Now’s activist newsletter, published three times a year, with monthly email supplements (Think Global Extra)
Edited by James O’Nions
On 25 March we’ll be hosting our Resisting Monopoly Capitalism conference. We are so excited to be gathering such a diverse range of international speakers, thinkers and representatives from global activist movements in one place.
There are extremely live struggles happening all over the world for fair access to food, healthcare and technology. Recognising our common cause makes us far more powerful, and far more likely to win.
We know that our world is dominated by extreme corporate power, which fuels unprecedented inequality and erodes democracy. But naming the specific problem as ‘monopoly capitalism’ shows us that these corporations have grown wealthy by monopolising the resources we need to live a dignified life, and helps bring people together to resist it.
The anti-monopoly movement as it currently exists is largely US and EU-focused. Not enough has been done to look at the global perspective. People in the poorest countries are the most affected by the forced competition between countries, but they’re also leading many of the charges of resistance against monopoly capitalism. We hope that this conference will help give shape to a burgeoning global movement, linking various struggles together through a shared understanding of their connectedness.
And it is possible to win. Our recent progress in campaigning against the Energy Charter Treaty shows that the system can be challenged. This campaign has been about more than just fighting the individual corporations who are seeking to block, and profit from, governments taking climate action – it’s about dismantling the mechanisms through which they’re able to do this. It’s about chipping away at the whole system that prioritises the rights of corporations over the rights of people and planet. It is in our power to fight back.
We must dismantle this system that incentivises greed and inequality, and amassing an ever greater share of the planet’s wealth and resources, with no thought for what is left over for others. We need a commons for medicine, we need food sovereignty, we need energy democracy and we need climate justice. Resisting monopoly capitalism is about fighting for a fundamental change to our global economic system, and a world that puts people before profit.
As previously noted in Think Global Extra, this year’s AGM will be held separately from our main activist conference (see page 12) and will be held online. Although members were able to listen in to last year’s AGM via Zoom even though it was conducted in-person, those joining online were not able to vote.
This year we will go back to a Zoom-only AGM, held at 11am on Saturday 3 June. You will need to register in order to get the link to join. Registration and other relevant information can be found at globaljustice.org.uk/agm-2023.
We contacted local groups in January to ask them to confirm their details and current status as a group. Thanks for all those who did. If you haven’t yet, please get in touch! Call the activism team on 020 7820 4900 or email daisy.pearson@globaljustice.org.uk.
We worked with the i newspaper in the lead-up to COP27 to release some exclusive research showing that oil giants like Shell and BP could be responsible for more than £7 trillion in climate debt (see picture above right). Our campaigners were featured on BBC News as climate protests got underway across the world and staff members spoke to the Guardian, Sky News, BBC World Service and LBC.
There was also a shocking story for our pharma team that revealed BioNTech and the German government had pressured Twitter to censor Global Justice Now activists who had been pushing for a generic Covid vaccine at the beginning of the pandemic.
We also worked exclusively with the Mirror to bring to light the serious concerns of medics across the UK and India in regard to the NHS drug price hike plan seen in a leaked draft of the trade deal. In the trade campaign we’ve also worked with a number of journalists covering the government’s upcoming financial deregulation bill and pushed our ongoing campaign against the ECT far and wide.
Write to your MP about the Energy Charter Treaty, and try to arrange a meeting to explain the issue further.
Reach out to other local groups interested in climate change for possible joint activities.
Plan a stall, stunt or public event to raise the profile of the issue.
Write to your local paper about energy company profits and the need for a polluter tax to pay for loss and damage.
Let all your group members and contacts know about Resisting Monopoly Capitalism.
With the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) becoming the sick man of Europe, the UK government is still dithering, or “monitoring the situation”. However, the cascade of countries escaping the sinking ship has made a seismic shift to the political calculus for the UK and the ECT is now truly up for debate across the political spectrum. As a result, we think this is a key moment to increase the pressure via political and parliamentary channels, so we’re encouraging groups to meet with their MPs in the next month and have some new tools to help with this.
As you know, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Slovenia and Luxembourg announced their exit from the ECT at the end of last year, refusing to support the insufficient proposals to reform the treaty. The European parliament also voted for withdrawal. There have not been any new exit announcements since December, but there is quite a lot going on behind the scenes. The European Union is finally exploring a way for countries to leave in coordination to avoid the sting of the treaty’s sunset clause.
