Ninety-Nine magazine - October 2021 (issue 21)

Challenging the power of the

Justice in a world on fire Issue 21 - October 2021

A special issue for the COP26 climate summit

ISSUE 21: October 2021 03 Campaign news 06 Global news 08 A history of the COP 11 Guide to COP26 14 Corporate courts vs the climate 17 Global Justice Now supporters 18 Climate debt 20 Breaking bread, breaking borders 22 Corporate courts in Colombia 23 Reviews Ninety-Nine is published three times a year by Global Justice Now Global Justice Now campaigns for a world where resources are controlled by the many, not the few.

We champion social movements and propose democratic alternatives to the rule of the 1%. Our activists and groups in towns and cities around the UK work in solidarity with those at the sharp end of poverty and injustice.

Ninety-Nine magazine, Global Justice Now 66 Offley Road, London SW9 0LS 020 7820 4900 • offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk • globaljustice.org.uk Editor: Jonathan Stevenson Graphic Design (including cover): Matt Bonner www.revoltdesign.org Cover photos (clockwise from top): © Narong Sangnak/ EPA/Shutterstock; REUTERS/Kacper Pempel; Pat Roque/ AP/Shutterstock; Diogo Baptista/Alamy Live News.

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2 Ninety-Nine 2021

COP26: Between honesty and hope Dorothy Guerrero Head of policy As the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow approaches, the UN has once again warned that the world is on a “catastrophic” path to global heating.

Unless drastic changes happen in the way we manage life and finite resources on this planet, we will fail the challenge of acting in time to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

As Meena Raman lays out clearly on pages 8-10, the states at COP26 will not be negotiating on an equal footing. On one side are a handful of former colonial powers trying to continue their dominance while dodging their historically disproportionate share of responsibilities for causing global warming. On the other are formerly colonised nations trying to resist resubordination through false climate solutions.

Our climate has been driven to breaking point by rich countries, polluting transnational corporations and a global elite that insists its accumulation of wealth is more important than the planet, people and future generations. It is these same forces who will be working to prevent a just and appropriate outcome in Glasgow. As Daniel Willis writes on pages 18-19, the rich world’s failure to cut emissions is matched by its failure to provide the promised funding for mitigation and adaptation in the global south.

The global Countries like the UK owe a vast south has been climate debt that they are a long way from paying.

marginalised

A deep and just transition before COP26 has away from fossil fuels will require changes not only to the sources even started. of our energy, but also to who owns and controls various components of the energy system. As Nick Dearden explains on pages 14-16, this is made harder by a system of corporate courts which was introduced precisely to defend the interests of transnational fossil fuel companies.

On top of these challenges there is the grim reality of Covid-19 vaccine inequality and its impact on COP26. The UK government’s failure as host to meet its own target to send vaccines to southern delegates and observers has replicated the inequalities of the world’s response to the pandemic. As a result, the global south has been marginalised before COP26 has even started.

Those of us in the UK therefore have even more of a responsibility to mobilise and protest to demand climate justice. On pages 11-13 you can find our guide both to the key issues at the summit, and to the mobilisations we will be part of, particularly on Saturday 6 November. I hope you are able to join us.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

© Jess Hurd/Global Justice Now

UK and Germany defend vaccine apartheid deliver the demands of over 2.5 million Global Justice Now has continued people who have signed the global to demand an end to the global petition for a patent waiver. But the ‘vaccine apartheid’ which has seen billions of Covid-19 vaccines distributed G7 summit failed to address the root causes of vaccine inequality, opting in the rich world while less than 2% instead for of people in an empty PR low-income exercise by countries have pledging 1 been protected. billion doses Countries like the in donations, UK are hoarding which quickly enough doses unravelled. to vaccinate Negotiatheir populations tions over several times suspension over, while of patents continuing at the World to block the Trade Organsuspension © Jess Hurd/Global Justice Now ization have of vaccine continued, patents that following the breakthrough of the would enable the world to escalate Biden administration’s pledge of supproduction and supply.

In June the UK hosted the G7 summit port in May, which was backed up by of rich country leaders in Cornwall and France. But other EU countries, led by Germany, along with the UK, Norway Global Justice Now was there to give and a handful of others have continthem a People’s Vaccine welcome. ued to block the waiver first proposed We joined the protests and helped

by South Africa and India more than a year ago, and now backed by over 100 governments. The EU put forward an alternative proposal in July in an effort to further delay the negotiations, and once again no agreement was reached.

Amid all this lack of action, rich countries have announced plans for booster shots or third doses while not prioritising solutions that can bridge the gap between the vaccine hoarders and the rest of the world. By late August 4.8 billion vaccine doses had been delivered globally, with 75% going to only 10 countries while vaccine coverage in Africa was at less than 2%. As Ninety-Nine goes to press, the modest WHO goal of vaccinating 10% of the population of each nation by the end of September is unlikely to be met, even as close to 10,000 people a day still dying from Covid-19 across the world.

Top: Projecting our message at the G7 summit near St Ives in June.

Insert: Protesting in Cornwall.

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CAMPAIGN NEWS

UK government feels the heat ahead of COP26 Boris Johnson’s government has been criticised over plans to allow two major fossil fuel extraction projects as it prepares to host the crucial COP26 climate summit in November.

Plans for the UK’s first new deep coal mine for 30 years in Whitehaven, Cumbria, were initially approved by the local council, with the government declining to intervene to prevent it. Thousands of Global Justice Now supporters contacted the communities secretary earlier in the year in support of local campaigners demanding he review the approval of the mine. Eventually, they succeeded, and a public inquiry opened in September.

The approval of drilling in the Cambo oil field off the coast of Scotland has become another flashpoint. It threatens to allow up to 800 million new barrels of oil to be extracted, despite the UK being unable to extract all the North Sea oil from existing fields if it is to meet its climate goals.

