The vigorous contest of
Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination has produced excellent
policy proposals to address major issues. Senator Elizabeth Warren details her
plan to tax excessive lobbying as part of her anti-corruption proposal. This is
from the Warren campaign:
Charlestown, MA – Senator Elizabeth Warren recently unveiled her plan for a new tax on excessive lobbying. It applies to every corporation and trade organization that spends over $500,000 per year lobbying our government. The revenue from this tax will be used to help our government fight back against the influence of lobbyists.
Based on our analysis of lobbying data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, if this tax had been in effect over the last 10 years, over 1,600 corporations and trade groups would have had to pay up – leading to an estimated $10 billion in total revenue.
Senator Warren has already laid out how she will end lobbying as we know it and strengthen Congressional independence from lobbyists. (Read more about her plan here.)
Here is more about her plan to tax
excessive lobbying:
When Americans think about corporate lobbyists, they usually think about the
people in fancy suits who line the halls of Congress armed with donations,
talking points, and whatever else they need to win favorable treatment for their
big corporate clients.
They’re right. In fact, corporate interests spend more on lobbying than
we spend to fund both houses of Congress — spending more than $2.8 billion on
lobbying last year alone. That’s why I have a plan to strengthen congressional
independence from lobbyists and give Congress the resources it
needs to defend against these influence campaigns.
But corporate lobbyists don’t just swarm Congress. They also target our federal
departments like the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau. These agencies exist to oversee giant corporations and
implement the laws coming out of Congress – but lobbyists often do their best
to grind public interest work at these agencies to a halt.
When the Department of Labor tried to protect workers from
predatory financial advisors who got rich by siphoning off large and
unnecessary fees from workers’ life savings, Wall Street lobbyists descended on
Washington to try to kill the effort – twice. When they failed
the second time, they sued to stop it in
the courts.
When the Environmental Protection Agency decided to act on greenhouse gas
emissions by passing regulations on methane,
fossil fuel companies called in their lobbyists. The rule was dramatically weakened –
and then Trump’s EPA went even further than some in the industry wanted by
proposing to scrap the rule altogether.
When the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau tried to crack down on
payday lenders exploiting vulnerable communities, lobbyists convinced the Trump
administration to cripple the rule –
while the payday lenders who hired them spent about $1 million at
a Trump resort.
Regulatory agencies are only empowered to implement public interest rules under
authority granted by legislation already passed by Congress. So how is it that
lobbyists are able to kill, weaken, or delay so many important efforts to
implement the law?
Often they accomplish this goal by launching an all out assault on the process
of writing new rules – informally meeting with
federal agencies to push for favorable treatment, burying those agencies
in detailed industry comments during
the notice-and-comment rulemaking process, and pressuring members of Congress to
join their efforts to lobby against the rule. If the rule moves forward anyway,
they’ll argue to an obscure
federal agency tasked with weighing the costs and benefits of agency rules that
the rules are too costly, and if the regulation somehow survives this
onslaught, they’ll hire fancy lawyers to
challenge it in court.
I have released the most sweeping set of anti-corruption reforms since
Watergate. Under my plan, we will end lobbying as we know it.
We will make sure everyone who is paid to influence government is required to
register as a lobbyist, and we’ll impose strict disclosure requirements so that
lobbyists have to publicly report which agency rules they are seeking to
influence and what information they provide to those agencies. We’ll also shut
the revolving door between government and K Street to prevent another Trump
administration where ex-lobbyists lead the Department
of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Labor, the
Department of Interior, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
My plan also calls for something unique – a new tax on excessive lobbying
that applies to every corporation and trade organization that spends over
$500,000 per year lobbying our government. This tax will reduce the incentive
for excessive lobbying, and raise money that we can use to fight back against
this kind of onslaught when it occurs.
Under my lobbying tax proposal, companies that spend between $500,000 and $1
million per year on lobbying, calculated on a quarterly basis, will pay a 35%
tax on those expenditures. For every dollar above $1 million spent on lobbying,
the rate will increase to 60% – and for every dollar above $5 million, it will
increase to 75%.
Based on our analysis of lobbying data provided
by the Center for Responsive Politics, if this tax had been in effect over the
last 10 years, over 1,600 corporations and trade groups would have had to pay
up – leading to an estimated $10 billion in total revenue. And 51 of them –
including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Koch Industries, Pfizer, Boeing,
Microsoft, Walmart, and Exxon – would have been subject to the 75% rate for
lobbying spending above $5 million in every one of those years.
Nobody will be surprised that the top five industries that would have paid the
highest lobbying taxes are the same industries that have spent the last decade
fighting tooth and nail against popular policies: Big Pharma, health insurance
companies, oil and gas companies, Wall Street firms, and electric
utilities.
Among individual companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would have owed the
most of any company or trade group in lobbying taxes: an estimated $770 million
on $1 billion in lobbying spending – over $400 million more than the
next-highest-paying organization, the National Association of Realtors, which
would have paid $307 million on $425 million in lobbying spending. Blue Cross
Blue Shield, PhRMA, and the American Hospital Association would have all paid
between $149 and $163 million in taxes on between $213 and $233 million in
lobbying spending. And General Electric, Boeing, AT&T, Business Roundtable,
and Comcast round out the top ten, paying between $105 million and $129 million
in taxes.
Every dollar raised by the lobbying tax will be placed into a new Lobbying
Defense Trust Fund dedicated to directing a surge of resources to Congress and
federal agencies to fight back against the effort to bury public interest
actions by the government.
Corporate lobbyists are experts at killing widely popular policies behind
closed doors.
Take just one example from the Obama administration. In October 2010, the
Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a
“fiduciary rule” to protect employee retirement accounts from brokers who charge exorbitant fees and
put their own commissions above earning returns for their clients. The idea was
simple: if you’re looking after someone’s money, you should look out for their
best interests.
It’s an obvious rule – but it would cut into financial industry profits. So the
industry dispatched an army of lobbyists to fight against the
rule, including by burying the agency in public comments. In the first four
months, the DOL received hundreds of comments on
the proposed rule, including comments from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Morgan
Stanley, Bank of America, BlackRock, and other powerful financial interests.
After a public hearing with testimony from groups like Fidelity and J.P Morgan,
the agency received over 100 more comments —
including dozens from members of Congress,
many of which were
heavily slanted toward industry talking points.
Because the law requires agencies to respond to each concern laid out in the
public comments, when corporate interests flood agencies with comments, the
process often becomes so time-consuming and resource-intensive that it can kill or delay final rules altogether
– and that’s exactly what happened. On September 19, 2011, the DOL withdrew the proposed rule,
but said that it planned to try again in the future.
Undeterred, Wall Street pushed forward their lobbying campaign to ensure that
the Department of Labor wouldn’t try again to re-issue the fiduciary rule. In
June 2013, Robert Lewis, a lobbyist for an investment industry trade
group, personally drafted a letter opposing
this common-sense reform – and got 32 members of Congress to sign it. The
letter ominously urged the Department to “learn from its earlier experience”
when the financial industry had killed the first proposal. Soon, members of
Congress from both parties were joining in, telling the Obama
administration to delay re-issuing the rule.
To its great credit, the Obama Department of Labor didn’t give up. On February
23, 2015, the agency finally re-proposed the rule. Wall Street ramped up their
lobbying once more to try to kill it a second time. This time, with firm resolve
and committed allies, DOL and those of us fighting alongside
them beat back thousands of comments,
and retirees won – but it took so long that Donald Trump became President
before the rule fully went into effect.
Lobbyists have followed this same playbook to
block, narrow, or delay countless other common- sense industry regulations.
Swarm regulators and Congress, bury everyone in an avalanche of money, and
strangle government action in the public interest before it even gets off the
ground.
That’s why I’m using the revenue from my tax on excessive lobbying to
establish a new Lobbying Defense Trust Fund, which will help our government
fight back against the influence of lobbyists.
First,
we’ll use the Lobbying Defense Trust Fund to strengthen congressional support
agencies. In
my plan to strengthen congressional
independence from lobbyists, I explained how lobbying tax revenue
would help to reinstate the Office of Technology Assessment and increase the
budget for other congressional support agencies, like the Congressional Budget
Office.
Second,
we’ll give more money to federal agencies that are facing significant lobbying
activity. Every
time a company above the $500,000 threshold spends money lobbying against a
rule from a federal agency, the taxes on that spending will go directly to the
agency to help it fight back. In 2010, DOL could have used that money to hire
more staffers to complete the rule more quickly and intake the flood of
industry comments opposing it.
Third,
revenue from the lobbying tax will help to establish a new Office of the Public
Advocate. This
office will help the American people engage with federal agencies and fight for
the public interest in the rule-making process. If this office had existed in
2010, the Public Advocate would have made sure that DOL heard from workers and
retirees – even while both parties in Congress were spouting industry talking
points.
My new lobbying tax will make hiring armies of lobbyists significantly more
expensive for the largest corporate influencers like Blue Cross Blue Shield,
Boeing, and Comcast. Sure, this may mean that some corporations and industry
groups will choose to reduce their lobbying expenditures, raising less tax
revenue down the road – but in that case, all the better.
And if instead corporations continue to engage in excessive lobbying, my
lobbying tax will raise even more revenue for Congress, agencies, and federal
watchdogs to fight back.
It’s just one more example of the kind of big, structural change we need to put
power back in the hands of the people – and break the grip that lobbyists have
on our government for good.
Senator Amy Klobuchar has pledged that the For the People Act — legislation that contains 13 of Senator Klobuchar’s legislative provisions to improve access to the ballot box — will be the first bill she sends to Congress as President. (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
The vigorous contest of Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination has produced excellent policy proposals to address major issues. Senator Amy Klobuchar has pledged that the For the People Act — legislation that contains 13 of Senator Klobuchar’s legislative provisions to improve access to the ballot box — will be the first bill she sends to Congress as President. This is from the Klobuchar campaign:
MINNEAPOLIS,
MN –
The right to vote has been hard-fought and hard-won. Right now, insidious
forces are working to take that right away. There are those who suppress the
vote with intimidation, repress our voices with dark money, and refuse to
address foreign attacks on our elections.
