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Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Visits Colombia

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  Military officers arrest a protester in Cali, Colombia, Apr. 29, 2021. | Photo: EFE

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Published 7 June 2Comments

A human rights observation mission will analyze cases of police violence amid nationwide protests destabilizing the country since Apr. 28.

On Tuesday, a mission from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will start an official visit to Colombia to analyze human rights violations committed by the Military Police (ESMAD) amid nationwide protests whipping the country since April. 

RELATED: 

Colombia: At Least 3,789 Police Brutality Cases Since April 28

The mission will analyze denunciations of excessive use of force, forced disappearances, eye injuries, sexual and gender-based violence committed by ESMAD officials.

After meeting with representatives of the Colombian government on Monday, the IACHR mission will interview victims in Bogota and Cali until June 10 to later present a report.

More than 650 civil society organizations have denounced the lack of independence in the country's judicial and control bodies while urging IACHR to condemn strongly the indiscriminate repression against protesters. 

Even if the observation mission can only issue recommendations to President Ivan Duque's government, some of the human rights violations cases could escalate to the IACHR floor, if the victims decide to pursue this process.

Since April 28, when the national strike began, thousands of people have taken to the street in Colombia and other countries to condemn police brutality and Duque's attempts to install neoliberal policies on tax collection and the health sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Strike Committee (CNP) has recorded 3,800 cases of violence against peaceful demonstrators, over 60 homicides, 1,600 arbitrary detentions, 65 cases of eye injuries, and more than 20 sexual assaults against women.

El Espectador - As - Dejusticia

by teleSUR/ eh- JF

 

Human Rights Mission Confirms Police Abuses In Colombia

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  Hundreds of citizens protest in Bogota, Colombia, June 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @ajplus

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Published 6 June 2021

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An international mission called on President Duque to safeguard the people's life and dignity, guarantee justice and truth, and comply with human rights laws.

After two weeks of investigations, the International Mission of Solidarity and Human Rights Observation confirmed the Colombian people are victims of State terrorism and urged President Ivan Duque to be investigated for murdering and disappearing protesters.

RELATED:

Roadblocks Begin To Be Lifted in Colombia

In a preliminary report, the Mission called on Duque to safeguard the people's life and dignity, guarantee justice and truth and comply with human rights laws.

"During the national strike, the National Police disappeared, murdered, tortured, abused, persecuted, threatened, and intimidated protesters. Police brutality prevented and limited the people's political participation and right to protest," the report states.

The Mission also found that the government deployed sophisticated and lethal weaponry, which turned the country into a warlike zone.

"Duque targeted the people as an enemy, even when protesters were mostly youth, students, women, LGBTQ community members, farmers, Indigenous people, Afro-descendants, social leaders, human rights defenders, and journalists," it said.

The Colombian people "must obtain integral reparation from the government through truth and justice," human rights advocates assured.

The Mission that arrived in Colombia on May 25 is formed by representatives of organizations such as Peace and Justice Service (SERPAJ), Coordinating Committee against Police and Institutional Repression (CORREPI), and the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH).

International Mission of Solidarity and Human Rights Observation - La Izquierda Diario

Why Israel Blows Up Media Offices and Targets Journalists


Smoke billows as an Israeli air bomb is dropped on the Jala Tower during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, on Saturday, May 15, 2021. Israel's air force targeted the 11-floor Jala Tower housing Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television and the Associated Press news agency among many other media outlets. (Photo: Mahmud Hams / AFP via Getty Images)

The Israeli government is now exerting deadly force on a large scale to underscore an assertion of impunity—in effect, wielding power to subjugate Palestinian people with methodical disregard for their basic human rights.

NORMAN SOLOMON

Israel’s missile attack on media offices in Gaza City last weekend was successful. A gratifying response came quickly from the head of The Associated Press, which had a bureau in the building for 15 years: “The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.”

For people who care about truth, that’s outrageous. For the Israeli government, that’s terrific.

The AP president, Gary Pruitt, said “we are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza.”

There’s ample reason to be horrified. But not shocked.

Israel’s military began threatening and targeting journalists several decades ago, in tandem with its longstanding cruel treatment of Palestinians. Rather than reduce the cruelty, the Israeli government keeps trying to reduce accurate news coverage.

The approach is a mix of deception and brutality. Blow up the cameras so the world won’t see as many pictures of the atrocities.

Of course, there’s no need to interfere with journalists documenting the also awful—while relatively few—deaths of Israelis due to rockets fired by Hamas. In recent days the Israeli government has spotlighted such visuals, some of them grimly authentic, others fake.

The suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is tragically real on both sides, while vastly asymmetrical. During the last 10 days, as reported by the BBC, 219 people have been killed in Gaza. In Israel, the number was 10. In Gaza, at least 63 of the dead were children. In Israel, two.

In the midst of all this, shamefully, President Biden is pushing ahead to sell $735 million worth of weapons to Israel, a move akin to selling more whips and thumbscrews to torturers while they’re hard at work tormenting their victims.