Global Justice Now is part of the COP26 Coalition which is organising mass mobilisations in Glasgow and London as part of a global day of action on Saturday 6 November (see page 17), as well as a People’s Summit from 7-10 November.

Find out more at globaljustice.org.uk/cop26

Protesters at the UK government building in Edinburgh in July.

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Stop corporate

courts blocking climate actio n

No to ISDS Demand climate justi

ce

Stop trade deals from trashing the planet

In September Global Justice Now held a day of action – ‘Corporate Courts vs The Climate' – to highlight the threat that trade deals pose to effective climate action ahead of COP26.

Corporate courts, or investor-state dispute settlement, are written into trade rules enabling transnational companies to sue governments outside of the national legal system, and they are increasingly an obstacle to climate justice (see pages 14-16).

Across the country, people took action outside fossil fuel companies and law firms which are using corporate courts to sue governments – over phasing out coal power, over limits on offshore oil drilling, over requiring environmental impact assessments of fracking plans, and more.

Earlier in the summer Global Justice Now raised a public outcry when we learned that corporate courts were going to be included in the UK-Australia trade deal – and by the end of the month the government had backed down.

We joined over 400 organisations across Europe in calling on our governments to exit the Energy Charter Treaty (a giant corporate court deal for energy investments) before COP26. And over 5,000 © Jessica Kleczka/Friend s of the Earth Scotlan d supporters joined us in responding to a government consultation with a call to drop corporate courts in the UK-Canada trade deal.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Government slashes aid budget despite rebellion July finally saw the government offer parliament a vote on its cuts to the aid budget, from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income. In the preceding months, Global Justice Now supported the campaign to oppose the cuts by encouraging supporters to write to their MPs, providing talks and resources to local groups, and highlighting the devastating impact of the cuts in the media – thank you again to everyone who took action.

Sadly, despite a decent number of Conservative MPs rebelling, the government won by 35 votes. In fact, this result was doubly damaging as the vote also approved government proposals to prevent a return to 0.7% until there is a national budget surplus (something that has happened only once in twenty years).

Despite this disappointment, we will continue to hold the government to account for how they spend what’s left of the aid budget. An unacceptable amount of UK aid continues to be diverted to corporate contractors, for-profit businesses and polluting projects. In the buildup to COP26, we are focusing our attention on ensuring that the UK development bank, CDC Group, stops funding fossil fuels once and for all.

Global Justice Now's reaction to the cuts in the media.

© Liberty

Handing in the joint petition ahead of MPs voting in July.

Defending the right to protest Global Justice Now has joined widespread opposition to the government’s latest attack on the right to protest contained in the policing bill tabled in March. Measures include giving police the power to criminalise a protest for causing ‘serious annoyance’ or being ‘too noisy’ – surely the definition of a good protest. One MP said the measures “would make a dictator blush”.

More than 600,000 people signed a joint petition calling for the anti-protest and assembly measures in the bill to be scrapped, while people in dozens of towns and cities have taken part in several socially distanced days of action since the spring.

Nevertheless, the measures passed through the House of Commons in July. It is hoped amendments will be possible as the bill moves through the House of Lords in the autumn.

The crackdown is widely seen as a reaction to protests by groups including Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion in recent years, which have helped put anti-racism and climate action on the political map. It is shameful that rather than address these urgent challenges, the government wants to criminalise those who are sounding the alarm.

Sign the petition at: globaljustice.org.uk/right-to-protest

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GLOBAL NEWS MOVEMENT NEWS

Movements slam corporate takeover of food systems summit

© National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates

Food sovereignty activists in the Philippines join the mobilisation in July.

Over 100 organisations of farmers, Indigenous Peoples, agricultural workers and others came together in the summer to prepare for a Global People’s Summit on Food Systems.

Online events as well as ‘real life’ protests were held from Jakarta to Rome and around 9,000 people took part.

The People’s Summit was a

response to the formal UN Food Systems Summit in September, which has been taken over by corporate interests including the World Economic Forum and agribusiness. Global Justice Now joined more than 500 organisations in warning against this last year, but the warning was not heeded. Yet the energy to resist the corporate

hijack was clear and the call for an alternative summit arose.

The People’s Summit was led by movements actually involved in building a better food system, all across the world. As Saúl Vicente from the International Indian Treaty Council said: “They wanted to bury us so that we would disappear, but they didn't know we were seeds.”

Pakistan to terminate 23 corporate court treaties The government of Pakistan announced in August that it will terminate 23 bilateral investment treaties, known as BITs, with different countries in order to avoid the corporate court provisions they contain, which override domestic law.

It follows a succession of scandalous cases brought against Pakistan in corporate courts (also known as 6 Ninety-Nine 2021

investor-state dispute settlement or ISDS) in recent years. In 2019, two international mining companies were awarded $5.9 billion – more than twice Pakistan’s annual budget for healthcare for 200 million people – in lost revenues from a proposed gold and copper mine found not to be legally constituted by the country’s Supreme Court.

The decision is part of a growing

trend by developing countries, including South Africa, India and Indonesia, to terminate existing BITS and develop models of investment agreements which do not enable foreign corporations to sue governments. Pakistan was able to unilaterally terminate 23 treaties; a further nine will require agreement with the partner government.

GLOBAL MOVEMENT GLOBAL NEWS

NEWS SHORTS Hundreds arrested opposing US tar sands pipeline

More than 600 people have been arrested or received citations over protests in Minnesota in an effort to halt construction of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline through Native American tribal land. Indigenousled environmental organisations are mobilising ‘water protectors’ to try to halt the project, after successive legal efforts stalled.

Serbian community resists Rio Tinto mine Protests took place in western Serbia in July against controversial plans by the Anglo-Australian multinational Rio Tinto to open a jadarite mine from which lithium is derived. The community in the Jadar Valley, normally an idyllic region of small farms and rolling hills, has been resisting the mine for more than a decade.

