AstraZeneca has started to move away from providing its Covid-19 vaccine to countries on a not-for-profit basis. The drugs giant has signed a series of for-profit agreements for next year.
The company had previously said it would only start to make money from the vaccine when Covid-19 was no longer a pandemic.
Its chief executive Pascal Soriot said the disease was becoming endemic, adding, “…which means we have to learn to live with it.”
2021 marks 100 years since the discovery of insulin. Before 1921 the diagnosis of diabetes was a death sentence, with an average life expectancy of fewer than 2 years in young people, who were only kept alive by a starvation regimen that reduced them to walking skeletons. The discovery of insulin in 1921 was transformative and many patients with diabetes went on to live full and productive lives. Insulin treatment was a ground-breaking scientific and clinical achievement that transformed diabetes care.
Banting, Best, and Collip sold their patent rights to insulin for the sum of one dollar to guarantee access for anyone who needed insulin. But despite the altruistic sentiments of the discoverers—Banting, Best, Collip, and Macleod—that “insulin belongs to the world”, the lack of access to insulin over the past 100 years reflects an appalling policy and implementation failure when it comes to insulin provision in low-income and middle-income countries.
537 million adults now live with type 1 or type 2 diabetes worldwide, an increase of 16% or 74 million people. Globally, an estimated 76% of children with type 1 diabetes are unable to stay within the recommended glycaemic ranges, putting them at risk of life-threatening short-term and long-term complications. More than 50% of patients with type 2 diabetes are unable to receive the insulin they need. Early deaths from type 1 and type 2 diabetes globally have increased by 5% since 2000, in stark contrast to premature deaths from other non-communicable diseases, which have been decreasing. In one 20-year study from Soweto, South Africa, the mortality rate for people with type 1 diabetes was 43%. Globally, around 80% of patients living with diabetes live in low-income and middle-income countries, yet most interested parties continue to pursue a research agenda driven by high-income needs.
Global production and supply of insulin are dominated by three companies—Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi. Insulin remains unaffordable for many people. In the USA, a quarter of the 7 million patients taking insulin have reported difficulties in affordability. Documents show a century of controversial pricing practices, including price-fixing, that has led to repeated market failures and continued unnecessary deaths in the USA. Policy and regulatory processes work to the benefit of a few greedy drug companies rather than serving the needs of people who require insulin.
Structural racism complicates insulin access pricing for racially marginalised Americans, who are both more likely to be prescribed insulin and more likely to be from low-income, uninsured, or underinsured populations that are unable to pay for it. Racial and ethnic minorities have a higher burden of disease from diabetes, in terms of prevalence, poor glycaemic control, comorbid conditions, diabetes-related complications, and diabetes-related mortality.
Along with difficulty in getting insulin, many patients do not have access to basic blood glucose monitoring, diagnosis continues to be a problem. In high-income countries advanced technologies, such as insulin analogues, insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitoring, and hybrid closed-loop devices, have become firmly established for diabetes management and treatment. Many believe that closed-loop devices, which adjust insulin infusion largely automatically according to changing glucose values, will soon enable people with type 1 diabetes to lead lives without the continual demands of self-management.
In many low-income and middle-income countries, few patients can afford modern insulin analogues let alone devices to record glucose continuously or adjust insulin automatically. The provision of free medicines and glucose monitoring would make a major difference.
100 years of insulin: a technical success but an access failure – The Lancet
“We by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like something standing outside nature … we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst … ” Engels
What threatens society is a lethal and unpredictable mixture of global warming with associated extreme weather events. The planet only supports life because of its delicate relationships with nature’s ecosystems. The anarchic development of capitalism and the rapacious greed of today’s multinational corporations now threaten this fine balance, which is being disturbed on a massive scale. The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ will make the climate hotter and will have a disastrous effect on agriculture.
Under capitalism, the tremendous achievements that science has contributed to society have been used and developed in an irrational and unplanned manner which has resulted in many catastrophes. capitalism has proved incapable of using the capacity of modern science and technology to ease the nightmare conditions of the people. Conditions of life so characterised by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy still prevail in my countries. Science and technology have made possible the development of computers and robots, the real ‘energy crisis’ for over many people is to obtain the firewood or charcoal as fuel for cooking and little access to electricity. A searing indictment of big business has been the devastation of the mighty Amazon rainforest with the blessing of the present Brazilian government
The destruction of the environment is inevitable in a society dominated by blind market forces and has now reached calamitous proportions. The inherent contradictions, antagonisms and the competition of interests make capitalism absolutely incapable of introducing adequate safeguards against excessive carbon emission pollution. Our survival necessitates the elimination of the blind consumerism that causes us to squander so many of the world’s resources needlessly. We believe in socialism where fulfilment will be found in the relationships among people and not in the consumption of things.