With the reform of the ECT dead in the water, the UK government should be left with no excuse: it previously said it could not support the treaty in an unreformed state. While supporters of the ECT are scrabbling to recover support for a delayed vote on the reforms in April, which may or may not happen, we have the next few months to lay out the exit route for the UK. For this we need your help!
Corporate courts thrive on secrecy: the UK government can only get away with repeating that it is ‘monitoring developments’ and avoiding decisive action if members of parliament are unaware of the outrageous risk it is taking by keeping us in the ECT. What we do in the next few months to put pressure on MPs and other officials could really make a difference: about whether we get left behind in an archaic deal that ties the UK’s hands, or seize the chance to be part of a coordinated withdrawal that eliminates most of that risk.
So we’re asking groups to join us in a mobilisation effort across the country to engage as many MPs as possible on the need for the UK to exit, and to exit now.
We’re keen for groups to get involved with some sustained and targeted lobbying of their local MPs, or even councillors, around the ECT and have put together a pack of materials and guidance to help you do so. This can involve:
• Meet with your MP to discuss the ECT - depending how your MP is working at present this could be in person or on Zoom. We’ve put together a resource pack (below) including:
• Template letter you can use and adapt to write to your MP, telling them about the ECT, sharing our parliamentary briefing and asking to meet to discuss it further
• Messaging guide with all the main headlines, talking points and stats relevant to the different political parties and levels of government. It also includes rebuttals to frequently asked questions.
• We can also arrange online briefings with you/your group to help prepare you.
• Ask your MP to support the call to exit the ECT; maybe they: write to the secretary of state; submit parliamentary questions; organise a backbencher meeting; put out a statement on social media; or help organise Westminster Hall debate with us. Based on their receptiveness, you can keep us in the loop and we can help steer them on any of these actions and provide further guidance and materials.
• Reach out to and join forces with other climate groups to meet with your local MPs or councillors as a collective representing different groups across the constituency. We’re working with Friends of the Earth at a national level, but Extinction Rebellion and other local groups may also be interested.
• Reach out to local councillors about raising a council motion, using our draft and guidance in the How to Lobby DecisionMakers resource listed below, that resolves the council to oppose the ECT and raise concerns with relevant stakeholders.
• Consider holding a demonstration outside your MP’s constituency office in your local area if they are failing to respond to you, to bring the issue to their doorstep and also have the chance to speak to more passers-
by about the campaign. We can help you organise this.
• Contact local media outlets to highlight your lobbying efforts or your demonstration, your MPs’ or your council’s response or lack thereof, using our template press release.
There are ways of talking about the ECT which will land better with Conservatives: highlighting sovereignty, and freedom from the “red tape” that lets foreign companies interfere with their laws. More environmentally-minded Tories may be concerned with the UK’s climate leadership status. And speaking to councillors means raising how corporate court claims have overturned democratic decisions by all levels of governments.
Groups will find most of the resource pack included with this mailing. To find it online, including with editable/copiable text, go to globaljustice.org.uk/ECT-pack
The elements of the pack are:
• Messaging guide: how to talk about the ECT
• How to lobby decision-makers
• Template letter to MP about the ECT
• Template press release for ECT MP lobbying
• Parliamentary briefing on the ECT, to send to your MP
• Draft council motion on the ECT
Please contact Cleodie for further advice and guidance, or to request a briefing via Zoom: cleodie.rickard@globaljustice.org.uk
Five fossil fuel firms... Petition leaflet (updated September 2022).
Corporate courts versus the climate Photo booklet (February 2022).
Climate injustice How corporate courts block climate action. Four-page briefing (March 2021).
Contact us to order these or view them at globaljustice.org.uk/resources
Council had its first meeting of 2023 on 28 January, and the main agenda item was to provide feedback on the workplan for the year. This year’s workplan is the first since we developed our new strategy (as discussed at the AGM in July). It was very encouraging to see this strategy playing out through the more detailed workplan. Over a few pages, each staff team set out their goals and objectives, and explained how these relate to the overall strategy. They then articulated their theory of change, a set of actions to achieve their goals, and a plan for how the actions will be funded.