Not Senator Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar believes it’s time to take back our democracy. She’s leading
the effort in Congress to automatically register every American to vote when
they turn 18, and she has fought for the passage of legislation that would
restore the Voting Rights Act to take on discrimination at the polls. She’s
also worked to get dark money out of politics and in her first month as a
Senator, she helped lead the successful push for meaningful ethics reform in
Congress.
At the same time, Senator Klobuchar is working to make it harder for foreign
adversaries to interfere in our elections. In 2018, she secured $380 million in
election security funds so states could improve their election infrastructure
and protect their elections from attacks by foreign adversaries. And she’s leading
legislation in the Senate to protect our elections with backup paper ballots,
election audits, and accountability for political ads on the internet.
Senator Klobuchar has pledged that the For the People Act — legislation that
has thirteen of Senator Klobuchar’s legislative provisions — will be the first
bill she sends to Congress as President.
She will also champion a voting rights and democracy reform package that:
Eliminates obstacles to voting and makes it easier to vote by
Spearheading
automatic voter registration for all eligible citizens on their eighteenth
birthday by passing and signing into law Senator Klobuchar’s Register America
to Vote Act
Restoring
the Voting Rights Act protections for voters in states with a recent history of
discrimination
Breaking
down institutional barriers to voting, promoting early voting, and prohibiting
states from purging voters from rolls for not voting in recent elections by
passing and signing into law Senator Klobuchar’s SAVE VOTERS Act
Establishing
minimum notification requirements for voters affected by polling place changes
Designating
election day as a federal holiday
Working
with states to assist voters with disabilities
Passing
Same Day Registration to require states to allow people to register to vote on
the same day as the election by passing and signing into law Senator
Klobuchar’s Same Day Registration Act
Ensures
elections are free and fair by
Restoring
citizens’ right to vote after being released from incarceration.
Ending
partisan gerrymandering
Requiring
backup paper ballots and providing election security grants to states for cyber
improvements and audits as part of the Election Security Act — an effort
Senator Klobuchar has led and continues to lead in the Senate
Ensuring
accountability for political ads on the internet by passing and signing into
law Senator Klobuchar’s bipartisan Honest Ads Act
Ensuring
ballots are counted from Americans serving in the military and their family
members
Combating
foreign interference campaigns by improving media literacy education that
teaches students skills to identify misinformation online
Overhauls
our campaign finance system by
Supporting
a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United
Establishing
a campaign finance system to increase the power of small donors through a
multiple matching system for small donations
In
addition, Senator Klobuchar has laid out a plan for her first 100 days that
includes executive action she can take to strengthen our democracy
immediately:
Revive the aggressive protection of voting rights. Senator
Klobuchar will restore the federal government’s longstanding position of
challenging intentionally racially discriminatory voting laws. And while
Congress works to restore the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Senator
Klobuchar will direct the Department of Justice to use Section 3 of the VRA to
“bail-in” jurisdictions to its preclearance requirements, allowing federal
courts to place jurisdictions under the oversight requirement of the VRA.
Prioritize cybersecurity and protect our elections and other American
infrastructure from cyber attack. As President, Senator Klobuchar will
make cybersecurity an immediate priority. She will issue an Executive Order
launching government-wide cybersecurity initiatives, fast-tracking and
streamlining procurement of modern information technology across agencies. She
will also launch a cabinet-level taskforce on election cybersecurity to
coordinate across agencies, including the intelligence community, on how the
federal government can work with state and local governments to address cyber
threats to our democracy and infrastructure. She will also introduce
legislation that provides election security funding, requires backup paper
ballots, and requires campaigns to report contacts from foreign nationals
seeking to interfere in an election to federal authorities.
Impose full sanctions on Russia for hostile act against the United States
and its allies. In 2017, Congress passed legislation providing
additional authorities for the President to impose sanctions on Russia in
response to its election interference and other aggressive actions. The Trump
Administration has resisted full implementation of these sanctions. Senator
Klobuchar will use these authorities to the fullest extent possible to impose
serious costs on the Putin regime and its enablers for hostile acts against the
United States and our allies.
Shine a light on the corporate dark money spending. Senator
Klobuchar will shine a light on the dark money by requiring publicly traded
companies to disclose all political spending over $10,000 to their
shareholders.
Bring transparency to dark money issue advocacy. Senator Klobuchar
will direct the IRS to institute the requirement that tax-exempt organizations
that engage in issue advocacy disclose to the IRS the names of individual
donors who contribute more than $5,000 per year.
Restore protections for journalists and protect the First Amendment. Senator
Klobuchar will restore former Attorney General Eric Holder’s guidance on protections
for journalists so that they are not jailed for doing their jobs.
Overhaul ethics rules for White House employees and other senior officials. Senator
Klobuchar will make clear that the President and Vice President must follow our
conflict of interest laws, do more to investigate foreign agents who lobby in
the United States, give the Office of Government Ethics more enforcement power,
and provide additional protections for all Special Counsels.
Ensure that the President is not above the law. Senator Klobuchar
will instruct the Justice Department to withdraw the Office of Legal Counsel’s
opinions prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president.
Fill judicial vacancies by nominating well-qualified judges on day one. Senator
Klobuchar will waste no time in working with the Senate and the American Bar
Association to nominate a full slate of well-qualified judges who will follow
the law to fill judicial vacancies on federal courts on day one of her
presidency.
Vice President Joe Biden announced a detailed plan to end the epidemic of gun violence. (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Former Vice President Joe Biden became the latest 2020 Democratic Candidate to come out with a detailed plan to end the epidemic of gun violence, once again proving that there is no shortage of pragmatic plans to solve the most intransient, important issues we face as a nation and a world – what has been lacking is political will. Have you seen a plan from Donald Trump? Me neither. – Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
This is from the Biden 2020 campaign:
Former
Vice President Joe Biden announced a detailed plan to end America’s gun
violence epidemic ahead of his participation in the Giffords
and March for Our Lives presidential gun safety forum in Las Vegas,
Nevada.
While Democratic leaders and the American public have reached an undeniable and
broad consensus about what needs to be done to address the gun violence
epidemic that has engulfed communities across America, Donald Trump, Mitch
McConnell, Congressional Republicans, and the NRA refuse to take any sensible
action. As president, Biden will not let anyone hold our nation’s children,
families, and communities hostage to the scourge of gun violence Americans face
every day.
Biden is introducing a bold, comprehensive plan that
not only calls for common sense gun safety reform, but outlines how he is going
to get it done for the American people. Biden’s plan calls for universal
background checks, closing loopholes in the background check system, banning
assault weapons and high capacity magazines, incentivizing states to establish
red flag law, holding gun manufacturers accountable, and investing in public
health research regarding the causes and prevention of gun violence.
As a leader who has championed common sense gun safety laws both as a United
States Senator and Vice President, Biden has unmatched substantive expertise on
addressing gun violence. He has been pushing the conversation on ending gun
violence for at least 25 years. And he has taken on the NRA twice and won –
first with the Brady Bill, which established firearms background check system,
and then securing the passage of a ten-year ban on assault rifles and high-capacity
magazines together with Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Based on his expertise and experience on this issue, Biden’s plan also includes
three standout sections that further demonstrate how he will end the gun
violence epidemic:
Addressing
the daily combination of guns and domestic violence;
Tackling
urban gun violence with targeted, evidence-based community interventions; and
Supporting
survivors of violence and their communities.
On
the second anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American
history, Vice President Biden released a statement decrying Donald Trump’s
continued inaction on sensible gun reform and his capitulation to the NRA.
Biden also declared, “We can beat the NRA; we can get those weapons of war
off our streets; and we can make sure our children don’t grow up in constant
fear. Real leadership — moral leadership — can get these reforms done.”
Today’s plan follows Biden for President’s release of “Purpose,” a video
of gun safety advocate Fred Guttenberg who credits Biden for helping inspire
his mission as a gun safety advocate after his 14-year-old daughter was killed
in Parkland, Florida.
FACT SHEET:
THE BIDEN PLAN TO END OUR GUN VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC
Vice President Joe Biden presents a plan to address gun violence as a public health epidemic. (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com.
Joe Biden knows that gun violence is a public health epidemic. Almost 40,000 people die as a result of firearm injuries every year in the United States, and many more are wounded. Some of these deaths and injuries are the result of mass shootings that make national headlines. Others are the result of daily acts of gun violence or suicides that may not make national headlines, but are just as devastating to the families and communities left behind.
Joe Biden has taken on the National Rifle Association (NRA) on the national stage and won – twice. In 1993, he shepherded through Congress the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established the background check system that has since kept more than 3 million firearms out of dangerous hands. In 1994, Biden – along with Senator Dianne Feinstein – secured the passage of 10-year bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. As president, Joe Biden will defeat the NRA again.
Joe Biden also knows how to make progress on reducing gun violence using executive action. After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, President Obama tasked Vice President Biden with developing both legislative proposals and executive actions to make our communities safer. As a result of this effort, the Obama-Biden Administration took more than two dozen actions, including narrowing the so-called “gun show loophole,” increasing the number of records in the background check system, and expanding funding for mental health services.
It’s within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment, which is limited. As president, Biden will pursue constitutional, common-sense gun safety policies. Biden will:
Hold gun manufacturers accountable. In 2005, then-Senator Biden voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but gun manufacturers successfully lobbied Congress to secure its passage. This law protects these manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products – a protection granted to no other industry. Biden will prioritize repealing this protection.
Get weapons of war off our streets. The bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that Biden, along with Senator Feinstein, secured in 1994 reduced the lethality of mass shootings. But, in order to secure the passage of the bans, they had to agree to a 10-year sunset provision and when the time came, the Bush Administration failed to extend them. As president, Biden will:
Ban the manufacture and sale of assault
weapons and high-capacity magazines. Federal law prevents
hunters from hunting migratory game birds with more than three shells in their
shotgun. That means our federal law does more to protect ducks than children.
