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Civil Society Actions Send Global Call for a Just Recovery
A week of actions from the 18th to the 26th September, including a new wave of global climate strikes are calling on world leaders at the UN assembly to #TurnItAround for a Just Recovery from COVID-19 and the climate crisis.
GLOBAL
A week of actions from the 18th to the 26th September, including a new wave of global climate strikes are calling on world leaders at the UN assembly to #TurnItAround for a Just Recovery from COVID-19 and the climate crisis.
Five years have passed since national governments signed historic international treaties and agreements - the Paris climate agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals and the broader 2030 Agenda to push for a more just and sustainable world. These inter-linked agendas promised to transform the world, to end poverty, to reduce inequality, ensure peace and address the climate crisis. So far, delivery has failed to live up to that ambition.
The covid-19 pandemic and subsequent health and economic crisis have thrown into stark relief the disparities and injustice between and within our societies. Access to affordable healthcare, education, employment opportunities, clean energy and nourishing food: it's on these key markers of human wellbeing that political choices need to be assessed. Instead, economic models rooted in extractivism and inequality have failed us and brought us as close as we've ever been to a constant state of disaster. The 2020 pandemic has united the world in grief; it must also mark a turning point in the way we humans relate to each other and to nature. We can't afford to wait another five years.
We stand today at a crossroads. We must take drastic action to cut emissions worldwide, protect people in the most affected areas, preserve our forests and oceans, safeguard communities and all forms of life on our beautiful planet. We must also address the underlying inequalities of our societies and ensure universal provision of the right to health and social protection for all, as well as long-term sustainable development, as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals.
This requires a political and cultural transformation of unprecedented scale and scope. This week, as world leaders meet at the UN General Assembly on the 5th anniversary of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), more than 800 community groups, NGOs and civil society organizations are mobilizing and calling on leaders to make this a turning point moment for a more just and sustainable world. On September 25th, a year after 7 million people took part in Global Climate Strikes, thousands of strikes will lift the voices of the people and areas most affected by the climate crisis and demand a just recovery for all.
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Quotes
"Fossil fuel companies announce net-zero plans, yet they plan to expand production, all the while getting public bailout money, our money. We've had enough: world leaders need to start treating the climate crisis with the same level of urgency as they have COVID-19 and kickstart a green and just recovery" Agnes Hall, Global Director of Digital Organising and Campaigning, 350.org
"Around the world, we have seen disproportionate impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic on those who are already most at risk, there must be rapid action if we are to truly leave no one behind. As we mark the 5th anniversary of the Sustainable Development Goals, our partners and allies around the world are mobilising and sharing stories of people who are at the frontline of this emergency but we expect world leaders to take urgent action now to build a fairer, more just and sustainable future." Oli Henman, Global Coordinator of Action for Sustainable Development
"The people's strike happening today around the globe is a reminder to world leaders, particularly of high-emitting rich countries, that their failure to take the climate emergency seriously is criminal and unforgivable. These past months, many governments have in fact used the Covid19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis to double down and increase spending of public money on fossil fuels even as climate disasters escalate. We will not have the COP26 meeting this year but this is no excuse to put climate ambition on the back-burner or delay the submission of enhanced national climate plans in line with a 1.5 degree C pathway, the bare minimum that was promised in the Paris Agreement five years ago. This unprecedented confluence of crises requires the highest levels of multilateral cooperation and international solidarity and we demand that governments listen to the people and protect their citizens." Tasneem Essop, Executive Director, Climate Action Network
We stand with everyone demanding a fairer world and a safer climate. In recent decades the richest 1% contributed twice the carbon emissions of the poorest half of humanity combined, yet it is poorer and young people that pay the highest price. Governments must ditch their obsession with grossly unequal, polluting growth at all costs, and start building a better world for us all." Tim Gore, Head of Climate Policy, Oxfam International
Governments must step up action to meet the test of Covid-19 and the climate emergency. With 495 million jobs lost and trillions of dollars in lost income in the past six months, the impact of the next climate disaster on top of the pandemic will be devastating. A New Social Contract with Just Transition plans can help the global economy recover while building the resilience required to meet the convergent challenges of the pandemic, climate change and inequality." Sharan Burrow, General Secretary International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
"The climate crisis is one of the biggest human rights issues of our time. Leaders must avoid pandemic-induced tunnel vision and commit to the long-term well-being of their people. COVID-19 has driven many to the very edge of their capacity to survive and tested our collective resilience. But it has also renewed our determination for a radically different future - a more just, equitable and sustainable world that is fit for our children and grandchildren." Ashfaq Khalfan, Director of Law and Policy, Amnesty International
"The climate crisis is an issue of the present, not just the future. World leaders have failed to act on the crisis. We, the people from the most affected areas are going to change the climate narrative and lead climate negotiations. We are going to lead a revolution that chooses people over profits!" Disha A Ravi, Fridays For Future, India
"In order to fight the covid19 pandemic, governments have taken strong and bold measures, pulling on the brakes, deciding on a long lockdown. We've stopped striking temporarily - but we know that the only way we can contain climate change is by our actions. That's why we are striking again today, and will keep on mobilizing in the future." Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, Fridays for Future Uganda
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
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Top Medical Organizations Warn RFK Jr. Putting American Kids 'At Grave and Immediate Risk'
"Truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary... he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies," stated a new lawsuit.
