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	Treating the world's resources as limitless is leading towards global disaster by Circle Economy   Humanity's annual material consumption has now passed 100 billion tons per year, the world community must drastically reduce waste.   The climate and wildlife emergencies are driven by the unsustainable extraction of fossil fuels, metals, building materials and trees. Treating the world's resources as limitless is leading towards global disaster.   The global think tank Circle Economy reveals in its study that global consumption in the last two years has risen by 8% while the reuse and recycling of materials has gone down by half a percentage point - the exact opposite of what needs to happen to build a sustainable global economy.   "The negative trend overall can be explained by three related, underlying trends: high rates of extraction; ongoing stock build-up; plus, low levels of end-of-use processing, and cycling," Circle Economy says.   "These trends are embedded deep within the 'take-make-waste' tradition of the linear economy, the problems are hardwired. As such, the outlook to close the circularity gap looks bleak under the dead hand of business as usual. We desperately need transformative and correctional solutions; change is a must."   Circle Economy advocates for economies where the use of renewable energy allows materials that go to waste and pollution to be reduced to zero.   "A circular economy is about retaining value and complexity of products as highly as possible, for as long as possible - ideally, without any degradation, or fallout," states the report. "At the same time, they also reduce the requirement for new inputs to produce new products for replacement."   In 2017, the last year the group has data for, humans used 100.6 billion tons of materials. While the global population has doubled since 1970, Circle Economy found consumption has quadrupled since then.   Half of the materials used each year are clay, gravel, sand, and other materials used for construction, and about 40% of the materials used are turned into housing, yet according to the Homeless World Cup Foundation, an estimated 100 million people worldwide are homeless and as many as 1.6 billion people have inadequate housing.   Along with the extraction of fossil fuels, the overuse of metals, building materials, and deforestation are driving the ecological and climate emergencies, the group warned.   "We risk global disaster if we continue to treat the world's resources as if they are limitless," said Harald Friedl, CEO of Circle Economy, told The Guardian.   "Governments must urgently adopt circular economy solutions if we want to achieve a high quality of life for close to 10 billion people by mid-century without destabilizing critical planetary processes."   Beyond helping to mitigate the climate and ecological crises, adopting circular economies would help to make countries more competitive, the report notes.   "Business as usual is dead," Peter Bakker, CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said in the report. "We must commit to taking action at scale to make the circular economy reality. Measuring our individual and collective performance in the circular economy is fundamental in knowing whether we're decoupling resource consumption and financial performance at the rate which our planet is demanding of us."   In addition to building materials, plants and trees used for food and fuel make up 25% of the materials consumed each year. Extracted coal, oil, and gas make up 15% of the materials used while metals account for 10%.   A third of the materials used each year end up as waste in landfills or deposits near mining sites, reads the report, which also notes that in recent years the amount of material that was recycled or reused went from 9.1% to 8.6%.   http://www.circularity-gap.world/global http://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/07/26/the-necessity-of-recycling/ Visit the related web page
	With extreme poverty rising and climate breakdown accelerating, we need to mobilise for a New Deal by Jayati Ghosh Project Syndicate, agencies   The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented economic crisis, deeper and wider than any since the Great Depression. After months of turmoil, there is still no certainty as to how severe, widespread and prolonged the damage will be.   What we do know is terrifying. Globally, extreme poverty is rapidly increasing, owing to the destruction of livelihoods and incomes, many of which will never be regained.   Hunger is becoming more widespread and health conditions are worsening even beyond the spread of the coronavirus.   Income and asset inequalities have reached new highs in many countries, and gender and other group disparities are worsening. Political power imbalances are increasing as governments seize the opportunity to pursue greater centralisation, control and suppression of dissent.   This massive global crisis is playing out against the backdrop of climate change, which demands an equally bold and comprehensive response.   The time has passed for ‘business as usual,’ or for tinkering with existing structures in the hope that a relief measure here or a tax cut there will spur a sustainable recovery.   Unfortunately, the emergency measures implemented by most governments this year have been of this weak variety, especially in developing countries, where the current fiscal responses are even more limited than they were after the 2008 financial crisis. Short of ambition, these policies are doomed to fail.   