"People's misery makes capitalists' superprofit," said one critic as commodity traders make a killing off worldwide food and energy chaos.
Russia's war on Ukraine has wreaked havoc on global commodity markets, driving up energy and food prices and exacerbating hunger emergencies around the world.
"We're in a market where speculators are driving prices up."
With only two months to go before the United Nations climate conference kicks off in Egypt, delegates are descending on Cairo this weekend to discuss priorities, and advocates are fighting to make sure climate reparations stay on the agenda.
Two weeks of United Nations negotiations for a high seas treaty have ended in failure, with wealthy countries slowing down the process and Russia acting as "a key blocker" in the discussions, says Greenpeace.
This will jeopardize ambitions to protect 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030, according to a press release from the environmental non-profit.
"Fossil fuel subsidies are a roadblock to a more sustainable future," said the head of the International Energy Agency.
An analysis published this week found that government subsidies bolstering the production and consumption of coal, oil, and gas nearly doubled in 2021, even as climate scientists warned that fossil fuel development must be rapidly cut off if the international community is to have any hope of stopping runaway planetary warming.
Nothing I am about to write should be read as diminishing in any way my sympathy for Salman Rushdie, or my outrage at the appalling attack on him. Those who more than 30 years ago put a fatwa on his head after he wrote the novel, “The Satanic Verses,” made this assault possible. They deserve contempt. I wish him a speedy recovery.
On Wednesday, July 27th, 2022, representatives of unions and social movements met in Johannesburg to discuss the country’s energy crisis. The representatives agreed to form a united front to resist privatisation of the power sector and to propose alternative ways to address both the immediate crisis and the longer-term challenges posed by the decarbonisation of South Africa’s energy system. What follows is a work-in-progress statement that captures the discussion and conclusions reached at the end of the meeting.