Our enemy is capitalism. In order to fight the enemy and win, we have to understand the enemy. Capitalism dominates our economic system. Under capitalism, a handful who own the factories, the mines, corporate farms, and the banks control the wealth that the majority of the people produce. It is this system that we are fighting. The struggle for a liveable planet is a life-and-death issue. The greed of the corporations has polluted our air, poisoned our waters, and drenched our soil and food with dangerous chemicals. People will have to change how they live and how society is organised. The threat to the environment affects everyone. More and more seas of the world are being increasingly polluted because nations are pursuing policies of plunder, blindly seeking high profits in disregard of the safety of the people. The capitalists have polluted and destroyed the environment as they plundered the mineral wealth of all nations.
Capitalism can never be ‘green’ and ethical shopping in your local high street can never save the world. A business, well-intentioned or not, cannot escape market pressures. Competition squeezes profits and strangles ethics. While the market forces standards down it keep the consumer in the dark. Bogus claims about products go unchecked and unpunished. The capitalist market never creates stable, sustainable relationships. Because it is unplanned and because it is driven by the crude search for profits, the short term interests of particular capitalists will always prevail over the welfare of communities and the countryside. The last line of defence for ‘green capitalists’ is the desperate claim that ‘at least they are doing something’. Yet the kind of lifestyle solution promoted by ‘green capitalists’ betrays a deep pessimism about the environment. It suggests the problems are too big and complex for a real, organised solution. The only hope is that by buying eco-friendly products you are putting off an environmental Armageddon for a few years.
Capitalism is harming the environment. The damage to environmentally important areas of our planet is not caused by scarcity or overpopulation suggesting that people, particularly poor people, were a form of pollution. But there was already enough food in the world to sustain the population twice over. The problem in large areas of the globe is not over-exploitation but under-development. In Africa, only 10 percent of farmland is properly irrigated, and the amount of arable land there could be increased.
Capitalism compromises our relation to nature. All production decisions are made by a tiny handful of capitalists, not in the interests of humanity, but purely for profit. Environmental concerns are ignored in the short term scramble for profit. The vast majority of the population who want to live in a safe, healthy world, and to enjoy nature, have no control over decisions that affect our lives. Some environmentalists claim that economic growth, or even human society itself, is innately hostile to nature. Modern technology is not in itself destructive.
The market can never be harnessed to develop a harmonious relationship with nature because it depends on its exploitation. Its priority is profit and it will inevitably result in the destruction of the environment.
Despite pledges made at the climate summit COP26, the world is still nowhere near its goals on limiting global temperature rise, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT).
It calculates that the world is heading for 2.4C of warming, far more than the 1.5C limit nations committed to. The prediction contradicts the optimism at the UN meeting last week, following a series of big announcements that included a vow to stop deforestation. The report by Climate Action Tracker looks at promises made by governments before and during COP26.
It concludes that, in 2030, the greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet will still be twice as high as necessary for keeping temperature rise below 1.5C degree.
COP26 “has a massive credibility, action and commitment gap”, it says in its analysis. “If they have no plans as to how to get there, and their 2030 targets are as low as so many of them are, then frankly, these net zero targets are just lip service to real climate action,” said Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, one of the groups behind the Tracker. The main driver of the gap between promises and projections is continued coal and gas production, the organisation concludes. Hare explained that “We are concerned that some countries are trying to portray Cop26 as if the 1.5C limit is nearly in the bag. But it’s not, it’s very far from it, and they are downplaying the need to get short-term targets for 2030 in line with 1.5C.” Hare said many of the long-term goals countries had set out lacked credibility. He pointed to Brazil, Australia and Russia. “We are concerned that there is not a seriousness of purpose at Cop26. It’s very hypothetical, getting to net zero in 2050,”
When governments’ actual policies – rather than pledges – are analysed, the world’s projected warming is 2.7C by 2100, suggests Climate Action Tracker. Climate Action Tracker blames “stalled momentum” from governments for limited progress towards cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The problem comes from the inclusion of long-term pledges to reach net zero emissions by 2050. 140 governments have promised to reach net zero, covering 90% of global emissions by mid-century-ish carbon neutrality target – China’s is 2060, India’s 2070. According to the CAT, these goals are giving “false hope”.
Based on what countries have put on the table for 2030, the world is set to warm by 2.4C by 2100. That picture gets a bit better if you include America’s and China’s long-term targets, which reduces the temperature to 2.1C. If every country implemented their long-term net zeroes, then 1.8C could indeed be possible.
But the reality is that, without a serious plan for 2030, most of these longer-term goals will not be realised.
But Climate Action Tracker says only a handful have plans in place to reach the goal. It analysed the policies of 40 countries and concluded that only a small number are rated “acceptable”, covering a fraction of the world’s emissions.
“…It’s a devastating report that in any sane world would cause governments in Glasgow to immediately set aside their differences and work with uncompromising vigour for a deal to save our common future,” said Greenpeace International’s executive director Jennifer Morgan.
The Green party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said: “Today was the day the sugar coating fell off the Cop26 talks to reveal the bitter pill that world leaders are going to force us to swallow if they don’t take much stronger action.
COP26: World headed for 2.4C warming despite climate summit – report – BBC News
A global water crisis is being ignored at Cop26 to the detriment of billions of people’s lives, according to the charity WaterAid.
A 2016 study found two-thirds of the global population, four billion people, faced water shortages, and many were at increased risk of floods and droughts brought on by the climate crisis.
“The climate crisis is a water crisis at its core,” he said. Rainfall patterns have changed in many parts of the world; “more intense and more frequent floods pollute water sources and destroy crops or homes, while longer and more frequent droughts dry up the springs many people need to survive.”
Water had not had “nearly enough” attention at the climate conference in Glasgow, with urgent action needed, said Tim Wainwright, chief executive of WaterAid.
“The way that climate change affects human beings is almost entirely through water, either too much or too little,” he said. “So why aren’t we talking about water all the time? We need the kind of action on water that we have already happening on the energy transition,” he said Wainwright said very little action was being taken to help affected communities. A WaterAid analysis in 2020 found that water received less than 3% of climate finance overall.
Rising sea levels were introducing salt into water sources in places, and drought was pushing water deep underground in others, he said, forcing people, mostly women, to spend longer and walk further in search of water.
“Water is fundamental to life,” said Wainwright. “It underlies your health, your ability to have an education…Unless action was taken, the future would not be “not worth thinking about”, Wainwright added. “It’s calamitous. A lack of access to water is already killing people … It’s unthinkable not to do something about this. The world has to rise to this challenge.”
“We need a revolution that takes us to zero carbon and we need a revolution that takes us to adapting the world to cope with the climate change that is irreversible,” he said.
There are two billion people, or 1 in 4, who lack access to safe drinking water.
Nearly half the world’s population (3.6 billion people) don’t have adequate sanitation.
6 billion cases of diarrhoea.
12 billion cases of parasitic worms.
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%.
Even if 90% of the population produced no carbon at all, the anticipated emissions of the richest 10% (those earning over $55,000) across the next nine years would use almost the entire global budget. The disparity in environmental impact mirrors a nation’s inequality. No wonder the prosperous people of the wealthy nations are so keen to seek to shift the blame to China, or on to other people’s birthrates: sometimes it seems they will try anything before attending to their own impacts.
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.
Flying accounts for most of the greenhouse gas emissions of the super-rich, which is why the wealthiest 1% generate roughly half the world’s aviation emissions.
Bill Gates has an estimated footprint 3,000 times bigger than the good global citizen’s, largely as a result of his collection of jets and helicopters. He claims to “buy green aviation fuel”, but there is no such thing. Biofuels for jets, if widely deployed, would trigger an environmental catastrophe, as so much plant material is required to power a single flight. This means that crops or plantations must displace either food production or wild ecosystems. No other “green” aviation fuels are currently available.
“HSBC’s public rhetoric on climate change can’t be trusted,” said Adam McGibbon, UK campaign lead at Market Forces.
