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Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. speaks at COP26 on November 2, 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo: Adrian Dennis/Pool via Getty Images)
'You Might as Well Bomb Our Islands': Palau President Admonishes Big Emitters at COP26
"Leaders of the G20, we are drowning and our only hope is the life-ring you are holding," said Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island nation. "You must act now. We must act together."
Nov 02, 2021
On the third day of the COP26 climate conference, Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island nation of Palau, reprimanded the leaders of wealthy countries, telling the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters: "You might as well bomb our islands."
"We see the scorching sun is giving us intolerable heat, the warming sea is invading us, and the winds are blowing us every which way," Whipps said Tuesday. "Our resources are disappearing before our eyes and our future is being robbed from us."
"Frankly speaking," he continued, "there is no dignity to a slow and painful death--you might as well bomb our islands instead of making us suffer only to witness our slow and fateful demise."
The president's comments came two days after the World Meteorological Organization released new data showing that the most recent seven years, including 2021, are on track to be the seven hottest on record and that sea-level rise reached a new high this year.
Last month, the International Energy Agency reiterated its message that expanding fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5degC above preindustrial levels by the end of the century and that the production of clean energy must be scaled up immediately.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), meanwhile, said last month that the worldwide transition to renewable energy is far behind schedule--with fossil fuel use projected to increase this decade even as annual reductions in coal, oil, and gas production are necessary to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis.
If countries--starting with the rich polluters most responsible for exacerbating extreme weather--fail to rapidly and drastically slash greenhouse gas emissions, UNEP warned, the planet is on pace for a "catastrophic" 2.7degC of heating this century.
According to Whipps, there are similarities between the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency and a Palau legend in which a boy with a voracious appetite turns into a giant who "wouldn't stop growing."
"Due to his unruly appetite," Whipps told the summit audience, "the whole island community was forced to feed him... depleting all the natural resources."
When the giant boy attempted to eat them, the islanders "banded together, took bold action, and set fire to him," the president explained, describing the tale as "eerily reminiscent" of the present dilemma.
"Large emitters with their insatiable appetite for advancement are continuing to abuse our environment, threatening our very survival," said Whipps. "COP26 must light the fire."
Echoing recent criticisms of wealthy governments' inadequate and unfulfilled climate commitments, the president of Palau said that "devastated" island nations demand cooperative and transformative interventions, including a ramping up of green funding for developing countries--from the current pledge of $100 billion per year to the $4 trillion the World Bank says is necessary for mitigation and adaptation.
"Leaders of the G20, we are drowning and our only hope is the life-ring you are holding," he added. "You must act now, we must act together."
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On the third day of the COP26 climate conference, Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island nation of Palau, reprimanded the leaders of wealthy countries, telling the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters: "You might as well bomb our islands."
"We see the scorching sun is giving us intolerable heat, the warming sea is invading us, and the winds are blowing us every which way," Whipps said Tuesday. "Our resources are disappearing before our eyes and our future is being robbed from us."
"Frankly speaking," he continued, "there is no dignity to a slow and painful death--you might as well bomb our islands instead of making us suffer only to witness our slow and fateful demise."
The president's comments came two days after the World Meteorological Organization released new data showing that the most recent seven years, including 2021, are on track to be the seven hottest on record and that sea-level rise reached a new high this year.
Last month, the International Energy Agency reiterated its message that expanding fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5degC above preindustrial levels by the end of the century and that the production of clean energy must be scaled up immediately.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), meanwhile, said last month that the worldwide transition to renewable energy is far behind schedule--with fossil fuel use projected to increase this decade even as annual reductions in coal, oil, and gas production are necessary to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis.
If countries--starting with the rich polluters most responsible for exacerbating extreme weather--fail to rapidly and drastically slash greenhouse gas emissions, UNEP warned, the planet is on pace for a "catastrophic" 2.7degC of heating this century.
According to Whipps, there are similarities between the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency and a Palau legend in which a boy with a voracious appetite turns into a giant who "wouldn't stop growing."
"Due to his unruly appetite," Whipps told the summit audience, "the whole island community was forced to feed him... depleting all the natural resources."