Hundreds of locals including farmers fearful over the impact of water and soil pollution on their livelihoods joined with environmental NGOs to protest in the town of Loznica in July. An international

petition has also been launched with over 70,000 signatures. Two local NGOs have filed charges against the company’s Serbian subsidiary for environmental pollution.

“It’s a poisonous plant,” Marijana Petkovic told the protest. “They came in 2004, they never answered us as people on three key things: what to do with the noise; with the water; what is the minimum amount of pollution. None of what they promise can be fulfilled.”

Shell told to slash emissions by Dutch court

Countries seek alliance to phase out oil and gas

The governments of Costa Rica and Denmark are trying to forge an alliance of countries willing to agree a date to phase out oil and gas production, as well as end new exploration permits, in order to meet Paris Agreement goals.

The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance aims to launch at COP26 in November.

Arms trade protesters have convictions quashed

Four activists who were arrested for blockading the DSEI arms fair in east London in 2017 had their convictions overturned by the supreme court in June. The judgement found that “there should be a certain degree of tolerance to disruption to ordinary life, including disruption of traffic” from exercising the right to protest.

© Leonhard Lenz/Wikimedia

A Shell Must Fall protest in Berlin on the day of the company's AGM.

Oil giant Shell was ordered to cut its emissions by almost half in a landmark verdict in the Netherlands in May. The company was ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% on 2019 levels to align its policies with the Paris Agreement, after the civil court ruled it is responsible for its suppliers’ emissions as well as its own.

The case was first brought in 2019 by Friends of the Earth and six other groups, along with 17,000 Dutch citizens. Although

the ruling only applies to the Netherlands, it is the first time a company has been ordered to match its actions with the international climate agreement, and it is hoped it will set a precedent. “This is really great news and a gigantic victory for the earth, our children and for all of us,” said Friends of the Earth’s Donald Pols. “The judge leaves no doubt about it: Shell is causing dangerous climate change and must now stop it quickly.”

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COP26

Broken promises and shifting goalposts

© Steve Kong

A history of the COP Ever since the world agreed a fragile framework to tackle climate change in the 1990s, rich countries have been in denial about their responsibility for causing the problem, and what that means for how we deal with it, writes MEENA RAMAN. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report into the science of climate change has generated much ado about it being yet another wake-up call for the Earth’s future. Coming just two months ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, there is some hope that governments will finally act to reverse the course of rising greenhouse gas emissions, including by phasing out fossil fuels, and address the grave impacts of climate change.

For those who have been following the UN process of successive COPs for some time, such expectations are viewed as wishful, mainly due to the recalcitrant conduct of developed countries. Their history at COPs is one of broken promises and shifting the goalposts from what has been agreed to, and reinterpreting

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agreements to suit their corporate vested agendas.

But before the developing world takes the bait, it is vital that we recall the broken promises and false solutions that detract from the real action needed now to limit temperature rise to below 1.5C from pre-industrial levels.

ON THE BASIS OF EQUITY Ever since it came into effect in 1994, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has acknowledged that developed countries have been responsible for “the largest share” of historical and current emissions, and that the share of global emissions from developing countries would need to “grow to meet their social and development needs”.

Photo top: © Narong Sangnak/EPA/ Shutterstock. Bottom: © Shadia Fayne Wood/Project Survival Media.

COP26

Top: A Jubilee South APMDD protest in Bangkok in 2011. Bottom: Activists at COP14 in Poznan in 2008.

As a result, the Convention’s fundamental principle was that governments would protect the climate “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”. This meant that developed countries would “take the lead” in combating climate change and its effects and transfer finances and technology to developing countries to support mitigation and adaptation.

The Kyoto Protocol was enacted in 1997 to agree specific legally binding commitments within this framework.

However, the first commitment period from 2008 to 2012 only saw developed countries (known as Annex 1 countries) sign up to aggregate emissions cuts of 5% compared to 1990 levels. Despite this very low ambition, the United States left the Protocol.

Efforts soon began for a post-2012 agreement that would get the US back on board, resulting in a big north-south battle at COP13 in Bali in 2007. The global north’s spin was that Kyoto expires in 2012 and a new treaty to replace it was needed. Their agenda was to get the US to commit to emissions cuts alongside cuts by developing countries, and to remove the link to the provision of finance and technology.

The global south insisted that Kyoto was not dead, and what was needed was agreement on the second Kyoto commitment period. This meant a top-down aggregate target for developed countries of at least 2540% cuts from 1990 levels by 2020. Yet

the final Bali outcomes made no such commitment, following opposition mainly from the US. Instead, in return for agreement on the second Kyoto period at Bali, a comprehensive process was launched to enable the full implementation of the Convention up to and beyond 2012. This was actually the precursor to the eventual Paris Agreement that was adopted in 2015.

FROM TARGETS TO PLEDGES After Bali, a new ‘pledge and review’ system was introduced at COP16 in Cancun in 2010. This became the precursor to the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of the Paris Agreement, where all governments can pledge what reductions they can undertake, without a reference to an international target or approach.

Countries like India, Bolivia, Ethiopia and others advanced the idea of ‘equitable access to atmospheric space’ in the negotiations. This proposed a fairer allocation of the remaining global carbon budget under a temperature limit, taking into account countries’ historical and cumulative emissions, including on a per capita basis. But again, these equity-based proposals never saw the light of day, given the resistance of developed countries led especially by the US. In the bottom-up ‘pledge and review’ world of the NDCs, there is bound to be an ‘emissions gap’ between what countries should do to limit temperature rise and what they nationally determine. Developed countries now call on all countries to plug the emissions gap, which turns the founding principle on its head to ‘common and shared responsibilities’, with no reference to historical responsibility or equity between the north and south.

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COP26

NET ZERO SHIFTS THE GOALPOSTS The latest ploy is in advancing a ‘net zero’ target for all countries by mid-century, on the basis of the Paris Agreement. Article 4.1 refers to achieving a balance between cutting emissions from sources and removals by carbon sinks by 2050, yet it is a global aspiration. It does not advance net zero as an approach for individual countries, because developed countries need to move faster than this.

