Bangladeshi climate refugees fleeing the coast due to rising sea levels could trigger waves of migration across the country that will affect at least 1.3 million people by 2050, according to a new study.
600 million people are at risk of being displaced by sea level rise in coastal regions worldwide in this century.
Bangladesh migrants fleeing rising seas may affect 1.3 mln by 2050 (trust.org)
“The law forbids any motivation for their actions, whether to assist workers, improve the environment, or help consumers save money. They can do these things with their own money, as private citizens. As corporate officials, however, stewards of other people’s money, they have no legal authority to pursue such goals as ends in themselves – only as means to serve the corporations own interests, which generally means to maximise the wealth of its shareholders. Corporate social responsibility is thus illegal – at least when its genuine.”– Canadian law professor, Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation.
The World Socialist Movement (WSM) possesses a long tradition of opposing the many deadly problems of capitalism from the daily exploitation and oppression of working people to the never-ending wars as well as the environmental crises. In the politics of socialist working-class solidarity and political consciousness in relation to the environmental emergencies we go beyond what too often remains at the level of personal habit, individual morality and lifestyle and expose the root cause. Further, we have been critical of some of the popular responses such as primitivism (a romantic return to a pre-industrial past) and anti-global localism as obstacles to the coordination and planning necessary to tackle the climate crisis democratically and in its planetary proportions.
With COP26, governments, reformist parties and NGOs seek the imposition of a more practical and “moderate” framework of tackling carbon emissions but this is matched by the determination of many outside the conference halls to maintain an effective lobby but as the jostle around for a voice and audience we should be aware that they are often on divergent trajectories. For their part, the capitalist media ensures that the only voices heard in public discussion are from members of their own chorus, praising the virtues of the elite’s economic plans.
The World Socialist Movement view the international gathering as an opportunity to share information across borders, worldwide, building links from a common global pool of knowledge and strategies, all inter-linked in opposition to the corporations of international capitalism, the agencies, institutions and governments that they control. Within such a context the WSM seeks to become a more effective force in local, regional and global struggles for a better world. It is definitely not time to give up on the struggle for environmental justice. The ecology movement is alive with radical ideas and revolutionary prospects, if it is way-laid into sidetracks and diversions. The most welcoming aspect is the trust placed in internationalism, muddying the concepts of national frontiers and borders.
In reporting the calamities inflicted upon our world we can offer only small snap–shots from a huge collection of global disaster scenarios caused by a world political system forging ahead conscientiously to achieve its main objective – profit whatever the consequences.
Very few can deny that the world today is in upheaval, turmoil and conflict. The WSM has repeatedly demonstrated that the capitalist system that does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. Against this insane capitalist system the WSM raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation.
The World Socialist Movement calls upon all who understand the critical situation of our times, and who may be increasingly aware that a basic change in our society is needed, to place themselves squarely on working-class principles. Join us in this effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation.
This Friday’s (30/4) meeting on Discord will be a virtual May Day rally.
The speakers will be comrades Bill Martin and Howard Moss.
It will start soon after 7.30 BST (which is GMT + 1).
As this is online you can be there wherever you are in the world.
There is still time if you sign to join Discord.
£33,628
There is a practice of paying executives health and safety bonuses if none of their employees dies on the job.
Research by the shareholder advisory firm Pensions & Investment Research Consultants, looked at annual reports from 38 FTSE 350 companies in which at least one person died at work between 2015 and 2019.
It found docking their top executive’s bonus led to an average cut of £33,628 – the equivalent of less than 1% of the executive’s total annual pay.
“The only way that you’re going to adequately respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response, and a global response means equity throughout the world. And that’s something that, unfortunately, has not been accomplished.” – Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, on the situation in India
Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, who also holds the title of Promoting the European Way of Life at the Commission, told reporters, “Europe will remain an asylum destination for those fleeing persecution and war. However, those with no right to stay will have to be returned to their countries of origin. Not doing so undermines the credibility of our system and prevents us from protecting those who need it.”
Catherine Woollard, director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), said that while generally voluntary returns were preferable to forced relocations, the EU focused disproportionately on sending people back.
“Asylum decision-making in Europe remains a lottery, with wildly divergent protection rates across the EU. In addition, flight from violence is still not well handled by asylum-systems,” she explained. “This means that people are receiving rejections when they have protection needs and when it is not safe for them to be returned. Member states are returning people to places that are not safe.”
EU presents strategy to send unauthorized migrants back | News | DW | 27.04.2021
Many of the technologies needed to stop climate change are still in early stages of development, a study of green tech patents has revealed. This is the conclusion of a joint report from the European Patent Office (EPO) and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The report “Patents and the energy transition: global trends in clean energy technology innovation” looks at trends in low-carbon energy innovation between 2000 and 2019 in terms of international patent families (IPFs). An IPF represents a unique, high-value invention for which a patent application was filed at two or more patent offices around the globe. Patent applications can be considered an early indicator of future technological trends as they are filed months or years before the products go to market.