When the giant boy attempted to eat them, the islanders "banded together, took bold action, and set fire to him," the president explained, describing the tale as "eerily reminiscent" of the present dilemma.
"Large emitters with their insatiable appetite for advancement are continuing to abuse our environment, threatening our very survival," said Whipps. "COP26 must light the fire."
Echoing recent criticisms of wealthy governments' inadequate and unfulfilled climate commitments, the president of Palau said that "devastated" island nations demand cooperative and transformative interventions, including a ramping up of green funding for developing countries--from the current pledge of $100 billion per year to the $4 trillion the World Bank says is necessary for mitigation and adaptation.
"Leaders of the G20, we are drowning and our only hope is the life-ring you are holding," he added. "You must act now, we must act together."
Kenny Stancil
Kenny Stancil is senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project and a former staff writer for Common Dreams.
On the third day of the COP26 climate conference, Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island nation of Palau, reprimanded the leaders of wealthy countries, telling the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters: "You might as well bomb our islands."
"We see the scorching sun is giving us intolerable heat, the warming sea is invading us, and the winds are blowing us every which way," Whipps said Tuesday. "Our resources are disappearing before our eyes and our future is being robbed from us."
"Frankly speaking," he continued, "there is no dignity to a slow and painful death--you might as well bomb our islands instead of making us suffer only to witness our slow and fateful demise."
The president's comments came two days after the World Meteorological Organization released new data showing that the most recent seven years, including 2021, are on track to be the seven hottest on record and that sea-level rise reached a new high this year.
Last month, the International Energy Agency reiterated its message that expanding fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5degC above preindustrial levels by the end of the century and that the production of clean energy must be scaled up immediately.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), meanwhile, said last month that the worldwide transition to renewable energy is far behind schedule--with fossil fuel use projected to increase this decade even as annual reductions in coal, oil, and gas production are necessary to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis.
If countries--starting with the rich polluters most responsible for exacerbating extreme weather--fail to rapidly and drastically slash greenhouse gas emissions, UNEP warned, the planet is on pace for a "catastrophic" 2.7degC of heating this century.
According to Whipps, there are similarities between the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency and a Palau legend in which a boy with a voracious appetite turns into a giant who "wouldn't stop growing."
"Due to his unruly appetite," Whipps told the summit audience, "the whole island community was forced to feed him... depleting all the natural resources."
When the giant boy attempted to eat them, the islanders "banded together, took bold action, and set fire to him," the president explained, describing the tale as "eerily reminiscent" of the present dilemma.
"Large emitters with their insatiable appetite for advancement are continuing to abuse our environment, threatening our very survival," said Whipps. "COP26 must light the fire."
Echoing recent criticisms of wealthy governments' inadequate and unfulfilled climate commitments, the president of Palau said that "devastated" island nations demand cooperative and transformative interventions, including a ramping up of green funding for developing countries--from the current pledge of $100 billion per year to the $4 trillion the World Bank says is necessary for mitigation and adaptation.
"Leaders of the G20, we are drowning and our only hope is the life-ring you are holding," he added. "You must act now, we must act together."
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LATEST NEWS
Omar, Ramirez Among First in Congress to Decry 'Unconstitutional' Trump Strike on Boat
"They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law," the Minnesota progressive said of the Trump administration.
Sep 04, 2025
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Delia Ramirez on Thursday strongly condemned the Trump administration's deadly attack on a boat allegedly trafficking cocaine off the coast of Venezuela as "lawless and reckless," while urging the White House to respect lawmakers' "clear constitutional authority on matters of war and peace."
"Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organization does not give any president carte blanche," said Omar (D-Minn.), referring to President Donald Trump's day one executive order designating drug cartels including the Venezuela-based group as foreign terrorist organizations.
Trump—who reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat cartels abroad—said that Tuesday's US strike in international waters killed 11 people. The attack sparked fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US interventions over the past 200 years, and against a country that has suffered US meddling since the late 19th century.