It’s wrong. Joe Biden will enact legislation to once again ban assault weapons.
This time, the bans will be designed based on lessons learned from the 1994
bans. For example, the ban on assault weapons will be designed to prevent
manufacturers from circumventing the law by making minor changes that don’t
limit the weapon’s lethality. While working to pass this legislation, Biden
will also use his executive authority to
ban the importation of assault weapons.
Regulate possession of existing assault
weapons under the National Firearms Act. Currently, the National Firearms
Act requires individuals possessing machine-guns, silencers, and short-barreled
rifles to undergo a background check and register those weapons with the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Due to these requirements,
such weapons are rarely used in
crimes. As president, Biden will pursue legislation to regulate possession of existing
assault weapons under the National Firearms Act.
Buy back the assault weapons and
high-capacity magazines already in our communities. Biden will also
institute a program to buy back weapons of war currently on our streets. This
will give individuals who now possess assault weapons or high-capacity
magazines two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them
under the National Firearms Act.
Reduce stockpiling of weapons. In order
to reduce the stockpiling of firearms, Biden supports legislation restricting
the number of firearms an individual may purchase per month to one.
Keep guns out of dangerous hands. The
federal background check system (the National Instant Criminal Background Check
System) is one of the best tools we have to prevent gun violence, but it’s only
effective when it’s used. Biden will enact universal background check
legislation and close other loopholes that allow people who should be
prohibited from purchasing firearms from making those purchases. Specifically,
he will:
Require background checks for all gun
sales. Today,
an estimated 1 in 5 firearms are
sold or transferred without a background check. Biden will enact universal
background check legislation, requiring a background check for all gun sales
with very limited exceptions, such as gifts between close family members. This
will close the so-called “gun show and online sales loophole” that the
Obama-Biden Administration narrowed, but which cannot be fully closed by
executive action alone.
Close other loopholes in the federal
background check system. In addition to closing the “boyfriend
loophole” highlighted below, Biden will:
Reinstate the Obama-Biden policy to keep
guns out of the hands of certain people unable to manage their affairs for
mental reasons, which President Trump reversed. In 2016, the
Obama-Biden Administration finalized a rule to make sure
the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends to the background check system
records that it holds of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or
possessing firearms because they have been adjudicated by the SSA as unable to
manage their affairs for mental reasons. But one of the first actions Donald
Trump took as president was to reverse this rule.
President Biden will enact legislation to codify this policy.
Close the “hate crime loophole.” Biden will
enact legislation prohibiting
an individual “who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received
an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its
commission” from purchasing or possessing a firearm.
Close the “Charleston loophole.” The Charleston
loophole allows people to complete a firearms purchase if their background
check is not completed within three business days. Biden supports the proposal
in the Enhanced Background Checks Act of
2019, which extends the timeline from three to 10 business days.
Biden will also direct the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to put on his
desk within his first 100 days as president a report detailing the cases in
which background checks are not completed within 10 business days and steps the
federal government can take to reduce or eliminate this occurrence.
Close the “fugitive from justice”
loophole created by the Trump Administration. Because of actions by the
Trump Administration, records of almost 500,000 fugitives from justice who are
prohibited from purchasing firearms were deleted from the background check
system. The Biden Administration will restore these records, and enact
legislation to make clear that people facing arrest warrants are prohibited
from purchasing or possessing firearms.
End the online sale of firearms and
ammunitions. Biden
will enact legislation to
prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts.
Create an effective program to ensure
individuals who become prohibited from possessing firearms relinquish their
weapons. Federal
law defines categories of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or
possessing firearms, and the federal background check system is an effective
tool for ensuring prohibited persons cannot purchase firearms. But we lack any
serious tool to ensure that when someone becomes newly prohibited – for example,
because they commit a violent crime – they relinquish possession of their
firearms. There are some promising models for how this could be enforced. For example, California
has a mandatory process for ensuring relinquishment by any individual newly
subject to a domestic violence restraining order. As president, Biden will
direct the FBI and ATF to outline a model relinquishment process, enact any
necessary legislation to ensure relinquishment when individuals newly fall
under one of the federal prohibitions, and then provide technical and financial
assistance to state and local governments to establish effective relinquishment
processes on their own.
Incentivize state “extreme risk”
laws. Extreme risk laws, also
called “red flag” laws, enable family members or law enforcement officials to
temporarily remove an individual’s access to firearms when that individual is
in crisis and poses a danger to themselves or others. Biden will incentivize
the adoption of these laws by giving states funds to implement them. And, he’ll
direct the U.S. Department of Justice to issue best practices and offer
technical assistance to states interested in enacting an extreme risk law.
Give states incentives to set up gun
licensing programs. Biden will enact legislation to give
states and local governments grants to require individuals to obtain a license
prior to purchasing a gun.
Adequately fund the background check
system. President
Obama and Vice President Biden expanded incentives for
states to submit records of prohibited persons into the background checks
system. As president, Biden will continue to prioritize that funding and ensure
that the FBI is adequately funded to accurately and efficiently handle the NICS
system.
ADDRESSING
THE DEADLY COMBINATION OF GUNS AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
The statistics tell a devastating and overwhelming story. The likelihood that a
woman in a domestic violence situation will be killed increases by a factor of five if a
gun is nearby. Half of mass
shootings involve an individual shooting a family member or former intimate
partner. This deadly connection tragically impacts children as well: 86% of children
killed in shootings with four or more victims were involved in domestic or
family violence.
Biden recognizes that the gun violence and domestic violence epidemics are
linked and cannot be solved in isolation. Addressing the interconnectedness of
these challenges will be a core focus of Biden’s anti-violence work as
president.
The Violence Against Women
Reauthorization Act of 2019, which Leader McConnell refuses to bring
to the floor for a vote, includes a number of reforms to keep firearms out of
the hands of abusers. Senator McConnell should ensure this legislation gets
passed long before President Biden would take the oath of office. But if
McConnell refuses to act, Biden will enact legislation to close the so-called
“boyfriend loophole” and “stalking loophole” by prohibiting all individuals
convicted of assault, battery, or stalking from purchasing or possessing
firearms, regardless of their connection to the victim. This proposal is
modeled after existing laws in California,
Connecticut, Hawaii, Nevada, New York, and Pennsylvania. Biden also supports
enacting the proposal to
prohibit anyone under a temporary restraining order from purchasing or
possessing a firearm before their hearing.
In addition, President Biden will:
Establish a new Task Force on Online
Harassment and Abuse to focus on the connection between mass shootings, online
harassment, extremism, and violence against women. As President,
Joe Biden will convene a national Task Force with federal agencies, state
leaders, advocates, law enforcement, and technology experts to study rampant
online sexual harassment, stalking, and threats, including revenge porn and
deepfakes — and the connection between this harassment, mass shootings,
extremism and violence against women. The Task Force will be charged with developing
cutting-edge strategies and recommendations for how federal and state
governments, social media companies, schools, and other public and private
entities can tackle this unique challenge. The Task Force will consider
platform accountability, transparent reporting requirements for incidents of
harassment and response, and best practices.
Expand the use of evidence-based
lethality assessments by law enforcement in cases of domestic violence. Lethality
assessments, sometimes called “risk” or “danger” assessments, are a proven
strategy to help law enforcement officers identify domestic violence survivors
who are at high risk of being killed by their abusers. These survivors are then
connected with social service programs that can offer services and safety
planning. An evaluation of the Lethality Assessment Program (LEP) created by
the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence showed promising results.
Increased federal funding will incentivize jurisdictions to take advantage of
implementing these programs more widely.
Make sure firearm owners take on the responsibility
of ensuring their weapons are used safely.
Put America on the path to ensuring that
100% of firearms sold in America are smart guns. Today, we have
the technology to allow only authorized users to fire a gun. For example,
existing smart gun technology requires a fingerprint match before use. Biden
believes we should work to eventually require that 100% of firearms sold in the
U.S. are smart guns. But, right now the NRA and gun manufacturers are bullying
firearms dealers who try to sell these guns. Biden will stand up against these
bullying tactics and issue a call to action for gun manufacturers, dealers, and
other public and private entities to take steps to accelerate our transition to
smart guns.
Hold adults accountable for giving
minors access to firearms. Biden supports legislation holding
adults criminally and civilly liable for directly or negligently giving a minor
access to a firearm, regardless of whether the minor actually gains possession
of the firearm.
Require gun owners to safely store their
weapons. Biden
will pass legislation requiring firearm owners to store weapons safely in their
homes.
Empower law enforcement to effectively
enforce our gun laws.
Prioritize prosecution of straw
purchasers. “Straw
purchasers” buy a firearm on behalf of an individual who cannot pass a
background check. Biden will end those loopholes by enacting a law to make all
straw purchases a serious federal crime and ensure the U.S. Justice Department
has sufficient resources to prioritize their prosecution.
Notify law enforcement when a potential
firearms purchaser fails a background check. Too often, when prohibited
persons attempting to buy a firearm fail a background check, state and local
law enforcement is never informed of the attempt. As president, Biden will
direct the FBI to set up a process to ensure timely notification of denials to
state and local law enforcement, and he’ll support legislation to
codify this process. This empowers law enforcement to follow up and ensure
prohibited persons do not attempt to acquire firearms through other means.
Require firearms owners to report if
their weapon is lost or stolen. Responsible gun owners have a responsibility
to inform law enforcement if their weapon is lost or stolen. Biden will enact
legislation to make this the law of the land.
Stop “ghost guns.” One way people
who cannot legally obtain a gun may gain access to a weapon is by assembling a
one on their own, either by buying a kit of disassembled gun parts or 3D
printing a working firearm. Biden will stop the proliferation of these
so-called “ghost guns” by passing legislation requiring that purchasers of gun
kits or 3D printing code pass a federal background check. Additionally, Biden
will ensure that the authority for firearms exports stays with the State
Department, and if needed reverse a proposed rule by
President Trump. This will ensure the State Department continues to block the
code used to 3D print firearms from being made available on the Internet.
