That's Oligarchy,' Says Sanders as Billionaires Pump Cash Into Trump Campaign. "We must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move to public funding of elections," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. Common Dreams Jake Johnson Oct 16, 2024 Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday demanded action to curb billionaires' outsized influence on U.S. elections after new federal filings revealed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other ultra-rich Americans have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican nominee Donald Trump's presidential campaign in recent months. "In three months, three billionaires donated $220 million to Donald Trump," Sanders wrote on social media, referring to Musk, Miriam Adelson, and Richard Uihlein.  

The climate emergency really is a new type of crisis – consider the ‘triple inequality’ at the heart of it. Global conferences such as at the Cop28 may seem like staid and ritualistic affairs. But they matter! Guardian Adam Tooze 23 Nov, 2023 Stare at a climate map of the world that we expect to inhabit 50 years from now and you see a band of extreme heat encircling the planet’s midriff. Climate modelling from 2020 suggests that within half a century about 30% of the world’s projected population – unless they are forced to move – will live in places with an average temperature above 29C. This is unbearably hot. Currently, no more than 1% of Earth’s land surface is this hot, and those are mainly uninhabited parts of the Sahara.

The scenario is as dramatic as it is because the regions of the world affected most severely by global heating – above all, sub-Saharan Africa – are those expected to experience the most rapid population growth in coming decades. But despite this population growth, they are also the regions that, on current trends, will contribute least to the emissions that drive the climate disaster. So extreme is inequality that the lowest-earning 50% of the world population – 4 billion people – account for as little as 12% of total emissions. And those at the very bottom of the pile barely register at all. Mali’s per capita C02 emissions are about one-seventy-fifth of those in the US. Even if the lowest-earning third of the global population – more than 2.6 billion people – were to raise themselves above the $3.2-a-day poverty line, it would increase total emissions by a mere 5% – that is, one-third of the emissions of the richest 1%.

Half the world’s population, led by the top 10% of the income distribution – and, above all, by the global elite – drive a globe-spanning productive system that destabilises the environment for everyone. The worst effects are suffered by the poorest, and in the coming decades the impact will become progressively more extreme. And yet their poverty means they are virtually powerless to protect themselves. This is the triple inequality that defines the climate global equation: the disparity in responsibility for producing the problem; the disparity in experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis; and the disparity in the available resources for mitigation and adaptation. Not everyone in the danger zone of climate breakdown is poor and powerless. The American south-west has the resources to help itself. India is a capable state. But global heating will pose huge distributional problems. How will climate refugees be resettled? How will the economy adapt? For fragile states such as Iraq, it may prove too much. The risk is that they will tip from just about coping into outright collapse, failing to provide water and the electricity for cooling – the bare essentials for survival in extreme heat. In Iraq this summer, thousands of people huddled in their air-conditioned cars, running their engines for hours just to survive heat spikes that exceeded 50C.

You might say, plus ça change. The poor suffer and the rich prosper. But the consequences of the climate triple inequality are radical and new. Rich countries have long traded on unequal terms with the poor. During the era of colonialism, they plundered raw materials and enslaved tens of millions. For two generations after decolonisation, economic growth largely bypassed what was then known as the third world......shocking! read on     https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2023/nov/23/climate-emergency-crisis-conference-cop-28

Gender equality goals under threat in climate crisis-hit countries, says UN. Climate-related disasters disproportionately affect women and girls as reproductive services crumble and gender-based violence rises.Guardian Weranika Strzyzynska Fri 1 Dec 2023  The climate crisis threatens the chances of gender equality being achieved in the countries most vulnerable to global heating, the UN has said.  The UN’s reproductive and maternal health agency, released data showing that the 14 countries most at risk from the effects of the climate crisis are also those where women and girls are more likely to die in childbirth, marry early, experience gender-based violence or be displaced by disaster.

“The climate crisis affects everybody but there are subgroups least able to adapt,” said Angela Baschieri, UNFPA’s technical lead on climate action. “It puts pressure on the most impoverished and further drives existing inequality.” Disasters, such as floods or cyclones, disproportionately affect women by disrupting sexual and reproductive health services, Baschieri said, pointing to South Sudan, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world – 1,223 deaths for every 100,000 live births – and is among the countries most affected by global heating. Health systems that can withstand climate shocks and continue providing sexual and reproductive healthcare are vital for the wellbeing of women and girls, she added. However, only a third of national climate action plans mention them. As well as decreasing women’s access to medical care, disasters can exacerbate gender-based violence. “We have seen an increase in gender-based violence during the recent floods in Pakistan and the droughts in Uganda,” said Bridget Burns, the director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (Wedo)......read on      https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/dec/01/gender-equality-goals-under-threat-in-climate-crisis-hit-countries-says-un