In wake of what she calls “failed” Cop26 in Glasgow, a fitting gesture of truth
In the video above the real story of NetZero by 2050 is told, without window dressing and in total honesty. Frustration with government responses to global warming are on the rise, as well they should be. The video is a light hearted and yet deadly serious take on the situation and how it is going to affect all of us who live on this planet.
Though delivered in the trademark style of TheJuiceMedia the facts that are contained in the colorful and grimly entertaining clip are 100% accurate. And that is why it is so important to watch, like and retweet.
It has always been the case, sadly, that no Government will take action against the carbon emitting and producing infrastructure that they are beholden to, until that action is demanded by million upon millions of world citizens, in other words the people that are being affected most by the negative effects of climate change that are already surrounding us.
The underlying plea of both activists like Greta and TheJuiceMedia is that we all have to step up and get loud – now, as the plan for NetZero 2050 is more of the same blah blah blah that Governments have been spewing for more than 30 years.
Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Greta Thunberg / Instagram
Political failures and frustration rising
It all started in September 2021 when Greta went to the Youth for Climate Summit in Rome. Her now legendary “blah blah blah” speech spawned 1000’s Memes and remixes and began a new barrage of media savvy Guerrilla marketing for the planet…
Fortunately for the rest of us, Greta is back, Big Time. I seems as if she’s decided to vent in a Creative and, at times, incredibly hilarious way.
Next, footage of the 18 year old activist went viral, as she was shouting in a crowd, “shove your climate crisis up your arse” The climate activist joked that she would adopt a “net zero” approach to her cursing.
She posted a response to her five million followers on Twitter: “I am pleased to announce that I’ve decided to go net-zero on swear words and bad language.
In the event that I should say something inappropriate I pledge to compensate that by saying something nice” A follower asked Thunberg:
“would you commit to reaching net-zero bad language by 2050?”
She replied: “No, by 2052 with a 39.78% reduction by 2034”
A seasoned spokes-person with a challenge ahead
Greta was brilliantly skewering companies, individuals and those who claim they are being environmentally friendly, simply because they pay for carbon credits to offset the carbon they are emitting.
More recent quotes include: “It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure,” she told the thousands of people at the protest. “This is no longer a climate conference. This is now a global greenwashing festival.” It’s as if her frustration has reached a boiling point, along with many of us, and in her words; “Hope always comes from the people”
“Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is a now problem,” said the UNEP executive director. “The clock is ticking loudly.”
Countries’ current climate pledges put the world “on track for a catastrophic global temperature rise” of about 2.7°C, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned Tuesday, calling a new report released ahead of a key summit “another thundering wake-up call.”
“The era of half-measures and hollow promises must end.”
The Emissions Gap Report 2021, an annual assessment from the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), comes as world leaders prepare to meet in Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday for COP 26. They are set to discuss efforts to meet the Paris climate agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rise this century “well below” 2°C, preferably limiting it to 1.5°C.
However, countries’ latest Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), along with other commitments made for 2030, suggest the international community will blow past both of those targets without more ambitious action to slash emissions, according to the UNEP report.
🌡️ The Heat Is On. 🚨 The clock is ticking loudly. ⚠️ To stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, we have just 8 years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions.
“The emissions gap is the result of a leadership gap,” Guterres declared in his Tuesday address, noting that the report “shows that countries are squandering a massive opportunity to invest Covid-19 fiscal and recovery resources in sustainable, cost-saving, planet-saving ways.”
“Scientists are clear on the facts. Now leaders need to be just as clear in their actions,” he said. “They need to come to Glasgow with bold, time-bound, front-loaded plans to reach net-zero.”
“To decarbonize every sector—from power, to transport, farming, and forestry. To phase out coal,” the U.N. chief continued. “To end subsidies for fossil fuels and polluting industries. To put a price on carbon, and to channel that back to creating green jobs. And obviously, to provide at least $100 billion each year to the developing world for climate finance.”
“Leaders can still make this a turning point to a greener future instead of a tipping point to climate catastrophe,” said Guterres. “The era of half-measures and hollow promises must end.”
Various assessments released before the summit in Scotland have underscored the necessity of bold and immediate action, including the latestfrom the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as the World Meteorological Organization’s announcement Monday that carbon dioxide concentrations in 2020 hit levels not seen for roughly three million years.
Reflecting “a world of climate promises not yet delivered,” the new UNEP report also serves as a call to action, particularly for rich nations most responsible for the climate emergency.
The report details how parties to the Paris agreement have put forth “insufficient” climate plans. The NDCs for 2030, if continued throughout this century, would still lead to a global temperature rise of 2.7°C beyond pre-industrial levels. Achieving nations’ net-zero pledges “would improve the situation, limiting warming to about 2.2°C” by 2100.
However, Group of 20 (G20) nations—the world’s top economies—”do not have policies in place to achieve even the NDCs,” the report says, and making changes to meet the 2030 commitments would not be enough to put countries on a “clear path towards net-zero.”
