May, 05 2021, 12:00am EDT
Sanders Statement on Biden Backing COVID-19 Vaccine Waiver
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday issued the following statement after the Biden Administration announced it supports efforts to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines:
WASHINGTON
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday issued the following statement after the Biden Administration announced it supports efforts to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines:
"I applaud President Biden and his administration for taking this bold step in response to the world's most urgent crisis. Our vaccination efforts here at home will only be successful if vaccination efforts in the developing world happen simultaneously. Supporting this waiver, and putting people over profits, will help us to do that by speeding up the production and availability of vaccines. This is exactly the kind of leadership the world needs right now.
"I also recognize the dedicated work done by activists in communities around the world to put this issue on the global agenda. We are all in this together."
Sen. Sanders last month led a letter to President Biden calling for the administration to back the waiver effort.
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COP28 on 'Verge of Complete Failure' as Draft Omits Fossil Fuel Phaseout
"Nations committed to climate action must reject this weakened proposal," said one campaigner.
Dec 11, 2023
The most recent draft text of the agreement world leaders are hoping to reach by the end of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on December 12 does not include any mention of a phaseout of fossil fuels.
Instead, the document released Monday calls for "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science."
"COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure," former U.S. Vice President Al Gore tweeted in response to the release. "The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word. It is even worse than many had feared. It is 'Of the Petrostates, by the Petrostates, and for the Petrostates.'"
"How do we go home and tell our people that this is what the world has to say about our futures?"
An agreement to phase out fossil fuels at COP28 has been a major demand of civil society groups and influential delegations including the European Union and nations especially vulnerable to the climate crisis, according to Reuters. The call comes as nations' current pledges under the Paris agreement put the world on a path for 2.9°C of warming, even as 2023 is almost certain to be the hottest year on record.
Yet there were concerns leading into the U.N. talks that the influence of the fossil fuel industry would undermine an ambitious outcome. COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber is also the CEO of the United Arab Emirates' national oil company, and reports emerged that he had used talks surrounding COP28 to push oil and gas deals.
The latest language on fossil fuels comes in the text of the Global Stocktake, a mechanism by which parties to the Paris agreement assess their progress and set new goals. It is one bullet in a list of actions that the draft says nations "could include" in the path to "deep, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."
Other actions in the list include
- Tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling efficiency by 2030;
- Quickly "phasing down unabated coal";
- Achieving a "net-zero energy system" as soon as possible;
- Curbing greenhouse gases beyond carbon dioxide such as methane; and
- Ending "inefficient fossil fuel subsidies."
"The COP28 draft text resembles a disjointed wish list, far from the stringent measures required to limit warming to 1.5°C," Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, said in a statement. "The presidency, displaying a troubling lack of leadership, has notably weakened commitments to phasing out fossil fuels and promoting renewables."
Sieber also criticized the lack of urgency in the text's overall language.
"By framing actions as 'could' instead of 'shall,' and with weak language on short-term declines and renewable targets, this draft falls short. Nations committed to climate action must reject this weakened proposal, insisting on transformative changes for a meaningful impact on global warming."
The Alliance of Small Island States, meanwhile, told the Financial Times that the "weak language on fossil fuels was completely insufficient."
Joseph Sikulu, Pacific managing director of 350.org, added, "This week we felt that the goal of phasing out fossil fuels was within reach, but the lack of climate leadership shown by the presidency and the blatant watering down of commitments to a 'wish list' is an insult to those of us that came here to fight for our survival. How do we go home and tell our people that this is what the world has to say about our futures?"
Environmental Defense associate director of national change Julia Levin called the draft text "unacceptable," while Jean Su from the Center for Biological DiversitytoldThe Associated Press that it "moves disastrously backward from original language offering a phaseout of fossil fuels."
"If this race-to-the-bottom monstrosity gets enshrined as the final word, this crucial COP will be a failure," Su said.
Climate campaigners are also concerned that the text opens the doorway to untested technological solutions like carbon capture and storage that can be used to extend the burning of fossil fuels.
"The word 'phaseout' has been phased out."
"It's incredibly dangerous for the fossil fuel industry and its enablers in government to promote the idea that they can keep burning fossil fuels while pulling carbon out of the air or out of the smokestacks with technologies that consistently fail to deliver," Collin Rees, the U.S. program manager at Oil Change International, toldNew York Times opinion writer Peter Coy before the latest draft was released.
Despite these warnings, one of the suggested actions in the text is "accelerating zero and low emissions technologies, including, inter alia, renewables, nuclear, abatement, and removal technologies, including such as carbon capture and utilization and storage, and low carbon hydrogen production, so as to enhance efforts towards substitution of unabated fossil fuels in energy systems."
"Like the smog-ridden Dubai skyline, the mention of fossil fuels in the final outcome is at best murky, and at worst, dangerous," Cansin Leylim, 350.org associate director of global campaigns, said in a statement. "This outcome leaves the doors wide open to dangerous distractions and false technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS), which will surely blow us past the 1.5°C planetary limit, and fails to integrate the crucial finance and equitability aspects of the just transition to renewable energy that we need."
Activists are still hoping to strengthen the language before negotiations conclude Tuesday.
"The word 'phaseout' has been phased out," Li Shuo, director of the Asia Society Policy Institute, told AP. "We need to phase in the word phaseout. I think there's still a chance for countries to do so."
Peri Dias, 350.org Latin America representative at COP28, said: "In the coming hours, we will either witness a historic decision for the good of the planet, or one for its end. Are the parties at COP28 going to agree to a rapid and fair elimination of fossil fuels or not?"