"It appears that US forces that were recently sent to the region in an escalatory and provocative manner were under no threat from the boat they attacked," Omar cotended. "There is no conceivable legal justification for this use of force. Unless compelling evidence emerges that they were acting in self-defense, that makes the strike a clear violation of international law."
Omar continued:
They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law. The US posture towards the eradication of drugs has caused immeasurable damage across our hemisphere. It has led to massive forced displacement, environmental devastation, violence, and human rights violations. What it has not done is any damage whatsoever to narcotrafficking or to the cartels. It has been a dramatic, profound failure at every level. In Latin America, even right-wing presidents acknowledge this is true.
The congresswoman's remarks came on the same day that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated a pair of Ecuadorean drug gangs as terrorist organizations while visiting the South American nation. This, after Rubio said that US attacks on suspected drug traffickers "will happen again."
"Trump and Rubio's apparent solution" to the failed drug war, said Omar, is "to make it even more militarized," an effort that "is doomed to fail."
"Worse, it risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes," she added.
Echoing critics including former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, who called Tuesday's strike a "summary execution," Ramirez (D-Ill.) said Thursday on social media that "Trump and the Pentagon executed 11 people in the Caribbean, 1,500 miles away from the United States, without a legal rationale."
"From Iran to Venezuela, to DC, LA, and Chicago, Trump continues to abuse our military power, undermine the rule of law, and erode our constitutional boundaries in political spectacles," Ramirez added, referring to the president's ordering of strikes on Iran and National Guard deployments to Los Angeles, the nation's capital, and likely beyond.
"Presidents don't bomb first and ask questions later," Ramirez added. "Wannabe dictators do that."
'Cruelty': US Appeals Court Blocks Order to Shut Down Alligator Alcatraz
"The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening!" said Florida Immigrant Coalition's deputy director.
Sep 04, 2025
Two judges appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit by President Donald Trump issued a Thursday decision that allows a newly established but already notorious immigrant detention center in Florida, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, to stay open.
Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida sought "to halt the unlawful construction" of the site. Last month, Judge Kathleen Williams—appointed by former President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida—ordered the closure of the facility within 60 days.
However, on Thursday, Circuit Judges Elizabeth Branch and Barbara Lagoa blocked Williams' decision, concluding that "the balance of the harms and our consideration of the public interest favor a stay of the preliminary injunction."
Judge Adalberto Jordan, an Obama appointee, issued a brief but scathing dissent. He wrote that the majority "essentially ignores the burden borne by the defendants, pays only lip service to the abuse of discretion standard, engages in its own factfinding, declines to consider the district court's determination on irreparable harm, and performs its own balancing of the equities."
The 11th Circuit's ruling was cheered by the US Department of Homeland Security, Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who declared in a video that "Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we've always said, open for business."
Uthmeier's communications director, Jeremy Redfern, collected responses to the initial ruling by state and federal Democrats, and urged them to weigh in on social media. Florida state Sen. Shevrin "Shev" Jones (D-34) did, stressing that "cruelty is still cruelty."
In a Thursday statement, Florida Immigrant Coalition deputy director Renata Bozzetto said that "the 11th Circuit is allowing atrocities to happen by reversing the injunction that helped to paralyze something that has been functioning as an extrajudicial site in our own state! The Everglades Detention Camp isn't just an environmental threat; it is also a huge human rights crisis."
"Housing thousands of men in tents in the middle of a fragile ecosystem puts immense strain on Florida's source environment, but even more troublesome, it disregards human rights and our constitutional commitments," Bozzetto continued. "This is a place where hundreds of our neighbors were illegally held, were made invisible within government systems, and were subjected to inhumane heat and unbearable treatment. The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening! The only just solution is to shut this facility down and ensure that no facility like this opens in our state!"
"Lastly, it is imperative that we as a nation uphold the balance of powers that this country was founded on," she added. "That is what makes this country special! Calling judges who rule against you 'activists' flies in the face of our democracy. It is a huge tell that AG Uthmeier expressed this as a 'win for President Trump's agenda,' as if the courts were to serve as political weapons. This demonstrates the clear partisan games they are playing with people's lives and with our democracy."