On Wednesday, a few members of Congress introduced a bill that seeks to do what the Israeli targeting of media seeks to prevent -- the galvanizing of well-informed outrage. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Mark Pocan introduced a resolution opposing the sale of those weapons.

“For decades, the U.S. has sold billions of dollars in weaponry to Israel without ever requiring them to respect basic Palestinian rights. In so doing, we have directly contributed to the death, displacement and disenfranchisement of millions,” Ocasio-Cortez pointed out.

Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, said: “The harsh truth is that these weapons are being sold by the United States to Israel with the clear understanding that the vast majority of them will be used to bomb Gaza. Approving this sale now, while failing to even try to use it as leverage for a ceasefire, sends a clear message to the world -- the U.S. is not interested in peace, and does not care about the human rights and lives of Palestinians.”

As usual, Israel’s latest killing spree can avail itself of deep pockets provided by U.S. taxpayers, currently $3.8 billion a year in military assistance. An article published last week by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace makes a strong case that the massive subsidy is legally dubious and morally indefensible.

Not many members of Congress can be heard calling for an end to doling out huge sums to the Israeli government. But some progress is evident.

A bill introduced last month by Congresswoman Betty McCollum, H.R.2590, now has 21 co-sponsors and some activist momentum. Its official purpose flies in the face of routine congressional evasion: “To promote and protect the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and to ensure that United States taxpayer funds are not used by the Government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.”

Right now, the government of Israel is exerting deadly force on a large scale to underscore an assertion of impunity—in effect, wielding power to subjugate Palestinian people with methodical disregard for their basic human rights. The process involves reducing as much as possible the eyewitness news coverage of that subjugation.

Israeli leaders know that truth about human consequences of their policies is horrific when illuminated. That’s why they’re so eager to keep us in the dark.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. His books include "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" (2006) and "Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State" (2007).

Schumer's Anti-China Bill Sacrifices Climate for Empire

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) leads a press conference to introduce new senators like Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. January 21, 2021. (Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

This bill would sabotage an opportunity for the U.S. and China—countries responsible for releasing half of the world's fossil fuel emissions—to partner on curbing emissions and sharing strategies for greening the Earth.

MARCY WINOGRAD, MEDEA BENJAMIN

Despite an existential climate crisis, Senator Chuck Schumer's $250-billion "United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021" takes aim at China as the most pressing national security threat. In a Cold War declaration, the New York Democrat's proposed legislation reads like the last gasp of a dying empire, a plea from a panicked superpower losing its grip on global dominance.

Schumer's laborious 1,445-page bill, the product of six Senate committees, would have the U.S. compete with China by creating tech hubs of robotics and artificial intelligence in U.S. cities, promoting school programs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), accelerating production of semiconductor chips and spending $600 million to ramp up U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to show China the U.S. still rules the world.

Collaborate with China to thwart climate catastrophe?

Heresy.

In a less xenophobic United States, a more visionary blueprint would emerge for collective technological development to save our warming planet.

In a more visionary blueprint, the U.S. Congress might support or even expand on the U.S.-China climate agreement negotiated by Climate Envoy John Kerry prior to the Biden administration's world Earth Day summit last April. An added section to Schumer's marathon read might underscore the diplomatic agreement's goals of strengthening implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and developing long-term strategies to achieve carbon neutrality.

A person reading this manifesto of China hate would never know that China, home to 1.4 billion people and the world's largest exporter, owns over $1 trillion of U.S. debt that could be called in at any moment, sending demand for the U.S. dollar plummeting and slowing our economy to a crawl.

Instead, the bill undermines Kerry's negotiated agreement with China, sabotaging an opportunity for the U.S. and China--countries responsible for releasing half of the world's fossil fuel emissions--to partner on curbing emissions and sharing strategies for greening the Earth.

A person reading this manifesto of China hate would never know that China, home to 1.4 billion people and the world's largest exporter, owns over $1 trillion of U.S. debt that could be called in at any moment, sending demand for the U.S. dollar plummeting and slowing our economy to a crawl.

Ignoring the U.S.-China economic enmeshment, the bill opposes international bank loans to China for its 70-country Belt and Road Initiative to build highways, ports, railroad tunnels and other infrastructure connecting Asia with Europe and Africa; vows to weaken the influence of China and Russia at the UN; and withholds grant money to U.S. colleges and universities that partner with Chinese government-funded "Confucius Institutes" to teach Chinese language and culture.

In a throwback to McCarthyism, the bill also mandates a Comptroller report on the activities of U.S. Sister City participants who partner with countries like China that fell below a 2019 score of 45 out of a possible 100 on the Corruption Perceptions Index. This is a data tool funded by Western nations and ExxonMobil to measure transparency, accountability and integrity in government. China scored a 41, Saudi Arabia a 53.

Ironically, New York, the state Schumer represents, is listed on Wikipedia as partnering with several sister cities in China: New York City with Beijing; Mount Vernon with Yangquan; Brooklyn with Yiwu; Port Chester with Jingzhou; and Rochester with Xianyang.