The IPCC Special Report on 1.5C warming in 2018 estimated that the remaining global carbon budget to give a 50% chance of restricting temperature rise to less than 1.5C is 480 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. At present rates, this entire budget will be consumed by about 2030. Even if emissions start to fall now at a regular rate, global net zero is needed by 2039. If it’s not reached until 2050, it will mean a greater than Below: COP17 in Durban in 2011 culminated in a mass protest inside the conference centre against rich country demands.

70% chance of exceeding 1.5C of warming.

Far from signifying climate ambition, net zero is being used by a majority of polluting governments and corporations to greenwash businessas-usual. At the core of these pledges are small and distant targets that require no action for decades, and promises of technologies that are unlikely ever to work at scale, and which are likely to cause huge harm if they come to pass.

In fact, according to the UNFCCC Secretariat, developed countries on aggregate had achieved only 13% emissions reductions on 1990 levels by 2018. Countries in Western Europe plus the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have not managed to reduce their aggregate emissions between 1990 and 2020 at all.

Worse, COP26 is where the rules for implementing carbon markets will be agreed, which is yet another route to escape from real emissions reductions at home for developed countries.

WHAT TO EXPECT AT COP26 Developed countries’ failure to cut emissions has been matched by a failure to provide the promised climate finance for mitigation and adaptation.

In order to secure a deal in Copenhagen in 2009 and then in Cancun in 2010, developed countries agreed to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020. Yet they have failed to meet this promise and in 2015 in Paris, the goalposts to meet this target were extended to 2025 (see page 18-19).

Beyond the broken promises, there is also a reluctance to engage in any discussion on finance for addressing loss and damage. This is a major problem, because what climate science is showing is that the adverse impacts of climate change are getting worse and worse, with much damage to developing countries where it is no longer possible to just adapt.

Given the track-record of developed countries, there is real danger that COP26 will see more tricks being played to give the illusion that the world is on track to limit temperature rise to below 1.5C. It can be expected that more promises will be made by rich countries that there will be increased money coming if more developing countries get on board with longterm net zero targets, and agree to the rules for carbon markets.

Then, Glasgow would be declared a so-called ‘successful’ COP, but not all of us will be applauding.

Meena Raman is senior researcher at the Third World Network, www.twn.my.

Photo: © Robert van Waarden/Project Survival Media

COP26

The good, the bad and the dangerous

Below: A protest in Manila in 2011. Left: A mock auction of the climate to the highest bidder at COP19 in Warsaw.

Photo top: © REUTERS/Kacper Pempel.

Bottom: © Pat Roque/AP/Shutterstock

What to expect from COP26 As world leaders prepare to descend on Glasgow, here’s Global Justice Now’s guide to the summit.

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COP26

Climate politics at COPs is complex and the stakes are high. After almost three decades of multi-pronged negotiations, understanding the significance of what is being discussed is not always an easy task. But, behind a wall of acronyms and technocratic language, the climate talks are an important battleground where visions for climate justice can be realised, or derailed by false solutions and dangerous delusions.

Amid a range of announcements from world leaders and governments, identifying just and appropriate solutions can often be difficult. Are politicians promising real change that will prevent the world breaching the maximum global average heating of 1.5C? Or are they offering more of the same or worse? That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide on what to expect from COP26.

not be used as a ‘get out of cutting emissions free’ card.

In September the UN found that, far from cutting emissions by the 45% by 2030 that scientists estimate is required, the world is on track for emissions to rise by 16% instead.

Governments must agree on serious, rapid action to genuinely decarbonise and get as close to ‘real zero’ emissions as quickly as possible. Net zero gives them just another way to defer this.

2) COMMON BUT DIFFERENTIATED RESPONSIBILITIES

The principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ was agreed at the Rio Summit in 1992 (although it has not always been applied in agreements made at the COP summits which followed). This principle acknowledges that major historic emitters of greenhouse gases 1) NET ZERO TARGETS AND (mostly rich, former colonial powers) CARBON OFFSETTING have a greater responsibility for causing climate change and should The 2015 Paris Agreement asks therefore bear more responsibility to countries to make nationally decarbonise more quickly. Plus they determined contributions (NDCs) for should provide financial resources emissions reductions, and these are and share technology with the global increasingly being presented as how south to help them both address quickly countries aim to reach ‘net the impacts of climate change and zero’ carbon emissions. The fatal flaw make the transition to a low-carbon with net zero, however, is that it allows economy. This should be the guiding plans for cutting emissions to heavily principle of the whole process – but rely on ‘offsets’ – increases in natural too often rich countries seek to carbon sinks like forests or through undermine it (see pages XX-XX). carbon capture and storage (CCS) While China is now the country with technologies. The higher the planned offsets in the NDC, the higher the level the single largest carbon emissions of emissions a country can continue to in the world, this is a misleading measurement. When you look at produce. emissions per person, China is still The problem is that offsetting behind most of the G20, with people at the planned scale is unfair, in the United States emitting nearly impractical and unrealistic. Offsetting three times as much per person as overwhelmingly targets lands in people in China, and people in the UK the global south, but there is not 25% more. When we look at historical enough land on the whole planet cumulative emissions, China is well to offset all the emissions in the air. behind the United States and the EU. CCS technology, meanwhile, remains unproven on a large scale, and should So it is only just that China reaches

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any decarbonisation target later than industrialised countries.

Pressure on China to bring its net zero target forward from 2060 – and relentless western media efforts to pin the blame for climate inaction on China, India and other emerging economies – should be seen in this context. The fairest way to plan decarbonisation is for the biggest historic emitters to take the quickest action, as they promised to do in 1992.

This instead means that, while China must also decarbonise, the burden is really on the US, UK and others to bring decarbonisation targets significantly further forward, as well as to provide at least the climate finance they have promised and failed to deliver for a decade.

3) CLIMATE FINANCE In recognition of their common but differentiated responsibilities for climate change, rich countries first pledged at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to the global south by 2020. Not only was this target missed, however, but of the $79 billion that rich countries claimed to have provided in 2018, almost three quarters of this was in the form of loans that the global south had to pay back. This type of finance increases the debt burden of the global south and makes these countries more vulnerable to financial crisis. Instead, climate justice demands that rich countries provide at least $400 billion a year in grantbased climate finance to the global south by 2030 (see pages XX-XX).

4) MITIGATION, ADAPTATION, AND LOSS & DAMAGE Often when governments talk about climate action they focus on mitigation, meaning to reduce the impacts of global warming by cutting carbon emissions. However, as reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on

COP26

Climate Change have demonstrated, some impacts of climate change are now inevitable and indeed are already happening. This means that communities facing these impacts, predominantly located in the global south, need funding for adaptation to climate change.

However, climate finance from rich countries has so far heavily prioritised mitigation, with 63% of all climaterelated finance globally flowing to renewable energy. What’s more, there is no agreed mechanism for raising finance for loss & damage due to climate change (eg. the losses caused by more frequent cyclones or hurricanes). COP26 is an opportunity for countries to increase the amount of public funding going to support adaptation measures in the global south, and to agree a new method for providing finance for loss & damage (ideally provided by major polluters such as fossil fuel corporations).

5) FOSSIL FUEL FINANCE Research has repeatedly shown that to stay below 1.5 degrees of global warming, the world can’t afford to burn all of the existing reserves of fossil fuels, let alone discover new ones.

In a landmark recommendation in May, the International Energy Agency declared that to meet emissions reductions targets, “we do not need any more investments in new oil, gas and coal projects”.

The inclusion of gas in this statement was significant. International finance institutions, rich countries and fossil fuel corporations have shifted a lot of money into gas power in recent years, arguing that it is cleaner and greener than coal and oil and that it can be used as a transition fuel between fossil fuels and renewables. Research by Oil Change International, however, has shown this to be a myth. While a total shift to gas power would see

a marginal reduction in emissions, it would be nowhere near enough for the world to keep to 1.5 degrees, and would require the creation of vast amounts of carbon-intensive infrastructure to be possible.

6) JUST TRANSITION The speed of decarbonisation is not the only issue, it also matters how we decarbonise. Without appropriate planning, a rapid shift away from fossil fuels or a drastic reduction in aviation would likely lead to widespread job losses, or may release a wave of dangerous mining projects as corporations and rich countries seek to secure metals required for renewable energy. Planning for a just transition instead means that the costs of climate action should not be borne by those who have done least to cause the problem, including workers, frontline communities in the global south and black and Indigenous communities.

Below: A climate marcher during COP24 in Katowice, Poland in 2018.

Photo: © Diogo Baptista/Alamy Live News

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COP26

Corporate courts vs the climate Corporate courts were invented to protect the West’s control of the world against decolonisation.

Now they are undermining attempts to halt climate change, writes NICK DEARDEN. Any day now, Italy expects to be ordered to hand millions of dollars over to an oil exploration corporation, following the Italian government’s decision to ban such exploration off its coast.

The ruling will be handed down not by a judge in anything approaching a normal Italian or European court, but rather by a secretive arbitration process open only to big business, with Italy having no right to appeal. These ‘corporate courts’ stem back to the 1950s, created by rich countries and oil multinationals to protect Western interests against the decolonisation sweeping the world at that time.

Italy’s decision to ban oil exploration came after Italians, fearing the impact of oil drilling off the beautiful Adriatic coast, protested in their thousands. They won. In December 2015, Italy’s parliament banned oil and gas projects within 20km of the coast.

That’s when British company Rockhopper, which has been exploring that same coast, sued Italy using an arbitration clause in a trade and investment agreement known as the ‘investor-state dispute settlement’ or ISDS. The ‘compensation’ being claimed totals about $350 million – seven times what the corporation invested in the exploration project. Worse still, it is being brought under an investment deal that Italy is no longer even a part of. But, as so often with such agreements, Italy is still bound by the terms of the ISDS system for 20 years after its exit.

In essence, ISDS creates a ‘corporate court’, allowing multinational corporations

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from a trade partner country – in this case Britain – to sue a government in a tribunal for any law or regulation they regard as unfair. These cases are often heard in secret, overseen by corporate lawyers who don’t have to worry about the impact of their decisions on society, human rights or the environment – only investment law. These ‘courts’ usually have no right of appeal, and they can only be utilised by foreign investors.

A BARRIER TO CLIMATE ACTION Corporate courts have been used by tobacco corporations to challenge governments which want to ensure cigarettes are sold only in plain packaging.

They’ve been used to challenge increases to the minimum wage. But increasingly, they’re being used to challenge all manner of environmental regulations necessary to halt climate change. In fact, they’re becoming a major barrier to the climate action governments must undertake to keep our planet habitable.

Recently two energy corporations – RWE and Uniper – challenged the Netherlands over that country’s plans to phase out the burning of coal for electricity by 2030. Both corporations run coal-fired power stations in the country and are claiming billions of dollars in compensation, in a case that will clearly make governments think twice before enacting the most important

Top: After prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalised Iranian oil in 1951, corporate courts began to be inserted into investment deals.

Middle: A protest outside Rockhopper Oil's office in Salisbury in August Bottom: Our Corporate Courts vs The Climate walking tour in the City of London in September.

COP26

© Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo

changes we currently need to deal with climate AFTER GUNBOATS change – a phase-out of fossil fuel use.

Nicolás Perrone has written a new book digging into Meanwhile, in North America, the Biden the history of ISDS, and he finds that it was invented by administration is being sued after it announced it oil industry executives precisely to protect their interests was cancelling a deeply controversial pipeline due overseas. In the 1950s onwards, with governments in to bring hundreds of thousands of barrels of tar sands Africa, Asia and Latin America increasingly able and into the US. Tar sands are one of the most polluting willing to stand up to the power of the US and Europe fossil fuels we possess, and parts and make their economies work in of Canada have been turned Corporate courts their own national interest, the rich into a desolate moonscape as it’s world was concerned. How could it were invented been extracted from the ground. protect its economic interests around Biden’s decision is right – we must by oil industry the world, built up in an age of empire, stop exploiting tar sands. But the executives in the from these new governments? How decision could cost him billions of would oil corporations protect their dollars.

1950s to protect ability to exploit global resources? As These corporate courts are not Perrone states: “Decolonization was a their interests new, though their use is growing risk to their business model.” rapidly. Rich countries started overseas.

A flashpoint came in 1951 when inserting the system into trade and Iran’s parliament voted to nationalise investment deals as long ago as the 1950s. And the country’s oil sector which was under the control that’s important, because it gives us a clue as to of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, a forerunner of BP. what the purpose of Iran’s prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was these corporate courts overthrown in a US-British coup. From this point, Britain bo rne originally was. bellio n Wim started inserting corporate courts into investment Ex tinction Re ©

deals with countries, replacing the increasingly difficult ‘gunboat diplomacy’ with a legal regime which served Britain’s imperial interests just as well.

© Jess Hurd/Glo bal Just ice Now 2021 Ninety-Nine 15

COP26

Photo: © Corporate Europe Observatory

to improve their environmental While ISDS wasn’t extensively used standards. One tribunal ruled that the in its early days, from the 1990s it was Canadian government had violated added to hundreds of deals. A legal a corporation’s ‘rights’ simply by industry built up around the system, carrying out an environmental impact finding ever more innovative ways of bringing a claim. And claims reached assessment, a judgment that even one of the arbitrators said “will be seen absurd levels – far beyond any as a remarkable step backwards in investment the litigating corporation environmental protection”. has invested in a project.

Not only does this system make it Business started claiming that any harder for governments to take the regulatory change which affected sort of action they its long-term These courts desperately need expectation to protect the of profit was allow the fossil planet, it actually essentially fuel industry to maintains the profits expropriation of of the most reckless its assets. Hedge make utterly parts of the fossil funds even got irresponsible fuel industry. The in on the act, stations in funding corporate decisions without power the Netherlands court cases so were established they could keep consequence. long after it going for longer, became clear that coal would need in the hope of wearing a government down and achieving a very profitable to be phased out. But corporate courts essentially made the decision payout. to establish them risk-free for the REWARDING THE RECKLESS company. Or take Rockhopper, We now have enough cases on file suing Italy for its exploration ban. A to know just how serious a challenge financial analyst told the Guardian these corporate courts are to our that a payout in the case would be urgent need to halt climate change. “tremendously helpful” in funding Governments have been sued for further oil exploration off the coast of placing a moratorium on fracking the Falkland Islands. and for forcing power stations

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Italians march against oil drilling in the Adriatic Sea in 2015.

In other words, these corporate courts allow corporations to make utterly irresponsible decisions without consequence. Fortunately, the backlash is well underway, with countries from Bolivia to South Africa to Indonesia ripping up bilateral trade deals that contain corporate courts, and refusing to sign new ones. Here in Britain, Boris Johnson’s government is one of the most gung-ho in the world when it comes to ISDS, trying to insert corporate courts into every trade deal they sign. But he’s already been beaten in the Australian and New Zealand deals, where it seems ISDS has been dropped from the negotiations.

Meanwhile, across Europe a major campaign is underway to force governments to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty, one of the most egregious corporate court systems, responsible for many of the cases referred to here.

When the UN climate conference COP26 meets in Glasgow in November, whatever commitments delegates make could be seriously undermined unless we change the way our global trade system works.

Abandoning the corporate court system should be a top priority.

Nick Dearden is the director of Global Justice Now. A version of this article first appeared on Al Jazeera.com

Global Justice Now Supporters Mobilising for COP26 The crucial UN climate summit is taking place in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November.

Join Global Justice Now activists and staff at the protests and countersummit to help ensure that the voices of those most affected by the climate emergency are heard, and to demand urgent action.

We will be joined by many more people, who will be mobilising under the banner of the COP26 Coalition, which we’ve been working with allies to build for the last year. There will also be protests and actions around the country and the world.

Friday 5 November

Youth climate strike in Glasgow Saturday 6 November

Global Day for Climate Justice cop26coalition.org/gda In Glasgow, assemble 12 noon, Kelvingrove Park. Global Justice Now and our allies from Attac France and other Attac chapters will form a Global Economic Justice Bloc on the march. In London, assemble 12 noon, Bank of England, Threadneedle Street. Elsewhere, check cop26coalition.org/map for details.

Sunday 7 November - Wednesday 10 November

People’s Summit for Climate Justice Workshops and panel discussions which will take place both in person in Glasgow and online. More at cop26coalition.org/peoples-summit If you’re coming to Glasgow, we’ll also be running a Global Justice Now hub from the evening of 4 November to the evening of 6 November, with informal talks, banner making and hot drinks available. Find us at: 72 Berkeley Street, Glasgow G3 7DS

New Council election Thank you to everyone who voted in the elections for Global Justice Now’s Council in the summer. From a strong field the following were elected: Hiba Ahmad, Nicola Ansell (chair), Sunit Bagree, Sally Brooks, Hasadri Freeman, Natalia Guidorzi, Christa Hook (vicechair), Adrian Lance (treasurer), Max Lawson, Maggie Mason (national secretary), Naveed Somani and Sam Walton.

Formal positions were agreed at the first meeting in July. You can find out more about the Council members and the role of Council at: globaljustice.org.uk/council

People’s Vaccine tshirts New campaign t-shirts in support of our pharmaceuticals campaign are now available in two designs and a variety of colours at: globaljustice.org.uk/tshirts

COP26

It's payback time Boris Johnson has called on rich countries to pledge more climate finance at COP26. But as DANIEL WILLIS writes, the UK is a long way short of paying its own fair share. decarbonise and adapt to climate At last month’s UN general assembly change. Yet not only have they failed in New York, prime minister Boris to meet this target, the target itself was Johnson tried to show off his ‘climate always far too low leadership’ credentials. He hectored Alternative calculations by global world leaders to increase their south leaders argue that the UK alone climate finance commitments, while should instead be paying at least $46 announcing that the UK will increase billion a year to the global south to its own contributions in the next five cover its fair share of climate finance. years. “History will judge,” he said.

While this sounds like If you’ve come The UK alone a lot, it is less than across Boris Johnson of this country’s before, you’ll already should be paying 1.5% annual national know that there’s a catch. At $3.2 at least $46bn a income, and would save a lot of money billion a year (£2.3 year to the global in terms of dealing million), the UK’s with the impacts climate finance south to cover of climate chaos in commitments still fall its 'fair share' of the long term. One well short of what southern leaders climate finance. LSE study found that rich industrialised argue would be this countries together must provide $400 country’s ‘fair share’, based on the billion to $2 trillion a year of climate UK’s historic contributions to climate finance by 2050 to collectively pay change. Even worse, this funding isn’t new and additional as the UN requires their fair share.

The UK’s recent increase, and it to be, but will instead be raided President Biden’s announcement in from the UK aid budget, which the September that the US will contribute government has already cut by £4 $11 billion a year (the US’s fair share billion this year. is $80 billion), therefore remain well PAYING OUR FAIR SHARE short of what is needed. Yet a lack of Over a decade ago, rich governments ambition is not the only problem with agreed to collectively pay the global these pledges. south $100 billion a year in climate DODGY ACCOUNTING finance by 2020. The goal was designed to account for the historic Firstly, there are a raft of ways in which carbon emissions of the global north rich countries overcount the limited and to support the global south to finance that they have contributed. Of

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Protesting outside the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines.

Photo: © Pat Roque/AP/Shutterstock

the $79 billion the OECD said that the global north had provided in climate finance in 2018, Oxfam analysis suggests only $20 billion meets the definition of genuine climate finance.

That is partly because 74% of this finance was provided as loans, not grants, meaning that governments were counting money they would eventually get back as assistance to the global south.

Furthermore, the funding is meant to be new and additional. In contrast,

COP26

the UK has consistently raided the aid budget to provide climate finance, when the two must stay separate. As one Indian government ministry put it, the UK is “robbing Peter to pay Paul”, and putting vital aid-backed services in healthcare and education at risk through its approach to climate finance.

forcing them to take on more debt to rebuild. For example, a UCL study found that six hurricanes in Antigua and Barbuda between 1995 and 2010 cost the state $335 million, while Irish Aid estimate that climate change is set to cost heavily indebted Zambia $4.3 billion over a 10-year period These economic losses exacerbate debt problems, by making it difficult for governments to make their existing repayments and by forcing them to turn to lenders for further loans.

Breaking the climate-debt cycle through widespread debt cancellation should therefore be a key part of all programmes for climate justice.

Even with drastic emissions reductions, debt cancellation and climate finance, however, the global south may never be fully compensated for the lost development opportunities taken from them by the global north.

Rich countries got rich burning coal and oil, but that opportunity will never be afforded to the global south.

Furthermore, climate finance does not cover the harder to quantify losses (including displacement and lives lost) due to climate change.

Because of this, reparations must be made.We need to call out the UK’s climate hypocrisy before, during and at COP26. It’s time that the UK paid up and contributed its fair share of climate finance. But we must also demand our government uses its COP presidency to push other rich countries DEBT AND REPARATIONS to agree a new climate finance deal On top of receiving the vast majority that represents equity and justice for of climate finance in the form of loans, the global south. If it doesn’t, history countries in the global south are facing will certainly judge. a Covid-19-induced debt crisis which Daniel Willis is climate campaign manager at threatens to plunge up to 150 million Global Justice Now. people into extreme poverty. And the growing impacts of climate change look set to make this worse.

Climate change-related disasters Call on the UK government to pay take a heavy financial toll on low and its fair share of climate finance: middle income countries, particularly globaljustice.org.uk/climate-courts on the least developed countries and

TAKE ACTION

small island developing states, often

2021 Ninety-Nine 19

IN PICTURES

Breaking bread and breaking borders Campaigner-turned-food writer YASMIN KHAN’s third recipe book, Ripe Figs, covers not just the food of the Eastern Mediterranean, but also borders, migration and the human connections we make through food.

We spoke to her about the project.

Your previous books have focused on recipes and stories from one particular country, Iran and then Palestine. What made you take a different approach for this book?

Yasmin: I focussed on a region for this book in order to explore the concept of borders - both their intrinsically arbitrary nature and their fluidity. The borders of the Eastern Mediterranean have been as contested as they've been changeable over several thousand years and in many ways the area is a microcosm of an issue faced all over the world. Namely, how in the 21st century do we deal with the fact that humans have always needed to move and always will move? And how can we update our narrative and our concepts of borders, states and identity so that people can live, and move, in peace and with dignity?

Refugees don’t often get a starring role in food writing.

Why was it important for you that they did in Ripe Figs?

From migrants risking their lives to cross the Channel, to Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban, refugees continue to grow in numbers in our economically divided world.

I wanted to give a voice to those moving and share the stories of the incredible volunteer initiatives that are stepping in to support them. Food is such a powerful lens for exploring social issues like this, I think, as it connects us through the act of breaking bread but it also enables us to learn about a culture.

When you learn about a cuisine from a particular place, you don't just learn about a set of ingredients, you learn about its history, economy, climate, agriculture, gender relations and trade. I like to take my readers on a journey, from the kitchen table to the world around them and hope the book inspires both debate and discussion, alongside delicious meals.

