The International Energy Agency has said in its annual World Energy Outlook carbon emissions would decrease by just 40% by the middle of the century if countries stick to their climate pledges.

That will fall 60% short of their 2050 net zero target.

The IEA’s executive director Fatih Birol explained, “We are witnessing an unsustainable recovery from the pandemic,” he said, pointing to sections of the report that show coal use growing strongly, contributing to the second-largest increase in CO2 emissions in history.

The IEA estimates that 70% of the $4tn investment required to reach net zero must flow into emerging markets and developing economies and for organisations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to prioritise clean energy projects in those countries, acting as a catalyst for private capital.

Carbon emissions ‘will drop just 40% by 2050 with countries’ current pledges’ | Cop26 | The Guardian

 For many, the threat of annihilation from global nuclear war has been replaced by the global warming crisis and the protestS of the past to eliminate nuclear weapons have all but disappeared. All the nuclear-armed nations are modernising their capacity to wage nuclear war.

According to a report entitled Profiteers of Armageddon: Producers of the next generation of nuclear weapons, authored by William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy, US decades long “nuclear modernization” plan will cost up to $2 trillion. The U.S.A. is embarking upon a plan to build the next generation of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines as well as warheads.

 The modernization plan “ignores the fact that building a new generation of nuclear weapons at this time will make the world a more dangerous place and increase the risk of nuclear war while fueling the new arms race,” Hartung explains.

The U.S. nuclear weapons budget has climbed in recent years to over $43 billion in the Biden administration’s proposed budget for  2022, and warns that “this figure will grow dramatically,” pointing to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate that parts of the Pentagon’s plan “will cost tens of billions each over the next decade, including $145 billion for ballistic missile submarines, $82 billion for the new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), and $53 billion for the new nuclear-armed bomber.”

“And the costs will not end there,” the report continues, noting that “the estimated lifetime cost of building and operating the new ICBM is $264 billion.”

 “A handful of prime contractors” are the initial recipients and main beneficiaries of public money spent on bombers, missiles, and submarines, “the funds trickle down to subcontractors” that often include other prominent companies. The report names firms such as Bechtel, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.

From 2012 to 2020, campaign contributions from contractors mentioned in the brief topped $119 million, more than a quarter of which was in the 2020 cycle alone. They also spent $57.9 million on lobbying last year, employing 380 lobbyists, over two-thirds of whom “passed through the ‘revolving door’ from top positions in Congress, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy to work for nuclear weapons contractors as executives or board members.”

“And it should be noted that the revolving door swings both ways,” the report adds, noting that “three of the past five secretaries of defense worked as lobbyists or board members of major nuclear weapons contractors before taking up their positions in the Pentagon: James Mattis (General Dynamics); Mark Esper (Raytheon); and Lloyd Austin (Raytheon).”

 “It’s long past time that we stopped allowing special interest lobbying and corporate profits stand in the way of a more sensible nuclear policy,” Hartung says.

‘Profiteers of Armageddon’: Report Reveals Who Benefits From US ‘Nuclear Modernization’ Plan (commondreams.org)

 A major survey by the housing charity Shelter has revealed 1.9m households could be suffering physical and mental problems as a result of poor housing conditions as well as uncertainty caused by struggles to pay the rent and repeated evictions.

A quarter of all renters said they were affected by damp and mould and by being unable to heat their homes.

 Almost one in four renters said their housing situation had left them feeling “stressed and anxious” since the start of the pandemic.

“The cost of poor housing is spilling out into overwhelmed GP surgeries, mental health services, and hours lost from work…millions of renters are living in homes that make them sick because they are mouldy, cold, unaffordable and grossly insecure.”” said Shelter’s chief executive, Polly Neate. 

Poor housing harms health of 20% of renters in England, says Shelter | Housing | The Guardian

 About half of the world’s population will suffer from water insecurity by 2050, found The State of Climate Services 2021: Water , a new report from the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO).



The report said:

“More than 2 billion people are living in countries under water stress and 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least one month per year. Meanwhile, water-related hazards have increased in frequency for the past 20 years. Since 2000, flood-related disasters have increased by 134%, most deaths and economic losses occurred in Asia, where warning systems require strengthening, the number and duration of droughts also increased by 29%, and most deaths were in Africa, again indicating the need for stronger warning systems.”



The report said:



”    In 2018, some 3.6 billion people globally had inadequate access to water for one month per year, which is expected to surpass five billion by 2050.