Schumer's proposed legislation, a potential bipartisan win according to the gleeful Senate Majority Leader, only references the climate crisis in the context of advancing U.S. strategic interests in Asia and the South Pacific to beat back the "Leninist model of governance--socialism with Chinese characteristics." For example, the bill pushes for increasing Peace Corp volunteers to develop climate resiliency in Oceania, a region that includes Australia, Micronesia and Polynesia, to avoid islands throughout the South Pacific turning to China for assistance.

The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 threatens to exacerbate the climate crisis by expanding the reach of the Pentagon, the world's largest consumer of oil and emitter of greenhouse gases. It calls for increased forward-basing U.S. troop deployments in the South China Sea, development of more "combat credible forces," additional shipments of missiles and other weapons to allies in the Indo-Pacific and stepped up joint U.S.-allies military exercises, a euphemism for mock nuclear strikes--all in the name of deterrence.

In addition, the bill challenges China's long-held desire for reunification with Taiwan by prioritizing the defense of Taiwan sovereignty, an issue that once brought the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war. According to classified documents recently released by former CIA analyst Daniel Ellsberg, 1950s Pentagon planners were willing to sacrifice a million U.S. lives in a first nuclear strike on China that would predictably trigger Soviet retaliation. In keeping with President Biden's record high $753 billion military budget that reflects a pivot from the Middle East to Asia, Schumer's legislation asserts China's presence in the Indo-Pacific "presents a substantial and imminent risk to the security of the United States ..."

While undermining the potential for U.S.-China collaboration on climate, the bill depicts China as the number one global military threat even though it is the U.S. that has over 800 overseas bases, 400 encircling China, compared to China's one overseas base in Djibouti, located on the Horn of Africa.

As the article "More of the same: Biden's hybrid war against China" makes clear, it is the U.S., not China, that has engaged in combat in more than 60 countries since the late 1970s; China has not engaged in a war since Vietnam. Additionally, it is the U.S. that has 3,800 nuclear warheads in contrast to China's estimated 350 nuclear warheads. On the subject of nuclear weapons, the bill accuses China of violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in its arsenal expansion while falsely asserting that the U.S. honors its treaty obligations to pursue disarmament.

In reality, the United States is moving ahead, with Biden's blessing, on a near $2-trillion decades-long nuclear rearmament plan. This includes replacing 400 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) on high alert in underground silos in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado with 600 new nuclear missiles also on hair-trigger alert, and developing new nuclear warheads.

In condemnation of China's alleged human rights abuses, including reports of forced labor and internment camps for the Muslim minority Uighurs, the bill mandates a U.S. diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and bars the use of federal funds to pay for federal government employees to attend the games.

It's one thing to legislate a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics or, as the bill outlines, ban ByteDance's TikTok on federal devices, but quite another to provoke a military confrontation in the South China Sea, where a U.S. warship recently sailed through the Taiwan Strait over China's objections, putting "peace and security at risk" in the words of the Chinese.

Before Senator Schumer uncorks the champagne to celebrate bipartisan militarism, he and his congressional cohorts should remove from the bill the "International Security Matters" section which sets the United States on a war footing with China.

Moreover, a new section should be added to cement the U.S.-China bilateral climate agreement Kerry negotiated to strengthen implementation of the Paris Accords.

Members of Congress must demand that U.S. innovation in semiconductors, as well as Moon and Mars exploration, not ride on economic and military superiority to China. In addition, they should take a scalpel to those sections that sabotage academic, financial and Sister City partnerships that could, with people to people diplomacy, help save the planet from warming temperatures, rising tides, extreme weather, famine and desperate refugee migration.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America served as a 2020 DNC Delegate for Bernie Sanders and co-founded the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party. Coordinator of CODEPINKCONGRESS, Marcy spearheads Capitol Hill calling parties to mobilize co-sponsors and votes for peace and foreign policy legislation. Follow her on Twitter: @marcywinogrand


Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of the 2018 book, "Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Her previous books include: "Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection" (2016); "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control" (2013); "Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart" (1989), and (with Jodie Evans) "Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide)" (2005). Follow her on Twitter: @medeabenjamin

Amnesty Says Paltry G7 Climate Plans 'A Devastating, Mass-Scale Assault on Human Rights'

"These are not administrative failures, they are a devastating, mass-scale assault on human rights."

Children wade through a mangrove swamp covered with crude oil on their way home from fishing October 14, 2004 in Goi, Nigeria. (Photo: Jacob Silberberg/Getty Images)

Amnesty Says Paltry G7 Climate Plans 'A Devastating, Mass-Scale Assault on Human Rights'

ANDREA GERMANOS, 

STAFF WRITER

June 7, 2021

Ahead of this week's G7 summit, Amnesty International decried the inadequacy of wealthy nations' climate action plans as a colossal human rights failure and delivered a blueprint for policymakers to urgently change course to avert "impending catastrophe" and uphold their international obligations.

"The unambitious climate plans submitted by G7 members represent a violation of the human rights of billions of people. These are not administrative failures, they are a devastating, mass-scale assault on human rights," said Chiara Liguori, Amnesty International's Human Rights and Environment policy advisor, in a statement Sunday.

