February, 21 2022, 06:48am EDT
Climate activists welcome green energy transition funding for Africa, in EU-Africa investment package
Following the EU-AU summit last week, climate activists have cautiously welcomed the announcement of the over EUR 150 billion EU-AU Global Gateway investment package, part of which is intended to support a just transition to green energy and climate resilience in Africa. They have expressed a need for clarity on the details of how the fund will be disbursed, the terms and timelines for the implementation of these plans. The funds come at a time when African nations are experiencing more severe and frequent climate impacts, despite contributing the least to the climate crisis.
AFRICA
Following the EU-AU summit last week, climate activists have cautiously welcomed the announcement of the over EUR 150 billion EU-AU Global Gateway investment package, part of which is intended to support a just transition to green energy and climate resilience in Africa. They have expressed a need for clarity on the details of how the fund will be disbursed, the terms and timelines for the implementation of these plans. The funds come at a time when African nations are experiencing more severe and frequent climate impacts, despite contributing the least to the climate crisis. Meanwhile, developed nations are yet to honor climate finance pledges of $100bn a year to developing nations, aimed at supporting adaptation to and mitigation against climate change.
Landry Ninteretse of 350Africa.org said,
"We welcome the move to support a just energy transition in Africa, away from fossil fuels towards sustainable, clean, energy solutions that also cater to the needs of fossil dependent workers. Africa has very urgent climate challenges and priorities. The type of climate action the continent needs should support human-centered development and economic diversification and transformation based on sustainable green solutions. It is crucial that clarity is offered on how much will be dedicated to this energy transition as well as concrete terms, plans and timelines for the funding, in order to ensure that the goal is indeed achieved. Additionally, as the EU pledges to support a green energy transition in Africa, some EU governments, such as France continue the development of fossil fuels infrastructure such as the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). This hypocrisy and contradictions have to stop."
Daouda Gueye of RAPEN, a network of organizations fighting against coal and gas in Bargny, Senegal said,
"Plans for a green energy transition in Africa should not include development of new gas infrastructure, as some African countries intend to do. Plans by some African nations to replace coal projects with gas plants, such as the Bargny coal plant in Senegal, are ill-advised and will only serve to lock Africans into fossil fuel dependence. The effects of fossil fuels, which have heightened global heating are being experienced across the continent in the form of devastating climate impacts. We will continue to put up a joint, spirited fight, to hold our governments to account on issues of coal and gas. African governments have to take action to move away from all polluting fossil fuels, gas included, and instead invest heavily in clean energy for the sake of the environment and local communities."
Apart from an energy transition and climate resilience in Africa, the over EUR150 billion Global Gateway Investment package is also meant to fund the Great Green wall initiative aimed at supporting greening of the Sahel, improving climate resilience in the area, in order to restore dignified and sustainable living conditions. Other areas of support featured in the investment package include education, digital transition, health and infrastructure.
The EU-AU which took place in Brussels, Belgium, saw the EU and AU commit to a joint vision for a "renewed partnership" aimed at addressing immediate opportunities and challenges for both regions.
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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'It Will Be a Catastrophe': Student Loan Payments to Resume Even If GOP Shuts Down Government
"Forty million people are being thrown to the wolves," warned one advocacy group.
Sep 28, 2023
Despite advocates' pleas for the Biden administration to slam on the brakes, the U.S. Education Department confirmed Thursday that student loan payments will resume for the first time in three-and-a-half years on October 1—even if the federal government shuts down.
An unnamed Education Department spokesperson toldPolitico that payments will be due starting in October "even if Republicans needlessly shut down the government." Student loan debt began accruing interest again earlier this month after the coronavirus pandemic-related pause.
The official's comment came hours after the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) issued a statement imploring the Biden administration to halt the planned restart of student loan payments.
"If House Republicans shut down the federal government, the Biden administration must shut down the student loan system too," said SBPC executive director Mike Pierce. "As it stands, the administration plans to keep paying the student loan companies botching this effort to restart payments while furloughing the federal employees who are supposed to help borrowers when things don't go according to plan."
"This will result in more borrowers receiving inaccurate and incorrect information with less oversight and fewer resources to fix problems," Pierce added. "Forty million people are being thrown to the wolves. It will be a catastrophe."
"To throw borrowers back into repayment with bad-faith loan servicers and an understaffed Department of Education is a recipe for disaster."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), a longtime champion of student debt cancellation, also urged the Biden administration to keep the repayment pause in place if the government shuts down this coming Sunday.
"The student loan payment pause has been a lifeline for borrowers across the nation," said Pressley. "As we stare down an impending Republican government shutdown, it is abundantly clear that student loan payments should not resume October 1."
Pressley continued:
To throw borrowers back into repayment with bad-faith loan servicers and an understaffed Department of Education is a recipe for disaster and would deeply undermine the progress we have made to advance economic justice for student loan borrowers. While the administration works diligently to push back on the corrupt Supreme Court's obstruction of President [Joe] Biden's historic cancellation plan, we should take immediate steps to prevent borrowers from entering into repayment at a time when the infrastructure is not there and bad actors will seize on the lack of government capacity caused by Republican dysfunction.
This Republican government shutdown stands to harm families across the nation, many who were just regaining their financial footing for the first time since the Covid-19 crisis. The administration should absolutely pause student loan payments and interest accrual in light of these stark realities.
The Education Department said earlier this year that it would lift the student loan repayment pause shortly after the Supreme Court's ruling on Biden's debt cancellation plan. That timeline was cemented by a debt ceiling agreement that the White House negotiated with House Republicans.
