March, 26 2020, 12:00am EDT
Unprecedented Global Coalition Calls for a Just Recovery to COVID-19
Over 300 organisations across the globe are demanding that governments apply five core principles to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. The principles are designed to ensure that people and the environment are protected by government actions and pave the way for a just recovery.
The demands are co-signed by Indigenous Peoples organisations, labour groups and unions, feminist organisations, development agencies, climate and environmental NGOs, health, youth, and religious bodies and local activist groups from every continent.
WASHINGTON
Over 300 organisations across the globe are demanding that governments apply five core principles to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. The principles are designed to ensure that people and the environment are protected by government actions and pave the way for a just recovery.
The demands are co-signed by Indigenous Peoples organisations, labour groups and unions, feminist organisations, development agencies, climate and environmental NGOs, health, youth, and religious bodies and local activist groups from every continent.
The demands are being delivered to key global decision-makers, including Christine Lagarde at the ECB, as well as being heavily promoted online.
May Boeve, Executive Director of 350.org said:
"The COVID-19 pandemic demands swift and unprecedented action from national governments and the international community. Choices being made right now will shape our society for years, if not decades to come. The choices must put people first, and must also accelerate our action against the climate crisis."
The principles outlined in the demands are:
- That health of all people is the top priority
- Economic relief targets people directly
- Assistance goes to workers and communities; not executives
- Stimulus creates resilience for future crises, particularly climate
- The response builds solidarity and community and does not empower authoritarians.
Policy-makers at all levels are grappling with how to confront the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts.
The organisations signing on to the statement will be undertaking campaigns in their own national and local spheres, as well as pressuring international decision-makers.
"This virus proves how interconnected we are. The solutions we come up with now must ensure that no one is left behind - we need a truly interconnected global approach which first and foremost invests in the safety and health of all people; but which does not lose sight of the necessary project of transitioning our economies away from coal, oil, and gas at the same time," said Brett Fleishman, Head of 350.org Finance Campaigns.
The types of responses envisioned by the signatories include scaled up investment in healthcare systems, direct cash payments and transfers to people, improved working conditions and rights, and 'green' strings (i.e. incentives to take climate action) in any stimulus funding provided to corporations and businesses.
"As the debate in US Congress has shown, this is an opportunity to ensure both immediate relief and long-term recovery that saves lives. It's time for real leadership, and to chart a bold path forward to a livable future for all. We demand a stimulus package that helps boost the creation of millions of jobs, sustains families, responds to systemic inequity, and directly invests in Black, Indigenous, and communities of color facing economic insecurity. The climate crisis will not wait. Now is the time to act boldly, focused on people and the planet. We must make a downpayment on a regenerative economy while preventing future crises," said Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, 350.org North America Director.
From Canada to Korea, parliaments, congresses and central banks across the globe are considering how they respond. International financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will also have a key role to play, and several waves of response-measures are expected.
"There is a lot of fear in this moment. The only way to fight this virus is the same as what we must do to confront the climate crisis - act as one united global community that puts the needs of people first. From their homes, balconies, and gardens people will make their demands heard," said May Boeve.
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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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
Jul 26, 2024
The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
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However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
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Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
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In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
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"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
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Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
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Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
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"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
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Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
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Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
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Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
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The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
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