"[G7] governments must commit to unconditionally phasing out all fossil fuels, as close to 2030 as is technically feasible." —Chiara Liguori, Amnesty International

Liguori's stern assessment came alongside the release of Stop Burning Our Rights (pdf), a new policy brief from the organization that calls the climate emergency "a human rights crisis of unprecedented proportions" and "manifestation of deep-rooted injustices."

Looking through lens of government's human rights obligations, the paper says that wealthier nations—who disproportionately fueled the climate crisis—must be at the forefront of climate action to reach net zero emission. Criticizing targets of net zero by 2050 as "too little, too late," the policy brief further calls on wealthy nations to take greater action to finance developing countries' climate target, through grants, not loans, and fund remedies for climate harms that have already happened.

The devastating impacts from climate crisis-fueled extreme weather events are already clear, and global governments committed to a goal of keeping global warming within 1.5° compared to pre-industrial levels, Amnesty says. Carbon emissions from fossil fuels rose 1% annually between 2010 and 2018, the report adds, and, while the coronavirus pandemic triggered a downward blip in emissions, the IEA projected a rise of 4.8% in 2021. What's more, some governments gave pandemic money given with no strings attached to fossil fuel companies.

And yet many governments, though their climate plans, are putting human rights including the rights to life, water, food, housing, health, a healthy environment, and self-determination at huge risk, the publication says.

"While a slew of new 2030 and carbon-neutrality targets have recently been announced, most countries—especially wealthier states that are members of the G20—are currently failing to adopt sufficiently ambitious and human rights-consistent climate plans that would contribute to avoiding the worst human rights impacts of climate change," the paper states.

Failure to take necessary steps to rein in the global crisis and mitigate its harms amounts to "a human rights violation" and should be condemned as with other human rights violations, according to the group.

Such violations, the report argues, "condemn millions of people to premature death, hunger, diseases, displacement, not just in the future but also at present. They contribute to conflicts and to the unfolding cycle of human rights violations. They perpetuate and accelerate current inequalities and discrimination against those who are already being oppressed by systemic injustices. Failure to adequately tackle the climate crisis is a form of discrimination."

The paper lays out a number of recommendations to keep warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and support human rights obligations. They include that governments revise their national climate plans; immediately stop to fossil fuel expansion; overhaul food systems such that "unsustainable and exploitative" systems are left behind in favor of ones that promote human rights and sustainable systems; enact policies to end deforestation by 2030; end subsidies of fossil fuels as well as those for forest biomass and crop-based biofuels; and implement climate action-centered Covid-19 recovery plans.

Wealthy nations must also commit to stopping fossil fuel expansion in other countries, lest they simply shift where the polluting extraction and refining operations occur.

Simply put, "States that are failing to phase out fossil fuels in a timeline aligned with the 1.5°C imperative and with their respective capabilities are violating human rights." The paper adds that corporations and their financial backers that fail to shift from fossil fuel operations must be held accountable for their human rights abuses.

The demands were delivered a day before NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced that the monthly average of CO2 levels in May hit 419 parts per million, the highest level since measurements began over six decades ago. The paper also came just ahead of the G7 Leaders' Summit, which begins Friday in the U.K. and where, according to Amnesty's Liguori, leaders must commit to urgent climate action.

"The G7 and other wealthy industrialized countries have historically emitted the most carbon and bear the greatest responsibility for the current climate crisis. They also have the most resources to tackle it," she said, "but their strategies to date have been woefully inadequate, and their support for other countries has been stingy."

"At the G7 Leaders' Summit, governments must commit to unconditionally phasing out all fossil fuels, as close to 2030 as is technically feasible. They must put in place tough regulations requiring businesses to shift to renewable energy, and stop using our taxes to subsidize the deadly fossil fuel industry," she said.

Corporate Ad Giant WPP Targeted for Helping Big Oil Greenwash Its 'Net Zero' Hogwash

"The climate impact of an advertising agency is the work it does in the world, not the lightbulbs it has in its offices."

Ad agency WPP released a video recently announcing its plan to reach net zero fossil fuel emissions by 2030, but the anti-greenwashing campaign Clean Creatives took issue with the company's pledge—considering it counts fossil fuel giants among its clients. (Image: WPP/screenshot)

JULIA CONLEY, STAFF WRITER

June 8, 2021

The climate-focused Clean Creatives campaign released a mocking ad video Tuesday to rebuke the greenwashing of corporate advertising giant WPP, which represents some of the world's biggest polluters.

The satirical video is a send up of WPP's announcement ahead of Earth Day this year in which the ad agency claimed it was setting targets for its own greenhouse gas emissions going "beyond the required carbon reductions outlined in the Paris Agreement."

"For agencies, sustainability is about your clients, not just your company." —Clean Creatives
The problem with the pledge—a vow to reach net zero emissions within the firm's operations by 2025 and its supply chain by 2030—is that it makes no mention of WPP's actual biggest contribution to carbon emissions: the advertising and PR work it does for fossil fuel giants including BP, Exxon, and Shell.

