Enough protein to feed the entire world could be produced on an area of land smaller than London if we replace animal farming with factories producing micro-organisms, the Reboot Food manifesto argues.  Three-quarters of the world’s farmland could be rewilded instead.

The cornerstone idea is swapping animal agriculture, where possible, for a technology called precision fermentation, which would involve brewing yeasts and bacteria to make protein. It could create biologically identical animal proteins using genetically engineered micro-organisms fermented in tanks. These factories would be powered by solar, wind and nuclear. They say protein from precision fermentation is up to 40,900 times more land efficient than beef. Campaigners point out that the technology produces 99% of insulin and 80% of rennet worldwide.

The climate author Mark Lynas said: “The mainstream environmental movement’s agricultural policies are making things worse not better. Organic and ‘regenerative’ farming methods encourage agricultural sprawl and have become smokescreens for the livestock industry. It’s time for sensible environmentalists to unite behind food production techniques that use less land, not more.”

George Monbiot wrote about this potential solution in his recent book Regenesis. 

He said: “By rebooting our food systems with precision fermentation we can phase out animal agriculture while greatly increasing the amount of protein available for human consumption.”

Replace animal farms with micro-organism tanks, say campaigners | Food | The Guardian

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is warning that a free trade agreement between India and the UK could have a devastating impact on the global supply of generic drugs after its draft intellectual property chapter was leaked.

Médecins Sans Frontières is calling for the UK Government to withdraw the document completely and for India to make sure that barriers to affordable medicines are not written into the trade pact.

Posted on the bilaterals.org website, the draft text indicates that the UK is pushing for harder intellectual property measures as part of the UK–India free trade agreement (FTA).

The proposals would cause “serious harm” to India’s generic pharmaceutical industry. The leaked chapter contains 12 Articles that go beyond the requirements of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). MSF is concerned that these so-called “TRIPS-plus” provisions could undermine India’s public health safeguards by requiring the country to change its national intellectual property and drug approval laws to introduce more monopolies on medicines.

Article E.2.2 of the leaked chapter stipulates that each party “shall” allow a new medical use of a known medicine to be patentable and shall not require a patent applicant to prove enhanced efficacy for a new medical use or a new form of a known substance or composition as the precondition for patenting. These measures would reverse India’s current patent law, which has ensured that old and repurposed drugs are not eligible for renewed monopoly protection and made it harder for drug companies to obtain additional patents on trivial changes to known medicines.

India is a major supplier of many of the affordable generic medicines that MSF and many countries use to treat people with diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. 

“The excessive measures included in the draft intellectual property chapter of the UK–India FTA could jeopardise this supply”, says Leena Menghaney, South Asia Head of MSF’s Access Campaign. “Introducing more and more intellectual property hoops for generic manufacturers in India to jump through will have a chilling effect on the country’s ability to supply millions of people around the world with affordable, lifesaving generic medicines.”

 For example, in October, 2023, the patent on the therapeutic compounds in delamanid, one of the most expensive treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis, is set to expire, but measures in the draft FTA would delay the availability of more affordable generic delamanid by several years. 

“The Indian Government must reject these harmful intellectual property provisions and demonstrate its commitment to retaining robust and sustainable production of lifesaving generic medicines at affordable prices. Given the disastrous consequences this leaked intellectual property chapter could have on the global supply of generic medicines, the UK Government should withdraw it completely. India should stay vigilant and not allow barriers to affordable medicines to be written into FTA negotiations”, Menghaney says.

Andrew Hill, Senior Visiting Research Fellow at University of Liverpool Institute of Translational Medicine, UK, who researches access to medicines, commented: “The provisions set out in this leaked document would have extremely serious consequences for the NHS and global health…the naive idea that what is good for the pharmaceutical industry is good for patients and public health must be vigorously challenged”.

UK–India trade deal could “jeopardise” generic medicines – The Lancet

Rainforest Action Network published a report exposing how major U.S. banks are financing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fossil fuel projects—even as they promote their purported commitment to a low-carbon future.

“The world’s climate and energy scientists have set forth a clear mandate: In order to maintain a livable planet and prevent the global average temperature from increasing more than 1.5°C, we must rapidly and dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions,” the RAN report—entitled Wall Street’s Dirtiest Secret: How Fossil Fuel Expansion Depends on Big Bank Finance—states. “To meet this goal, the vast majority of oil, gas, and coal must stay in the ground,” the publication continues. “We must phase out production of some oil and gas reserves before they are fully exploited. We must stop building new infrastructure that relies on fossil fuels.”