A new analysis of projected extraction in the Permian Basin in the U.S. Southwest exposes the extent to which oil and gas executives put humanity’s future in jeopardy.
“If left unchecked,” the report notes, “the Permian could continue to produce huge amounts of oil, gas, and gas liquids for decades to come. With global markets flush with Permian oil and gas, it can only be harder to steer the world’s economy toward clean energy.”
Oil Change International, Earthworks, and the Center for International Environmental Law warn that if the drilling and fracking boom that has turned the Permian Basin into “the world’s single most prolific oil and gas field” over the past decade is allowed to persist unabated for the next three decades, it will generate nearly 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide by mid-century. nearly 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide that would be emitted from burning the fossil fuels that corporate executives expect to extract from the Permian Basin by 2050 represent about 10% of the world’s remaining “carbon budget.” Moreover, “scientists studying methane emissions in the Permian Basin estimate that as much as 3.7% of gas production is being vented and leaked into the atmosphere,” the report notes.
Lorne Stockman, research co-director at Oil Change International, said in a statement. “Producers have free rein to pollute and methane is routinely released in vast quantities. Oil exports fuel Permian production growth and today they constitute around 30% of US oil production. While climate science tells us that we must consume 40% less oil in 2030, Permian producers plan to grow production more than 50%” from 2021 to 2030, said Stockman. “This must not happen.”
An effort by global financial giant HSBC to water down an industry climate pledge exemplifies the fact that banks and other profit-driven companies “cannot be trusted” to end their complicity in the human-caused climate emergency, critics charge. HSBC wrote to the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA)—the initiative started by Mark Carney, former head of the Bank of England—on behalf of 12 large banks, calling on the alliance to loosen restrictions and delay deadlines in order to keep the banks from having to commit to far-reaching climate action. Writing on behalf of banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America, HSBC asked that the alliance remove from its pledge the list of high-emissions sectors for which banks are required to set net-zero targets for within 18 months of joining the NZBA.
HSBC wanted to make the climate commitments from key sectors— including fossil fuels, agriculture, real estate, and steel—”less rigorous” by delaying new emissions reduction targets until 2025 or even 2030. HSBC also asked that members be required to set net-zero targets only for industries with so-called “credible transition pathways,” which “could be highly subjective.”
Since “committing” to net-zero financed emissions by 2050 one year ago, HSBC has “helped Saudi Aramco, the world’s most polluting company, raise [$13.9 billion] and Qatar Petroleum raise [$12.4 billion] to fund the expansion of the world’s largest gas field.
“Time and time again we see banks launch voluntary climate initiatives which seem to be aimed purely at reaping PR benefits now, while postponing all concrete action as far into the future as possible,” said Maaike Beenes, climate coordinator at BankTrack.
It’s true that multiple global pledges have emerged from COP26. None are legally binding. Few stand up to scrutiny, and most offer sufficient vagueness to be meaningless, full of small-print and caveats. False solutions are being peddled at the COP such as carbon markets, “smoke and mirrors to avoid keeping fossil fuels in the ground.
If we continue not acting against the real cause of the climate crisis—the capitalist mode of production and society will carry on towards collapse. The scenario is the most dire ever. There are 816 new oil & gas wells being planned and drilled until the end of the year and in 2022. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It is the way this system operates: just enough propaganda of “ambition” and technofixes to keep fossils flowing as ever, while the climate collapses. If the climate change debate is framed by companies and governments around the terms of net-zero, carbon credits, carbon taxes and offsettings, rather than stopping emissions, when will it ever come to the real problem of the climate crisis? Governments and companies are actively not cutting emissions, but also effectively increasing them. Each and every one of these wells is a crime against humanity.
The reason why the climate crisis is not being solved is that it means the biggest change in power in the history of humanity
We have a capitalist society where at its heart lies production for profit on which the whole system depends. This fact shapes everything about the world we live in, including the very ideologies and policies of the political parties, the world’s governments and global corporations. History has often revealed that those who rule have often been prepared to see the whole of society collapse into chaos rather than accept the change that challenged their power. Is there any reason to suppose anything different and they will behave any differently to their predecessors in these modern days?
Yes, we can imagine a section of the global ruling class, and some governments taking action and refusing to gamble on the future of civilisation. But we say that there exists a surer path than that hopeful reliance upon the good intentions of a few political leaders and some business executives.