“WPP's net zero commitment is just another empty promise if it doesn't include a pledge to stop promoting fossil fuel companies," said Clean Creatives campaign director Duncan Meisel. "The climate impact of an advertising agency is the work it does in the world, not the lightbulbs it has in its offices. If WPP is still polluting our airwaves with climate misinformation on behalf of clients like BP and Shell, they’re part of the problem, not the solution."

Climate Creatives' video mocked the stylized video released by WPP in April, with a voiceover introducing "a big ad agency that makes big ads" and that's "going zero" by cutting its net carbon emissions—before adding that its fossil fuel clients will continue emitting planet-heating pollution.

"But our biggest clients aren't going zero. They're going over two billion tons of CO2 per year," the voiceover says. "But we're going zero, and that's what matters, right?"

Clean Creatives called WPP's goal of zeroing out its current carbon footprint of 5.4 million tons per year "a welcome contribution."

"But it's nothing compared to the two billion tons of CO2 equivalent that WPP's fossil fuel clients produce every year," said the campaign.

WPP could easily cancel out its own net zero pledge by continuing to produce advertising content for fossil fuel giants, Clean Creatives said.

"If WPP's advertising helped just one of their clients, BP, increase sales by .3%, it would wipe out all the gains made by cutting their own emissions," the group said.

The Clean Creatives campaign was launched last year by Fossil Free Media to pressure ad and PR agencies and employees to stop working with fossil fuel companies.

WPP's video and net zero plan offers a prime example of how the advertising industry can cut its own emissions but still help fuel the climate emergency by continuing to work with oil and gas giants, Clean Creatives said.

"By greenwashing companies like BP, ad agencies like WPP are doing real damage to the very concept of net zero and our ability to reach it," said Jamie Henn, Fossil Fuel Media director. "Our goal is to get agencies to take responsibility for the work they're putting into the world. That means making a commitment by this year’s COP26 UN Climate Talks to stop working with fossil fuel companies and only engage with clients who have verifiable plans to zero out their emissions."

Just last year, a WPP-produced ad for BP claimed it was focusing on clean energy investments, despite the fact that the company was still spending 97% of its expenditures on oil and gas instead of renewable energy. The ad was pulled from the airwaves after U.K. watchdog Client Earth filed a formal complaint.

"WPP's work for BP was ruled to be an unlawful misrepresentation by the U.K. government," said Clean Creatives. "WPP's work for Chevron is the subject of an active Federal Trade Commission complaint for greenwash. WPP's work for Shell is the subject of a lawsuit by New York City for misleading consumers."

"For agencies, sustainability is about your clients, not just your company," the campaign said.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

The 'Big Con' Revealed: Report Details Fossil Fuel Industry's Deceptive 'Net Zero' Strategy

"Big polluters and rich governments should not only reduce emissions to Real Zero, they must pay reparations for the huge climate debt owed to the Global South."

A brown coal mining machine operating at the Welzow-Sued lignite opencast mine in Welzow, eastern Germany. A new report out Wednesday details how so-called "net zero" pledges are simply schemes propagated by the fossil fuel industry and other powerful interests "to mask inaction, foist the burden of emissions cuts and pollution avoidance on historically exploited communities, and bet our collective future through ensuring long-term, destructive impact on land and forests, oceans, and through advancing geoengineering technologies." (Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa / AFP via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS, STAFF WRITER

June 9, 2021

A new report published Wednesday by a trio of progressive advocacy groups lifts the veil on so-called "net zero" climate pledges, which are often touted by corporations and governments as solutions to the climate emergency, but which the paper's authors argue are merely a dangerous form of greenwashing that should be eschewed in favor of Real Zero policies based on meaningful, near-term commitments to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

"Increasingly, the concept of 'net zero' is being misconstrued in political spaces as well as by individual actors to evade action and avoid responsibility." —Report

The report—titled "The Big Con: How Big Polluters Are Advancing a "Net Zero" Climate Agenda to Delay, Deceive, and Deny" (pdf)—was published by Corporate Accountability, the Global Forest Coalition, and Friends of the Earth International, and is endorsed by over 60 environmental organizations. The paper comes ahead of this November's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland and amid proliferating pledges from polluting corporations and governments to achieve what they claim is carbon neutrality—increasingly via dubious offsets—by some distant date, often the year 2050.

However, the report asserts that "instead of offering meaningful real solutions to justly address the crisis they knowingly created and owning up to their responsibility to act beginning with drastically reducing emissions at source, polluting corporations and governments are advancing 'net zero' plans that require little or nothing in the way of real solutions or real effective emissions cuts."

"Furthermore... they see the potential for a 'net zero' global pathway to provide new business opportunities for them, rather than curtailing production and consumption of their polluting products," it says.

According to the report:

After decades of inaction, corporations are suddenly racing to pledge to achieve "net zero" emissions. These include fossil fuel giants like BP, Shell, and Total; tech giants like Microsoft and Apple; retailers like Amazon and Walmart; financers like HSBC, Bank of America, and BlackRock; airlines like United and Delta; and food, livestock, and meat producing and agriculture corporations like JBS, Nestlé, and Cargill. Polluting corporations are in a race to be the loudest and proudest to pledge "net zero" emissions by 2050 or some other date in the distant future. Over recent years, more than 1,500 corporations have made "net zero" commitments, an accomplishment applauded by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the U.N. Secretary General.