Reform, fund, and empower the U.S.
Justice Department to enforce our gun laws. Biden will direct his
Attorney General to deliver to him within his first 100 days a set of
recommendations for restructuring the ATF and related Justice Department
agencies to most effectively enforce our gun laws. Biden will then work to secure
sufficient funds for the Justice Department to effectively enforce our existing
gun laws, increase the frequency of inspections of firearms dealers, and repeal
riders that get in the way of that work.
Direct the ATF to issue an annual
report on firearms
trafficking. This report will provide officials with critical
information to better identify strategies for curbing firearms trafficking.
TACKLE URBAN
GUN VIOLENCE WITH TARGETED, EVIDENCE-BASED COMMUNITY INTERVENTIONS
Daily acts of gun violence in our communities may not make national headlines,
but are just as devastating to survivors and victims’ families as gun violence
that does make the front page. And, these daily acts of gun violence
disproportionately impact communities of color. But there is reason to be
optimistic. There are proven strategies for
reducing gun violence in urban communities without turning to incarceration.
For example, Group Violence Intervention organizes
community leaders to work with individuals most likely to commit acts of gun
violence, express the community’s demand that the gun violence stop, and
connect individuals who may be likely perpetrators with social and economic
support services that may deter violent behavior. These types of interventions
have reduced homicides by as much as 60%. Hospital-Based Violence
Intervention engages young people who have been injured by gun
violence while they are still in the hospital, connecting them to social and
economic services that may decrease the likelihood they engage in or are
victims of gun violence in the future. Biden will create a $900 million, eight-year
initiative to fund these and other types of evidence-based
interventions in 40 cities across the country – the 20 cities with the highest
number of homicides, and 20 cities with the highest number of homicides per
capita. This proposal is estimated to save more than 12,000
lives over the eight-year program.
Dedicate the brightest scientific minds
to solving the gun violence public health epidemic. In 2013, President Obama issued a memorandum clarifying
that a longstanding appropriations rider that prohibited the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal scientific agencies from
using federal dollars to “advocate or promote gun control”
does not prohibit those agencies from researching the causes and prevention of
gun violence. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) subsequently embarked on funding
some of this research, though Republican leadership in Congress refused to
appropriate any funds to the CDC for this work. Biden will call for Congress to
appropriate $50 million to
accelerate this research at the CDC and NIH.
Prohibit the use of federal funds
to arm or train educators to discharge firearms. We should be passing rational gun laws, not requiring educators
who already have too much on their plates to also protect the safety of their
students. Biden supports barring states from using federal dollars to arm or
train educators to discharge firearms.
Address the epidemic of suicides
by firearms. Biden believes any plan to
address the gun violence epidemic must address suicides by firearms, which
account for 6 in 10 gun-related
deaths but are often left out of the conversation. Many of the policies noted
above – including safe storage requirements and extreme risk protection orders
– will have a serious impact on efforts to reduce gun violence. But there’s so
much more we need to do to support people experiencing suicidal ideation. In
the months ahead, Biden will put forward a comprehensive plan to improve access
to mental health services.
SUPPORTING
SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE AND THEIR COMMUNITIES
Violence causes ripples of trauma throughout our communities, impacting not
just the victims of violence but also their communities and first responders.
Fear of school shootings is having a noticeable impact on
the mental health of Gen Z. Intimate partner violence is linked to
depression, post-traumatic stress, and other mental health challenges among
survivors. And, this trauma can be intergenerational. Science now shows that young
children who witness violence – including in their home – literally alters the
parts of their brains that affect “reasoning, planning, and behavioral
control.”
We need to reduce violence to prevent trauma from happening in the first place.
But we also must treat the resulting trauma as a serious crisis in its own
right.
As president, Biden will:
Make federal programs more
trauma-informed. During his first 100 days, Biden will direct his
Cabinet to conduct a review of all federal programs that directly serve
communities likely to experience violence and identify reforms to make sure
those programs effectively address resulting trauma. Biden will then invest
significant federal funds in expanding and improving the federal government’s
support for trauma-informed and culturally responsive care.
Create a network of trauma care centers. Biden will
bring together offices within the federal government to establish specialized
trauma care centers for survivors of violence, with a special focus on
survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Domestic violence services are
focused on meeting the emergency needs of survivors, including safety planning
and crisis intervention. As a result, frontline providers lack the resources
they need to offer therapeutic services to help survivors heal from trauma.
These trauma care centers will be flexible in meeting the needs of communities,
and could be housed at rape crisis centers, domestic violence programs,
universities, and existing mental health centers.
Train health care and other service
providers in trauma-centered care. To prevent
revictimization and secondary trauma, Biden will align training efforts
throughout relevant federal programs to include a focus on understanding the
traumatic effects of violence, providing appropriate care to avoid furthering
the trauma, linking survivors with evidence-based trauma therapies, and
reducing myths about domestic and sexual violence. This will be accomplished
through agency directives, policy guidance, and special conditions for grantees
and contractors.
For more on Vice President
Biden’s plan, see HERE.
Some of the biggest names
in the video games industry, with a combined audience of 970 million players, have
formally committed to harness the power of their platforms to take action in
response to the climate crisis. Combined, these commitments from 21 companies
will result in a 30 million ton reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030, will see
millions of trees planted, new “green nudges” in game design and improvements
to energy management, packaging, and device recycling.
These voluntary commitments were
announced at UN Headquarters on the side-lines of the UN Secretary-General’s
Climate Action Summit. Under the banner of the Playing for the Planet Alliance,
CEOs from 14 platforms and games makers, including Sony Interactive
Entertainment, Microsoft, Google Stadia, Rovio, Supercell, Sybo, Ubisoft and
WildWorks, were present to showcase their commitments. The Alliance intends to
support companies in sharing learning and monitoring progress on the
environmental agenda.
“The video games industry has the
ability to engage, inspire and captivate the imaginations of billions of people
across the world. This makes them a hugely important partner in addressing the
climate emergency,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UN Environment
Programme (UNEP). “We are encouraged by the commitment of these gaming
companies, which shows recognition that we all must play our role in the global
effort to lower carbon emissions and effect real change towards
sustainability.”
These commitments were facilitated by
UNEP with the support of Playmob and following the GRID-Arendal study Playing
For The Planet, which outlines how the video games
industry, which reaches 2.6 billion people globally, can support action on the
environmental agenda.
“Today at the UN Climate Summit, I am
honored and feel privileged to join leaders in the gaming industry to make
commitments to contribute to the efforts of the UN,” said Jim Ryan, President
and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. “At PlayStation, we believe games
have the power to ignite social change through educating people, evoking
emotions, and inspiring hope. We could not be prouder to be part of the Playing
for the Planet Alliance and we look forward to seeing what the industry can
achieve together.”
“Climate change is impacting each
industry and every sector, and we believe technology can play a critical role
in enabling and empowering the response to this challenge,” said Phil Spencer,
executive vice president of gaming at Microsoft. “Initiatives like our
Minecraft Build a Better World Campaign and CarbonNeutral Xbox pilot provide a
great opportunity to tap into Microsoft’s technology sustainability and gaming
community to make a difference in this key area of our business.”
The commitments include:
Sony Interactive Entertainment will
unveil new progress and plans to utilize energy efficient technology (on-track
to avoid 29 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2030), to introduce low power
suspend mode for next generation PlayStation, to assess and report their carbon
footprint and to educate and inspire the gaming community to take action on
climate change.
Microsoft will announce the
expansion of its existing operational commitment to carbon neutrality,
established in 2012, into its devices and gaming work. It will set a new target
to reduce its supply chain emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 – including
end-of-life for devices – and to certify 825,000 Xbox consoles as carbon
neutral in a pilot program. In addition, Microsoft will engage gamers in
sustainability efforts in real life through the Minecraft its ‘Build a Better
World’ initiative, which has seen players take more than 20 million in-game
actions.
Google Stadia, which is set to
launch later in the year, will produce a new Sustainable Game Development Guide
as well as funding research into how “green nudges” can be effectively
incorporated into game play.
Supercell (Clash of Clans) will
offset the entire footprint of their community, Rovio (Angry Birds)
has offset the carbon impact from their players charging their devices,
and Sybo (Subway Surfer) and Space Ape (Fastlane) will
offset 200 per cent of their studio and their gamers mobile energy use.
Guidance documents will assist other companies to take similar actions.
Wild Works (Animal Jam) will
integrate restoration elements in games and, like Green Man Gaming, they
will focus on restoring some of the world’s forests with major tree-planting
initiatives
Ubisoft will develop in-game
green themes and will source materials from eco-friendly
factories and Sports Interactive will eliminate 20 tonnes of
packaging by switching from plastic to a recycled alternative for all future
Football Manager releases.
Creative Mobile’s ZooCraft will
evolve into a conservation-focused game with Reliance Games (Little
Singham) generating awareness in the fastest growing mobile gaming market
by creating awareness with kids to make them ambassadors for climate change
with in-game events and initiatives across India. The biggest independent gaming
platform in China, iDreamSky has committed to putting green nudges
into its games.
E-Line Media (Never Alone, Beyond
Blue), Strange Loop (Eco) and Internet of Elephants (Safari
Central) will share their expertise of making high impact environmentally oriented
games into the Alliance
Finally, Twitch have
committed to utilizing their platform to spread this message to the global
gaming community with Niantic Inc (Pokemon Go) committing to engage
their community to act around sustainability issues.
“Through awareness-raising
campaigns connected to our Angry Birds games and movies over the years, we know
our fans are just as angry as us about climate change,” said Kati
Levoranta, Rovio Entertainment CEO. “Considering the enormity of the
environmental challenges that face us in years to come, we as an industry must
stand with our players and be evangelists for action.”