We are required to mobilise the power of millions of ordinary people, and bring down the whole edifice of today’s capitalist society. Capitalism has simply proven incapable of stopping or limiting global warming. The cure for the climate crises involves wresting power out of the hands of those who have it now. Such a transformation is a revolution, with its aim as socialism. Not everyone who recognises the threat to the world’s climate understands the need to change society from top to bottom. The World Socialist Movement has to convey the inherent logic that we must go beyond mere reforms within the existing structures of economic and political power.
Capitalism is driven by its hunger for profits. Such a rapacious system cannot tackle the climate crisis or make rational planned decisions about what to produce that is separate from the bottom line of profits.
Engels was well aware of this when he wrote:
“…What cared the Spanish planters in Cuba, who burned down forests on the slopes of the mountains and obtained from the ashes sufficient fertiliser for one generation of very highly profitable coffee trees – what cared they that the heavy tropical rainfall afterwards washed away the unprotected upper stratum of the soil, leaving behind only bare rock..”
Capitalism is the cause of climate change and socialism ie social ownership and democratic planning of production is the solution.Yet many climate activists object and tell us “There is no time to wait for the Revolution.” Rather than seeking to overthrow capitalism, they wish an immediate campaign to force governments to act now.
Our answer is concise. “There is no time to wait for you to convince governments and corporations to change policies.”
It is clearly not working and there is no reason to believe it will. Politicians and CEOs run up against and get blocked by capitalist competition which is central to the system: hence the failure. Our solution to prevent runaway climate change is revolution.
Too many environmentalists still stand for the continuation of capitalism complete with commodity production and rival nation–states. By accepting that capitalist production should continue the ecology movement diminishes its credibility despite the best of aspirations. Their manifestos of a controlled reshaping of capitalism managed by governments is an old and failed idea. Nor is it practical to imagine that all sections of world capitalist producers, either as corporations or governments could agree to adopt production methods that were less polluting.
With the abolition of capitalism, in which goods take the form of commodities for sale on the market, and the abolition of the wage-labour/capital relationship, socialism will establish direct co-operation between producers and goods will be produced directly for need. This will eliminate the economic constraints which at present severely limit the use of production methods. Production for use will consciously regulate production and this will include a choice of methods limited only by available technique and practicality. Socialism will also eliminate a vast amount of waste and at least increase the number of people available for useful work many-fold.
Socialism would have no difficulty in applying a principle of sustainable production which would include working with the natural environment in non-destructive ways and within existing natural systems without altering them. It is inconceivable that the life of world society can achieve balance with nature unless it first achieves unity and common purpose within its own organisation.
The continuation of capitalism on its blind and uncontrolled course is a gamble on life itself. This is surely clear to anyone with a serious concern for ensuring stable natural ecosystems in which humanity can enjoy being part of nature.
Who are the ecologists? The World Socialist Movement.
Members of the environmentalist campaigns should join with us now.
The draft COP26 communique has been criticised for vague language on commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and a lack of firm accountability provisions.
Alden Meyer, a senior associate with the European climate think-tank E3G, noted the importance of fossil fuel subsidies being targeted in the draft, but lamented how long it took to be addressed. He pointed out the issue was first raised in 2009 at the G20 summit in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
“It’s absurd 12 years after Pittsburgh that we are still paying taxpayer money and hundreds of billions of dollars a year to encourage production and consumption of fossil fuels,” said Meyer. “The first rule of holes when you find yourself in one – you stop digging. And we’re still digging the hole deeper by paying people to produce and use more carbon. It’s insane.”
Meyer continues, “We don’t need incremental steps, we need radical transformational change and it has to happen in the next two years. We are running out of room and time to make the shift that we need.”
“You can’t ask developing countries to contribute to keeping 1.5C if you don’t provide the certainty that there will be financial flows to be used for this transition,” said Eddy Perez, international climate diplomacy manager with Climate Action Network Canada. He also noted $100bn annually was nowhere near enough needed to assist developing countries. “None of these issues are addressed in the draft text right now,” said Perez.
Both the International Energy Agency and the World Bank have said $850bn per year is needed from rich countries for poorer ones to decarbonise their economies.
Climate-vulnerable nations ‘fight for their lives’ at COP26 | Climate Crisis News | Al Jazeera