"Increasingly, the concept of 'net zero' is being misconstrued in political spaces as well as by individual actors to evade action and avoid responsibility," the report states. "The idea behind big polluters' use of 'net zero' is that an entity can continue to pollute as usual—or even increase its emissions—and seek to compensate for those emissions in a number of ways. Emissions are nothing more than a math equation in these plans; they can be added one place and subtracted from another place."

"This equation is simple in theory but deeply flawed in reality," the paper asserts. "These schemes are being used to mask inaction, foist the burden of emissions cuts and pollution avoidance on historically exploited communities, and bet our collective future through ensuring long-term, destructive impact on land and forests, oceans, and through advancing geoengineering technologies. These technologies are hugely risky, do not exist at the scale supposedly needed, and are likely to cause enormous, and likely irreversible, damage."

Among the key findings of the report:

Big polluters, including the fossil fuel and aviation industries, lobbied heavily to ensure passage of Q45, a tax credit subsidizing carbon capture and storage. A 2020 report (pdf) from the U.S. Treasury Department's inspector general found that fossil fuel companies improperly claimed nearly $1 billion in Q45 credits.
The International Emissions Trading Association—described by the report's authors as "perhaps the largest global lobbyist on market and offsets, both pillars of polluters 'net zero' climate plans"—has leveraged its considerable power to push its greenwashing agenda at international climate talks.
Major polluters have contributed generously to universities including the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Imperial College London in an effort to influence "net zero"-related research. At Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project, ExxonMobil retained the right to formally review research before completion and was allowed to place corporate staff members on development teams.

"The best, most proven approach to justly addressing the climate crisis is to significantly reduce emissions now in an equitable manner, bringing them close to Real Zero by 2030 at the latest," the report states, referring to a situation in which no carbon emissions are produced by a good or service without the use of offsets. "The cross-sectoral solutions we need already exist, are proven, and are scalable now... All that is missing is the political will to advance them, in spite of industry obstruction and deflection."

"To avoid social and planetary collapse, [leaders] must heed the calls of millions of people around the globe and pursue policies that justly, equitably transition our economies off of fossil fuels, and advance real solutions that prioritize life—now." —Report

"People around the globe have already made their demands clear," the report says. "Meaningful solutions that can be implemented now are already detailed in platforms like the People’s Demands for Climate Justice, the Liability Roadmap, the Energy Manifesto, and many other resources that encompass the wisdom of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis."

Sara Shaw, climate justice and energy program co-coordinator at Friends of the Earth International and one of the paper's authors, said "this report shows that 'net zero' plans from big polluters are nothing more than a big con. The reality is that corporations like Shell have no interest in genuinely acting to solve the climate crisis by reducing their emissions from fossil fuels. They instead plan to continue business as usual while greenwashing their image with tree planting and offsetting schemes that can never ever make up for digging up and burning fossil fuels."

"We must wake up fast to the fact that we are falling for a trick," Shaw added. "'Net zero' risks obscuring a lack of action until it is too late."

Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development—which endorsed the report—warned that "proclamations of 'net zero' targets are dangerous deceptions. 'Net zero' sounds ambitious and visionary but it actually allows big polluters and rich governments to continue emitting [greenhouse gases] which they claim will be erased through unproven and dangerous technologies, carbon trading, and offsets that shift the burden of climate action to the Global South."

"Big polluters and rich governments should not only reduce emissions to Real Zero, they must pay reparations for the huge climate debt owed to the Global South," added Nacpil.

In conclusion, the reports says world leaders must "listen to the people and once and for all prioritize people's lives and the planet over engines of profit and destruction."

"To avoid social and planetary collapse," it states, "they must heed the calls of millions of people around the globe and pursue policies that justly, equitably transition our economies off of fossil fuels, and advance real solutions that prioritize life—now."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Those Peddling Inflation Fears Should Not Be Heeded


Far from signaling the return of significant inflation, temporary price increases are exactly what one would expect in a recovery following an economic shutdown.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ

June 8, 2021 by Project Syndicate

President Joe Biden touts the American Rescue Plan and Paycheck Protection Program during a February 22, 2021 address at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Slight increases in the rate of inflation in the United States and Europe have triggered financial-market anxieties. Has US President Joe Biden's administration risked overheating the economy with its $1.9 trillion rescue package and plans for additional spending to invest in infrastructure, job creation, and bolstering American families?

Much of the current inflationary pressure stems from short-term supply-side bottlenecks, which are inevitable when restarting an economy that has been temporarily shut down.

Such concerns are premature, considering the deep uncertainty we still face. We have never before experienced a pandemic-induced downturn featuring a disproportionately steep service-sector recession, unprecedented increases in inequality, and soaring savings rates. No one even knows if or when Covid-19 will be contained in the advanced economies, let alone globally. While weighing the risks, we also must plan for all contingencies. In my view, the Biden administration has correctly determined that the risks of doing too little far outweigh the risks of doing too much.

