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The Nuclear Trump Factor
The threat of nuclear war has never been greater than today. The self-proclaimed peacemaker in Washington is to blame.
May 31, 2025
Hardly a day goes by without the phrase "Donald Trump is a danger to the world" being given new life. The threat posed by the U.S. president applies of course to the U.S. itself, which is in danger of sliding into fascist authoritarianism, and to the planetary boundaries that the billionaire cabinet is enthusiastically trampling all over with its "drill, baby, drill" policy.
What is less noticed is another global threat being driven by the MAGA insurrection movement in the White House, which has declared war on democracy, the state, and the planet. It is the risk of nuclear war. Although Trump is calling for an end to the fighting in Ukraine, which would reduce the threat of nuclear weapons being used in this crisis hotspot, the overall dangers have increased with the new administration.
First of all, it should be kept in mind that in the U.S., the president has sole authority, without restrictions or consultation, to order a nuclear attack against any target at any time, for any reason. He does not have to consult with anyone, and the decision is beyond any control. This is made possible by the so-called "nuclear football" (officially called the "presidential emergency satchel"). Military personnel who carry it accompany the president wherever he goes.
Trump's hara-kiri and doomsday politics, which destroy trust and rely on macho gestures instead of nuclear restraint and international cooperation, are a permanent source of instability and escalation.
The U.S. president can therefore carry out nuclear strikes at any time, which would mean hundreds of millions of deaths and probably the end of humanity. Experts and some politicians in Congress warn that this is a risky, vulnerable, and undemocratic procedure, established by the Eisenhower administration in the late 1950s, which places the decision about the possible end of the world in the hands of a single person. On the other hand, this arrangement is a central element of the U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy, which is intended to send a frightening message to the world.
The mere fact that Donald Trump has once again concentrated this power in his own hands is a danger in terms of the possible use of nuclear weapons. The reasons for this are obvious. Trump has shown himself to be unpredictable, erratic, and emotionally unstable as a person and political leader. His endless lies, provocations, humiliations, and calls for violence are widely known. When he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, he initiated and supported an attempted coup on January 6, 2021. As the new president, he ultimately pardoned 1,500 convicted violent criminals, including neo-Nazi leaders who participated in the storming of the Capitol. He also faces multiple charges, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in his favor, and was convicted of rape by a New York court last year.
In October 2024, over 200 mental health experts warned before the election that Donald Trump was dangerous due to his symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder, which they diagnosed as "malignant narcissism." This makes him completely unfit for leadership, according to the health experts. Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece and a clinical psychologist, also warned against his reelection. In her book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, she calls her uncle a sociopath. In it, she describes his upbringing in a dysfunctional family that promoted greed, cruelty, and racist and sexist behavior.
At first glance, it may seem reassuring that Trump declared during his first term that nukes were "the biggest problem in the world" and that his goal was to get rid of them. In February 2025, after taking office again, he said, "There's no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many." Unfortunately, this is just rhetoric. Trump has done nothing in this direction so far and has actually increased the nuclear risks through his actions.
In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump announced his withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran, which had successfully limited the uranium enrichment of nuclear fuel in exchange for sanctions relief. Since then, Iran has accelerated its nuclear weapons program. Estimates suggest that Iran could produce several bombs in a matter of months or even weeks. Shortly thereafter, following a series of escalating threats, Trump suggested that North Korea had agreed to denuclearization. Talks followed, but an agreement never materialized.
Furthermore, the first Trump administration indicated to the U.S. Congress that if deterrence against China failed, the U.S. would have to "win" militarily. Peter Kuznick, professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, told Truthout: "U.S. politicians seem so panicked about China's enormous growth and the way it is challenging U.S. hegemony in the Pacific that they are willing to risk nuclear annihilation to prevent it."
Researchers at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists warned earlier this year, as they moved the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds before midnight—midnight means "game over" for humanity—that the United States has "embarked on the world's most expensive nuclear modernization" and that "the 2024 election results suggest the United States will pursue a faster, more expansive nuclear investment program. It is possible that the United States will expand its nuclear efforts to include more nuclear options, rely more on nuclear brinkmanship to advance its security and deterrence goals, and shun proven efforts to reduce nuclear dangers. The United States is now a full partner in a worldwide nuclear arms race."
This is taking place amid chaotic DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) attacks led by Elon Musk against the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in which hundreds of scientists and experts responsible for the country's nuclear security were fired. It is unclear whether all of them have returned to the agency after the layoffs were reversed and whether security gaps are to be feared.
The Trump administration is meanwhile pursuing a "peace through strength" strategy in its foreign policy. This is the motto of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, under which the U.S. launched a historic wave of rearmament. Republicans in the U.S. Congress also support this concept. They want to fuel the arms race by increasing the already historically high U.S. defense budget. There are calls on Trump to demonstrate to Russia that the U.S. holds global supremacy. And there is pressure to resume nuclear testing in order to win the arms race, which observers view as very worrying. The military establishment is even calling for the reintroduction of tactical nuclear weapons into the U.S. arsenal, which can be used in regional wars, which would mean further dramatic destabilization.
But what increases the nuclear risks above all is that, just months after taking office, the Trump administration has triggered "potentially the fastest and most dangerous acceleration of nuclear arms proliferation around the world since the early Cold War." His repeated "America First" statements, saying that the U.S. no longer feels bound by partnerships and would not come to the rescue of allies in an emergency, have left them feeling abandoned by the United States.
This has sparked a debate in European capitals about whether the U.S. nuclear umbrella can still be relied upon. France and the U.K. have offered to fill the gap. In an interview in March before his election as Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz did not even rule out the idea of developing his own nuclear bomb. And in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk is now talking about his country "must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons." In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is openly considering reintroducing a nuclear deterrent.
The risk of nuclear weapons spreading further across the globe is greatest in East Asia. During his 2016 election campaign, Trump said that Japan and South Korea might have to develop nuclear weapons. "It's only a matter of time," he said. Former South Korea's right-wing president, Yoon Suk Yeol, finally welcomed the deployment of U.S. tactical weapons in South Korea and intended to arm his country with nuclear weapons. Even though Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung, who is leading in the presidential election polls (official vote is on Tuesday, June 3), is skeptical about South Korea going nuclear, the debate continues in the country. Political scientists Jami Levin and Youngwon Cho see this as a fatal development:
While Trump has been busy burning bridges in Europe and North America, his allies in East Asia—South Korea and Japan—have been watching the implosion of the U.S.-led international order in dismay. They have no alternative to the American nuclear umbrella but to build their own deterrent capabilities.
Polls show that more than two-thirds of South Koreans support their country acquiring nuclear weapons independently of the U.S.
