities.
The former world leaders acknowledge the strain governments feel about generating the necessary revenue, estimated at approximately $6.5 trillion per year by 2030, to fund the rapid transition scientists and experts say is necessary to avoid the worst future impacts of an increasingly hotter planet. However, they argue that the polluting companies that have profited most from the fossil fuel era are best positioned to foot the bill, and that the cost of action is far less than the cost of fixing the damage that future climate change will cause if left unaddressed.
“During the oil and gas price crisis in 2022, many governments implemented windfall taxes. We must consider making such approaches permanent,” the letter argues. “A polluter profits tax modestly applied to normal returns and significantly higher on windfall gains could, if applied just to oil, coal, and gas companies, generate up to $400 billion in its first year.”
Rebecca Newsom, Greenpeace International’s global political lead for its “Stop Drilling Start Paying” campaign, said the letter represents what real leadership looks like and that forcing fossil fuel giants to pay higher taxes to help solve the planetary crisis their insatiable greed has spurred has never been more popular with the people worldwide.
“This is a powerful call from former world leaders to make oil and gas corporations pay their fair share for the destruction they have caused,” said Newsom.
Noting recent survey data, Newsom said 8 out of 10 people around the world now “support taxing these polluters for climate damages—the backing of former political leaders adds more weight to this urgent demand.”
“Pressure is mounting on today’s politicians to hold those most responsible for the climate crisis to account,” she said. “Taxing fossil fuel profits is not only fair—it is also essential to ease the economic burden of the climate crisis, felt by ordinary people through higher food prices, lost working days, pressure on energy bills and higher home insurance premiums.”
With the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa and the UN Global Tax Convention in Kenya, both scheduled for November, the former world leaders say the moment is right for global leaders to finally show urgency on the issue.
“The world has the tools, the knowledge, and the resources to act,” their letter concludes. “What is needed now is the political courage to ensure that those with the greatest capacity contribute their fair share. This will not only advance climate justice but also strengthen the foundations of a more stable, resilient, and prosperous global economy.”
Greenpeace’s Newsom said the message is clear. “Governments must find the courage to decisively tax oil and gas corporations and redirect those funds towards a just transition away from fossil fuels and a safe future in the face of a climate crisis.”
Original article by Carmen Navas Reyes republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Protesta por la crisis del G20 en Londres en abril de 2009. Foto: Wiki commons
Between capitalism in decline, expressed in wars and neo-fascism, and the left calling for reconstruction, people resist.
The famous quote by Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci seems to have been written for the moment humanity is currently experiencing: “The old is dying, and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum, monsters arise.”
The world is going through a civilizational crisis in which the neoliberal capitalist order, although mortally wounded, continues to impose its predatory logic, that of the use of force and the resurgence of fascism, while emancipatory alternatives fail to consolidate. In this vacuum, monsters proliferate: wars and attempts at recolonization, climate crisis, structural hunger, collapse of multilateralism and international law placed at the service of the world’s powers that be.
Capitalism and its “terminal crisis”
According to Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, the globalized capitalist system has been showing terminal signs for more than a decade: the obscene concentration of wealth, parasitic financialization, planetary catastrophes, and the precariousness of life have led to this crisis, but it has not been strong enough to finally bury this system. Western imperialism – today embodied in NATO and its imposition of increased war budgets on member countries, in the US economic war, especially against China, and in the European Union’s sanctions against Russia – can no longer flaunt itself as before, but it refuses to die. Its decline is evident in global inflation, the return of Cold War geopolitics, and the rise of neo-fascisms as fictitious “solutions” to inequality.
Is the left also in crisis?
While capitalism seems to be moving towards its decomposition, the left is unable to articulate a hegemonic project. Progressive experiences in Latin America face economic siege, blockades, unilateral coercive measures and judicialization, divisions and popular demobilization; European social democracy is surrendering to neoliberalism and anti-capitalist alternatives still lack global strength. Fragmentation and what appears to be a lack of strategies in the face of new forms of domination (such as the digital divide, corporatist government, and the rule ofBig Tech) weaken the possibility of the emergence of a new order.
Wars and neocolonialism: Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, the Sahel, conflicts where resources are plundered under the rhetoric of “defending democracy” or simply betting on chaos and the disappearance of states.
Environmental catastrophe: Capitalism has turned nature into a “commodity,” and now the planet is suffering countless fires, floods, and desertification.
The failure of international law:The International Criminal Court prosecutes Africans but ignores the crimes of Israel and the US, while the Security Council has become a veto club. Furthermore, reform of the United Nations has become a key issue for the Global South, as seen at the last BRICS meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Criminalization of migrants: In the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump has launched a strong public campaign against the presence of migrants, especially Latin Americans, in the United States. This campaign has also been the basis for an aggressive anti-immigration policy that ranges from the revocation of programs such as Humanitarian Parole, the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), mass deportations, family separation, and the removal of infants from their parents, to the establishment of a highly sophisticated international prison system that violates human rights.