The latest @UNEP#EmissionsGap Report finds new and updated Nationally Determined Contributions only take 7.5% off predicted 2030 emissions compared to previous commitments. Reductions of 30% are needed to stay on the least-cost pathway for 2°C and 55% for 1.5°C. (3/n) pic.twitter.com/cO1GyWozku
Meanwhile, this year “thousands of people have been killed or displaced and economic losses are measured in the trillions,” the report highlights, pointing to “extreme weather events around the world—including flooding, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and heatwaves.”
As Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, put it: “Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is a now problem.”
“To stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, we have eight years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions: eight years to make the plans, put in place the policies, implement them and ultimately deliver the cuts,” Andersen said. “The clock is ticking loudly.”
“The world has to wake up to the imminent peril we face as a species,” she added, calling on countries to urgently implement policies to meet existing commitments. “It is also essential to deliver financial and technological support to developing nations—so that they can both adapt to the impacts of climate change already here and set out on a low-emissions growth path.”
The report factors in new or updated NDCs from 121 parties, responsible for just over half of planet-heating emissions, submitted by the end of September as well as pledges from China, Japan, and South Korea—though countries continue to put forward plans in the lead-up to the summit.
Alok Sharma, incoming COP 26 president, noted Tuesday that previous analyses projected “commitments made in Paris would have capped the rise in temperature to below 4°C.”
“So there has been progress, but not enough,” he said, referencing the new report. “That is why we especially need the biggest emitters, the G20 nations, to come forward with stronger commitments to 2030 if we are to keep 1.5°C in reach over this critical decade.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Above:Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Original Image by ICIJ
“U.S. President Biden must match his own rhetoric on shutting down global illicit finance, and start with the biggest offender—his own country.”
The leak of an enormous trove of tax haven files over the weekend offered a further glimpse into the secretive world of offshore finance—a system facilitated by the U.S. and other rich nations—and prompted calls for immediate changes to global rules that let the powerful hide their wealth, skirt their obligations, and starve governments of crucial revenue.
“This is where our missing hospitals are,” Susana Ruiz, the tax policy lead at Oxfam International, said in a statement. “This is where the pay-packets sit of all the extra teachers and firefighters and public servants we need. Whenever a politician or business leader claims there is ‘no money’ to pay for climate damage and innovation, for more and better jobs, for a fair post-Covid recovery, for more overseas aid, they know where to look.”
“Tax havens cost governments around the world $427 billion each year,” Ruiz added. “That is the equivalent of a nurse’s yearly salary every second of every hour, every day. Ordinary taxpayers have to pick up the pieces. Developing countries are being hardest hit, proportionately. Corporations and the wealthiest individuals that use tax havens are out-competing those who don’t. Tax havens also help crime and corruption to flourish.”
Like the 2016 Panama Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) Pandora Papers shine additional light on the functioning of a “shadow economy” that world leaders, celebrities, and billionaire business moguls—including some accused of egregious crimes—are exploiting to shield trillions of dollars in assets from transparency and taxation.
The 11.9 million files obtained, analyzed, and leaked by the ICIJ reveal the closely-guarded financial maneuverings of more than 330 politicians and top public officials from nearly 100 countries and territories, including dozens of current national leaders.
“The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya, and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair,” ICIJ notes in a summary of its sprawling cache of documents. “The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘unofficial minister of propaganda’ and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey, and other nations.”
The trove also links prominent athletes, models, and artists to offshore assets, including India’s famous cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, pop music star Shakira, and supermodel Claudia Schiffer.
But Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, cautioned that a narrow focus on the individuals who have made use of an international tax system rigged in their favor diverts attention from the institutions and countries that have done the rigging.
“These personal actions are shameful and will no doubt come under great scrutiny in the coming days, but it’s important that we don’t lose sight of one crucial fact: few of the individuals had any role in turning the global tax system into an ATM for the superrich,” Cobham wrote in a blog post on Sunday. “That honor goes to the professional enablers—banks, law firms, and accountants—and the countries that facilitate them.”
Cobham observed that the Pandora Papers—the product of a nearly two-year investigation by more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories—confirm that the United States is “the world’s biggest peddler of financial secrecy.”
“The biggest blockers to transparency are the U.S. … and the U.K., the leader of the world’s biggest tax haven network,” Cobham wrote. “We need full transparency so we can hold tax abusers accountable, especially when our politicians are among them. U.S. President Biden must match his own rhetoric on shutting down global illicit finance, and start with the biggest offender—his own country.”
This is fundamental – every government leader should match this commitment, and then hold themselves publicly accountable by publishing results of each investigation https://t.co/2MiospKxuR
— Alex Cobham @alexcobham@mastodon.social (@alexcobham) October 3, 2021
As the ICIJ notes, the new files show in some detail “how the United States, in particular, has become an increasingly attractive destination for hidden wealth, although the U.S. and its Western allies condemn smaller countries for allowing the flow of money and assets tied to corruption and crime.”