Above all, the increasing confrontation with China is viewed with concern. The tariff war that Trump started against Beijing could exacerbate the security crisis in the Pacific and end in a military conflict, according to fears. Trump's trade attacks are reinforcing the trend toward "decoupling," i.e., the economic disentanglement of the two economies from one another. This, in turn, could lead to a rivalry in which both sides are tempted to harm each other through proxy conflicts and attacks on national security. At the same time, strategy papers from the Pentagon show how easily an economic war can escalate into a military conflict (which would put the nuclear option on the table between the two nuclear powers), according to Jack Werner of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in the U.S.:
In a context of mounting economic pain on both sides, with surging nationalism in both countries becoming a binding force on leaders, both governments are likely to choose more destructive responses to what they regard as provocations from the other side. A single misstep around Taiwan or in the South China Sea could end in catastrophe.
Trump's economic and military advisers in the White House are geared toward confrontation with China. That is also the purpose of the presidential order to build a new space-based missile defense system, known as the "Golden Dome." Since Reagan, there have been repeated attempts to initiate such programs. U.S. President Barack Obama wanted to build ABMs (anti-ballistic missiles) in Eastern Europe, but it was only in the wake of the Ukraine war that the Czech Republic gave the green light.
However, all these missile defense systems are not about the possible interception of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, i.e., self-defense, which cannot work technically, as military analysts have determined. ABM is, as the Rand Corporation, among others, explains, "not just a protective shield, but an enabler of U.S. actions." Lawrence Kaplan, professor at the U.S. Army War College and former senior editor of The New Republic, sums it up as follows: "In other words, missile defense is about preserving America's ability to exercise power abroad. It's not about defense. It's about offense. And that's exactly why we need it."
Even if such defense systems are incapable of preventing nuclear first strikes, they have the advantage of theoretically intercepting retaliatory strikes by enemies in response to a first strike. This means that there would be no threat of self-destruction, which could encourage military planners in the U.S. to launch first strikes while other nuclear powers lose their deterrent capability. And the message of Trump's "Golden Dome" has been received by those who were targeted. China, like Russia, has described the announcement from Washington as a "destabilizing" initiative.
While Trump has initiated negotiations in the Ukraine war that could reduce the nuclear dangers between NATO and Russia, he is simultaneously increasing them in the Pacific in an economic and military confrontation now focused on his main adversary, China, which increases the likelihood of a nuclear conflict.
The same applies to the Middle East. The Gaza war waged by Israel's Netanyahu government, a nuclear power, continues to be enabled by the U.S. with weapons and diplomatic blockade, while Trump has promoted the ethnic cleansing of the completely sealed-off enclave with his "Riviera Plan" remarks. The massacre of Palestinians, which has been going on for over a year and a half, has the potential to set the entire region ablaze. This is evident from the military exchanges with the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran. Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu even suggested in an interview that dropping a "nuclear bomb" on the Gaza Strip was "an option."
Israel is also regularly indicating that one prepares for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Tehran has declared that it will hold Washington responsible if this happens. This could spark a full-scale war in the region that would draw the U.S. into the conflict, with all the dangers that this entails. At the same time, Trump is exacerbating the conflict himself. Although he wants to negotiate with Iran, he has announced military action if Tehran does not agree to his deal and end all uranium enrichment—which experts consider a dangerous hardline demand that will ultimately lead to war. They argue that it is unnecessary and unacceptable for the country because it would also rule out the civilian use of nuclear power for Iran. Trump threatened that if Tehran did not completely shut down its nuclear program, there would be "all hell to pay," while "all options are on the table"—which is an implicit threat of a nuclear strike.
A similar threat was directed at Russia. On social media, Trump stated on May 28: "What Vladimir Putin doesn't realise is that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened in Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He's playing with fire." Putin's confidant and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, replied: "Regarding Trump's words about Putin 'playing with fire' and 'really bad things' happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing—WWIII."
It is at this point a war of words between two nuclear powers. But Trump's hara-kiri and doomsday politics, which destroy trust and rely on macho gestures instead of nuclear restraint and international cooperation, are a permanent source of instability and escalation. It is therefore important to raise public awareness of the existential threat once again as civil society pressure on governments especially in countries that possess nuclear arms has to increase by seeking ways to revive the policy of détente—i.e. negotiations on disarmament and arms control, as took place in the 1970s under U.S. President Richard Nixon and in Germany with Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. Even under President Bush senior, there were initiatives launched that reduced the risks. These deescalation efforts are the results of organized peace movements that made a difference. Even in the dark times today there are still possibilities for addressing the dangers of atomic annihilation.
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Close the US Military Bases in Asia
With America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Our bases across Asia are a good place to start.
Apr 22, 2025
President Donald Trump is again loudly complaining that the U.S. military bases in Asia are too costly for the U.S. to bear. As part of the new round of tariff negotiations with Japan and Korea, Trump is calling on Japan and Korea to pay for stationing the US troops. Here’s a much better idea: close the bases and bring the U.S. servicemen home.
Trump implies that the U.S. is providing a great service to Japan and Korea by stationing 50,000 troops in Japan and nearly 30,000 in Korea. Yet these countries do not need the U.S. to defend themselves. They are wealthy and can certainly provide their own defense. Far more importantly, diplomacy can ensure the peace in northeast Asia far more effectively and far less expensively than U.S. troops.
The U.S. acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.
You might quibble. What about the two attempts in 1274 and 1281, roughly 750 years ago? It’s true that when the Mongols temporarily ruled China between 1271 and 1368, the Mongols twice sent expeditionary fleets to invade Japan, and both times were defeated by a combination of typhoons (known in Japanese lore as the Kamikaze winds) and by Japanese coastal defenses.
Japan, on the other hand, made several attempts to attack or conquer China. In 1592, the arrogant and erratic Japanese military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of Korea with the goal of conquering Ming China. He did not get far, dying in 1598 without even having subdued Korea. In 1894-5, Japan invaded and defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war, taking Taiwan as a Japanese colony. In 1931, Japan invaded northeast China (Manchuria) and created the Japanese colony of Manchukuo. In 1937, Japan invaded China, starting World War II in the Pacific region.
Nobody thinks that Japan is going to invade China today, and there is no rhyme, reason, or historical precedent to believe that China is going to invade Japan. Japan has no need for the US military bases to protect itself from China.
The same is true of China and Korea. During the past 1,000 years, China never invaded Korea, except on one occasion: when the U.S. threatened China. China entered the war in late 1950 on the side of North Korea to fight the U.S. troops advancing northward towards the Chinese border. At the time, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur recklessly recommended attacking China with atomic bombs. MacArthur also proposed to support Chinese nationalist forces, then based in Taiwan, to invade the Chinese mainland. President Harry Truman, thank God, rejected MacArthur’s recommendations.
