wealth taxes

One in five Britons would consider voting for a new left-wing party, rising to one in three young people and Labour voters

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https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/one-five-britons-would-consider-voting-new-left-wing-party-rising-one-three-young-people-and-labour

A new Ipsos in the UK poll reveals that the left-wing political party recently founded by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and MP Zarah Sultana could capture a significant segment of the British electorate, particularly among younger voters and those who supported the Labour and Green parties in the 2024 General Election. 

Overall, 20% of British adults say they would be ‘very’ or ‘fairly likely’ to consider voting for a new left-wing party. This figure, however, masks a sharp generational divide. A third (33%) of those aged 16-34 would consider voting for the new party, a figure that drops to 22% among 35-54s and just 9% among those aged 55 and over. 

The potential for this new party to disrupt the existing political landscape is most evident in its appeal to voters of other left-leaning parties. One-third (33%) of those who voted Labour in 2024 and 43% of 2024 Green party voters would consider lending their vote to a Corbyn-Sultana-led party.

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Commenting on the findings, Keiran Pedley, Director of UK Politics at Ipsos said:

These figures show that a new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana has the potential to shake up British politics. A significant number of younger people are at least prepared to consider voting for it and a majority of those aged under 35 say they would consider voting for some kind of alliance between the new party and the Greens. Clear policies around change, the NHS, poverty and wealth taxes could be popular. Time will tell if the new party can turn this hypothetical appeal into real votes on a significant scale.

Continue ReadingOne in five Britons would consider voting for a new left-wing party, rising to one in three young people and Labour voters

Jeremy Corbyn: The facts about a planet facing climate disaster are clear. Why won’t this Labour government face them?

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/20/planet-climate-disaster-labour-government

A wildfire near Povoa de Montemuro, Portugal, 18 September 2024. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

Labour seems gripped by a form of denialism. The danger is real and incremental change won’t avert it

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If our political leaders acted out of humanity, the plight of others would be enough to motivate them into action. In the absence of empathy, perhaps we need to be more direct: the climate crisis is coming for you, because it is coming for us all.

Without urgent action, “once-in-a-generation” events – the flooding of New York subways, the typhoon-like winds sucking people out of their apartments in China, the forest fires – will become the new routine of daily life. Politicians abandoned the goal to stop climate breakdown many years ago. We have a much more basic demand: to stop climate breakdown entering a new phase of existential disaster.

That means avoiding certain “tipping points” that would put humanity on an irreversible path to catastrophe. The collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, for example, would disrupt the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and west Africa. Permafrost thaw would generate an irreversible release of carbon dioxide. And the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would result in disastrous runaway melting.

Few politicians deny that human-made global heating is real. Instead, our government peddles a different – more insidious – kind of denialism. One that moves away from a disbelief in the climate crisis, and toward a belief that incremental change can fix it.

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This government is not just failing to stand up to fossil fuel giants. It is failing to confront the economic system that empowers them. The richest 1% are responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, yet our government still refuses to bring in wealth taxes to reduce inequality. Unless the government has the courage to rewrite the rules of our ecocidal economy, its climate targets will soon become yet another broken promise.

A planet cannot be cooled by warm words; we need fundamental change, now. A Green New Deal would invest in publicly owned renewable energy and water. It would create millions of green jobs. It would promote sustainable farming based on the principles of agroecology. And it would kickstart an economy based on human need, not corporate greed.

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The whole article is at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/20/planet-climate-disaster-labour-government. I’ve been registered for some time, unsure what’s needed to get access. Perhaps the Guardian can provide easier access?

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn: The facts about a planet facing climate disaster are clear. Why won’t this Labour government face them?

Monbiot: Make extreme wealth extinct: it’s the only way to avoid climate breakdown

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/10/extreme-wealth-polluting-climate-breakdown-rich

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The richest 1% of the world’s people (those earning more than $172,000 a year) produce 15% of the world’s carbon emissions: twice the combined impact of the poorest 50%. On average, they emit over 70 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person every year, 30 times more than we can each afford to release if we’re not to exceed 1.5C of global heating. While the emissions of the world’s middle classes are expected to fall sharply over the next decade, thanks to the general decarbonisation of our economies, the amount produced by the richest will scarcely decline at all: in other words, they’ll be responsible for an even greater share of total CO2. Becoming good global citizens would mean cutting their carbon consumption by an average of 97%.

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There’s an oft-quoted axiom, whose authorship is obscure: it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Part of the reason is that capitalism itself is difficult to imagine. Most people struggle to define it, and its champions have generally succeeded in disguising its true nature. So let’s begin by imagining something that’s easier to comprehend: the end of concentrated wealth. Our survival depends on it.

I’ve come to believe that the most important of all environmental measures are wealth taxes. Preventing systemic environmental collapse means driving extreme wealth to extinction. It is not humanity as a whole that the planet cannot afford. It’s the ultra-rich.

https://youtu.be/05p_oeea5_E

Something to watch on the eve of huge energy price increases driving the cost of living crisis in UK

Continue ReadingMonbiot: Make extreme wealth extinct: it’s the only way to avoid climate breakdown

COP26 News review day 12

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The final day of the COP26 summit.

Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)

Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest

Carrying blood-red ribbons to represent the crucial red lines already crossed by Cop26 negotiations, hundreds of representatives of global civil society walked out of the convention centre in Glasgow on the final morning of the summit in protest.

The audience at the People’s Plenary in the conference blue zone heard speakers condemn the legitimacy and ambition of the 12-day summit before walking out to join protesters gathered on the streets beyond the security fencing.

“Cop26 is a performance,” the Indigenous activist Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Tla A’min Nation told the meeting before the walkout. “It is an illusion constructed to save the capitalist economy rooted in resource extraction and colonialism. I didn’t come here to fix the agenda – I came here to disrupt it.”

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George Minbiot: Make extreme wealth extinct: it’s the only way to avoid climate breakdown

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A recent analysis of the lifestyles of 20 billionaires found that each produced an average of over 8,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide: 3,500 times their fair share in a world committed to no more than 1.5C of heating. The major causes are their jets and yachts. A superyacht alone, kept on permanent standby, as some billionaires’ boats are, generates around 7,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

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I’ve come to believe that the most important of all environmental measures are wealth taxes. Preventing systemic environmental collapse means driving extreme wealth to extinction. It is not humanity as a whole that the planet cannot afford. It’s the ultra-rich.

Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds (An older article for context).

The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed.

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Extra video from thejuicemedia

Continue ReadingCOP26 News review day 12