“The Pandora Papers include documents from 206 U.S. trusts in 15 states and Washington, D.C., and 22 U.S. trustee companies,” the ICIJ points out. “The documents provide details about the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars from offshore havens in the Caribbean and Europe into South Dakota, a sparsely populated American state that has become a major destination for foreign money.”
“We in the U.S. should be embarrassed that we’ve become a magnet for kleptocratic funds,” said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Conspicuously absent from the Pandora Papers is any mention of the wealthiest people in the U.S., including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos—the richest man in the world. But as the Washington Postexplains, that could be because “the uber-rich in the United States tend to pay such low tax rates that they have less incentive to seek offshore havens.”
In response to the Pandora Papers revelations, Oxfam called on world governments to crack down on tax havens by taking a number of steps, including:
Ending tax secrecy on individuals, offshores, and multinational corporations. Set up a public register on the real owners of bank accounts, trusts, shell companies, and assets. Require multinational corporations to publicly report their accounts where they do business, country-by-country.
Increasing the use of automatic exchange, allowing revenue authorities access to information they need to track the money.
Ending corporate profit shifting to tax havens via new rules, and by setting a global minimum tax under the OECD’s BEPS deal, ideally of around 25%.
Agreeing a global blacklist of tax havens and taking counter measures, including sanctions, to limit their use.
Setting a new global agenda on taxing wealth and capital fairly; addressing tax competition between countries on high-net-worth-individuals, either on income or wealth, against agreed standards.
“Governments’ promises to end tax havens are still a long way from being realized,” said Ruiz. “We cannot allow tax havens to continue to stretch global inequality to breaking point while the world experiences the largest increase in extreme poverty in decades.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Above: Photo Collage /Lynxotic / Original Image by ICIJ
“This is the Panama Papers on steroids.”
In what’s being called the “biggest-ever leak of offshore data,” a cache of nearly 12 million documents published Sunday laid bare the hidden wealth, secret dealings, and corruption of hundreds of world leaders, billionaires, public officials, celebrities, and others.
The bombshell revelations—known as the Pandora Papers—were published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and include private emails, secret contracts, and other records obtained during a two-year investigation involving more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories.
“This is the Panama Papers on steroids,” said ICIJ director Gerard Ryle, referring to the 2016 exposé of the tax-evading secrets of the super-rich. “It’s broader, richer, and has more detail.”
NEW: #PandoraPapers reveals the inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else.
Brought to you by ICIJ and 600+ journalists, the largest collaboration in journalism history. 🧵 https://t.co/qXMuUcqPc4
More than 100 billionaires feature in the leaked data, as well as celebrities, rock stars, and business leaders. Many use shell companies to hold luxury items such as property and yachts, as well as incognito bank accounts. There is even art ranging from looted Cambodian antiquities to paintings by Picasso and murals by Banksy.
“There’s never been anything on this scale and it shows the reality of what offshore companies can offer to help people hide dodgy cash or avoid tax,” said ICIJ’s Fergus Shiel, who added that the people in the files “are using those offshore accounts, those offshore trusts, to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of property in other countries, and to enrich their own families, at the expense of their citizens.”
The leaked documents reveal how some of the world’s wealthiest people avert the financial consequences of their misdeeds by using offshore entities. Dozens of current and former world leaders feature prominently in the files, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jordanian King Abdullah II, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
While most of the richest Americans do not appear in the files, The Washington Postreports that “perhaps the most troubling revelations for the United States… center on its expanding complicity in the offshore economy.”
Why so few US names in Pandora Papers? Largely because US is itself a spectacularly corrupt tax haven. “Financial experts said the uber-rich in the United States tend to pay such low tax rates that they have less incentive to seek offshore havens.” https://t.co/YaUH86VBEE
Chuck Collins, author of The Wealth Hoarders: How https://bookshop.org/a/565/9781509543496Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, and co-editor of Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies, said in a statement that “the U.S. has become the weak link in stopping global crime and wealth hiding.”
“States like South Dakota and Delaware have morphed their laws to attract billions, sometimes illicitly obtained, from around the world,” he said. “We in the U.S. should be embarrassed that we’ve become a magnet for kleptocratic funds.”
Collins added that the Pandora Papers show “it is time for U.S. lawmakers to shut down the hidden wealth system that allows for such aggressive tax avoidance and the sequestering of wealth.”
ICIJ said Sunday that the “publication of Pandora Papers stories comes at a critical moment in a global debate over the fairness of the international tax system, the role of Western professionals in the shadow economy, and the failure of governments to stanch the flow of dirty money into hidden companies and trusts,” and that the documents “are expected to yield new revelations for years to come.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by BRETT WILKINS and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