The report found that the number of patents for inventions related to low-carbon energy technologies has gone up over the past two decades. However, the average annual growth rate of low-carbon energy patents in recent years is only a quarter of what it was a decade ago. Between 2017 and 2019, the number of patents for inventions related to low-carbon energy technologies around the world grew by an average rate of 3.3% per year. The average growth rate from 2000 to 2013, by contrast, was 12.5%.
“This report is a clear call for action to step up research and innovation into new low-carbon energy technologies and improve existing ones,” said EPO President Antonio Campinos. “While it reveals some encouraging trends across countries and industry sectors, including in key cross-cutting technologies, it also highlights the need to further accelerate innovation in clean-energy technologies, some of which are still only emerging.”
China is to report its first population decline in five decades.
Zhiwei Zhang, the Shenzhen-based chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management explains, “The consensus expects China’s population to peak at 2027, based on the projection made by the United Nations. This would be much earlier than the market and policy makers expected.”
The birth rate has continued to decline. That is partly because urban couples, particularly those born after 1990, value their independence and careers more than raising a family, despite parental pressure to have children. Rising living costs in major cities, where large populations lead to the birth of a huge number of babies, have also deterred couples.
Policymakers will need to come up with family-planning incentives and arrest a falling birth rate, with the world’s most populous country at risk of entering an irreversible population slide if effective measures are not found. Falling birth rates and a fast greying society will add pressure on the working-age population and hit productivity.
“China would likely have to relax the birth control policy completely and put off the retirement age faster,” Zhang said.
“Our projections using the pre-census figures already suggested that the workforce would be declining by 0.5% each year by 2030, with a similar impact on GDP,” Capital Economics wrote.
In 2010, the proportion of the population aged 14 or younger plunged to 16.60% from 22.89% in 2000, an effect of a decades-old one-child policy. Citizens aged 60 and older accounted for 13.26%, up from about 10%. The continuation of those trends will undermine China’s working-age population and weigh on productivity. A shrinking pool of working adults will also test its ability to pay and care for an aging nation.
China to report first population drop in five decades -FT | Reuters
As drought conditions worsen across California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from siphoning millions of gallons of water out of the San Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead brand water.
The California Water Resources Control Board, is engaged in a protracted dispute between the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the expense of local communities and ecosystems. Nestlé has sucked up, on average, 25 times as much water as it may have a right to, according to an environmental group that has been fighting to stop the bottled water company’s pumping in California for years. Strawberry Creek, which Nestlé has been pumping from, is a tributary of the Santa Ana river, which provides drinking water for about about 750,000 residents. The region’s watersheds also provide a habitat for deer, fox and mountain lions
Nestlé has maintains that its rights to California spring water dates back to 1865. But a 2017 investigation found that Nestlé was taking far more than its share. Last year the company drew out about 58m gallons, far surpassing the 2.3m gallons per year it could validly claim. The company’s fight water in California mirrors similar fights in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Maine and Michigan.
Across the US, conservationists have accused Nestlé of leveraging vast lobbying funds to bend local and federal officials to its will.
“The forests that Nestlé is draining – they’re our forests, supported by every US taxpayer,” said Amanda Frye, an activist who provided state officials with documents and research going back at least a century to show Nestlé did not have the right to the water it was pumping.
State officials sent the company a cease and desist letter .
“We have a limited amount of water, said Julé Rizzardo, the assistant deputy director of the Division of Water Rights. “And as we face our second dry year in a row, it’s important that we use our authority to protect the municipal water supply and the environment.”
ONLY THE CLASS WAR
IS WORTHY OF FIGHTING
Australia and the war drums.
One of Australia’s most senior security officials has said liberal democracies must brace for war amid elevated global tensions. Home Affairs Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo said the possibility of war was increasing.
“Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again…for the curse of war,” Pezzullo said
The chance of a conflict involving China over Taiwan “should not be discounted,” but Australia will work with its allies in the region to try and maintain peace, Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. He said that China had been increasingly clear about its reunification ambitions with Taiwan. “People need to be realistic about the activity. There is militarisation of bases across the region. Obviously, there is a significant amount of activity and there is an animosity between Taiwan and China.”
And Australia beefs up its military
Australia will spend A$747 million ($580 million) to upgrade four military bases in its north and expand war games with the United States, Prime Minister Scott Morrison will say on Wednesday.
“Working with the United States, our allies and Indo-Pacific neighbours, we will continue to advance Australia’s interests by investing in the Australian Defence Force,”
An airstrip in the Northern Territory will be lengthened to support larger aircraft, firing ranges overhauled and new training facilities set up for defence personnel and U.S. marines. This in addition of earlier increased military preparations.
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