Too often, there can be a trade-off
between games that are designed to be educational but without reaching the
masses. To address this, many of the companies will host design-jams with their
creatives to consider how they can mindfully incentivize better environmental
outcomes within the games, without limiting the fun and enjoyment for players.
Speaking in support of this
initiative, Mathias Gredal Norvig, CEO of Sybo, the organization behind Subway
Surfer, said: “Video gaming might seem like an unlikely ally in this
battle, but this Alliance is a critical platform where all of us can play our
part to decarbonize our impact and bring the issues into gameplay. I am a
strong believer in sparking curiosity and conversations wherever people are,
and with 2 billion people playing games, this platform has a reach that’s
second to none.”
Amit Khanduja, CEO of Reliance Games,
said: “The Mobile Games industry has to take the lead in the emerging
markets to raise awareness among the next billion gamers coming online to lead
the way for climate change. We are honoured to be part of this strong UN
initiative for a better tomorrow.”
Members of the Alliance that have made
commitments include: Creative Mobile, E-Line Media, Google Stadia, Green Man
Gaming, iDreamSky, Internet of Elephants, Microsoft, Niantic Inc, Pixelberry,
Reliance Games, Rovio, Space Ape, Sports Interactive, Supercell, Sony
Interactive Entertainment, Strange Loop, Sybo, Twitch, Ubisoft, WildWorks and
will be supported by Playmob.
There was the sense at the United
Nations Climate Action Summit that took place September 23, that the Trump
Administration – but not the United States – is irrelevant to the crusade to
mitigate the most devastating impacts of climate change. Indeed, the rest of
the world, American states, localities and businesses, is forging full steam
ahead to prevent the earth from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius – and all
the devastation that would result – within the next 12 years.
“We know why tackling climate change is important”, said Deputy
Secretary-General Amina Mohammed before the Climate Action Summit began. “The
devastation wreaked by Dorian on the Bahamas, what the Secretary-General called
a Category Hell hurricane, is a glimpse into one aspect of a future powered by
climate change – a future with super storms that grow in intensity and
frequency, where those countries with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions,
continue to feel the worst impacts of the planet’s rising temperatures.”
“The summit will present practical and new measures, speed transition from
coal to clean energy, cut pollution harming health, protect nature, unlock the potential
of nature to deliver on climate, create cleaner greener waste, speed up transition
from grey to green economies, mitigate impacts of climate change, leave no one
behind, transition must be ramped up now,” she said at a press briefing before
the summit.
The Climate Action Summit was
designed to showcase only the boldest, transformative actions – specifics, not
hyperbole or speechifying.
“We will see what climate leadership
looks like – progress toward carbon neutral future.”
Trump snubbed the summit, choosing instead to host a Religious Freedom Forum, and highlighted America’s military might but did not mention climate change once, in his address to the General Assembly. But just about every other leader did refer to the critical need and their commitment to climate action in their speech.
“Can
we afford to ignore the crisis of extinction, or will we do the right thing,
support energies and talents of all the world’s youth and drive all the
economies forward to fair and inclusive society?” Abdullah
II bin Al–Hussein, King of Jordan, declared. “What will our world
become if we do not work together for a healthy and safe climate. We already
know the dangers of climate change – how can we excuse [inaction]”
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, president of
Croatia, declared, “Climate
change- rising sea levels – is the greatest threat. Without protection of
waters and marine life, there will be nothing to leave.”
Russia, one of the few holdouts and
one of the world’s largest carbon emitters with an economy largely based on
fossil fuel extraction and export, used the occasion to officially adopt the
Paris Climate Agreement. The document signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says
Russia will now “allocate financial resources… to developing countries
for prevention and adaptation to climate change. The threat of climate change
is (the) destruction of the ecological balance, increased risks for successful
development of key industries… and most importantly, threat to safety of
people living on permafrost and increase of natural disasters.”
Governor Janet Mills of Maine challenged
leaders of the world to take action against climate change, saying the State of
Maine will do its part and announcing that she has signed an Executive Order
committing the state to carbon neutrality by 2045.
Separately,
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced
New York State is pursuing partnerships with Ireland and Denmark that will lead
to improved electric infrastructure and the advancement of more renewable
energy sources, including offshore wind. The agreements were announced during
Climate Week and will advance both New York’s nation-leading plan to combat
climate change and the Governor’s Green New Deal agenda. This summer,
Governor Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,
which mandates New York’s power be 100 percent clean and carbon-free by 2040. New
York is one of 25 states including California that have formed the US Climate
Alliance (USclimatealliance.org) to
uphold the Paris Agreement. – collectively representing over 50% of the US
population and 60% of the United States’
GDP.
Mohammed acknowledged that the transition “is not one-size fits all
– in some countries, renewable energy is already cheaper than coal; others need
funding options. It’s not enough that we stop funding coal and actively move to
making renewable possible –there is tension there. We must be realistic – you can’t
click fingers and create a renewable grid overnight but we also determined there
are over 100 coal plants in pipeline and emissions are still rising – that pathway
is a serious threat to human survival.”
Informed by the perspectives of more than 130 Governments, a newly issued
report, The Heat is On – Taking Stock of Global Climate Ambition,
reveals that business as usual, is not good enough and requires more
mitigation, adaptation and finance – all which must be done quickly.
“When I look back on this Climate
Action Summit, I want us to see it as a sling shot – that helped to change our
common trajectory towards sustainability”, said Ms. Mohammed, building trust
“between this generation of adults and the next – between our children and
ourselves – that we are all working together to our fullest potential to tackle
the climate emergency”.
She recapped that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report
stressed the need to ensure that “the global temperature rise does not go
beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius” through “cutting emissions by 45 per cent by 2030”,
warning that “we have very little time to take the decisions needed to get
there”.
Those decisions should be set out in each country’s Nationally Determined
Contributions (NDCs) on climate change, which she called “the cornerstone of
the Paris
Agreement”.
“The world’s poorest 1 billion, we
are least responsible for climate crisis – emitting less than 1% of global
emissions, yet, our small gross national
incomes and limited resources means we suffer the most,” said Sonam P.
Wangdi, Secretary of the National Environment Commission, Bhutan.
The United
States, with only 5% of the population is responsible for 25% of carbon
emissions, and the present administration, which hides behind science denial in
order to preserve the status quo of their economic systems, will have a huge
impact on whether the efforts made by 190 countries succeed in preserving the
planet. But though the government was a no-show at the Climate Action Summit,
states, localities and business interests were on hand, offering their
commitments so that the United States will achieve the goals of the Paris
Climate Agreement led by Obama and rejected by Trump.
Indeed, it
was just as if the world has moved on, rendering the United States irrelevant.
The thought of holding the US accountable for reparations when an island nation
like the Bahamas is devastated by Hurricane Dorian, was discounted. “Who would
enforce a decision?” said Wilfred P.
Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Belize, a statement made from the
experience of Trinidad & Tobago which won a judgment against the US in the
World Trade Organization that has yet to be paid.
Small Island
Developing States are stepping up and striking back.
“The recent activity of Dorian in Bahamas – devastated that island, and unless you really have experience this kind of devastation it is hard to appreciate how difficult, how absolutely destructive it is,” said Elrington, recalling his own terror at the age of 4 years old when a Category 4 hurricane hit. “From one moment being in a safe, secure structure or building, the next to be completely out in environment with absolutely nothing – you have absolutely nothing – no clothes, medicine, food, completely at the mercy of God. We think of the damage to human beings and the destruction, but equally tragic is the destruction done to floral and fauna – exceedingly depressing to see the entire landscape devastated and and of course, does not come back quickly.”
Apart from saving habitats, climate
mitigation and adaptation has the added benefit of addressing poverty and
inequality, in part perpetuated by the cost – and reliance –on fossil fuels as
the basis for an economy. Shifting to clean, renewable like solar, wind, water,
geothermal, lowers the expenditure and increases the independence from
concentrated utility companies. Eliminating fossil fuels also reduces pollution
and improves health.
But with
worldwide pressure – by citizens and consumers – the private sector is being
forced to take action as well. Sixteen
countries are phasing out gasoline-powered cars over the next several years,
rendering US-manufactured cars unexportable, regardless of how Trump attempts
to overturn California’s call for higher fuel efficiency standards and lower
emissions.
Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment
Just announced, “first of its kind,” Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment “will transform mainstream infrastructure investment and drive a permanent shift toward climate resilient economy for all countries, but especially for low and mid income countries which bear the brunt,” said John Haley, CEO, Willis Towers Watson, one of the world’s largest insurance companies. One of the ways it will change the way money is invested in business ventures and infrastructure is by creating new data analytics that incorporate the cost-benefit of climate adaptation, mitigation and resiliency into the model. “Rapid advancement in data analytics, coupled in momentum of regulatory initiatives and growing pressure from global society is what allows this initiative to be as ambitious as it is.”
He said, “I come from the world of
insurance. We work on a lot of analytical tools to price the effect of climate
disasters. We will take those kind of analytical tools and build them into
understanding what kind of investments we should make in infrastructure – measure
the impacts of climate on infrastructure everywhere in the world – more
important in vulnerable communities but everywhere in the world [including US,
where former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been saying the very thing in
pushing for a carbon tax].
“Pricing the risks
posed by climate change will create opportunities to build a network of
resilient infrastructure in high, medium and low-income countries, enabling us
to better prevent future human and financial disasters.”
The coalition will
develop case studies to build the business case, and identify the critical
enabling environments, for climate resilient infrastructure investment.
By the end of
2020, analytical tools including a physical risk pricing framework and
methodology to prioritize national resilient investment needs, will be
developed, alongside a range of instruments to prevent capital flight from
vulnerable regions.
Biggest Names in Video Game Industry
Commit to Climate Action
And,
in a major mind-blowing commitment, 21 of the biggest names in the video games
industry, with a combined audience of 970 million players, formally committed
to harness the power of their platforms to take action in response to the
climate crisis. Combined, these commitments will result in a 30 million ton
reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030, will see millions of trees planted, new
“green nudges” in game design and improvements to energy management, packaging,
and device recycling. Equally significantly, under
the banner of Playing for the Planet Alliance, many will incorporate
sustainability and climate action into the games, themselves, letting gamers,
for example, toy with building sustainable societies.