Jul 07, 2025
Six major medical organizations on Monday filed a lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alleging he is putting American children at "grave and immediate risk" because of his policy on vaccines.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Massachusetts Public Health Association, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine—charged that Kennedy earlier this year made a "baseless and uninformed policy decision" when he removed vaccinations against Covid-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) official immunization schedule for "healthy" children and pregnant women.
The organizations emphasized that unless Kennedy's decision is reversed, "all children remain at grave and immediate risk of contracting a preventable disease" and further warned that it "exposes... vulnerable populations to a serious disease with potentially irreversible long-term effects and, in some cases, death."
The plaintiffs further charged that Kennedy's directive removing the Covid-19 vaccines from the immunization schedule was "but one example of the secretary's agenda to dismantle the longstanding... science- and evidence-based vaccine infrastructure that has prevented the deaths of untold millions of Americans."
The complaint then documented Kennedy's long history of statements and articles that have peddled false claims about the safety of vaccinations and pointed to his mass dismissals of staff at HHS and his appointment of likeminded vaccine critics to argue that "it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."
Given this, the plaintiffs argued that Kennedy's decision to remove the Covid-19 vaccine from immunization schedules was "arbitrary and capricious" based on what they described as "vast and irrefutable evidence," including congressional testimony delivered by Kennedy in which he acknowledged that people shouldn't "be taking medical advice from me"; that Kennedy's directive directly contradicted an article published by the Food and Drug Administration days earlier stating that pregnancy was a condition that "increased a person's risk of severe Covid-19"; and that Kennedy did not identify specific recommendations from professional staff that he used as justification to restrict the availability of the vaccine.
Should courts find that Kennedy's decision was "arbitrary and capricious" as alleged by the plaintiffs, they would have the power to enjoin the policy under the Administrative Procedures Act, which was also employed recently to halt planned mass layoffs at HHS. The medical organizations urged courts to declare Kennedy's policy change "unlawful" and demanded "the restoration of the Covid vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children ages six months to 17 years" of age.
The medical organizations' lawsuit against Kennedy's vaccination policy comes at a time when infections of measles in the United States have hit a level not seen in more than three decades. The Washington Post, citing data from Johns Hopkins University, reported on Monday that there have been at least 1,277 confirmed cases of measles so far in the U.S. this year and the paper noted that this development "marks a public health reversal in defeating a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease as the anti-vaccine movement gains strength."
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"Not only is it necessary to impose a stronger burden of justice on billionaires, but more importantly, it is possible."
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Seven Nobel laureates on Monday published an op-ed advocating for "a minimum tax for the ultrarich, expressed as a percentage of their wealth," in the French newspaper Le Monde.
"They have never been so wealthy and yet contribute very little to the public coffers: From Bernard Arnault to Elon Musk, billionaires have significantly lower tax rates than the average taxpayer," wrote Daron Acemoglu, George Akerlof, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Simon Johnson, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz.
Citing pioneering research from the E.U. Tax Observatory, the renowned economists noted that "ultrawealthy individuals pay around 0% to 0.6% of their wealth in income tax. In a country like the United States, their effective tax rate is around 0.6%, while in a country like France, it is closer to 0.1%."