    In 2020, more than 20% of the world’s river basins had experienced either rapid increases in their surface water area indicative of flooding, a growth in reservoirs and newly inundated land; or rapid declines in surface water area indicating drying up of lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, floodplains and seasonal water bodies. Rapid changes in surface water extent and availability are contributing to elevated disaster risks and potentially negatively affecting water-dependent sectors, e.g. agriculture, energy. More than 80% of wetlands are estimated to have been lost since the pre-industrial era. Despite an average of 58% of countries’ transboundary basin areas having an operational arrangement for water cooperation, only 24 countries reported that all their transboundary basins are covered by such.

    Globally, 56% of household wastewater flows was safely treated in 2020, with regional values ranging from 25 to 80%, indicating that progress remains uneven across the globe. Data from 42 countries reporting on the generation and treatment of total wastewater flows indicate that less than a third received at least some treatment in 2015. The situation is similar for industrial wastewater flows, although here data are only available for 14 countries. In all world regions, and in low-, medium- and high-income countries alike, many water bodies were still in good condition; in 2020, 60% of water bodies assessed in 89 countries had good ambient water quality. However, water quality data are not collected routinely in a majority of countries; especially lower income countries rely on relatively few measurements from relatively few water bodies and lack suitable environmental water quality standards. 

Therefore global status and trends cannot be completely assessed.”

 ‘The big winner in Russia’s recent election was the Communist Party, which jumped to almost 20 percent support. The party is today being transformed by a new wave of democratic socialist activists opposed to Vladimir Putin’s rule’   (jacobinmag.com, 2 October).

The ‘democratic socialists’ (a tautological misnomer) had an inspiring electoral slogan*  alongside a stale selection of reformist demands.    

‘“Put Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism next to each other, and you will just gasp,” Gennady Zyuganov [leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma since 12 December 1993] said in a radio interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid. He added that “the main slogan of communism – ‘He who does not work shall not eat’ – is written in the Apostle Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians” found in the New Testament. “We need to study the Bible,” Zyuganov concluded’ (the Moscow Times, 2 September 2021).

Anyone agreeing with Zvuganov should consider reading Emma Goldman’s The Failure of Christianity (1915): ‘The idea conveyed in the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest indictment against the teachings of Christ, because it sees in the poverty of mind and body a virtue, and because it seeks to maintain this virtue by reward and punishment…”Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” What a preposterous notion! What incentive to slavery, inactivity, and parasitism! Besides, it is not true that the meek can inherit anything. Just because humanity has been meek, the earth has been stolen from it. Meekness has been the whip, which capitalism and governments have used to force man into dependency, into his slave position. The most faithful servants of the State, of wealth, of special privilege, could not preach a more convenient gospel than did Christ, the “redeemer” of the people…’.

Sylvia Pankhurst too: ‘Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance. Our desire is not to make poor those who today are rich, in order to put the poor in the place where the rich now are. Our desire is not to pull down the present rulers to put other rulers in their places’ (Socialism, Workers’ Dreadnought, 28 July 1923).

‘He who does not work shall not eat’ Compare this Bibically-inspired Leninist distortion with the real thing: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ (Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha program, 1875) . Also, the vangardist Lenin again: “If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years” (From a speech in November 1918 quoted by John Reed in Ten Days that Shook the World) with early socialist Flora Tristan: ‘the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself.’

Best start anew, with one aim:

‘Our aim is Communism. Communism is not an affair of party. It is a theory of life and social organisation. It is a life in which property is held in common; in which the community produces, by conscious aim, sufficient to supply the needs of all its members; in which there is no trading, money, wages, or any direct reward for services rendered’ (Sylvia Pankhurst, What is behind the label? A plea for clearness, 1923).

 ‘In China, a politician was revealed to have established an offshore firm to trade U.S. stocks away from prying eyes…. Feng’s company held $2 million in assets and was registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission but is currently inactive.   In 2019, Feng recommended “stricter laws to prevent corruption and white-collar crime involving private companies”‘   (yahoo.com, 4 October).   The only thing surprising about this revelation fro the Pelican Papers is the paltry sum involved.   Consider, the ‘..estimated net worth of the 153 members of China’s Parliament and its advisory body amounts to $650 billion (consortiumnews, 28 July 2020)!  Clearly, ‘China is now an integral and irreplaceable part of global capitalism’ (consortiumnews, 28 July 2020) and in competition with other countries, such as the US, over trade routes, resources and areas of domination. ‘

A new analysis has found prominent companies, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney, are backing business groups that are fighting landmark climate legislation, despite their own promises to combat the climate crisis.  Corporate lobby groups and organizations have mobilized to oppose the proposed $3.5tn budget bill put forward by Democrats, which contains unprecedented measures to drive down planet-heating gases.