Carrying out these well thought through plans will occupy the majority of people’s time, but we are aware that it is often necessary to be able to respond quickly and flexibly to a rapidly changing national and global context. Each campaign plan, therefore, builds in a proportion of time each week for undertaking activities that are responsive to the immediate situation. This ability to balance carefully researched and planned campaigns with the broader expertise and agility to respond to situations is a very valuable characteristic of Global Justice Now.
Council also discussed co-opting new council members. We are allowed to co-opt three individuals beyond those who are directly elected, if we feel the elected members are lacking in particular areas of expertise. Overall, we don’t think there are significant absences in our expertise, but we are conscious that there are some areas that could be strengthened.
We are also aware that we are currently half way through the current council’s term, and it would be useful to bring in people with certain types of expertise now, to increase the chance that we have the necessary skills on the next council. In particular, we are interested in having one or two people join us with financial and legal experience. If you think this might be you, please do get in touch.
Isabel Allende
This beautiful work of historical fiction follows a family caught up in the Spanish Civil War and forced into exile in Chile. Set against the backdrop of two major struggles against fascist dictatorships, this is ultimately a hopeful tale of family, love and belonging.
Daisy Pearson, activism team
The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday life and the ecological crisis of capitalism
Ulrich Brand and Marcus Wissen
A compelling new account of how the things we’ve come to expect in rich countries, such as car ownership, are only possible at the expense of people and the environment elsewhere, while at the same time propping up a fundamentally unequal economic system.
James O’Nions, activism teamJames Baldwin
This classic by the great novelist and essayist of the Black liberation struggle follows the relationship of a young couple Tish and Fonny in 1970s Harlem who are separated by false imprisonment and a broken criminal justice system.
Tim Bierley, policy teamCommoning with George Caffentzis and Silvia Federici
A fascinating set of essays on the intellectual legacy of the two authors, highlighting capitalism’s enclosures as ongoing processes of dispossession and accumulation, and feminist understandings of the ‘commons’, care and social reproduction as crucial sites of resistance.
Cleodie Rickard, policy teamWe found out that Pfizer’s vaccine partner BioNTech tried to censor Global Justice Now activists’ tweets at the height of the pandemic. In December 2020 BioNTech wrote to Twitter, asking them to hide demands that pharma companies share their vaccine recipes and Covid-19 vaccine patents be suspended. This is the company that made £16.7 billion in 2021, with astonishing profit margins of 54%. This was after the company received over €500 million in public funding.
We sent the company a barrage of messages to let them know we won’t be silenced, and we’re stepping up our campaign again to take on the failing pharma model. BioNTech is one of a few pharma giants trying to seize monopoly control over the mRNA technology, which could soon provide vaccines for cancer, HIV and other diseases. With so much at stake, we can’t afford not to break up big pharma’s deadly monopolies.
We think there is an opportunity to initiate this change from the UK. While the UK funds huge amounts of research into new medicines, much of this vital work is privatised and then sold back to the NHS at eye-watering prices. Many of these medicines also become unaffordable for lower-income countries. At the same time big pharma companies are demanding even more, with two US companies pulling out of a pricing agreement in January.
We think it’s time to create a new system where public funding comes with hard conditions. Medicines should be affordable to all, the science should be shared widely, and profits must be invested in new medicines, not shareholder bonuses. It’s also time to go beyond the monopoly patent system and we’ll be pushing UK parties to be bold in taking on big pharma’s vested interests in this broken model. There will be some new materials and campaign activities available for activists from late spring. Watch this space!
We’re working on a series of short films about people around the world taking on the pharmaceutical industry. This will feature activists who fight for cheaper drugs for lifethreatening conditions, health workers battling the diseases big pharma doesn’t bother to invest in and scientists building a new system that puts people over profits. If you’re interested in arranging screenings of the films near you, get in touch with Tim: tim.bierley@globaljustice.org.uk
Ten reasons why we need a new pharma system Two-page A4 factsheet (2022).
Who wants to be a pharma billionaire? Game for use on stalls (2022).
UK government: Suspend the patents Petition sheet (no postcards left). Four-page A5 leaflets (2021).
Fighting for a People’s Vaccine Supporter briefing, four pages (September 2021).
Order via activism@globaljustice.org.uk
It’s that time again – when fossil fuel corporations gleefully tell us how much money they’ve been making from sky-high energy bills (and by avoiding paying their climate debt to the global south). At the time of writing, Chevron (the company with the largest historic carbon emissions) has announced yearly profits of $36.5 billion for 2022 – more than double what it earned in 2021. And like, other big polluters, it is investing those proceeds in inflating its own share price (through share buybacks) rather than in investing in greener energy or reducing costs for consumers.