These
voluntary commitments were announced during the UN Climate Action Summit. CEOs
from 14 platforms and games makers, including Sony Interactive Entertainment,
Microsoft, Google Stadia, Rovio, Supercell, Sybo, Ubisoft and WildWorks, were
present to showcase their commitments. The Alliance intends to support
companies in sharing learning and monitoring progress on the environmental
agenda.
A
full list of the announcements and commitments made at the Climate Summit can
be found at www.un.org/climatechange
Youth leaders including Greta Thunberg, who in an impassioned address to the UN Climate Action Summit that followed a worldwide Climate Strike that brought out 4 million people worldwide and an unprecedented UN Youth Climate Summit, said, “We will be watching,” drove home the urgency of greater action by leaders, and their determination to hold leaders to account.
By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
Clearly the world’s leaders are finally listening to the rising tide of civic actions, including an outpouring of youth activists, not asking but demanding action on climate change – preventing the planet from heating more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, mitigating and adapting to the impacts of global warming, from rising sea levels, more frequent and violent superstorms, wildfires, droughts, floods and famines, extinction of wildlife and plants due to lost habitats, and the health impacts due to the spread of epidemics, disease and illness.
Major announcements by government and private sector
leaders during the course of the day-long United Nations Climate Action Summit,
September 23, boosted climate action momentum, and demonstrated growing
recognition that the pace of climate action must be rapidly accelerated.
77 countries committed to cut greenhouse gas
emissions to net zero by 2050, while 70 countries announced they will either
boost their national action plans by 2020 or have started the process of doing
so.
Over 100 business leaders delivered concrete actions
to align with the Paris Agreement targets, and speed up the transition from the
grey to green economy, including asset-owners holding over $2 trillion in
assets and leading companies with combined value also over $2 trillion.
Many countries and over 100 cities – including many
of the world’s largest – announced significant and concrete new steps to combat
the climate crisis.
Many smaller countries, including Small Island
Developing States and Least Developed Countries, were among those who made the
biggest pledges, despite the fact they have contributed the least to the
problem.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, closing the
Summit, said “You have delivered a boost in momentum, cooperation and ambition.
But we have a long way to go. We need more concrete plans, more ambition from
more countries and more businesses. We need all financial institutions, public
and private, to choose, once and for all, the green economy.”
Youth leaders
including Greta Thunberg, who in an impassioned address that followed a
worldwide Climate Strike, said, “We will be watching,” drove home the urgency
of greater action by leaders, and their determination to hold leaders to
account.
• France announced that it would not enter into any
trade agreement with countries that have policies counter to the Paris
Agreement.
• Germany committed to carbon neutrality by 2050
• Russia, one of the few holdouts
and one of the world’s largest carbon emitters, with an economy largely based
on fossil fuel extraction and export, adopted the Paris Climate Agreement.
• 12 countries made financial
commitments to the Green Climate Fund, the official financial mechanism to
assist developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter
climate change. This is in addition to recent announcements from Norway,
Germany, France and the United Kingdom who have recently doubled their present
contributions.
• The United Kingdom made a major additional
contribution, doubling its overall international climate finance to L11.6
billion for the period from 2020 to 2025.
• India pledged to increase renewable energy
capacity to 175gw by 2022 and committed to further increasing to 450GW, and
announced that 80 countries have joined the International Solar Alliance.
• China said it would cut emissions by over 12
billion tons annually, and would pursue a path of high quality growth and low
carbon development.
• The European Union announced at least 25% of the
next EU budget will be devoted to climate-related activities.
• The Russian Federation announced that they will
ratify the Paris Agreement, bringing the total number of countries that have
joined the Agreement to 187.
• Pakistan said it would plant more than 10 billion
trees over the next five years. On unprecedented levels of private sector
action:
• A group of the world’s largest asset-owners —
responsible for directing more than $2 trillion in investments — committed to
move to carbon-neutral investment portfolios by 2050.
• 87 major companies with a combined market
capitalization of over US$ 2.3 trillion pledged to reduce emissions and align
their businesses with what scientists say is needed to limit the worst impacts
of climate change—a 1.5°C future.
• 130 banks – one-third of the global banking sector
– signed up to align their businesses with the Paris agreement goals On
transitioning from brown to green energy:
• Michael Bloomberg will increase the funding and
geographic spread of his coal phase out efforts to 30 countries. Already, his
work has helped to close 297 out of 530 coal plants in the US.
• Countries, including France and New Zealand,
announced that they will not allow oil or gas exploration on their lands or
off-shore waters.
• Heads of State from Finland, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovakia, are among those
that announced that they will work to phase out coal. The Republic of Korea
announced it would shut down four coal-fired power plants, and six more will be
closed by 2022, as well as the doubling of its contribution to the Green
Climate Fund.
• The Summit also delivered critical platforms for
improving energy efficiency and reducing the growing energy needs for cooling,
with the “Three Percent Club” coalition working to drive a three percent annual
global increase in energy efficiency and the Cool Coalition setting ambitious
national cooling targets for its members with the potential to deliver up to 1
degree on the pathway to a 2050 net zero carbon world. On scaling up financing
and unlocking barriers to funds:
• Many countries announced new contributions to the
Green Climate Fund, the official financial mechanism to assist developing
countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change,
with several countries, including France, Germany, Norway and the United
Kingdom, announcing that they would double their present contributions.
• Further, the Climate Investment Platform,
officially announced during the Summit, will seek to directly mobilize US$ 1
trillion in clean energy investment by 2025 in 20 Least Developed Countries in
its first year.
• The African Development Bank said it was doubling
its climate-related financing to $25 billion by 2025. Funding will go to
projects including a multi-billion initiative to develop 10,000 megawatts of
solar power from the Sahara that will provide electricity to 250 million
people. “What
a difference a green, more prosperous, resilient, peaceful and secure future
will mean,” said Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President, African
Development Bank.
• Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment – just announced and the first of its kind – “will transform mainstream infrastructure investment and drive a permanent shift toward climate resilient economy for all countries, but especially for low and mid income countries which bear the brunt” by providing data analytical tools to price in the cost of climate resiliency into investments, said John Haley, CEO, Willis Towers Watson, one of the world’s largest insurance companies.
• The state of Maine committed to carbon
neutrality by 2045.
• Summit initiatives were designed to ensure the
actions undertaken would be fair for all, supporting jobs and clear air for
better health, and protect the most vulnerable, as well as new initiatives on
adaptation, agriculture and early warning systems that will protect 500 million
additional people against the impacts of climate change.
New initiatives announced have been designed to be scaled up to deliver
impact at the global scale needed. The Secretary-General urged governments,
businesses and people everywhere to join the initiatives announced at the
Summit, and promised to “keep pushing” for greater ambition and action.
The Secretary-General committed the UN system to
support implementation of plans presented at the Summit, with an initial report
to be delivered at COP25 in Santiago, Chile.
A full list of the announcements and commitments made at the Climate Summit can be found at www.un.org/climatechange
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, at a press briefing at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, September 24, gave a chilling depiction of prospects for Kashmir, whose 8 million inhabitants are under virtual house arrest by India. He noted multiple times that these are two nuclear powers being brought to the brink over the disputed territory, and charged the “rich countries” with ignoring the possibility of what he called a “massacre” or ethnic-cleansing by India because of their craven interest in wooing India’s market of 1 billion people. He reminded the United Nations that it was their Security Council resolution that gave Kashmir their right of self-determination.
“The main reason I came to the UN General
Assembly was to highlight highlight what is going on in Kashmir. The world
would not know the oppression going on, nor would the world understand that
this is just the beginning, it will get worse, and there is a potential that
two nuclear armed countries will come face to face at some stage.”
“For 50 days, the Kashmiri people have
been locked down –a news black out.” He said there have been mass arrests, “the
entire leadership of Kashmir, even leaders who were pro-India, even those Kashmiri
leaders are now in jail somewhere in India.
“This is unprecedented – 8 million
people in open jail is unprecedented in this day and age.”
“And this nonsense that this is part of India so the world should stay out – just to remind, there are 11 UN Security Council resolutions that recognize Kashmir as disputed territory, which gave the right of Kashmir people of self-determination through plebiscite to decide their destiny – for 70 years this plebiscite never took place, then unilaterally [the Modi] government has annexed Kashmir – revoked article 370.”
But, he said, he fears what is next: that the Modi government will change the demography of Kashmir. “Changing the demography of an occupied piece of land is against the 4th Geneva Convention –it is considered a war crime.”
He categorically blamed India and Prime
Minister Narendra Modi for a racist nationalist policy.
“My second biggest worry is what happens once the
curfew lifted – we fear with 900,000 soldiers there, there will be massacre. I
am trying to tell the world community to act.
“Another fear is that, whatever is happening
in Kashmir, India will blame Pakistan.
“Unfortunately India today is governed by a racist, a Hindu supremacist, a party that was banned in India two or three times as a terrorist organization. Unfortunately, India has been this past 6 years governed by an extremist party that believes in ethnic cleansing.
“They don’t consider Muslims or Christians equal citizens, don’t believe in Nehru-Gandhi secular society. India has changed in 6 years.
“I am alarmed and I think the world leaders need to know. I’ve spoken to world leaders – Trump, Boris Johnson – and by telephone spoke to Merkel, Macron, Muslim leaders. This is the time for the world to act before this goes too far.
“If ever the Security Council had to
act, it’s now, for two reasons: the people of Kashmir are suffering simply
because the Security Council couldn’t implement its own decision for Kashmir’s right
of self-determination.
“And second, this has the potential of the unthinkable: two nuclear armed countries face to face. Surely the Security Council came into being to stop this. This is as bad as it gets.