Find out more at yasminkhanstories.com

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1

2

IN PICTURES

3 5 4

1. Yasmin’s Cypriot potato salad.

Ninety-Nine readers can find this recipe for free at globaljustice.org. uk/cypriot-potato 2. Sislo prepares food in the One Happy Family community kitchen on Lesvos, which feeds hundreds of refugees every day.

3. "Food is the simplest way for people to communicate" says Nadina Christopoulou, co-founder of Melissa, a women’s refugee organisation and community centre in Athens.

4. Graffiti in Cyprus’ divided capital, Nicosia.

5. In Northern Cyprus, Yasmin makes olive bread with Nahide Köşkeroğlu (left) and her granddaughter Çizge Yalkın (centre), whose family were displaced by the civil war and division of the island in 1974.

Despite a shared food culture and reconciliation initiatives, nationalists on both sides continue to stoke hostility.

YASMIN

KHAN

RI PE F I GS

Recipes and Stories from the Eastern Mediterranean

2021 Ninety-Nine 21

CLIMATE

How corporations attack democracy Ten years ago Global Justice Now supported Colombian communities opposing the expansion of Latin America’s biggest coal mine – and eventually they won. But now Anglo American has turned to corporate courts, explains ALDO ORELLANA LÓPEZ. In May and June this year, mining giants Anglo American and Glencore began two investorstate dispute settlement (ISDS) cases against Colombia. The cases relate to the Cerrejon coal mine, the largest open-pit coal mine in Latin America. The mine extracts 30 million tonnes of coal per year, most of it exported to Europe. Over many years community and civil society organisations have documented human rights violations from the mine. More than thirty communities have been displaced, and coal extraction has led to degradation of the soil, water, air and of course people's health.

Cerrejon has diverted nineteen rivers or streams for its expansion including the Arroyo Bruno – an important tributary of the Rio Rancheria – which was moved 700 metres to the north from its original course. The community brought a case against this to the constitutional court of Colombia, and in 2017 it ruled that several community rights had been violated in diverting the river without consultation, including the right to water, food sovereignty and health.

Four years later the companies have still not returned the river to its original course.

Yet in the space of just a few days this summer, both companies brought ISDS cases against Colombia. They argued that the decision of the constitutional court negatively affected their investments and was in violation of Colombia’s investment treaties with Switzerland (for Glencore) and the UK (for Anglo American), which contain ISDS. These cases represent an outrageous corporate attack on democracy. Communities in the region have struggled to seek accountability for the impacts of coal mining in

22 Ninety-Nine 2021

their territories at the constitutional court, and the ruling is the result of that struggle. They've used the democratic institutions of Colombia.

Yet by bringing these ISDS cases, Anglo American and Glencore are blackmailing the communities into dropping their fight.

These cases are also really important for the international climate movement. Colombian communities are fighting to prevent the expansion of coal extraction, but the ISDS case is preventing them from leaving coal in the ground.

Across Latin America there are community struggles to block oil and coal exploration, and they are of course climate-related struggles.

Supporting these movements is a vital part of the climate fight.

Aldo Orellana López is a Bolivian activist and journalist. This is part of a talk he gave to a webinar ‘Corporate courts: Communities fight back’ in September. Watch more at: globaljustice.org.uk/18sep-webinar. © Obse rvato rio de Conflictos

Mine ros de Amé rica Latina

ity of the village of Tabaco, The Afro -Colombian com mun the right to rebu ild. destroyed by the mine, demand

REVIEWS

Reviews THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE: A NOVEL Kim Stanley Robinson Orbit, 2020

THE NEW CORPORATION Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, 2021 1hr 46 mins From the Canadian makers of the influential 2003 documentary The Corporation – which looked at the workings of big business within society and diagnosed it as psychopathic – comes The New Corporation, which reveals the influence of corporations on every aspect of society today.

The film covers “chapters” in the new playbook big business is using to slyly rebrand itself as socially conscious and, when it comes to things like the climate emergency, part of the solution.

Much of what the film covers may be known to you already, but the curation of the full range of nefarious and devious activities of corporations and their CEOs is what gives it impact.

Thankfully the latter part counters this somewhat depressing picture by showing a much more inspiring overview of the groundswell of resistance to corporate power – as people take to the streets and also successfully stand for political office – to fight for justice and the planet.

Liz Murray

This book should be handed out to every delegate at COP26. Readers beware – it is not your typical sci-fi novel. The world it describes is painfully familiar and the main characters are a bunch of bureaucrats, activists and scientists around the Ministry for the Future, founded in 2025 by the Paris Accords signatories. The book opens with an extreme heatwave in India in about 2050 in which 20 million people die over the course of two weeks. It’s deeply affecting to read and process precisely because the magnitude may be unimaginable but the setup is not.

The story explores a multitude of solutions that the Ministry is working through, while at the same time expos-

ing the contradictions in our existing economic, legal and social practices. Yes, it deals with systems change, but does not glance over the moral and ethical implications of such change. It remains a deeply humanist novel, as imperfect in its writing at times as our collective responses to the climate crisis continue to be. Yet the overall message is one of hope.

Alena Ivanova

REIMAGINING MUSEUMS FOR CLIMATE ACTION Glasgow Science Centre Until COP26 When you think of radical climate action, the first thing to come to mind might not be a museum.

Glasgow Science Centre’s new exhibition aims to challenge this notion by asking the question “what would it take for museums to become catalysts for radical climate action?”

Through a series of interactive exhibits, films and informative plaques – curated from ideas from around the world – this exhibition not only shows how museums can be a front line for climate action, but also educates visitors on fossil fuels and renewable energy. A particular standout for me was an interactive ‘Doodle God’-

style game showing just how many everyday products are made from oil-derived plastics (it’s a lot). Finally, an exhibit on the Dundee Museum of Transport showed a real world example of a museum that is already a frontier for tackling climate change.

The exhibition is on in Glasgow until COP26 and I’d recommend it as an innovative and accessible day out for all ages.

Freya Murray