South Korea needs deterrence against North Korea, to be sure, but that would be achieved far more effectively and credibly through a regional security system including China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, than through the presence of the U.S., which has repeatedly stoked North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and military build-up, not diminished it.
In fact, the U.S. military bases in East Asia are really for the U.S. projection of power, not for the defense of Japan or Korea. This is even more reason why they should be removed. Though the U.S. claims that its bases in East Asia are defensive, they are understandably viewed by China and North Korea as a direct threat – for example, by creating the possibility of a decapitation strike, and by dangerously lowering the response times for China and North Korea to a U.S. provocation or some kind of misunderstanding. Russia vociferously opposed NATO in Ukraine for the same justifiable reasons. NATO has frequently intervened in U.S.-backed regime-change operations and has placed missile systems dangerously close to Russia. Indeed, just as Russia feared, NATO has actively participated in the Ukraine War, providing armaments, strategy, intelligence, and even programming and tracking for missile strikes deep inside of Russia.
Note that Trump is currently obsessed with two small port facilities in Panama owned by a Hong Kong company, claiming that China is threatening U.S. security (!), and wants the facilities sold to an American buyer. The U.S. on the other hand surrounds China not with two tiny port facilities but with major U.S. military bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean near to China’s international sea lanes.
The best strategy for the superpowers is to stay out of each other’s lanes. China and Russia should not open military bases in the Western Hemisphere, to put it mildly. The last time that was tried, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear annihilation. (See Martin Sherwin’s remarkable book, Gambling with Armageddon for the shocking details on how close the world came to nuclear Armageddon). Neither China nor Russia shows the slightest inclination to do so today, despite all of the provocations of facing US bases in their own neighborhoods.
Trump is looking for ways to save money – an excellent idea given that the U.S. federal budget is hemorrhaging $2 trillion dollars a year, more than 6% of U.S. GDP. Closing the U.S. overseas military bases would be an excellent place to start.
Trump even seemed to point that way at the start of his second term, but the Congressional Republicans have called for increases, not decreases, in military spending. Yet with America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Getting the host countries to pay for something that doesn’t help them or the U.S. is a huge drain of time, diplomacy, and resources, both for the U.S. and the host countries.
The U.S. should make a basic deal with China, Russia, and other powers. “You keep your military bases out of our neighborhood, and we’ll keep our military bases out of yours.” Basic reciprocity among the major powers would save trillions of dollars of military outlays over the coming decade and, more importantly, would push the Doomsday Clock back from 89 seconds to nuclear Armageddon.
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'Love Wins': Thailand Set to Be First Southeast Asian Nation to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage
"While there is no doubt that the legalization of marriage for LGBTI couples is a key milestone for Thailand, much more must be done to guarantee full protection," said one campaigner.
Jun 18, 2024
LGBTQ+ advocates around the world on Tuesday cheered the Thai Senate's passage of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, a move that—if approved by the country's king as expected—would make Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to do so.
The Bangkok Post reported Thai senators voted 130-4, with 18 abstentions, in favor of a bill to legalize same-sex marriages in the country of 72 million people. The Thai House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the legislation in March. The legislation would become law if it passes further review by the Senate and the Constitutional Court and is approved by King Rama X. Royal assent is a formality that will almost certainly be granted.
"The bill represents a monumental step forward for LGBTQ+ rights in Thailand," Panyaphon Phiphatkhunarnon, founder of the advocacy group Love Foundation, told CNN.
Plaifa Kyoka Shodladd, an 18-year-old activist, told The New York Times that "after 20 years of trying to legalize this matter, finally, love wins."
In Asia, only Nepal and Taiwan have achieved same-sex marriage equality. Thailand would become the 39th nation to legalize same-sex marriage worldwide.
Legalization "would underscore Thailand's leadership in the region in promoting human rights and gender equality," said the Thai Civil Society Commission of Marriage Equality, Activists, and LGBTI+ Couples.
Amnesty International Thailand researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said in a
statement: "Thailand has taken a historic step towards becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize marriage for LGBTI couples. This landmark moment is a reward for the tireless work of activists, civil society organizations, and lawmakers who have fought for this victory."
"While there is no doubt that the legalization of marriage for LGBTI couples is a key milestone for Thailand, much more must be done to guarantee full protection of LGBTI people in the country," Chanatip continued. "LGBTI people in Thailand continue to face many forms of violence and discrimination, including but not limited to technology-facilitated gender-based violence, which often targets human rights defenders."
"Thai authorities must build on the momentum and take further steps that protect the rights and ensure the participation of LGBTI people and organizations," Chanatip added.
Thailand's imminent legalization of same-sex marriage equality stands in contrast with the hundreds of pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation proposed or passed mostly in Republican-controlled state legislatures in the United States.
Advocates are also worried about the future of LGBTQ+ rights at the national level, as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—the ruling that erased half a century of federal abortion rights—that the high court could reconsider cases including Obergefell v. Hodges, which in 2015 legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
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Vietnam Sentences Billionaire to Death for White Collar Fraud
The trials of Tru'o'ng Mỹ Lan and 84 others are part of an anti-corruption campaign led by the head of Vietnam's Communist Party.
Apr 11, 2024
As global billionaires see their wealth soar to record heights, one Vietnamese real estate tycoon was sentenced to death on Thursday in the Southeast Asian nation's largest-ever financial fraud case, part of a government crackdown on corruption.
Tru'o'ng Mỹ Lan, founder of the real estate developer Vạn Thịnh Phát Group, was arrested in October 2022 for illegally controlling and embezzling money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) for a decade after a 2011 merger she arranged.
"Lan embezzled $12.5 billion, but prosecutors said Thursday the total damages caused by the scam now amounted to $27 billion—a figure equivalent to 6% of the country's 2023 [gross domestic product]," according to Agence France-Presse. "The court ordered Lan, 67, to pay almost the entire damages sum in compensation."
The BCC reported that "according to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4 billion in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement. That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam's largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes."
AFP spoke with one of the 42,000 victims of the scandal identified by authorities:
Nga, a 67-year-old Hanoi resident... told AFP Thursday that she had hoped for a life sentence for Lan so she could live to fully witness the pain her actions had caused ordinary people.
"Many people worked hard to deposit money into the bank, but now she's received the death sentence and that's it for her," said Nga, using a pseudonym to protect her identity.
"She can't see the suffering of the people."
Nga has so far been unable to retrieve the $120,000 she invested with SCB.
Human rights advocates consider Vietnam to be a global leader in death penalty sentences and executions, though data on the topic are considered state secrets, so precise figures are not known.
"From January to early October 2023, at least 189 people have been sentenced to death in Vietnam," The Vietnamese Magazine reported last year, citing state media reports. Among them, "44 were convicted of murder (23%), while the remaining 145 (77%) were involved in illegally trading or transporting narcotic substances."