Advocates have been warning for months that a resumption of payments without broad-based relief for borrowers would be both unjust and unwise. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated in June that millions of borrowers "have risk factors that suggest they could struggle when scheduled payments resume," including "pre-pandemic payment assistance on student loans" and "delinquencies on other credit products since the start of the pandemic."
Additionally, analysts believe resuming student loan payments will yank $70 billion out of the U.S. economy each year.
In an effort to mitigate some of the looming financial pain, the Education Department has implemented a three-month grace period for missed payments once the pause is lifted in October and launched a new income-driven repayment plan known as SAVE, which is aimed at lowering borrowers' monthly payments.
But advocates and borrowers have already reported significant chaos in the weeks leading up to the end of the freeze, a signal that the resumption of payments in the coming days is likely to be nightmarish.
The American Prospect's David Dayen reported in late August that the "transfers of millions of student loan accounts to new private loan servicers, which have slashed staff and need to ramp up quickly, have led to what some borrowers believe are miscalculations and mistakes."
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The Debt Collective noted in a social media post on Thursday that "the Biden administration is already attempting to do the administratively impossible—resume a 45 million person portfolio of student debt payments after a three-year pause with broken servicers."
"Doing it during a government shutdown will only exacerbate problems," the group wrote. "This is bad bad bad."
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A report published Thursday by United Nations human rights experts condemns systemic racism in the U.S. criminal justice system and policing, while describing "appalling" prison conditions and decrying forced unpaid convict labor as a "contemporary form of slavery."
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"Law enforcement and criminal justice institutions in the United States share and reproduce values, attitudes, and stereotypes of U.S. society and institutions. These must be reformed."
The experts found that "racism in the U.S.—a legacy of slavery, the slave trade, and 100 years of legalized apartheid that followed slavery's abolition—continues to exist today in the form of racial profiling, police killings, and many other human rights violations."
The report cites instances of prisoners locked away in solitary confinement—widely recognized as a form of psychological torture—for a decade or longer, children sentenced to life in prison, and pregnant inmates chained during childbirth, "who due to the chaining, lost their babies."
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The report notes:
The delegation received shocking information over "plantation-style" prisons in Southern states, in which contemporary forms of slavery are reported. Commonly known as "Angola," the Louisiana State Penitentiary occupies an 18,000-acre former slave plantation, larger than the island of Manhattan. The plantation prison soil worked by incarcerated labor today is the same soil worked by slaves before the Civil War. Angola currently houses nearly 5,000 adult men, the majority of them Black men, forced to labor in the fields (even picking cotton) under the watch of white "freemen" on horseback, in conditions very similar to those of 150 years ago. The mechanism received direct testimonies from Angola victims and allegations of children being transferred to this prison, held in solitary confinement, and in general under appalling detention conditions.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered Louisiana officials to stop imprisoning children on Angola's former death row by September 15.
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- Fully implementing the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights' four-point agenda for transformative change for racial justice and equality;
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- Adopting a human rights-based approach to policing and a national strategy—including legislation—to reduce killings by law enforcement;
- Eliminating all racial profiling;
- Creating an effective nationwide record system of individuals under investigation or found criminally or administrative guilty for police misconduct;
- Removing police from schools in favor of alternatives, including counselors, social workers, nurses, and mental health professionals;
- Adopting an immigration system with a human rights-based approach and addressing systemic racism within the ranks of immigration authorities;
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A group of youth climate activists occupied House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's office in Washington, D.C. on Thursday to condemn the Republican leader and his caucus for pushing the U.S. government to the brink of a destructive shutdown as they demand draconian cuts to food aid, housing assistance, and environmental programs.
"We are fed up and we won't take it anymore," said Adah Crandall a 17-year-old Sunrise Movement organizer who joined a number of other climate activists inside McCarthy's (R-Calif.) office. "As storms rage stronger, fires grow hotter, and heatwaves grow more deadly, Kevin McCarthy is playing political games with our futures. We're facing a climate emergency and McCarthy can't even do his job."
The Sunrise Movement said around 150 students from across the nation traveled to Capitol Hill Thursday to take part in the protest, which comes just two days before the federal government is set to shut down.
Eighteen youth activists were arrested outside of McCarthy's office during the demonstration, according to the climate group.
Earlier Thursday, the Biden administration began notifying government employees that they could soon be temporarily furloughed after McCarthy rejected a bipartisan short-term funding proposal put forth in the U.S. Senate this week.
"Speaker McCarthy is a coward," Shiva Rajbhandari, a 19-year-old Sunrise Movement organizer. "McCarthy and Republicans can either do their jobs, act on the climate crisis, and fund our schools, or they can risk our economy to appease a few extremists. Our generation is watching and we will hold them accountable for their actions."
The impacts of a shutdown on critical government functions and programs—and the overall U.S. economy—could be massive.
"With each passing day, Washington would further deplete federal safety net programs that carry over their unused money from past years," The Washington Post's Tony Romm reported earlier this week. "Eventually, the government might not be able to provide some poor families with childcare, nutrition assistance, housing vouchers, or college financial aid. The longer a shutdown persists, the greater the blow it could ultimately deliver to an economy that has teetered for more than a year on the precipice of recession."
Food & Water Action warned Thursday that "in the event of a shutdown, serious and specific threats to food and water safety could immediately arise," noting that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulators "could be forced to suspend critical safety inspections at drinking water sources, hazardous Superfund waste sites, and chemical facilities."
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"By driving this country to the brink of a shutdown, congressional Republicans are proving once again, in stark relief, that they simply don't care about the health and well-being of the American people," said Mitch Jones, deputy director of Food & Water Action. "Nowhere is this more obvious than in their willingness to shut down critical food and water safety inspections that occur every day across the country."
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