“I would not have come out of Pakistan, just coming out of really difficult economic situation…I am alarmed. A sane mind can’t think of a nuclear war, no sane mind can think of it. We grew up after the Cuban crisis, all of us knew what cold war was because other war unimaginable,. But what you have in India now – this is ideology, racist ideology which believes in supremacy of Hindu race. How do you reason with them, with what they’ve done in Kashmir – would you expect a civilized society to do what they have done. I worry as this goes on – that’s why the UN must act.”
“This is the first time since the
Cuban crisis that two nuclear armed countries will come face to face. What we
fear are already the statements – ‘terrorists lined up on border of Kashmir
waiting to go in’. What benefit would Pakistan have to send terrorists when
900,000 security forces – only more oppression on people of Kashmir – what would
be achieved except that Pakistan would be blamed and more oppression of people
of Kashmir.
Khan will make Kashmir the focus of his General Assembly address on Friday.
“If 8 million Europeans, or Jews, or
Americans – forget Americans – were put under siege for 50 days ,would reaction
have been same? They make statements but there is no pressure on Modi to lift
the siege so we will keep mounting the pressure. I will tell the UN that if a
massacre, I mean what are 900,000 troops doing there? 900,000 troops are not to
fight terrorists, they are to control, intimidate, subjugate a population – the
entire Muslim population – this is why this will have repercussions far beyond
Kashmir – 1.3 billion Muslims are watching.
“Where is the world community, where are laws? The UN Security Council gave them right of self-determination – this will have repercussions, will create radicalization. It will get worse. I’m flagging it now, because this is just the beginning. Once the curfew lifted, God knows what will happen- Kashmir lost 100,000 people in 30 years. Do they think because India revoked Article 370, that Kashmiris will just accept? There is every likelihood of a massacre and the world community will be responsible.”
“The UN has a responsibility – it is
a UN Security Council resolution that gave Kashmiris their right of self-determination
– but what happening now- responsibility lies on them, too. – big countries,
powerful countries, I urge them to look beyond big markets. If this thing goes
wrong, the effects will go way beyond b orders of subcontinent – this obsession
with big markets and trade, this is serious, and I again repeat, we don’t know
what will happen after curfew lifted. I fear that with 900,000 troops, will be
massacre.”
Very possibly, too, Prime Minister
Khan sees an opportunity, after years in which the Kashmiris may have become
complacent about choosing between India and Pakistan. As he said, many Kashmiri
leaders were pro-India, but after this, he would expect Kashmiris to vote to
ally with Pakistan.
“I know why the response is lukewarm
and why Modi is not (pressured)- People look at it as market of 1.2 billion
people – sadly, this is what is happening. Material comes over the human –
because it’s a big market.
“ My simple message to all those looking at a big market, is this can go very wrong… once conflict starts between two nuclear armed countries – it would go beyond us, madness. Things will only deteriorate. What will happen when lift the curfew? What do they think the Kashmiris, after they have treated them, will they quietly accept India taking over Kashmir? I fear there will be blood bath, and that’s when things deteriorate very rapidly.”
During the press briefing, Khan also
said that he was asked to play a role to deescalate the situation between the
US and Iran, and that US President Donald Trump called on him to help broker
the deal with the Taliban and the United States that was to have enabled the
American troops to leave Afghanistan, before learning by tweet that the meeting
at which the deal would have been signed was canceled. He said he still had
hopes that the deal could be resurrected, and once a deal was set between the
US and the Taliban, then the Taliban and Afghan government could make their own
deal.
Before the Iranian attacks on Saudi
Arabia’s oil facility, “Trump asked if we could deescalate the situation and
maybe come up with another deal [to replace the Nuclear deal]. I did convey
this, and trying out best, can’t reveal more than that.
“Yes, I am mediating between the
United States and Iran,” Khan acknowledged. “I spoke to [Iran President] Rouhani
yesterday, after the meeting with Trump – but can’t say more, except we are
trying to mediate.
About Afghanistan, he said, “I spoke
to Trump –I am trying to get the talks restarted between Taliban and Americans.
“On a tweet we found out the deal
was off. It’s sad because that was close and once the deal was made, progress
would have been made. There is no military solution – as I have been saying a
long time – once Afghans get together, they will find a solution. If the
government sits down with the Taliban, they will find solution.”
As for the threat to the global
supply of oil if the situation with Iran and the Mideast escalates, he said, “It
would be a tragedy not just for Pakistan but all developing countries, with
their budgets affected if war takes place and oil prices shoot up .It will
cause much more poverty.”
Kashmir for 30 years, freedom of
movement has grown – today, act of shutting people in homes for 50 years has
alienated entire spectrum of Kashmiri public – there were times when Kashmiris
were pro-india, today no one would be ever get a vote pro-India in Kashmir.
What the India government has done is to tell Kashmiris they are not equal
human beings. They are not thinking through what happens after siege is lifted.
“The only reason people of Kashmir
are being subjected to this is because they are Muslims. If Muslim countries
don’t take a stand –because of trade – that’s what leads to radicalization,
when governments don’t act on wishes of people and people see injustice.”
He said that in his meeting with
Trump, “I apprised him of the gravity of the situation – intelligent human
beings think ahead – have to hope for best but prepare for worst – worst
scenario is unthinkable – normal human beings don’t think of that….
“You could do anything as long as you brand people ‘Islamic terrorists.’ That’s what Modi is doing –and hoping to get away with it. That’s why we are telling civilized world, Send your observers, if India has nothing to worry about. Their excuse for putting people under curfew, shutting them in houses, their excuse is to ‘develop’ Kashmir, for ‘prosperity of Kashmir’ – this is the Modi position. It is important for us to tell the world so at least everyone knows. I have apprised all the world leaders.
“What Modi has done is box himself into a blind alley. There is nowhere to go except massacre of people of Kashmir when the curfew is lifted, there is no other way to go. The people of Kashmir for 30 years have been fighting for independence – 100,000 lost their lives, lost their fear of death. When 8 million lose fear of dying and freedom becomes much more important than living a life of slavery, I don’t think he will be able to stop it. I think momentum will gain pace and I know where will eventually lead: freedom for people of Kashmir.
“But for some reason countries put economic interest ahead of human beings – it is the same with climate change – because they don’t want to lose growth rate, they don’t accept the impending change that climate change brings to the world.”
Money, he said, is at the root of the evil, and the corruption. “Money laundering, from the developing world into rich countries through corruption, the ruling elites of developing world taking money out. This is plunder of poor countries. Poor countries are getting poorer, rich getting richer and criminals who plunder have an easy way of parking money, buying flats in London. Richer countries should have stronger money laundering laws. If we can identify that money is stolen, it should be given back. The problem is that the existing laws are so complicated. If the rich countries want, they can easily tighten laws to deter criminals in third world to take money out.”
There couldn’t be more divergently contrasting speeches between that of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and US President Donald Trump, even more stark by coming virtually on heels of each other – or then again, between Trump and every other head of state and minister who came to the podium.
“I have the privilege of addressing you today as the elected leader of a nation that prizes liberty, independence and self-government above all,” Trump declared. “The United States, after having spent over two and a half trillion dollars since my election to completely rebuild our great military, is also by far the world’s most powerful nation.”
Coming
immediately after the Youth Climate March on Friday which brought out some 4
million people around the world to demand the world’s leaders act to save the
habitability of the planet, and the United Nation’s Climate Summit in which
over 100 nations (not the United States, but states and regions were
represented) gave specifics on programs and achievements in order to prevent
the earth from heating more than 1.5 degrees more, Trump boasted that the United
States has become the world’s “Number One Producer of Oil and Gas.”
In
a body created out of the ashes of two devastating world wars to prevent such
global conflicts, Trump declared, “The
future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The
future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens,
respect their neighbors and honor the differences that make each country
special and unique.”
Reprising and expanding upon his America First speech he delivered to the United Nations last year, he attacked anything that might smack of multilateralism, and urged the rest of the world to follow suit.
“If you want democracy, hold on to your sovereignty. And if you want peace, love your nation,” he declared – a statement that defies any reading of history.
Yet, Trump insisted the nations of the world adopt the
Trumpian view of “Freedom of Religion”.
“This fundamental right is under growing threat around the
world. Hard to believe, but 80 percent of the world’s population lives in
countries where religious liberty is in significant danger or even completely
outlawed. Americans will never fire or tire in our effort to defend and promote
freedom of worship and religion. We want and support religious liberty for all.
“Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life,”
he said. “We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to
assert a global right to taxpayer funded abortion on demand right up until the
moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking
the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life. Like many
nations here today, we in America believe that every child born and unborn is a
sacred gift from God.”
Defend innocent life – except when it comes to guns.
“There is no circumstance under which the United States
will allow international interests to trample on the rights of our citizens,
including the right to self-defense. That is why this year I announced that we
will never ratify the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which would threaten the
liberties of law-abiding American citizens. The United States will always
uphold our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We will always uphold
our Second Amendment. The core rights and values America defends today were
inscribed in America’s founding documents.
“Our nation’s founders understood that there will always be
those who believe they are entitled to wield power and control over others.
Tyranny advances under many names and many theories, but it always comes down
to the desire for domination. It protects not the interests of many, but the privilege
of few. Our founders gave us a system designed to restrain this dangerous
impulse. They choose to entrust American power to those most invested in the
fate of our nation: a proud and fiercely independent people.”
Each year, Trump has to find a boogey-man to attack.
In his first address, he lambasted North
Korea’s “Rocket Man” Kim Jong-Un; last year he went after Venezuela. This year,
he declared “One of the greatest security threats facing peace-loving nations
today is the repressive regime in Iran. The regime’s record of death and
destruction is well known to us all. Not only is Iran the world’s number one
state sponsor of terrorism, but Iran’s leaders are fueling the tragic wars in
both Syria and Yemen.”
As the United Nations raises alarms about the greatest
numbers of displaced people around the globe since World War II, Trump tripled
down on his hostility and hatred for refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants.