Amnesty International, which opposes the death penalty in all cases, released its latest annual report on sentences and executions worldwide last May. While noting the Vietnamese government's limits on official data, the group found that in 2022, there were at least 102 sentences handed down and over 1,200 people on death row in the country.
"The death penalty in Vietnam is used to intimidate those who would break the law, while also showing the power of the ruling party," Human Rights Watch's Asia deputy director Phil Robertson told CNN in 2022. "This is a government that chases down dissidents, runs roughshod over civil society, sentences and imprisons people after kangaroo court trials, and now we know, executes far more people than anyone else in [the region]."
"Vietnam's horrendous record of executions dwarfs that of any of its neighbors but it is not surprising that the government has systematically implemented the death penalty and kept executions out of the public eye," Robertson added.
As the BCC noted:
The habitually secretive communist authorities were uncharacteristically forthright about this case, going into minute detail for the media. They said 2,700 people were summoned to testify, while 10 state prosecutors and around 200 lawyers were involved.
The evidence was in 104 boxes weighing a total of six tonnes. Eighty-five others were tried with Tru'o'ng Mỹ Lan, who denied the charges and can appeal.
All of the defendants were found guilty. Four received life in jail. The rest were given prison terms ranging from 20 years to three years suspended.
The trials were part of the ongoing "Blazing Furnace" anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by Nguyễn Phú Trọng, secretary-general of Vietnam's Communist Party.
Multiple top officials have left office during the campaign, including Vietnamese President Võ Văn Thưởng, who resigned last month. The Communist Party did not offer details about the reason for his departure but said that "Thưởng's violations and shortcomings have caused bad public opinion, affecting the reputation of the party, the state, and him personally."
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'Huge Win for People and Planet': Biden Pauses LNG Export Approvals
"This is one of the most significant actions ever taken by a U.S. president to stop the dangerous expansion of fossil fuels and protect environmental justice," one campaigner said.
Jan 26, 2024
Environmental justice and climate advocates celebrated on Friday as the Biden administration announced that it was pausing approvals for all liquefied natural gas exports to non-Free Trade Agreement countries in order to review the criteria it uses to approve or reject them.
In a statement, the White House said that the criteria used by the Department of Energy (DOE) was "roughly five years old" and therefore did not "adequately account for considerations like potential energy cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers beyond current authorizations or the latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions."
The decision came following a sixth-month push by frontline communities and the wider climate movement to stop Venture Global's proposed Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) export terminal as well as the broader LNG buildout planned for Louisiana's Gulf Coast. CP2 alone would have emitted 20 times more than the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, while nearly 20 other planned terminals would have released the equivalent of 675 coal plants.
"The tide is turning," Oil Change International U.S. program manager Collin Rees said in a statement. "President [Joe] Biden pausing pending liquefied natural gas (LNG) export applications is a huge win for people and planet. Following the commitment at the COP28 climate talks to transition away from fossil fuels, this is one of the most significant actions ever taken by a U.S. president to stop the dangerous expansion of fossil fuels and protect environmental justice. The momentum for a renewable energy future is undeniable."
The White House statement, which came two days after The New York Times reported that a pause was forthcoming, reflected many of the concerns raised by activists, including the impacts of LNG terminals on nearby communities and new science indicating that the total emissions from LNG were actually greater than from domestically produced coal.
"Today, we have an evolving understanding of the market need for LNG, the long-term supply of LNG, and the perilous impacts of methane on our planet," the White House said. "We also must adequately guard against risks to the health of our communities, especially frontline communities in the United States who disproportionately shoulder the burden of pollution from new export facilities."
Rees continued: "Biden's announcement shows two things: One, the marches, petitions, and grassroots organizing from frontline communities, youth, and their allies are working. And two, Biden is afraid his climate hypocrisy will cost him the election if he doesn't make real progress on fossil fuels."
The statement ended with a list of the Biden administration's "top climate accomplishments."
"Tapping the brakes on CP2 is the best signal yet that the Biden administration is ready to put people and the planet ahead of fossil fuel profiteers," Lauren Parker, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. "This is a crucial moment to protect future generations by halting the massive U.S. fossil fuel expansion. Now that the administration is listening to frontline communities, youth, and climate advocates, it needs to go all in on phasing out fossil fuels. We need a public interest test that denies any fossil fuel expansion that would drive us deeper into climate catastrophe."
"It's time our struggles and our voices are acknowledged in the national energy policy conversation."
The decision was applauded by Louisiana and Texas activists who have been raising alarm about the impacts of fossil fuel infrastructure on their communities for years.
"This announcement from the Biden administration is truly monumental for our communities," Roishetta Ozane, director of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, said in a statement. "As someone who has witnessed the devastating impacts of fossil fuel extractive industries, I am filled with hope and gratitude for this important step towards justice. Halting permits for these industries is a clear acknowledgment of the urgent need to protect the well-being and rights of those of us who have been disproportionately affected. It is a powerful statement that we can no longer allow these industries to continue operating without considering the health and safety of the people living in these areas."
Travis Dandar, the founder of Fisherman Involved in Sustaining Our Heritage, said the pause could be a "turning point" for places like Cameron, Louisiana, where fishing has declined by 50% because of existing LNG export terminals and tanker traffic.
"The disruption to our fishing grounds, the risk of explosions, and the loss of our cherished wetlands—these are the realities we live with," Dandar said in a statement. "It's time our struggles and our voices are acknowledged in the national energy policy conversation."
Frontline activists in Texas also hoped the decision would have a broader impact on the region.
"I am hopeful this announcement will be the catalyst for real change in our communities and a clean energy future," Freeport, Texas resident Gwen Jones said in a statement. "The reality is that fossil fuel companies are still building in people's backyards and exposing people to toxic pollution. We still need to fight for an end to fossil fuels."
"For too long, the United States served as an enabler for Big Oil and Big Gas' get-rich-quick scheme, as it got countries around the world addicted to fossil fuels at the expense of American families."
Public Citizen, meanwhile, focused on the benefits to U.S. consumers of not exporting gas.
"For far too long, Big Oil executives have pursued an 'America Last' policy, price gouging consumers and pushing harmful export policies, in a myopic and ham-fisted vision that puts profit above everything," Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program, said in a statement. "Reconsidering the impact fossil fuel exports have on our economy and climate is a vital step toward protecting American households from the impact LNG exports have on higher utility bills."
The White House statement also echoed arguments put forward by activists that no new exports are needed to provide gas to the European Union following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Today's announcement will not impact our ability to continue supplying LNG to our allies in the near-term," the statement said.
It came a day after a group of 60 E.U. parliamentarians sent a letter to the Biden administration urging it not to build more LNG infrastructure.