The top six U.S. banks financed $445 billion to the top 100 companies expanding in oil, gas, and coal globally since the Paris climate agreement,” and that financing from the institutions—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs—”accounts for a whopping 33% of the funding provided” 

Virtually every single one of the world’s top banks by assets continues to fund fossil fuel expansion. Many banks justify business-as-usual financing to their fossil fuel clients by assuring the public that they are working with their clients to transition away from fossil fuels. But global banks’ top fossil fuel clients amount to a rogues’ gallery of bad actors. The clients—including Exxon, Saudi Aramco, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies—not only are not transitioning away from fossil fuels, these companies are some of the world’s biggest expanders.

Paddy McCully, senior analyst at Paris-based Reclaim Finance, said in a statement that “U.S. banks lack policies even to stop finance to the companies expanding coal mines and power…”

RAN research manager April Merleaux said in a statement, “Companies aiming for a sustainable future must reconcile their aspirations with their profit motives.”

US Mega-Banks Behind 1/3 of Climate-Destroying Oil and Gas Expansion: Report (commondreams.org)

  636 fossil fuel lobbyists have been registered at COP27 talks, up 25% from last year’s COP26. Unlike fossil fuel lobbyists, activists harmed disproportionately by the climate crisis “have effectively been shut out of the talks by high costs, visa challenges, and repressive actions by the hosting country.”

There are more fossil fuel lobbyists registered at COP27 than any single national delegation with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.  There are more fossil fuel lobbyists at COP27 than officials from Puerto Rico, Myanmar, Haiti, the Philippines, Mozambique, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, and Nepal, which the GermanWatch Global Climate Risk Index deems the 10 countries most impacted by the worsening global climate emergency.

“The extraordinary presence of this industry’s lobbyists at these talks is therefore a twisted joke at the expense of both people and planet…”

“Tobacco lobbyists wouldn’t be welcome at health conferences, arms dealers can’t promote their trade at peace conventions…COP27 looks set to be a festival of fossil fuels and their polluting friends, buoyed by recent bumper profits…” 

“The climate crisis is upon us, yet world governments continue to protect the interests of a few greedy corporations instead of the people who are most affected,” said the Kick Polluters Out campaign. “Nowhere is that more clear than at COP27, where big polluters like fossil fuel lobbyists have once again converged to greenwash their polluting image and block the climate action we so desperately need.”

‘A Twisted Joke’: 636 Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Swarm COP27 Climate Talks (commondreams.org)

More than 1,400 people around the world are still dying each day from Covid-19, and poor nations are still struggling to obtain sufficient vaccine doses and therapeutics. To date, just 23.4% of people in low-income countries have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose. 

Big Pharma has made no secret of its opposition to waiving patents for coronavirus vaccines. A new investigation details the extent of the powerful industry’s behind-the-scenes lobbying push as it sought to crush an effort to ramp up global production and distribution of the lifesaving shots.  The agreement the World Trade Organization finally approved in June—almost two years and millions of coronavirus deaths later—was so thoroughly gutted that it could no longer be accurately described as a waiver.

Joint reporting by Politico and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) revealed that pharmaceutical giants threatened several countries, including Belgium and Indonesia, with investment cuts if they decided to support a popular proposal to temporarily lift patent protections that have hindered vaccine production and distribution throughout the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The pharmaceutical giants directly pressured and threatened country officials over the patent waiver.

“Big Pharma used its vast lobbying and influencing efforts to try to kill a proposal that threatened the very tenets of the industry,” the outlets report. “Top industry executives enjoyed direct access to senior officials within the E.U., which was opposed to the proposal from the very start and encouraged potentially rogue member states, including Italy and France, to fall into line.”

“And the U.S., after a dramatic late intervention in favor of a waiver for vaccines eight months after the proposal had been tabled, failed to follow through as the Biden administration came under pressure from industry and Congress.”

Soon after Belgium’s development cooperation minister Meryame Kitir appeared on TV to support a lifting of vaccine IP protections in late April 2021, the adviser received a call from Janssen’s public affairs spokesperson.

“According to the adviser, [to the Belgian prime minister] the spokesperson warned them that if Belgium supported a radical proposal made by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organization, then Janssen might rethink its vast billion-dollar research and development investments in Belgium,” 

Between January 2020 and September 2022, 13 pharmaceutical lobby groups and companies held nearly 100 meetings with the most senior European Commission officials. In the U.K., there were more than 360 meetings between January 2020 and March 2022—equivalent to nearly one every two days. Boris Johnson personally attended 11 of them.

Max Lawson, co-chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance and head of inequality policy at Oxfam, said that “these shocking allegations are a testament to the huge unaccountable power of big business in global politics. Millions died without access to vaccines while pharmaceutical companies gouged extraordinary profits from the pandemic…” He continued,  “Rich countries expressed warm words and pledged donations, but to Germany, the U.K., Switzerland, and the European Commission, it was apparently just a PR exercise. In the end, global solidarity was snuffed out by the wealthy pharmaceutical lobby…”

Outrage as Investigation Shows How Big Pharma ‘Snuffed Out’ Vaccine Patent Waiver (commondreams.org)

 Lord Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of the clothing and homeware retailer Next, Conservative peer and Brexit supporter, has urged the government to make it easier to allow foreign workers into the UK.