While Alligator Alcatraz has drawn widespread criticism for the conditions in which detainees are held, the suit is based on the government's failure to follow a law that requires an environmental review, given the facility's proximity to surrounding wetlands.
In response to the ruling, Elise Bennett, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Associated Press that "this is a heartbreaking blow to America's Everglades and every living creature there, but the case isn't even close to over."
Healthcare Giants Have Raked in 'Sick Profits' From Trump Tax Cuts While Stiffing Patients: Report
The report found that seven of America's biggest healthcare companies have collectively dodged $34 billion in taxes as a result of Trump's 2017 tax law while making patient care worse.
Sep 04, 2025
President Donald Trump's tax policies have allowed the healthcare industry to rake in "sick profits" by avoiding tens of billions of dollars in taxes and lowering the quality of care for patients, according to a report out Wednesday.
The report, by the advocacy groups Americans for Tax Fairness and Community Catalyst, found that "seven of America's biggest healthcare corporations have dodged over $34 billion in collective taxes since the enactment of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law that Republicans recently succeeded in extending."
The study examined four health insurance companies—Centene, Cigna, Elevance (formerly Anthem), and Humana; two for-profit hospital chains—HCA Holdings and Universal Health Services; and the CVS Healthcare pharmacy conglomerate.
It found that these companies' average profits increased by 75%, from around $21 billion before the tax bill to about $35 billion afterward, and yet their federal tax rate was about the same.
This was primarily due to the 2017 law's slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, a change that was cheered on by the healthcare industry and continued with this year's GOP tax legislation. The legislation also loosened many tax loopholes and made it easier to move profits to offshore tax shelters.
The report found that Cigna, for instance, saved an estimated $181 million in taxes on the $2.5 billion it held in offshore accounts before the law took effect.
The law's supporters, including those in the healthcare industry, argued that lowering corporate taxes would allow companies to increase wages and provide better services to patients. But the report found that "healthcare corporations failed to use their tax savings to lower costs for customers or meaningfully boost worker pay."
Instead, they used those windfalls primarily to increase shareholder payouts through stock buybacks and dividends and to give fat bonuses to their top executives.
Stock buybacks increased by 42% after the law passed, with Centene purchasing an astonishing average of 20 times more of its own shares in the years following its enactment than in the years before. During the first seven years of the law, dividends for shareholders increased by 133% to an average of $5.6 billion.
Pay for the seven companies' half-dozen top executives increased by a combined $100 million, 42%, on average. This is compared to the $14,000 pay increase that the average employee at these companies received over the same period, which is a much more modest increase of 24%.
And contrary to claims that lower taxes would allow companies to improve coverage or patient care, the opposite has occurred.
While data is scarce, the rate of denied insurance claims is believed to have risen since the law went into effect.
The four major insurers' Medicare Advantage plans were found to frequently deny claims improperly. In the case of Centene, 93% of its denials for prior authorizations were overturned once patients appealed them, which indicates that they may have been improper. The others were not much better: 86% of Cigna's denials were overturned, along with 71% for Elevance/Anthem, and 65% for Humana.
The report said that such high rates of denials being overturned raise "questions about whether Medicare Advantage plans are complying with their coverage obligations or just reflexively saying 'no' in the hopes there will be no appeal."
Salespeople for the Cigna-owned company EviCore, which insurers hire to review claims, have even boasted that they help companies reduce their costs by increasing denials by 15%, part of a model that ProPublica has called the "denials for dollars business." Their investigation in 2024 found that insurers have used EviCore to evaluate whether to pay for coverage for over 100 million people.
And while paying tens of millions to their executives, both HCA and Universal Health Services—which each saved around $5.5 billion from Trump's tax law—have been repeatedly accused of overbilling patients while treating them in horrendous conditions.
"Congress should demand both more in tax revenue and better patient care from these highly profitable corporations," Americans for Tax Fairness said in a statement. "Healthcare corporation profitability should not come before quality of patient care. In healthcare, more than almost any other industry, the search for ever higher earnings threatens the wellbeing and lives of the American people."
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