"The E.U. has already initiated its gas phaseout, our analysis shows the E.U. will cut its oil and gas demand by one-third by 2030 and gas can be effectively phased out by 2040," Linda Kalcher, executive director at Strategic Perspectives, said in a statement. "New LNG investments will be a white elephant U.S. investors will live to regret."
Experts and activists in Asia, another major market for U.S. gas, also welcomed the news.
"Asia does not need any new LNG," Gerry Arances, executive director at the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development in the Philippines, said in a statement. "The region is already suffering impacts from unsustainable LNG development. Further expansion risks severe ecological and economic damages."
"We cannot afford to let up in our efforts to hold decision-makers accountable and ensure that frontline communities are no longer subjected to the harmful effects of these industries."
In the U.S., Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass), who introduced a bill in May 2023 to ban fossil fuel exports, also applauded the news.
"For too long, the United States served as an enabler for Big Oil and Big Gas' get-rich-quick scheme, as it got countries around the world addicted to fossil fuels at the expense of American families," Markey said in a statement. "This surge in natural gas exports was matched by rising energy costs at home and soaring global temperatures driven by fossil-fueled climate change. I applaud the Biden administration for this much-needed move to protect American communities from export-driven pollution and profiteering."
In the immediate aftermath of the decision, activists canceled a sit-in they had planned to take place at the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. from February 6-8.
"The best direct actions are the ones you don't have to do. Thanks to everybody whose deep commitment helped bring this day about," Third Act co-founder Bill McKibben, who helped bring the fight against the LNG buildout to national attention with an article in The New Yorker last September, said in a statement.
Yet as they took a moment to celebrate, activists acknowledged that there was more work ahead.
"This is a major sign of hope, but this fight is not over," 350.org U.S. campaign manager Candice Fortin said in a statement. "Let's be real: The harmful effects of fracked gas on health and climate are not in question. The oil and gas industry and the government know the data. So now that they have paused, there is only one thing to do: Vow to reject CP2 and all 17 proposed LNG projects, and to phase out ALL fossil fuels."
Ozane concluded: "While this decision is a significant victory, we must not become complacent. The fight for environmental justice and the elimination of fossil fuel extractive industries must continue. We must remain vigilant and continue to advocate for sustainable alternatives. We cannot afford to let up in our efforts to hold decision-makers accountable and ensure that frontline communities are no longer subjected to the harmful effects of these industries. This announcement is a reason to celebrate, but it is also a reminder that our work is far from over."
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'Cartoonishly Villainous' Saudi Plot to Hook Poor Nations on Oil Exposed
"It's like the tobacco companies that knew the addictive and lethal nature of cigarettes yet continued to get millions of teenagers hooked on them," said one African critic.
Nov 28, 2023
With the world hurtling toward catastrophic temperature rise, "Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is overseeing a sweeping global investment program" intended to "ensure that emerging economies across Africa and Asia become vastly more dependent on oil" even as the international community tries to phase out planet-heating fossil fuels.
That's according to a sixth-month undercover investigation by the U.K.'s Center for Climate Reporting (CCR) and Channel 4 News, based on regulatory filings, documents from Saudi officials, and secret recordings.
The findings were published Monday in the leadup to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) set to kick off Thursday in the United Arab Emirates.
As CCR detailed:
The Oil Demand Sustainability Program (OSP) is a vast government program with dozens of projects aimed at embedding a high-carbon, fossil fuel-dependent development model in countries across Africa and Asia. This includes meticulously researched plans to drive a major increase in gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicles and boost jet fuel sales via increased air travel.
It brings together the most powerful arms of the Saudi state, including the $700 billion Saudi Public Investment Fund; the world's largest oil company, Saudi Aramco; petrochemicals giant, Sabic; and the kingdom's most important ministries—all under the auspices of the crown prince's supreme committee of hydrocarbon affairs.
When asked by an undercover reporter whether the aim of the program is to artificially stimulate oil demand to counter global efforts to reduce oil consumption and tackle climate change, a Saudi official responded: "Yes... it is one of the main objectives that we are trying to accomplish."
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Energy—which did not respond to a request for comment—mainly "characterizes the OSP as a sustainable development initiative" to aid developing countries, CCR reported.
However, as the center highlighted, key pieces of the kingdom's plot include plans to promote oil-based power generation, deploy petrol and diesel vehicles in Africa and Asia, work with a global auto manufacturer to make a cheap car, lobby against government subsidies for electric vehicles, and fast-track commercial supersonic air travel.
Power Shift Africa director Mohamed Adow told CCR that "the Saudi government is like a drug dealer trying to get Africa hooked on its harmful product. The rest of the world is cleaning up its act and weaning itself off dirty and polluting fossil fuels and Saudi Arabia is getting desperate for more customers and is turning its sights on Africa."
"It's like the tobacco companies that knew the addictive and lethal nature of cigarettes yet continued to get millions of teenagers hooked on them," Adow added, "it's repulsive."
Rapid Transition Alliance coordinator Andrew Simms similarly said on social media, "Straight outta the tobacco companies' playbook."
The Saudi investigation was released on the same day that the center and BBC revealed that Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and president of COP28, used meetings about the summit to push for foreign fossil fuel deals.
"This undermines essential impartiality and the integrity of the talks, and will accelerate devastating global heating," said the Environmental Justice Foundation, pointing to both revelations. "These backroom deals serve wealthy nations and fossil fuel profiteers at the expense of everyone else."
Also noting both reports, American author and climate activist Bill McKibben wrote Tuesday that "the new documents, which really must be read to be believed, perform the same essential task as the revelations almost a decade ago about Exxon's climate lies. They end any pretense that these countries are engaged in good-faith efforts to wind down the industry."
"It's difficult, I think, to imagine anything much more systemically evil than this spate of bids by the oil companies and oil countries to keep wrecking the planet; it's akin to the way that tobacco companies, facing legal losses in the U.S., pivoted to expand their markets in Asia instead," he added, describing the Saudi plot as "almost cartoonishly villainous."
The kingdom has a long history of impeding climate action—particularly progress at global talks, as three experts laid out in a paper released last week by the Climate Social Science Network at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society.
"Saudi delegations to the U.N. climate talks are highly skilled, well-organized, and have been extremely successful over decades at slowing the efforts of the world community on climate change to a crawl," the trio wrote. "Saudi Arabia's actions should be seen as part of a wider web of obstruction to an effective response to climate change, which includes fossil fuel industry groups and other (predominantly U.S.-based) political lobbyists and elites, and allied intergovernmental organizations."
As Common Dreams reported last week, the U.N. has allowed at least 7,200 delegates for fossil fuel companies and industry trade groups to attended climate talks since 2003. This year, attendees must disclose their affiliation under new transparency rules.
The summit comes as scientists warn that 2023 is projected to be the hottest year in 125,000 years and currently implemented emissions policies will likely lead to 3°C of temperature rise by the end of the century—or double the 1.5°C goal of the Paris agreement.
"Leaders must act to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, protect people from climate chaos, and end the fossil fuel age," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared Monday. "They must make COP28 count."
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Needed: A Cold War Therapy Session for the US and China
When a couple doesn’t trust each other, someone has to make a first attempt at reconciliation, however modest.
Nov 16, 2023
Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in the United States this week to participate in the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting. He also met one-on-one with President Joe Biden.
But it hasn’t been exactly a red-carpet kind of visit.
For one thing, because the two leaders will be talking in San Francisco, their confab will generate very little of the pomp and circumstance of a U.S. president welcoming a foreign dignitary to Washington. Second, the focus of Xi’s visit is the APEC meeting. He’ll be absorbed in wooing the other 20 members of the group, which works on facilitating trade and investment in the larger Asia-Pacific region. The APEC region, after all, is responsible for nearly half of all global trade.
But perhaps most importantly, and ominously, the United States and China are not exactly on great terms at the moment.
In addition to the deterioration in security relations—the U.S. shootdown of the Chinese balloon, the increasing tensions in the South China Sea—the two countries have been involved in a low-intensity trade war and a tit-for-tat brawl on advanced technology. The United States has imposed an escalating series of export controls on semiconductors, artificial intelligence technology, and the like. This summer, China retaliated by restricting exports of gallium and germanium—it produces 90 percent and 60 percent respectively of these two rare earth elements—to essentially zero.
Pundits and media commentators, following the lead of the Biden administration, have worked hard to lower expectations for the Biden-Xi meeting.
“We’re not talking about a long list of outcomes or deliverables,” a senior administration official told reporters. “The goals here really are about managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open.”
Sounds to me like the first meeting at the office of a couples counselor. Since the Trump presidency, everyone has been talking about the “decoupling” of China and the United States. It’s really too bad that Biden and Xi don’t have the services of a third-party facilitator who can help the couple sort through their problems.
But wait: how about if I offer to fly out to San Francisco to mediate?
True, I’m not a licensed therapist. But some of my nearest and dearest are, and their professional wisdom has inevitably rubbed off on me. Plus, I think I have some good ideas of how to prevent the United States and China from falling into a messy divorce.
Getting to Maybe
My clients have built a strong relationship that has stretched across five decades. They come from very different backgrounds, so it’s only to be expected that they will have some conflicts. But even while they were bickering with one another, China and the United States set a new record in trade in goods last year (though it has declined a bit since then). Like any successful couple, they have become dependent on one another while preserving a good deal of independence.
During their first visit with me, I will encourage Biden and Xi to start out by acknowledging what’s working well in the relationship.
My guess, however, is that the two will soon fall to griping.
Beijing is angry about the tariffs that Donald Trump imposed during his presidency and that Biden hasn’t lifted, which China pegs at an average of 19 percent compared to the 7.3 percent that China imposes on U.S. products. It’s not happy about the export controls on advanced technology that the United States and European Union have levied. And it really doesn’t like the way that Europe and the United States have put pressure on manufacturers to stop relying on China for critical raw materials.
Washington, meanwhile, has accused China of ripping off the intellectual property of U.S. firms. It’s beyond annoyed that China has been using advanced technology to upgrade its military, and it’s concerned as well about China’s human rights record. It puts Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods at somewhere between 15 and 25 percent.
Both countries have other complaints. The United States worries about China’s military actions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, its military alliance with Russia, and its efforts to gobble up critical resources in the Global South. China is furious at how the United States is building alliances—such as the “Quad” with India, Japan, and Australia—designed specifically to contain China’s ambitions. Another major irritant is the aggressive actions that U.S. military craft take near China’s borders. And don’t get Beijing started on the double standard that the United States maintains on human rights where Washington basically looks the other way at Saudi and Israeli violations but holds China strictly to account.
Complaining is not the royal road to reconciliation. Biden and Xi have to listen to each other to make any progress. That’s certainly what administration officials mean when they say that both sides have to commit to “ensuring channels of communication are open.”
But let’s face it: listening isn’t enough either.
Identifying Mutual Interests
If couples have children, they have an obvious mutual interest in raising the family in a healthy environment.
Biden and Xi don’t have any children in common. But the trade between the two countries functions as a kind of offspring of the relationship. And let’s face it: my clients are really screwing up with that particular kid.
The tariffs in particular have not benefited either side. They have cost U.S. consumers a huge amount of money, to the tune of $1.4 billion a month (by the end of 2018). Through 2021, that added up to $48 billion that consumers shelled out in extra cash. According to a 2020 Brookings report:
The tariffs forced American companies to accept lower profit margins, cut wages and jobs for U.S. workers, defer potential wage hikes or expansions, and raise prices for American consumers or companies. A spokesperson for the American Farm Bureau stated that “farmers have lost the vast majority of what was once a $24 billion market in China” as a result of Chinese retaliatory actions.
U.S. businesses are well aware of how much these tariffs—and other practices—have damaged their own bottom line. Perhaps that’s why business leaders are hosting Xi in San Francisco at a $2,000 a plate dinner.
It’s harder to know how much China has been affected by the tariffs, though one study concluded on the basis of a reduction in the intensity of night-time lighting in China that local economic activity has shrunk. However, China has probably not suffered as much as the United States, since its U.S.- bound exports decreased by only 8.5 percent (compared to a decrease of 26.3 percent of China-bound exports from the United States) and its exports to the rest of the world increased by 5.5 percent (compared to an increase of only 2.2 percent for U.S. exports to the rest of the world).
Then there’s the matter of the global commons. A couple that spends less time and energy squabbling can turn their attention to improving their own house or even the surrounding neighborhood. To do so, however, they have to stop wasting resources on feeding their mutual grievances.
Both China and the United States devote enormous sums to countering perceived threats from the other side. It’s hard to separate out precisely what percentage of the nearly trillion-dollar military budget is allocated to this particular bilateral dispute, but safe to say it’s a lot. China spends somewhere between $225 billion (Beijing’s figures) and $300 billion (outside estimates). It’s likely that at least half of that combined figure—around $650 billion a year—is being poured down the drain of “preparedness” for some future battle between the two superpowers.
If China and the United States engaged in threat reduction—and then proceeded to arms control—that would free up a lot of money that could go, for instance, toward addressing climate change. Fortunately, it looks like the two countries are going to restart face-to-face climate discussions, which could help pave the way for some future reallocation of resources.
The couple could team up to work on other resource questions. The United States and China are competing furiously to secure critical raw materials throughout the world. What if they cooperated instead on research on recycling and less mining-dependent alternatives? The United States and China are both guilty of over-fishing (with China the more serious culprit). What if they led a global effort to manage ocean resources more responsibly?
Of course, it’s not my job to tell clients what to think or do. But therapist bias is a real thing, and I never claimed to be licensed. Maybe I can steer them toward what I think are more useful ways of working together as a couple.
One tactic is to get them to talk about the various threats that they view in common. My clients are both worried about unpredictable leaders—aside from themselves, naturally—who could start a nuclear war or unleash a pandemic. They are also worried about religious fundamentalism. They are both concerned about the collapse of the Russian government and its replacement by fratricidal chaos (there’s no lack of countries that fall into this category).
The list of potential common projects is immense. But how can the two sides overcome a trust deficit to re-establish a health working relationship?
How About Some Olive Branches?
When a couple doesn’t trust each other, someone has to make a first attempt at reconciliation, however modest. It might be an apology or the purchase of some flowers or a promise, finally, to watch a baseball game together.
As therapist, my bias is revealed through my leading questions.
“With the presidential election coming up next year,” I ask Joe Biden, “what are you most worried about?”
“The economy,” he says, curtly.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Prices shooting back up.”
“How can you best prevent that?”
He looks impatient. “Well, there’s the Federal Reserve, and the interest rates, and the – “
I’m shooting meaningful glances at Xi, who is glowering in his chair. “And…?”
“Yes,” Biden begrudgingly agrees. “The economy is still taking a hit from the tariffs.”
“Which means?” I prompt.
Biden glances at Xi. “I suppose we could consider a partial reduction of some of the tariffs if…”
“If…?” I ask.
“If he does something in return.”
I turn my attention to Xi. “What do you think?”
“We could consider a partial reduction of some of the tariffs if…”
“If…?”
“If he does something in return,” Xi says.
“Those rare earth element export controls have to go,” Biden says.
“And so do the controls on AI chips,” Xi says.
The horse-trading begins in earnest. In short order, the clients have drawn up a preliminary agreement on tariffs and export controls.
It’s a start.
Next week, they’ll meet again in my office and we’ll practice our affirmations. We’ll do a short exercise involving gratitudes.
Then we’ll move on to saving the planet.
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Thanks to Fossil Fuels, Every Breath People Take in Asia Is Killing Them
New data last week from University of Chicago researchers showed that across South Asia, air pollution—mostly from burning fossil fuels—is robbing people of five years of life on average.
Sep 07, 2023
When we talk about “humanity,” we are, statistically, mostly talking about Asia—just under 60% of our sisters and brothers live there. But they don’t live anywhere near as long as they should.
New data last week from University of Chicago researchers showed that across South Asia, air pollution—mostly from burning fossil fuels—is robbing people of five years of life on average. Five years! If you live in Delhi, the most polluted big city on the planet, that number is an unimaginable 11.9 years. If you would have lived to 70, you died at 58. Thank about that. Across the region, “particulate pollution levels are currently more than 50% higher than at the start of the century and now overshadow” other health risks. Every breath that people take is killing them, every hour of every day.
When you burn fossil fuel you produce particulates which lodge in lungs and kill you, and when you burn fossil fuel you produce carbon, which lodges in the atmosphere, driving heatwaves and floods that kill you.
But those other health risks are also rising fast, spurred on by the climate disasters that also come with burning fossil fuel. A remarkable report in Tuesday’s Washington Post (which has been doing a lot of remarkable climate coverage lately) was headlined "Climate-Linked Ills Threaten Humanity," and for a while was the lead story in the paper. It looked at Pakistan, home to last year’s record-breaking flood and a series of devastating heatwaves, and found almost unimaginable levels of misery. Here’s the big picture:
Pakistan is the epicenter of a new global wave of disease and death linked to climate change, according to a Washington Post analysis of climate data, leading scientific studies, interviews with experts, and reporting from some of the places bearing the brunt of Earth’s heating. This examination of climate-fueled illnesses—tied to hotter temperatures, and swifter passage of pathogens and toxins—shows how countries across the globe are ill-prepared for the insidious, intensifying risks to almost every facet of human health.
And here’s what it looks like on the ground:
On a recent 109°F day, babies wailed and adults vomited into buckets in the crowded heat stroke ward of Syed Abdullah Shah Institute of Medical Sciences, a 350-bed government medical center in central Sindh. With just seven beds for heat stroke victims, patients’ parents and relatives crowded together on the mattresses. Nurses in green scrubs attached bags of intravenous hydration fluids to the arms of even the tiniest patients as fans whirled and two air conditioners dripped and chugged.
The number of heat stroke patients coming to the hospital in summer has increased around 20% a year in the last five years, according to M. Moinuddin Siddiqui, the hospital’s medical director, at a time when Pakistan experienced three of its five hottest years on record.
So, bottom line: When you burn fossil fuel you produce particulates which lodge in lungs and kill you (1 death in 5 on the planet comes from breathing the byproducts of fossil fuel combustion), and when you burn fossil fuel you produce carbon, which lodges in the atmosphere, driving heatwaves and floods that kill you.
If fossil fuel was the only way we had to power our lives, I suppose you could tot up its advantages and decide that, on balance, it was still worth burning. Or not. But fossil fuel is not the only way we have to power our lives. India has 300 clear and sunny days a year on average, enough to produce 5,000 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. Which is, um, more than they need—solar farms on a small percentage of “low-conflict wastelands” in the country could provide four times its power requirements. According to a recent World Bank study, utilizing just 0.071% of Pakistan’s area for solar PV would meet the country’s current electricity demand. No, none of this comes for free—you have to mine lithium and cobalt. But the damage from those activities doesn’t begin to compare in scale to the toll that fossil fuel is exacting every hour from billions of human bodies.
By any measurable moral calculation, focusing the planet’s efforts and finances on rapidly converting Asia (and Africa and South America) to renewable energy would provide the largest imaginable payoff, both in the short-term and the long, and for both the people who live there, and for the smallish percentage of humans who don’t. But that would mean standing up to the fossil fuel industry—including in America, where that industry is eager to export more, not less, fossil fuel to Asia.
Carbon dioxide molecules are invisible, and particulates are too small to be seen with the naked eye. But they will break our bodies, and our civilizations, unless we break the power of the fossil fuel industry. That is the choice.
America set us on the hydrocarbon path. Asia, with help from the whole world, could be the place that got us off.
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Global Air Pollution Is Cutting More Than 2 Years Off Average Human Life Expectancy: Report
"Particulate pollution remains the world's greatest external risk to human health, with the impact on life expectancy comparable to that of smoking."
Aug 29, 2023
High and rising levels of global particulate matter pollution—caused by wildfires, the combustion of fossil fuels, and other factors—are cutting 2.3 years off of the average human's life expectancy, according to research unveiled Tuesday.
The latest version of the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), produced annually by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), estimates that fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution's impact on global human life expectancy is "comparable to that of smoking, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, more than five times that of transport injuries like car crashes, and more than seven times that of HIV/AIDS."
Despite the terrible impact of air pollution on human health, governments around the world are doing little to address the crisis, according to EPIC's research.
"While there is a large global fund for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis that annually disburses 4 billion USD toward the issues, there is no equivalent set of coordinated resources for air pollution," the new report states. "The entire continent of Africa receives under 300,000 USD in philanthropic funds toward air pollution. Just 1.4 million USD goes to Asia (outside of China and India). Europe, the United States, and Canada receive 34 million USD, according to the Clean Air Fund."
Michael Greenstone, a creator of the AQLI, noted in a statement that "three-quarters of air pollution's impact on global life expectancy occurs in just six countries, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China, Nigeria, and Indonesia, where people lose one to more than six years off their lives because of the air they breathe."
In the United States, 20 of the 30 most polluted counties in 2021 were in California, which saw more than 8,800 fires that year. Plumas County, California was the most polluted area of the U.S. in 2021.
The new research estimates that Plumas residents could gain 2.1 years of life expectancy if air quality in the California county is brought into line with World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards.
EPIC's report notes that the annual average PM2.5 level worldwide "has shifted between 3.8 to 7.2 times the WHO guideline, making air pollution the greatest external threat to human health globally."
Reducing global air pollution to levels recommended by the WHO would save a combined 17.8 billion life-years worldwide, according to EPIC.
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'The New Normal': Extreme Heat Imperils Millions Across Northern Hemisphere
"Getting off fossil fuels is the only way to stop this crisis from getting worse," said one campaigner.
Jul 17, 2023
Millions of people and ecosystems across the Northern Hemisphere continued to suffer Monday amid ongoing heatwaves exacerbated by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
The "intolerable" conditions, some of which are detailed below, have reignited demands for far-reaching climate action. Meanwhile, many countries—including the wealthy ones most responsible for the greenhouse gas pollution causing increasingly common and severe extreme weather—are still permitting the increased production of planet-heating fossil fuels, ignoring the international scientific consensus and endangering societies and biodiversity around the globe.
Asia
China has confirmed the northwestern village of Sanbao reached 126°F on Sunday. This marks the hottest temperature ever recorded in the country, with little relief in sight this week. Fears are growing of a potential repeat of last year's historic drought. Elsewhere in the country, Typhoon Talim became the first to make landfall this year.
The Persian Gulf International Airport in Iran reported a heat index of 152°F on Sunday. This is the brutal result of a 104°F temperature combined with 65% relative humidity and approaches the limits of human survivability.
Japanese officials have reportedly issued heatstroke alerts for tens of millions of people residing in 20 of the country's 47 jurisdictions.
In South Korea, flooding and landslides provoked by monsoon rains killed at least 40 people over the weekend. Storms of this kind are growing in frequency and intensity as the warming atmosphere holds more moisture.
Europe
Several European nations continue to roast amid raging wildfires and a suffocating heatwave, already the third this summer. Many long-standing temperature records are expected to fall this week across Southern Europe.
Italian officials on Monday issued additional heat warnings as the islands of Sicily and Sardinia brace for temperatures of nearly 120°F in the coming days, possibly the hottest ever recorded in Europe.
"The heat is forecast to intensify by the middle of the week (July 19) in parts of the Mediterranean, including Greece and Turkey," the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Monday. "A further continuation into August is likely."
Wildfires burning near Athens prompted evacuations on Monday. Wildfires are also presently torching landscapes in Spain.
Research published last week revealed that last year's historically hot European summer killed more than 61,000 people across the continent.
North America
A second Canadian firefighter died Saturday as the country continues to battle hundreds of blazes during its worst-ever wildfire season—one that scientists say is inseparable from escalating heatwaves and droughts that leave behind large amounts of dry kindling.
Large swaths of the United States are also being pummeled by extreme weather, with roughly one-third of the country under heat warnings, wildfires burning, and multiple cities reeling in the aftermath of climate change-intensified floods. Temperatures in Death Valley along the California-Nevada border reached 128°F on Sunday, close to the area's likely all-time high of 130°F set in August 2020 and July 2021 (weather historians dispute the accuracy of a 134°F reading from 1913).
Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn on Monday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to "declare a climate emergency and use the additional powers to rapidly scale renewables (and transmission lines) and stop new fossil fuel development."
"Getting off fossil fuels is the only way to stop this crisis from getting worse," he added.
Climate scientists said that last month was the hottest June since scientists began record-keeping in the 1880s. With its blistering start, this July is on track to shatter the monthly record set just years ago. The recent arrival of El Niño conditions is projected to make an already dangerous situation even worse, with the WMO warning earlier this month of "a likely surge in global temperatures and disruptive weather and climate patterns."
"In many parts of the world, today is predicted to be the hottest day on record," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Monday. "The climate crisis is not a warning. It's happening. I urge world leaders to act now."
"The struggle to avert systemic failure is the struggle between democracy and plutocracy. It always has been, but the stakes are now higher than ever."
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry arrived in Beijing on Monday for a series of talks with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua about four months ahead of the start of the United Nations' COP28 conference. The two diplomats—from the world's largest historic emitter of heat-trapping gases and its biggest current polluter, respectively—aim to discuss how their countries can jointly slash methane emissions and coal-fired power.
"In the next three days," Kerry said, "we hope we can begin taking some big steps that will send a signal to the world about the serious purpose of China and the United States to address a common risk, threat, challenge to all of humanity created by humans themselves."
But not all humans have played an equal role in creating or perpetuating the climate emergency.
Since raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in 2022, oil and gas giants—which knowingly suppressed warnings about the climate crisis for decades—have reneged on their emission reduction targets and made clear they intend to expand drilling operations in the coming years. Policymakers have shown little willingness to stop them, as COP27 ended with no commitment to phase out fossil fuels.
On Saturday, The Guardian columnist George Monbiot alluded to overlooked new research sounding the alarm about the growing risk of simultaneous crop losses in the world's major growing regions due to climate breakdown and argued forcefully that "the struggle to avert systemic failure is the struggle between democracy and plutocracy."
"It always has been," he added, "but the stakes are now higher than ever."
On Monday, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas similarly stressed that "extreme weather—an increasingly frequent occurrence in our warming climate—is having a major impact on human health, ecosystems, economies, agriculture, energy, and water supplies."
"This underlines the increasing urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and as deeply as possible," said Taalas. "In addition, we have to step up efforts to help society adapt to what is unfortunately becoming the new normal."
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