Although the "ultrawealthy can easily structure their wealth to avoid income tax, which is supposed to be the cornerstone of tax justice," the strategies for doing so differ by region, the experts detailed. Europeans often use family holding companies that are banned in the United States, "which explains why the wealthy are more heavily taxed there than in Europe—though some have still managed to find workarounds."
The good news is that "there is no inevitability here. Not only is it necessary to impose a stronger burden of justice on billionaires, but more importantly, it is possible," argued the economists, who say that taxing the overall wealth of the ultrarich, not just income, is the key.
The wealth tax approach, they wrote, "is effective because it targets all forms of tax optimization, whatever their nature. It is targeted, as it applies only to the wealthiest taxpayers, and only to those among them who engage in tax avoidance."
💡 "One of the most promising avenues is to introduce a minimum tax for the ultra-rich, expressed as a percentage of their wealth."Seven Nobel laureates in economics advocate for the Zucman tax in their latest op-ed.Read the full @lemonde.fr article 👇www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...
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— EU Tax Observatory (@taxobservatory.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 8:05 AM
The anticipated impact would be significant. As the op-ed highlights: "Globally, a 2% minimum tax on billionaire wealth would generate about $250 billion in tax revenue—from just 3,000 individuals. In Europe, around $50 billion could be raised. And by extending this minimum rate to individuals with wealth over $100 million, these sums would increase significantly."
That's according to a June 2024 report that French economist and E.U. Tax Observatory director Gabriel Zucman prepared for the Group of 20's Brazilian presidency—which was followed by G20 leaders' November commitment to taxing the rich and last month's related proposal from the governments of Brazil, South Africa, and Spain.
"The international movement is underway," the economists declared Monday, also pointing to recent developments on the "Zucman tax" in France. The French National Assembly voted in favor of a 2% minimum tax on wealth exceeding €100 million, or $117 million, in February—but the Senate rejected the measure last month.
The economists urged the European country to keep working at it, writing that "at a time of ballooning public deficits and exploding extreme wealth, the French government must seize the initiative approved by the National Assembly. There is no reason to wait for an international agreement to be finalized—on the contrary, France should lead by example, as it has done in the past," when it was the first country to introduce a value-added tax (VAT).
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The Trump administration, for the first time, had to defend its policy of deporting immigrants for their political views in court Monday.
A case filed by a group of professors will be heard in a Massachusetts federal court. The lawsuit challenges attempts by the Trump administration to arrest and remove foreign-born college students from the country based purely on their pro-Palestine speech.
Though hundreds of cases have been filed against the Trump administration since January, this is one of very few that has reached the trial phase.
The case was filed in March by Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP); AAUP's Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers campus chapters; and the Middle East Studies Association.
It is one of half a dozen other lawsuits filed following the arrest of Columbia graduate student and protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, who was abducted in the dead of night by plainclothes ICE officers and shipped to a detention center for nearly three months.
Khalil and several other students had their legal immigration status revoked not for having committed any crime, but because the Trump administration deemed their views at odds with the "foreign policy objective[s]" of the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the defendant in this case, has acknowledged stripping the legal status of hundreds of student protesters based on their speech.
"The policy chills noncitizens from speaking and, by extension, robs these organizations and their U.S. citizen members of noncitizens' perspectives on a matter of significant public debate," the Knight Institute said in a statement on behalf of the plaintiffs.
In a pre-trial brief, the group argued that this "ideological deportation policy" illegally discriminates against students and faculty based on their pro-Palestinian viewpoints.
"The First Amendment framework that applies is straightforward," the brief said. "If a regulation of speech discriminates based on content or viewpoint, then the regulation is 'presumptively unconstitutional' unless the government demonstrates that it is 'narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.'"
The plaintiffs argue that the intent behind the Trump administration's stripping of green cards and visas from legal holders was to punish speech they found disfavorable and to coerce others into silence.
"Noncitizen members of the AAUP have been chilled by these ideological deportations and forced to self-censor in a variety of different ways, and citizen members have been harmed as a result, because they have been deprived of the insights and engagement of their non-citizen students and colleagues," the brief said.
They cited examples of professors scrubbing their social media accounts to remove commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict, abandoning research on the Middle East that could prove too "nuanced" for the administration's liking, and even cancelling international travel for academic opportunities for fear of being disallowed entry back into the country.
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