Gore concluded: "There are 24 hours left to show whose side the world is on: the side that wants to protect humanity's future by kickstarting the orderly phase out of fossil fuels or the side of the petrostates and the leaders of the oil and gas companies that are fueling the historic climate catastrophe."
"In order to prevent COP28 from being the most embarrassing and dismal failure in 28 years of international climate negotiations, the final text must include clear language on phasing out fossil fuels," he said. "Anything else is a massive step backwards from where the world needs to be to truly address the climate crisis and make sure the 1.5°C goal doesn't die in Dubai."
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Israeli Academics Join Call for US to End 'Unconditional Support' for Gaza Assault
"I signed this statement because I believed until October 7th that harming the innocent is a crime, and I believe it even more today," said one Israeli history teacher.
Dec 11, 2023
Hundreds of academics, including faculty members from at least five Israeli universities, released an open letter Monday calling on the Biden administration to end its no-strings-attached support for Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.
The letter—also signed by artists, writers, and others—was made public after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have killed more than 17,000 people in just over two months.
"We denounce the October 7 attacks," reads the letter, which as of this writing has 720 signatories. "At the same time, 75 years of displacement, 56 years of occupation, and 16 years of blockade have generated an ever-worsening spiral of violence that can only be stopped with a political solution."
"Israel's continued apartheid in the West Bank, administrative detention (jail without trial) of 2000 civilians, and daily terrorizing of Palestinians by armed settlers, are causing an escalation of violence," the letter adds. "This historic injustice continues unchecked because the U.S. allows Israel to flout binding U.N. Security Council resolutions. We call on the U.S. to stop its unconditional support of Israel's assault on Gaza and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law. Ideas for a political resolution abound; they require political will."
Organizers of the letter said its signatories include scholars from 62 cities—including Tel Aviv—across 14 countries. Mordehai Amihai-Bivas, Israel's former ambassador to Barbados, is among the signers, as is Meir Baruchin, an Israeli history teacher who was arrested last month over social media posts criticizing the killing of Gaza civilians.
"I signed this statement because I believed until October 7th that harming the innocent is a crime, and I believe it even more today," Baruchin said in a statement Monday. "I believed that all human beings have the right to live in security, justice, and peace, and I believe that even more today."
The letter comes as Gaza's population of roughly 2.3 million people is facing dire humanitarian conditions—including widespread hunger, the lack of uncontaminated water, and the spread of infectious diseases—as well as near-constant bombing by Israeli forces, which have received thousands of bombs and other weaponry from the U.S.
The letter calls on the Biden administration—which has thus far rebuffed efforts to secure a sustained end to the bombing or attach conditions to its military assistance—to "lead the way in negotiating an immediate and lasting cease-fire, implementing a hostage-prisoner exchange, and supplying urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza."
Lior Sternfeld, a leading scholar of history and Jewish studies at Pennsylvania State University and the spokesperson for the group behind the new letter, said that "as an Israeli historian studying the modern Middle East and seeing the rapid deterioration of humanity in front of our eyes, I know that the unbearable toll of death will impact the lives of Palestinians and Israelis for generations to come."
"The only way to minimize damage and restore hope is to demand a cease-fire now and the unconditional release of all the hostages," said Sternfeld. "We must find a path to a peaceful Israel/Palestine."
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West Bank General Strike Kicks Off Global Protest Against Israel's War on Gaza
Work stoppages were also held in Jordan, Lebanon, and elsewhere to demand an end to the Israeli onslaught.
Dec 11, 2023
Streets were empty and shops were closed across the West Bank on Monday as people in the occupied territory held a general strike to protest Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, part of a broader day of action that included work stoppages in Lebanon, Jordan, and elsewhere around the world.
Since Israel's latest war on Gaza began following a deadly Hamas-led attack in early October, violence by settlers and occupying forces in the West Bank has surged, making 2023 the deadliest year in the Palestinian territory in nearly two decades. According to the humanitarian group Save the Children, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed more than 100 kids in the West Bank so far this year—three times the number killed in 2022.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have killed more than 7,000 children in less than two months, and more than a million kids are currently at grave risk as Israel expands its ground operation to include areas of southern Gaza that were previously seen as relative safe havens.
"The situation is extremely difficult," Hussein al-Sayyed, who is staying with relatives in the southern city of Khan Younis after fleeing Gaza City earlier in the war, toldThe Associated Press. "I have children and I don't know where to go. No place is safe."
The West Bank's general strike kicked off what's expected to be an international day of strikes and other protests around the world demanding an end to Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Amman-based Roya Newsreported that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in Jordan took part in the protests, "closing all its facilities, including its schools, and urging all employees and students to stay at home."
The protests come days after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. The move drew immediate and widespread backlash from humanitarian groups and lawmakers around the world, including some in U.S. President Joe Biden's party.
"Shameful," Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote Sunday in response to the veto. "The Biden admin can no longer reconcile their professed concern for Palestinians and human rights while also singlehandedly vetoing the U.N.'s call for a cease-fire and sidestepping the entire U.S. Congress to unconditionally back the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza."
Muwafaq Sahwil, secretary of the Palestinian political party Fatah in Ramallah and el-Bireh, toldAl Jazeera that Monday's strikes are "a message to the U.S. administration that stands against the aspirations of our people."
"It is also a message from people around the world to their politicians and the international community to stand up for the Palestinian people who have been suffering from occupation for 75 years," said Sahwil. "We hope the strike will push the international community to help stop the war and to respond to Palestinians' aspirations to achieve self-determination."
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