“We have got people queueing up to come to this country to pick crops that are rotting in fields, to work in warehouses that otherwise wouldn’t be operable, and we’re not letting them in,” Lord Wolfson said 

‘Not the Brexit I wanted’: Next boss calls for more foreign workers in UK | Supply chain crisis | The Guardian

Oil and gas companies are planning a “frightening” expansion that would result in 115bn tonnes of climate-heating CO2 being pumped out, equivalent to more than 24 years of US emissions, a new  analysis, by German NGO Urgewald has found.

Virtually all oil and gas companies are planning further exploitation of fossil fuels, the report found, pouring $160bn dollars into exploration since 2020. None of this investment is compatible with the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) route to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and limiting the climate crisis, the report said. The IEA said in 2021 that no new fossil fuel projects could go ahead from 2022 if the world is to tackle global heating and its worsening impacts on billions of people. Several major studies have shown that the vast majority of existing fossil fuel reserves must remain underground to avoid climate breakdown. Many observers argue that getting off fossil fuels, through cheap renewables and efficiency, is the fast and permanent solution to high energy prices.

But the analysis found that 655 of 685 (96%) of exploration and production companies have expansion plans, which have increased by 20% since 2021. 

It also found expansion plans for the export of liquefied gas around the world would more than double under current plans. This would lead to emissions equivalent to the current annual emissions of the African continent. The surge in liquefied gas export plans is centred in North America, with 44% of global liquefaction plants under development located in the US and 11% in Canada. Most of this gas would be produced by fracking. QatarEnergy and Gazprom are also among the companies with the biggest liquefied gas plans.

“Liquefied gas is a false solution,” said Lucie Pinson, at the NGO Reclaim Finance. “The newly planned projects will come too late to solve Europe’s energy crisis. But they will lock us into a high-carbon.”

The Urgewald analysis found companies with the biggest net zero-busting plans are Saudi Aramco, QatarEnergy and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, followed by Exxon Mobil, TotalEnergies and Chevron. 

“The outcome of our calculations is truly frightening: oil and gas companies’ short-term expansion plans are not in line with the net zero emissions course put forward by the IEA,” says Fiona Hauke at Urgewald. “Keeping these oil and gas resources in the ground is the bare minimum of what is needed to keep 1.5C attainable.”

“The oil and gas companies are betting against our collective future,” said Katrin Ganswindt, at Urgewald.

The Urgewald report said Egypt, host of Cop27, is the “perfect example of the complete disconnect between the action needed and the reality on the ground”. It said 55 companies are exploring for new oil and gas resources across Egypt.

Oil and gas firms planning ‘frightening’ fossil fuels growth, report finds | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 Richard Millett KC, lead counsel for the inquiry, said the risks that led to the June 2017 fire in west London were “well known” by many of the organisations and “ought to have been known” by all of them.

“Each and every one of the deaths that occurred in Grenfell Tower, on the 14 June 2017 was avoidable.”

 The chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA),  Andy Haldane,  has warned more than a century of progress on health and wellbeing was going into reverse, with a direct impact on the economy and the cost of living emergency. “We’re in a situation for the first time, probably since the Industrial Revolution, where health and wellbeing are in retreat,” he said. “Having been an accelerator of wellbeing for the last 200 years, health is now serving as a brake in the rise of growth and wellbeing of our citizens.”

Haldane said the economy was being held back after a sharp fall in the number of people in the British workforce since the onset of the Covid pandemic. However, the former chief economist at the Bank of England said the global health emergency had only served as a “tipping point”. “Spending on healthcare systems, at least by G7 comparisons, the UK sits towards the bottom of the pack,” he said. “It should come as no surprise that we therefore see macroeconomic headwinds such as a record number of unfilled vacancies. We haven’t got enough people.”

About 600,000 workers have dropped out of the workforce, including 200,000 out of work for five years or more due to ill health.  30,000 more people with long Covid and are unable to work. About 50,000 more people have retired early in the last two years, while the number of people who have never worked swelled by 250,000 with two-thirds of this group accounted for by students and a third by people with ill health or disabilities not being able to get into work rather than leaving it.

The situation is made worse by the baby boomer generation taking retirement and lower migration – “with half a million fewer non-UK born workers than there would have been on the pre-2016 trend”.

UK economy being held back by worsening health of British public, Andy Haldane warns | Economic growth (GDP) | The Guardian