“Every one of those deaths is a mark of shame for the governments of countries like the U.K. and Germany who have protected patents over human lives.”
More than three million people across the globe have died of Covid-19 in the roughly nine months since India and South Africa first proposed a temporary patent waiver for coronavirus vaccines, a popular measure that Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other rich countries have blocked.
The past month has been a wake-up call for many Canadians as large parts of the country sweltered under an intense “heat dome” that is believed to have contributed to at least 719 sudden deaths in British Columbia.
"We don't have to wait for international agreements on the climate and nature crises," the new alliance states. "Change can happen now."
A group of global politicians on Monday launched the Global Alliance for a Green New Deal to advance "the creation of a greener, fairer world where all people and the planet can flourish."
Remember during the 2016 Democratic Primary when Hillary Clinton ineptly said she was “going to put a lot of coal miners […] out of business”? The Bernie crowd — myself included — had a good time with this gaffe, finding in it a microcosm of a certain centrist Democratic politics that touts supposedly progressive policy (in this case, clean energy) while treating the needs of working people as an afterthought, at best.
For every day that passes without an agreement to end subsidies that drive overfishing, fish populations shrink, coastal communities lose vital livelihoods and food security, and the ocean suffers.
The proposals, [Wednesday], are likely to be more ambitious and specific than other countries’ efforts to fight climate change and may include a border tax on imports deemed to be polluting.
The findings, said one expert, "show that the uncertain future is happening now."
Following years of warnings and mounting fears among scientists, "terrifying" research revealed Wednesday that climate change and deforestation have turned parts of the Amazon basin, a crucial "sink," into a source of planet-heating carbon dioxide.