Moreover, much of the current inflationary pressure stems from short-term supply-side bottlenecks, which are inevitable when restarting an economy that has been temporarily shut down. We don't lack the global capacity to build cars or semiconductors; but when all new cars use semiconductors, and demand for cars is mired in uncertainty (as it was during the pandemic), production of semiconductors will be curtailed. More broadly, coordinating all production inputs across a complex integrated global economy is an enormously difficult task that we usually take for granted because things work so well, and because most adjustments are "on the margin."

Now that the normal process has been interrupted, there will be hiccups, and these will translate into price increases for one product or the other. But there is no reason to believe that these movements will fuel inflation expectations and thus generate inflationary momentum, especially given the overall excess capacity around the world. It is worth remembering just how recently some of those who are now warning about inflation from excessive demand were talking about "secular stagnation" born of insufficient aggregate demand (even at a zero interest rate).

In a country with deep, longstanding inequalities that have been exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic, a tight labor market is just what the doctor ordered. When the demand for labor is strong, wages at the bottom rise and marginalized groups are brought into the labor market. Of course, the exact tightness of the current US labor market is a matter of some debate, given reports of labor shortages despite employment remaining markedly below its pre-crisis level.

Conservatives blame the situation on excessively generous unemployment insurance benefits. But econometric studies comparing labor supply across US states suggest that these kinds of labor-disincentive effects are limited. And in any case, the expanded unemployment benefits are set to end in the fall, even though the global economic effects of the virus will linger.

Rather than panicking about inflation, we should be worrying about what will happen to aggregate demand when the funds provided by fiscal relief packages dry up. Many of those at the bottom of the income and wealth distribution have accumulated large debts–including, in some cases, more than a year's worth of rent arrears, owing to temporary protections against eviction.

Reduced spending by indebted households is unlikely to be offset by those at the top, most of whom have accumulated savings during the pandemic. Given that spending on consumer durables remained robust during the past 16 months, it seems likely that the well-off will treat their additional savings as they would any other windfall: as something to be invested or spent slowly over the course of many years. Unless there is new public spending, the economy could once again suffer from insufficient aggregate demand.

Moreover, even if inflationary pressures were to become truly worrisome, we have tools to dampen demand (and using them would actually strengthen the economy's long-term prospects). For starters, there is the US Federal Reserve's interest-rate policy. The past decade-plus of near-zero interest rates has not been economically healthy. The scarcity value of capital is not zero. Low interest rates distort capital markets by triggering a search for yield that leads to excessively low risk premia. Returning to more normal interest rates would be a good thing (though the rich, who have been the primary beneficiaries of this era of super-low interest rates, may beg to differ).

To be sure, some commentators look at the Fed's balance-of-risk assessment and worry that it will not act when it needs to. But I think the Fed's pronouncements have been spot on, and I trust that its position will change if and when the evidence does. The instinct to fight inflation is embedded in central bankers' DNA. If they don't see inflation as the key problem currently facing the economy, neither should you.

The second tool is tax hikes. Ensuring the economy's long-run health requires much more public investment, which will have to be paid for. The US tax-to-GDP ratio is far too low, especially given America's huge inequalities. There is an urgent need for more progressive taxation, not to mention more environmental taxes to deal with the climate crisis. That said, it is perfectly understandable that there would be hesitancy to enact new taxes while the economy remains in a precarious state.

We should recognize the current "inflation debate" for what it is: a red herring that is being raised by those who would stymie the Biden administration's efforts to confront some of America's most fundamental problems. Success will require more public spending. The US is fortunate finally to have economic leadership that won't succumb to fearmongering.

© 2021 Project Syndicate

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University. His most recent book is "Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being" (2019). Among his many other books, he is the author of "The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future" (2013), "Globalization and Its Discontents" (2003), "Free Fall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy" (2010), and (with co-author Linda Bilmes) "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict" (2008). He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for research on the economics of information.

Arms Sales: What We Know About Bombs Being Dropped in Our Name

A Palestinian child was injured while playing near the door of his house after Israeli warplanes targeted him with a number of children in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, East of Gaza City. (Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun/Majority World /Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Arms Sales: What We Know About Bombs Being Dropped in Our Name

In this day and age where videos of U.S. allies committing war crimes are readily available on Twitter or Instagram, no one can claim that they don't know what U.S.-made weapons are used for around the world.

DANAKA KATOVICH

June 8, 2021

At some point before the summer of 2018, an arms deal from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia was sealed and delivered. A 227kg laser-guided bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of many thousands, was part of that sale. On August 9th, 2018 one of those Lockheed Martin bombs was dropped on a school bus full of Yemeni children. They were on their way to a field trip when their lives came to a sudden end. Amidst shock and grief, their loved ones would learn that Lockheed Martin was responsible for creating the bomb that murdered their children.


While Lockheed Martin profited from the death of forty Yemeni children that day, top United States weapons companies continue to sell weapons to repressive regimes around the world.

What they might not know is that the United States government (the President and the State Department) approved the sale of the bomb that killed their children, in the process enriching Lockheed Martin, which makes millions in profits from arms sales every year.

While Lockheed Martin profited from the death of forty Yemeni children that day, top United States weapons companies continue to sell weapons to repressive regimes around the world, killing countless more people in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and more. And in many cases, the United States public has no idea this is being done in our name to benefit the largest private companies in the world.

Now, the newest $735 million in precision-guided weapons that are being sold to Israel- are destined to have a similar fate. The news about this sale broke in the midst of Israel's most recent assault on Gaza that killed over 200 Palestinians. When Israel attacks Gaza, it does so with US-made bombs and warplanes.

If we condemn the abhorrent destruction of life that occurs when Saudi Arabia or Israel kills people with U.S.-manufactured weapons, what can we do about it?

Arms sales are confusing. Every once in a while a news story will break about a certain weapons sale from the United States to some other country across the globe that is worth millions, or even billions of dollars. And as Americans, we virtually have no say in where the bombs that say "MADE IN THE USA" go. By the time we hear about a sale, the export licenses are already approved and Boeing factories are churning out weapons we've never even heard of.

Even for people who consider themselves well informed about the military-industrial complex find themselves getting lost in the web of procedure and timing of weapons sales. There is a gross lack of transparency and information made available to the American peoples. Generally, here's how arms sales work:

There is a period of negotiation that takes place between a country that wants to buy weapons and either the U.S. government or a private company like Boeing or Lockheed Martin. After a deal is reached, the State Department is required by the Arms Export Control Act to notify Congress. After the notification is received by Congress, they have 15 or 30 days to introduce and pass a Resolution of Joint Disapproval to block the issuance of the export license. The amount of days depends on how close the United States is with the country buying the weapons.

For Israel, NATO countries, and a few others, Congress has 15 days to block the sale from going through. Anyone familiar with Congress's arduous way of doing things may realize that 15 days is not really enough time to carefully consider whether selling millions/billions of dollars in weapons is in the political interest of the United States.

What does this time frame mean for advocates against arms sales? It means that they have a tiny window of opportunity to reach out to members of Congress. Take the most recent and controversial $735 million Boeing sale to Israel as an example. The story broke only a few days before those 15 days were up. Here's how it happened:

On May 5, 2021 Congress was notified about the sale. However, since the sale was commercial (from Boeing to Israel) instead of government-to-government (from the United States to Israel), there is a greater lack of transparency because there are different procedures for commercial sales. Then on May 17, with only a few days left in the 15-day period Congress has to block a sale, the story of the sale broke. Responding to the sale on the last day of the 15 days, a joint resolution of disapproval was introduced in the House on May 20. The next day, Senator Sanders introduced his legislation to block the sale in the Senate, when the 15 days were up. The export license was already approved by the State Department that same day.

The legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Ocasio-Cortez to block the sale was virtually useless as time had run out.

However, all is not lost, as there are several ways a sale can still be stopped after the export license is granted. The State Department can revoke the license, the President can stop the sale, and Congress can introduce specific legislation to block the sale at any point up until the weapons are actually delivered. The last option has never been done before, but there is recent precedent to suggest that it might not be totally pointless to try.

Congress passed a bipartisan joint resolution of disapproval in 2019 to block an arms sale to the United Arab Emirates. Then President Donald Trump vetoed this resolution and Congress didn't have the votes to override it. However, this situation showed that both sides of the aisle can work together to block an arms sale.


Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act says that weapons sold by the United States cannot be used for human rights violations.

The convoluted and tedious ways arms sales go through raise two important questions. Should we even be selling weapons to these countries in the first place? And does there need to be a fundamental change in the procedure of selling weapons so that Americans can have more of a say?

According to our own law, the United States should not be sending weapons to countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia (among others). Technically, doing so goes against the Foreign Assistance Act, which is one of the main laws governing weapons sales.

Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act says that weapons sold by the United States cannot be used for human rights violations. When Saudi Arabia dropped that Lockheed Martin bomb on those Yemeni kids, no argument could be made for "legitimate self defense." When the primary target of Saudi airstrikes in Yemen are weddings, funerals, schools, and residential neighborhoods in Sanaa, the United States has no legitimate justification for their use of U.S. manufactured weapons. When Israel uses Boeing joint direct attack munitions to level residential buildings and international media sites, they are not doing so out of "legitimate self defense."

In this day and age where videos of U.S. allies committing war crimes are readily available on Twitter or Instagram, no one can claim that they don't know what US-made weapons are used for around the world.

As Americans, there are important steps to be taken. Are we willing to put our efforts into changing the procedure of arms sales to include more transparency and accountability? Are we willing to invoke our own laws? More importantly: are we willing to put our efforts into drastically changing our economy so that Yemeni and Palestinian parents who put every ounce of love into raising their children do not have to live in fear that their whole world could be taken in an instant? As it stands, our economy benefits from selling tools of destruction to other countries. That is something Americans must realize and ask if there is a better way to be a part of the world. The next steps for people who are concerned about this newest arms sale to Israel should be petitioning the State Department and asking their members of Congress to introduce legislation to block the sale. 

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

DANAKA KATOVICH is CODEPINK’s Yemen campaign director.