We will be monitoring the profit announcements of other carbon majors such including BP, Shell and ExxonMobil (who it was recently reported had suppressed their own climate scientists’ evidence on the future impact of global warming) as they are reported this week – make sure to check the website and our social media for updates.
Early signs, however, suggest that BP and Shell are likely to double their profits compared with 2021 – a sure sign that the time has come to tax the obscene profits of fossil fuel giants. That makes it the perfect time to be making the case that the loss and damage fund which our movement won at the UN climate talks in November should be funded through rich countries taxing the polluters most responsible for climate breakdown.
Early details on the membership of the transitional committee that will manage the loss and damage funding arrangements of the UN were announced in January. Although the rich countries on the committee have not yet been announced, progressive governments in Chile, Colombia and Brazil will all have a seat on the committee, as will Sudan, one of the least developed countries that is highly vulnerable to climate change.
This committee will meet before the end of March to start the process of deciding what a loss and damage fund will look like.
Enclosed with this issue of Think Global is a new two-page briefing making the case that fossil fuel corporations should be made to pay climate reparations, and the scale of what we think they owe. It is based on reseearch we released and gained some media coverage for during COP27.
In addition to distributing these within your group, you could consider:
• Using the briefing to write a letter to local press talking about the annual profit announcements for the Big Five oil and gas companies and making the case for making polluters pay climate reparations.
• Running a stall with Make Polluters Pay petition sheets, A5 leaflets and the new briefing. Email activism@globaljustice.org.uk to order materials, including more copies of the briefing.
Dan Willis, climate and finance campaigner, writes: “This is, sadly, the last Think Global update from me as I will be leaving Global Justice Now in early February to start a new role at Recourse – a development and climate advocacy organisation. It has been a fantastic experience working here and I have really enjoyed getting out (virtually at least!) to meet so many groups and members around the country. Thank you for all of the work and actions that you have taken in support of our campaigns and for making them possible.”
We are currently recruiting for a new campaigner, and although it may take a few months to get someone in place, in the meantime the rest of the staff team will continue to push to tax big polluters and make them pay for the damage that they’ve done to the planet. Email activism@globaljustice.org.uk with questions about the campaign.
Extinction Rebellion is putting usual tactics aside and inviting everyone to gather at parliament on 21 April to demand government action on the climate emergency. The aim is to build a genuine mass mobilisation that displays collaboration and resistance in the face of the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. Global Justice Now will be there on the day and supporting in the build-up with workshops and webinars. More info at:
www.extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one
NEW Making polluters pay climate reparations
Two-page briefing (Feb 2023)
Make polluters pay A5 petition leaflet (updated January 2023).
Reparations and climate justice Eight-page briefing (September 2022).
See globaljustice.org.uk/resources and order from activism@globaljustice.org.uk
Global Justice Bradford members have continued their campaign for fossil fuel divestment in the West Yorkshire pension fund. They marked a full year of weekly pickets in December with a bigger event addressed by Naz Shah MP and our own Dan Willis.
In January, Global Justice Brighton and Hove held a meeting framed around the outcomes of COP27 and are now planning some kind of public action on the Energy Charter Treaty with some of the new folks who came along.
Global Justice Sheffield held a meeting, Solving the Debt and Climate Crises Together, and pulled an impressive audience of over 50 people. As a result the group and Sheffield African diaspora have begun a joint project to help their families in eastern Congo to reverse the problem of poverty-driven local deforestation.
After ten months working on the issue, Global Justice Central London have established a (London wide) Justice Congo Group, working on solidarity and support for the DRC, especially in relation to exploitative extractive industries.
Global Justice Cambridge: had a stall at a big community event; were interviewed on Radio Cambridgeshire; had an article on loss and damage in East Anglian Bylines (a citizen journalism project); and raised £154 for Global Justice Now at their annual carol singing event!
Global Justice Portsmouth members led their local COP27 protest, held a stall at the rally and spoke on loss and damage. Sue was also quoted in coverage of the event in Portsmouth News.
Global Justice Nottingham also played a leading role in protests and events in the city to mark COP27, followed by a vigil for the COP15 on biodiversity and a January reportback meeting.
Global Justice Reading screened a great 30 minute film Boomerang: how the legacies of Empire are Breaking Britain (it’s on YouTube). 35 people attended, and had a wide-ranging discussion.
Global Justice Leicester held stalls at a Green Harvest event and an Autumn Fayre, where the loss and damage campaign connected well with the general public. The group also took part in two events run by Climate Action Leicester and Leicestershire, to which they are affiliated. A screening of The Ants and the Grasshopper, about Malawian farmers and climate change, had a good turnout and they were able to make the connection with our campaigns. The group also took part in a one-hour climate change vigil.
Global Justice York managed to both join the climate justice protest in Sheffield and run a successful stall at an event organised by Acomb Churches Together (see photo) on the same day!
Members of Global Justice Bexhill and Hastings got a letter published in the Sussex Express about the Energy Charter Treaty, calling on the two local MPs to oppose it.
Many youth groups had successful local meetups post freshers fairs - some in areas where previously there hadn’t been youth groups, like Essex, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle.
Since forming in September Tyneside Youth Collective have run three campaign stalls and joined the Newcastle climate demo. The Reading Youth group attended the climate justice march in London as a big group (see photo page 9), organised a film screening on campus and have started work on a creative poster and zine project. Glasgow Youth are organising a workshop at Strathclyde University titled System Change not Climate Change. Cardiff Youth held a meeting with Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden.
Global Justice Stirling made it to the front page of the Bridge student newspaper, with an article about Stirling University’s investments being linked to fossil fuels and other harmful companies. They also organised a fundraiser solidarity rave for Just Transition Stirling, a panel on eco-anxiety, and joined striking teachers at the NEU picket lines in Edinburgh! Merseyside Youth and Our Future Now in London both restarted their book groups.
Members of the network in London and Brighton have been working as part of the recently-formed Action Against Detention and Deportations and took part in protests calling for the closure of the notorious Manston Detention Centre in Kent which was facing dangerous overcrowding towards the end of last year. And in mid-January youth network members in Scotland took part in a day-long occupation of a Leonardo UK arms factory in Edinburgh, protesting sales of arms to Israel.
We Rise, at the end of January (postponed from November due to train strikes), was a
great success. Over 100 people came to the Manchester event (photos above) and were joined by speakers via video link from across the globe, including prominent Pakistani activist Ammar Ali Jan. Attendees travelled from across the country, including some catching overnight buses back to Scotland!
An activist conference examining extreme corporate power on a planet in crisis
Saturday 25 March, 11am-6pm, SOAS, London WC1H
Speakers:
• Parminder Jeet Singh IT for Change, India
• Julia Kosgei People’s Vaccine Alliance, Kenya
• Aurélie Trouvé French MP, parliamentary chair of left bloc NUPES
• Michelle Meagher Balanced Economy Project
• Anthony Barnett Founder, Open Democracy
• Nicholas Shaxson Author, Treasure Islands and Finance Curse
• Landless Workers’ Movement, Brazil
• and more to be announced!
Multinational corporations have grown wealthy by monopolising the resources we need to live a dignified life – whether it’s the food we eat, the medicines we need to treat ourselves or the technology which increasingly underlies our day-to-day lives.
These leviathans set the rules of the game, forcing countries to compete with each other. This triggers not only a race to the bottom in terms of workers’ rights and environmental protection, but also leads the way to potentially devastating international conflict.
As such, monopoly capitalism needs to be confronted on an international basis, as well as at the level of the nation state. The movement
against monopolies is growing. Only by taxing and regulating, breaking up and taking over these private monoliths can we hope to reclaim our democracy, reverse inequality and leave a habitable planet for future generations.
Join Global Justice Now and allies to discuss what monopoly capitalism is and look at the problems it poses to our food system, medicine production and tech, as well its implications for war and climate change. And we’ll look at how we bring these corporations to heel.
Latest information and book your free place now at globaljustice.org.uk/monopolies
Event organised by Global Justice Now and supported by the Balanced Economy Project.
We’ve big ambitions for this conference reaching new audiences and boosting the movement against corporate power. We’ve included leaflets in this mailing and would appreciate help with getting the word out through local email lists and other channels. Email daisy.pearson@globaljustice.org.uk for an email flyer, forwardable WhatsApp message or conference posters.