However, this policy is not exclusive, nor was it initiated by the Trump administration, as noted in the testimony of Gladys Caricote, one of the Venezuelan women deported from the United States to Venezuela. In her testimony, she details the discriminatory policy of US governments after being held in an immigration detention center (ICE) for more than 10 months, which means that it was under the administration of Joe Biden, the 46th President of the United States (Democratic Party, 2021-2025), when this restrictive policy towards migrants from Venezuela was tightened.
Is there a way out?
What is needed to build alternatives? How can the Global South help? Is there any point in creating new forms of democracy, popular organization, and class internationalism?
The BRICS summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 6 and 7 was a key event, as it represented a counterweight to the Western-dominated economic and political order, Similarly, its progressive expansion (in 2023-2024, the BRICS accepted new members such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), despite differing criteria among member countries on this issue, has meant greater representation for the Global South, even if it is not without tensions, such as Brazil’s opposition to Venezuela’s entry.
This summit, which issued a 126-point declaration, was quickly responded to by President Donald Trump, who described the proposal to de-dollarize the group’s economic transactions, promoting payments in local currencies and mechanisms such as the New Development Bank (NDB), as a threat to the United States and threatened to increase tariffs on countries that support this action.
Another important event, highlighted in the final declaration of this meeting, was the session of the Civil Council, which the movements present in Brazil have called the “BRICS People’s Council,” promoted at last year’s meeting in Kazan, Russia, as a Civil Forum, even though it is not institutionalized in any instance of the political bloc. However, the potential of this Council, not only for the BRICS countries themselves, but also for our countries in the South, is summed up in the reading of the Council’s consensus statement by João Pedro Stedile, of the National Coordination of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) and the Political Coordination of ALBA Movements, who summarized that “the formal participation of the People’s Council is historic because it consolidates a method. Everyone agrees that the problems facing the peoples will not be solved by government initiatives alone.” However, everyone seems to be clear that it will not be an easy process, given that the rotating presidencies of the group determine the approaches.
Next year, the presidency will go to India, which may have a different view of the role of popular organizations in BRICS, but the important thing is that it is already a decision of the popular organizations to accompany this geopolitical instance as an alternative to the crises already raised, this being another way in which popular movements and organizations are standing up to the monsters that have emerged at this stage, as they have also done with mass actions against the attacks on Iran, Israel’s extreme violence in Gaza and throughout Palestine, the kidnapping of migrants, in defense of the sovereignty of the Sahel countries, etc.
“In a landmark ruling today the ICJ has made clear that failure to take decisive action to protect the climate, through continued fossil fuel production and consumption and granting fossil fuel exploration licences, can be considered as acting ‘wrongfully’. This means the UK has a legal duty to speed up the transition towards a cleaner, greener economy and block any new licences for the extraction of fossil fuels.
“The ruling also made clear that human rights must be at the heart of climate action because climate breakdown affects our rights to health, homes, and livelihoods.
“The court has recognised that rich countries like the UK, responsible for ongoing and historic pollution, have a special responsibility to act, and to offer compensation to countries and communities already suffering from floods, droughts, and rising sea levels.
“Today’s ruling should be the moment we draw a line. Governments that fail to act and polluters that refuse to clean up their act must no longer be allowed to harm communities either at home or across the globe with impunity.”
Weather records clearly show the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago. Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Shutterstock
Increasing frequency of heatwaves and flooding raises fears over health, infrastructure and how society functions
Record-breaking extreme weather is the new norm in the UK, scientists have said, showing that the country is firmly in the grip of the climate crisis.
The hottest days people endure have dramatically increased in frequency and severity, and periods of intense rain have also ramped up, data from hundreds of weather stations shows. Heatwaves and floods leading to deaths and costly damage are of “profound concern” for health, infrastructure and the functioning of society, the scientists said.
The weather records clearly show the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago, the scientists said, as a result of the carbon pollution emitted by burning fossil fuels.
The analysis found that the number of days with temperatures 5C above the average for 1961-1990 had doubled in the last 10 years. For days 8C above average, the number has trebled and for 10C above average it has quadrupled. The UK has also become 8% sunnier in the last decade.
…
The assessment, called the State of the UK Climate 2024 and published in the International Journal of Climatology, found the last three years were in the UK’s top five hottest years on record. The warmest spring on record was seen in 2024 although this has already been surpassed in 2025.
The UK has particularly long meteorological records and the Central England Temperature series is the longest instrumental record in the world. It shows that recent temperatures have far exceeded any in at least 300 years. However, today’s high temperatures are likely to be average by 2050, and cool by 2100, the scientists said.
…
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