“To anyone conducting crossings of our border illegally,
please hear these words: Do not pay the smugglers. Do not pay the coyotes. Do
not put yourself in danger. Do not put your children in danger. Because if you
make it here, you will not be allowed in. You will be promptly returned home.
You will not be released into our country as long as I am president of the
United States. We will enforce our laws and protect our borders. For all of the
countries of the western hemisphere, our goal is to help people invest in the
bright futures of their own nation. Our region is full of such incredible
promise, dreams, waiting to be built, and national destinies for all, and they
are waiting also to be pursued.” The United States rejected the United Nations
Global Migration Compact.
Trump’s speech to the General Assembly, just as his remarks
to the “Freedom of Religion” forum the day before, was tailored for his base
(and helps explain his eagerness to pal around with India’s Prime Minister
Modi, attending the 50,000-strong rally in Houston, despite Modi’s harsh
assault on Muslim-majority Kashmir – it is his ticket to the Indian-American
vote). In this context, his attack on Venezuela served as his foil for
attacking Democrats and their radical ideas about income inequality and
universal health care.
“One of the most serious challenges our country has faced
is the specter of socialism. It’s the wrecker of nations and destroyer of
societies. The events in Venezuela reminds us all that socialism and communism
are not about justice. They are not about equality, they are not about lifting
up the poor, and they are certainly not about good of the nation. Socialism and
communism are about one thing only: power for the ruling class. Today I repeat
a message for the world that I have delivered at home: America will never be a
socialist country. The last century socialism and communism killed 100 million
people.”
Guterres
began his speech noting that the United Nations Charter’s first words are “We
the Peoples” “It puts people at the center of our work, everyday,
everywhere…. people with rights. Those rights are an endowment.”
“Machines
take their jobs. Traffickers take their dignity. Demagogues take
their rights. Warlords take their lives. Fossil fuels take their
future”, he declared. “And because people still believe in the United Nations,
we, the leaders, must deliver. They believe as leaders we will put people
first, because we the leaders must deliver for We the Peoples…People have a
right to live in peace.”
He
cited promising developments, such as peaceful elections in Madagascar and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo; the Greece-North Macedonia name dispute
resolution; political dialogue in Sudan; and an agreement in Syria. But he
spoke of persisting conflicts, terrorism and “the risk of a new arms race
growing” across the world, and lamented unresolved situations in Yemen, Libya
and Afghanistan; an evasive solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict;
Venezuelan displacements; and “the alarming possibility of armed conflict in
the Gulf”.
And without actually naming the United States and China, he raised alarm over “a new risk looming on the horizon: the possibility of a great fracture, the world splitting in two, with the two largest economies on earth creating two separate and competing worlds, each with their own dominant currency, trade and financial rules, their own internet and artificial intelligence capacities, and their own zero sum geopolitical and military strategies”.
“We must do everything possible to avert the Great Fracture
and maintain a universal system…with strong multilateral institutions”, he
stressed.
And
he, like every other leader, pointed to the need to aggressively confront
Climate Action. Referencing Monday’s Climate
Action Summit, the UN chief underscored the importance of
adaptation.
“Even
our language has to adapt: what was once called ‘climate change’ is now truly a
“climate crisis” … and what was once called ‘global warming’ has more
accurately become ‘global heating’,” he said.
Guterres
referred to Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas as he spoke of “unprecedented
temperatures, unrelenting storms and undeniable science”.
Though
“not fast enough”, the world is starting to move “in the right direction” –
away from fossil fuels and towards a green economy, he said.
Turning
to fundamental freedoms, the UN chief said, “we are at a critical juncture
where advances made across the decades are being restricted and reversed,
misinterpreted and mistrusted”.
The
Secretary-General pointed to new forms of authoritarianism; narrowing civic
spaces; the targeting of activists, human rights defenders and journalists; and
expanding surveillance systems that are “shredding the fabric of our common
humanity”.
And in direct contradiction to the Trumpian vision of the
world order, Guterres said that anything that is done to uphold security
and human rights “helps deliver sustainable development and peace”.
“In
the 21st century, we must see human rights with a vision that speaks to each
and every human being and encompasses all rights”, lauding the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as
a tool for social protection, a sustainable environment, education and decent
jobs.
These
themes were echoed by just about every other leader and representative – except
for Donald Trump. Indeed, the rest of the world seems more resolved than ever
to work together – basically ignoring the United States.
That is fine with Trump, who thinks of the rest of the world as children trying to tap their Dad for money.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
By Karen Rubin, news-photos-features.com
Greta Thunberg delivered a
no-holds barred, impassioned speech to
the United Nations General Assembly Climate Summit, on Monday, September 23,
flatly declaring, “My message is that we’ll be watching you.
“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams, my childhood with your empty words, and yet I am one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” the 16-year old demanded as the assembly erupted in cheers and applause.
“For more than 30 years, the science
has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, then come here and
say you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still no
where in sight.
“You say you hear us and
understand the urgency but no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to
believe that, because if you really understood the situation and still kept on
failing to act, then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe,” a
statement that elicited a combination of shock, cheers and applause.
“The popular idea of cutting
emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5
degrees and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human
control.
“50% may be acceptable to you,
but those numbers don’t include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional
warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice.
It also relies on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your
CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So 50% isn’t enough to
us who have to live with the consequences,” she declared.
“How dare you pretend this can be
solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions…
“There will not be any solutions,
or plans, in line with the [CO2 emissions] figures today, because these numbers
too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.
You are failing us, but young people are starting to understand your betrayal.
The eyes on all future generations are upon you.
“If you choose to fail us, I say
we will never forgive you.”
It
is being hailed as the biggest climate protest in history: a worldwide climate
strike that brought out over 4 million people in more than 2100 events in 175
countries, with some 600 in the United States.
New
York’s climate strike brought out more than 250,000 who overflowed Foley
Square, marched down to Battery Park, where the global climate leader, Greta
Thunberg of Sweden, laid down the gauntlet to the do-nothing world leaders:
“This is an emergency. Our house is on fire,” Thunberg
told the cheering crowd. “We will do everything in our power to stop this
crisis from getting worse.” Noting that she has withdrawn from school in order
to agitate for climate action and to take part in the strikes, children have
left school, she said “Why should we study for a future that is being taken
away from us. That is being sold for profit.”
“Everywhere I have been the situation is more or less
same. The people in power, their beautiful words are the same,” she said. “The
number of politicians and celebrities who want to take selfies with us are the
same. The empty promises are the same. The lies are the same, and the inaction
is the same.”
Virtually daring the world’s leaders to act, she declared,
“The eyes of the world” will be on the world leaders at the climate summit on
Monday for the U.N. Climate Summit. “They have a chance to prove that they too
are united behind the science, they have a chance to take leadership, to prove
they actually hear us,” she said to chants.
“It should not be that way. We should not be the ones who
are fighting for the future, and yet here we are,” she continued.
“We demand a safe future,” she said. “Is
that really too much to ask?”
The link between capitalistic greed and political
corruption was very much on view, with signs that called for “Green Jobs Not
Dirty Fuel” and even more radical calls to “Save the Planet. End capitalism.”
The demands of the strikers echoed the Green New Deal being
proposed: a 100 percent shift away from fossil fuels to clean, renewable
energy; shifts to sustainable agriculture, in such a fair and equitable way as
to “leave no one behind”; environmental, social, political and economic
justice.
“Charge
ahead toward 100 percent clean renewable
energy, protect habitat and species, hold corporations accountable, have a just
transition – leave no one behind,” stated Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, 39, a
marine biologist, policy expert, founder and CEO of Ocean Collectiv, was one of
the only adults to give a speech. “We need strong government policies that
accelerate transition, a Green New Deal.
She
argued that regenerative farming, renewable energy, electrifying transporation
necessary to mitigate or reverse the adverse impacts of climate change are
already available. “We don’t need new technology.” What is needed is government
policy.
“But
when there is failure at the national level, localities, states need to step
up.” Individuals can make a difference as well: “Plant trees, grow food, plant
a climate victory garden, choose foods that are grown regeneratively. Show up,
transform culture. Vote in every election. In 2016, 10 million registered
environmentalists failed to vote. Do not let that happen again.
“We
cannot mobilize at the scale we need unless we face the challenge head on.
Focus on solution. Build a coalition so massive, it shifts the status quo. Dig
in for the long and beautiful struggle for a new world.”
Capitalism was very much under fire – with the opposition
asserting that addressing climate change is akin to throwing the doors open to
socialism, or worse, communism, and in any case, that it would be damaging to
the economy.
But the case is made by former Vice President Al Gore and
others that the fastest growing areas for jobs are in solar and wind power;
Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders makes the case that the $1 trillion spent
to transition the economy to clean, renewable energy will create 20 million
jobs.
And in fact, the economy has already been transformed to new
energy: 150 years ago, when coal was discovered in Pennsylvania and emerging industrialists
figured out how to turn it into fuel, and petroleum extractors figured out a
way to capitalize on the waste product of processing petroleum for industrial
grease, gasoline and effectively killed the development of the electric car.
That caused a migration of workers- imported migrants and transplants – to new
villages, cities and towns based on mining, processing, and manufacturing that
had not existed before, often by displacing indigenous people.
The
worldwide climate strike comes just ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit
to be held Monday, September 23, when countries are expected to present
concrete proposals to mitigate and reverse the climb in temperature before
global warming has catastrophic impacts on food, water, public health and
habitats. The United Nations summit, though, begins with an unprecedented youth
climate summit on Saturday, September 21.
The
16-year old Thunberg, who began her climate crusade more than a year ago, holding
Friday strike, has become the world’s most recognized climate activist, who has
stood her ground against world leaders and the snarky questions of US
congressmembers.
The worldwide climate strike actions coincided with the second anniversary of Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico in which 2,975 people died, and New York City strike’s was held jointly with a Puerto Rico Day of Action. It also comes just days after Hurricane Dorian devastated much of the Bahamas, with Trump shutting the door on climate refugees from that catastrophe.
Here are more highlights from New York City’s Climate Strike:
