September, 23 2021, 07:44am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Markeya Thomas, markeya@wecaninternational.org
Katherine Quaid, katherine@wecaninternational.
Global Women's Climate Assembly for Climate Justice Kicks off this Saturday with an Urgent Call to Action Leading up to COP26
Today, in the lead up to the 'Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice,' a six-day virtual forum organized by the Women's Earth & Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, organizers are delivering a detailed Call to Action for climate justice to governments and financial institutions worldwide.
WASHINGTON
Today, in the lead up to the 'Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice,' a six-day virtual forum organized by the Women's Earth & Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, organizers are delivering a detailed Call to Action for climate justice to governments and financial institutions worldwide. The Call to Action is signed by over 120 organizations representing millions of people globally, and is being delivered during the UN General Assembly-- and will also be presented at COP26. As climate disasters worsen everyday, climate movements around the world are increasing the pressure on governments and financial institutions to take immediate climate action.
The 'Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature,' starts on Saturday, September 25, and comprises 20 gender-inclusive sessions over six days featuring 100 climate leaders from 40 countries.
The Assembly is designed for people to come together and demonstrate what equitable and effective climate action looks like, while building momentum for the crucial United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP26 in November in Glasgow. Event organizers have also released a collection of frameworks and initiatives as recommendations for governments and financial institutions in the run-up to the COP as a complement to the Call to Action.
Assembly Convener and Founder of WECAN, Osprey Orielle Lake says, "We are at a choice point for humanity. The most recent IPCC report confirms what we already knew to be true--with no significant action, the climate crisis will continue to escalate quickly. Every day, we can see for ourselves forest fires burning, massive flooding, extreme droughts, people losing their livelihoods and lives-- we are in a global climate emergency. As the world prepares for one of the most important climate talks since the Paris Agreement, we know solutions exist to mitigate the worst impacts, and that women are leading the way."
The Assembly brings together grassroots, Indigenous, Black, Brown, and frontline women and gender-diverse leaders, global advocates, and policy-makers in solidarity to speak out against environmental and social injustice, draw attention to root causes of multiple interlocking crises, and present the diverse array of visions, projects, policy frameworks and strategies with which they are working to shape a healthy and equitable world.
Attendees will hear from the following leaders, and the full list of speakers can be found here:
Hilda Heine, Former President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Marshall Islands
Sonia Bone Guajajara (Guajajara), Executive Coordinator, Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), Brazil
Dr. Jane Goodall, Scientist, Conservationist, and Humanitarian, UK
Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca Nation), Environmental Ambassador, WECAN Board Member, USA
Ruth Nyambura, Kenyan Activist, African Ecofeminist Collective, Kenya
Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland, Ireland
Naomi Klein, Award-winning Journalist and New York Times Bestselling Author, Canada
Helena Gualinga (Kichwa), Climate and Indigenous Rights Youth Activist, Sarayaku, Ecuador
Colette Pichon Battle, Executive Director, Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, USA
Mitzi Jonelle Tan, Convenor and International Spokesperson, Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP), The Philippines
Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate, Co-founder, the Nobel Women's Initiative, USA
Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, USA
Please find quotes from Assembly presenters here.
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a solutions-based organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, direct action, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.
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In Wake of Killing, UnitedHealth CEO Admits 'No One Would Design a System Like the One We Have'
One critic said UnitedHealth Group chief executive Andrew Witty should "resign and then dedicate every dollar he has to dismantling the current system brick by brick and building one based on public health in its stead."
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UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty wrote in a New York Times op-ed Friday that the for-profit U.S. healthcare system "does not work as well as it should" and that "no one would design a system like the one we have," admissions that came as his industry faced a torrent of public anger following the murder of UnitedHealthcare's chief executive.
Witty declared that his firm, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare and the nation's largest private insurer, is "willing to partner with anyone, as we always have—healthcare providers, employers, patients, pharmaceutical companies, governments, and others—to find ways to deliver high-quality care and lower costs."
But critics didn't buy Witty's expressed commitment to reforming an industry that his company has helped shape and profited from massively. Witty was the highest-paid healthcare executive in the U.S. last year, and 40% of the private insurance industry's total profit since the passage of the Affordable Care Act has flowed to UnitedHealth Group.
"It is (barely) true that UnitedHealth didn't design the U.S. system of corporate insurance, which kills tens of thousands of people a year through denial of care," Alex Lawson, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams. "But they certainly have perfected it and turned it into a medical murder apparatus at industrial scale. They not only block all attempts to change the system in the direction of public health, they bribe and bully with their billions in blood money to make it even crueler."
"Andrew Witty is the high priest of the temple to Moloch and Mammon, murder and money," Lawson added. "And there is no way for him to wash his hands of it, except perhaps to resign and then dedicate every dollar he has to dismantling the current system brick by brick and building one based on public health in its stead."
"Medicare for All is the only proposal on the table capable of delivering universal, continuous coverage for everyone, while also securing the efficiency and savings only possible through the elimination of private insurance."
While publicly pledging to cooperate with reform efforts, Witty has defended his company's care denials in private and urged his employees not to engage with media outlets in the aftermath of Thompson's murder.
Contrary to Witty's depiction of his company in his Times op-ed, UnitedHealth has historically been an aggressive opponent of reform efforts aimed at mitigating the harms of for-profit insurance and building public alternatives. The Leverreported in 2021 that UnitedHealth Group "held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option."
At the national level, UnitedHealth has spent over $5.8 million this year lobbying the federal government, according to OpenSecrets.
Witty, who was born in a country with a public healthcare system, did not detail the kinds of reforms he would support in his op-ed Friday, but it's clear he would oppose a transition to a single-payer system such as Medicare for All, which would effectively abolish private health insurance and provide coverage to all Americans for free at the point of service—and at a lower total cost than the status quo.
In a column for The Nation on Friday, writer Natalie Shure argued that "the appalling amount of resources and energy we put into maintaining the existence of health insurance is wasted on an industry with no social value whatsoever."
"You could eliminate every one of these corporations tomorrow and build a system without them that works better, for less money, and with less hassle," Shure wrote. "Other countries already have systems like this. Medicare for All is the only proposal on the table capable of delivering universal, continuous coverage for everyone, while also securing the efficiency and savings only possible through the elimination of private insurance."
"None of that means that murder is justified or useful," Shure added. "But anger can be. Some politicians, from Bernie Sanders, to Elizabeth Warren, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have begun to make public statements ascribing the reaction to Brian Thompson's murder to widespread fury over the health insurance industry. The next step is to harness it, and to build something new."
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The children of the richest families in the U.S. are well-known for spending their vast wealth on frivolous luxuries—constructing a replica of a medieval church on their acres of property, in the case of banking heir Timothy Mellon, or starting a brand of T-shirts described by one critic as "terrible beyond your wildest imagination," as Wyatt Koch, nephew of Republican megadonors Charles and David, did.
But a report released by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) on Thursday shows how "billionaire nepo babies" don't just waste their families' fortunes. They also benefit from "a rigged system" that allows them to "pass that wealth down over generations without being properly taxed–often without being taxed at all."
In addition, the heirs of the country's biggest fortunes spend vast sums "to elect politicians who protect their unearned wealth and manipulate the country's economy in their favor," said ATF.
Along with Mellon and Koch, the report profiles Samuel Logan of the Scripps media dynasty; Nicola Peltz-Beckham, daughter of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz; Gabrielle Rubenstein, whose family has made its fortune in private equity; and President-elect Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump.
The nepo babies are part of a small group of billionaire families in the U.S. who benefit from tax loopholes that ensure little of their immense wealth ever goes to benefit the public good.
At least 90 billionaires have passed away over the last decade, leaving their beneficiaries $455 billion in collective wealth.
But according to ATF, "$255 billion (56%) of that amount was likely entirely exempt from the capital gains tax because of a special break called 'stepped up basis.'"
"Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations."
Without loopholes included the stepped up basis tax cut, the current estate tax on billionaires and centimillionaires would yield enough revenue to fund universal childcare, preschool, and paid family leave for U.S. workers, with hundreds of billions of dollars left over, according to ATF's report.
The wealthy heirs profiled in the report and their families are some of the Republican Party's top donors—contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates including Trump in the hopes of securing even more tax cuts.
Mellon, for example, is Trump's "biggest supporter, giving $140 million to a pro-Trump PAC in 2024 alone," reads the report.
A previous analysis by ATF found that as of late October, just 150 billionaire families had spent $1.9 billion on the 2024 elections.
As the Center for American Progress found earlier this year, Trump's plan to extend the tax cuts that he pushed through in 2017 would cost $4 trillion over the next decade.
"The vast wealth inherited by centuries-old billionaire families is staggering. While these heirs and their billions go undertaxed, enormous sums are squandered on lavish mansions, private jets, and vanity projects instead of funding crucial public investments," said ATF executive director David Kass. "In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta. Now, Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations—all while advocating for cuts to vital programs that working and middle-class Americans depend on."
The report calls for Congress to pass "proven, pragmatic proposals to unrig the tax system that enjoy high levels of popular support," such as the Ultra Millionaire Tax Act that was proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) this year. The bill would tax fortunes between $50 million and $1 billion at 2% and wealth above $1 billion at $1 billion.
The small tax on enormous wealth would generate "a whopping $3 trillion over 10 years," said ATF.
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Under the bill, the estate tax exemption would be lowered to $7 million per couple and the current 40% flat rate would be replaced with a sliding scale that would charge higher rates as a family's wealth grows.
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The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that members of Trump's transition team and the new Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency have asked nominees under consideration to head the FDIC and OCC if the bank watchdogs could be eliminated and have their functions absorbed by the Treasury Department, which is set to be run by a billionaire hedge fund manager and crypto enthusiast.
"Bank executives are optimistic President-elect Donald Trump will ease a host of regulations on capital cushions and consumer protections, as well as scrutiny of consolidation in the industry," the Journal reported. "But FDIC deposit insurance is considered near sacred. Any move that threatened to undermine even the perception of deposit insurance could quickly ripple through banks and in a crisis might compound customer fears."
The Trump team's internal and fluid discussions about the fate of the key bank regulators broadly aligns with Project 2025's proposal to "merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve's non-monetary supervisory and regulatory functions."
The FDIC, which is primarily funded by bank insurance premiums, was established during the Great Depression to restore public trust in the nation's banking system, and the agency played a central role in navigating the 2023 bank failures that threatened a systemic crisis.
Observers warned that gutting the FDIC and OCC could catalyze another economic meltdown.
"The next recession starts here," tech journalist Jacob Silverman warned in response to the Journal's reporting.
Eric Rauchway, a historian of the New Deal, wrote that "even Milton Friedman appreciated the FDIC," underscoring the extreme nature of the incoming Trump administration's deregulatory ambitions.
Musk, the world's wealthiest man, is also pushing for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Journal noted Thursday that "Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky and Trump ally on the House Financial Services Committee, has backed the plan to eliminate or drastically alter the CFPB and said he wants to get rid of what he calls 'one-size-fits-all' regulation for banks."
Barr has received millions of dollars in campaign donations from the financial sector and "introduced many pieces of pro-industry legislation, including significant rollbacks of protections stemming from the 2008 financial crisis," according to the watchdog group Accountable.US.
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