Most large US corporations have expressed concern over the climate crisis or announced their own goals to cut greenhouse gases. Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest people, has said that the climate crisis is the “biggest threat to our planet” and the company he founded, Amazon, has created a pledge for businesses to cut their emissions to net zero by 2040. Microsoft has promised to be “carbon negative” within a decade from now and Disney is aiming to use only renewable-sourced electricity within the same timeframe.

But these leading companies, and others, either support or actively steer the very lobby groups that are attempting to sink the bill that has ambitions to tackle the climate crisis, threatening one of the last major legislative efforts that will help decide whether parts of the world plunge into a new, barely livable climatic state. If enacted, the bill would establish a system to phase out emissions from the US electricity system, provide payments to prop up carbon-free nuclear energy and support the adoption of electric vehicles.

“Major corporations love to tell us how committed they are to addressing the climate crisis and building a sustainable future, but behind closed doors, they are funding the very industry trade groups that are fighting tooth and nail to stop the biggest climate change bill ever,” said Kyle Herrig, president of watchdog group Accountable.US, which compiled the analysis. “Hiding behind these shady groups doesn’t just put our environment at risk – it puts these companies’ household names and reputations in serious jeopardy,” Herrig said.

The US Chamber of Commerce has vowed to “do everything we can to prevent this tax-raising, job-killing reconciliation bill from becoming law”. The leading business lobby group’s board includes executives from companies including Microsoft, Intuit, United Airlines and Deloitte, which have all expressed concern over climate change – Deloitte even includes teaching the climate crisis to employees in its staff training – and have made various promises to reduce emissions.

 The Business Roundtable, has said it is “deeply concerned” about the passage of the bill, largely because it raises taxes on the wealthy. The organization is made up of company chief executives, including Apple’s Tim Cook, who has called for stronger action on the climate emergency from governments and businesses. Other members include Andy Jassy, chief executive of Amazon, Sundar Pichai, who heads Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Darren Woods, chief executive of the oil giant Exxon.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group that includes Bayer and AstraZeneca among its members, has run adverts attacking the proposed bill.

The Rate Coalition, another lobby group that has Disney, FedEx and Verizon as members, is also planning an advertising blitz to help kill off the legislation.

The National Association of Manufacturers – backed by Johnson&Johnson, Dow and Goodyear – has said it is attempting to upend the bill “in every way you can imagine”.

Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill | US political lobbying | The Guardian

  Lebanon’s spiralling economic meltdown continues and the UN is calling for urgent reforms as extreme poverty deepens and starvation becomes a “growing reality” for thousands of people.

“The situation remains a living nightmare for ordinary people, causing unspeakable suffering and distress for the most vulnerable,” United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Najat Rochdi said. “Starvation has become a growing reality for thousands of people,” Rochdi said. “Today, we estimate that more than one million Lebanese need relief assistance to cover their basic needs, including food.” Rochdi said Lebanon’s fate lies in the political will to make its economy viable again, and that humanitarian interventions are not the solution.

“Humanitarian action is meant to be by nature short-term, temporary and unsustainable,” she said. “It is not meant to solve the root causes and drivers of a crisis.”

 78 percent of the Lebanese lives below the poverty line – some three million people – with 36 percent of the population living in extreme poverty. Almost a quarter of the population was not able to meet their “dietary needs” by the end of last year, the UN said.

The Lebanese pound has lost 90 percent of its value against the dollar amid Lebanon’s economic meltdown over the past two years. Buying power has dwindled as millions are locked out of their savings in the country’s stricken banks. A fuel crisis has paralysed much of Lebanon over the past few months, causing large-scale power outages and crippling hospitals. Life-saving medicines have been missing from pharmacy shelves, including cancer treatments. Families have had to dig deeper into their pockets to buy them at inflated rates through the black market if they can afford to do so.

“We’ve never seen these growing needs among the Lebanese population before,” World Food Programme spokeswoman Rasha Abou Dargham told Al Jazeera. The organisation now provides food assistance to one in four people in the country, with demand for food assistance at an all-time high.

UN urges Lebanon to implement reforms as extreme poverty grows | United Nations News | Al Jazeera

 Friday 1 October 19.30 BST (GMT + 1)