Instead of waiting for that failure and its devastating consequences for people and the planet, we need to mobilise public opinion for more decisive, extensive and immediate action.   A global New Deal is clearly in order. Drawing on the storied US experience of the 1930s, it would be driven by significantly increased public expenditure and a far more systematic approach to redistribution and the regulation of capital and other markets.   But, rather than being just ‘green,’ as many envision, a new New Deal must be multicoloured. It would still include green elements, of course. A significant share of public spending and a major part of the necessary regulatory changes must be oriented toward recognising, respecting and preserving the environment.   We urgently need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and invest more in climate adaptation and resilience, while changing patterns of production and consumption accordingly.   And yet the recovery also must be ‘blue,’ in recognition of the enormous and growing concerns about water – a critical resource that is routinely mistreated and taken for granted.   No recovery will be sustainable unless it includes strong provisions to preserve our oceans, rivers, lakes and seas, while ensuring equitable access to clean water for all people.   Furthermore, a multicoloured New Deal will have to be ‘purple,’ giving long overdue attention to the care economy and supporting massive investments to fund enhanced and improved care activities. The pandemic has highlighted our systematic neglect of this sector, exposing the horrifying effects of decades of underfunding.   Fixing the problem starts with recognising different forms of (paid, underpaid and unpaid) care work, compensating care workers appropriately and ensuring safe and dignified occupational conditions.   It also requires reducing and redistributing unpaid care work between households, and within households across genders. And it calls for measures to give care workers a more powerful voice.   Demographic, social, and health trends all point to higher future demand for skilled care services, especially for the elderly, the young, those with disabilities and those made vulnerable in other ways.   Moreover, by supporting the expansion of these services, policymakers can also address emerging concerns about new labour-replacing technologies, especially in routine tasks.   Because care work is inherently relational and depends on a certain degree of flexibility, machines cannot easily perform it (nor can it be offshored). Ultimately, the care economy – along with an expansion of creative and knowledge industries – can serve as a major source of future employment in a more sustainable economy.   Finally, a multicoloured New Deal must be ‘red,’ embracing measures to reduce inequalities in assets, income, access to nutritious food, essential public services and employment opportunities. These disparities must be addressed across multiple dimensions, from gender, location, and age to race, ethnicity and caste.   Tackling inequality requires careful regulation of markets – particularly those for capital, financial services, labour and land. It also requires more active redistribution, with new public spending financed by taxing the rich.   Given the extreme inequalities in asset ownership, even a narrowly targeted wealth tax could bring in much-needed public revenues.   Similarly, a system of unitary taxation with common minimum rates across countries would help to address the problem of tax competition by countries and tax avoidance by multinational corporations.   All of this requires international cooperation, because a multicoloured New Deal necessarily must be global in scope. We will need a more robust international framework to control financial and capital flows, as well as revised rules for trade, cross-border investment and intellectual-property rights.   And a global approach is the best way to prevent market concentration and rent seeking, and to encourage the creation of high-quality employment.   This may seem like an impossible agenda. But it is worth remembering that the constraints are mainly political, reflecting massive corporate lobbying power and capital’s cosy ties with the state.   These constraints are binding only because citizens do not apply sufficient pressure on their leaders to force a change. The world’s governments have come together in the past to confront seemingly impossible challenges.   If humanity is to survive at all on a warming planet, we must come together again with even greater ambition.   * Reform of global taxation cannot wait, by Jayati Ghosh.   The massive inequalities inherent in the global economic system have been evident for a while but they have been laid bare and intensified over the past year. The international tax architecture continues to aid and abet increasing inequality, because of anomalies which enable multinational companies to avoid paying the same rate of taxes local companies pay.   It also allows very rich individuals to avoid paying even minimal wealth taxes in their own countries of residence, by stashing away money in tax havens and via other illicit financial flows. We can no longer afford to allow this.   http://www.socialeurope.eu/reform-of-global-taxation-cannot-wait http://www.icrict.com/   * 'Compensation' for 'Climate Justice' demands UN Expert. (Robin Hood Tax Campaign)   Globally, communities are being battered by typhoons and hurricanes, floods and wildfires, from the Philippines to Brazil. They are facing loss and damage that threatens their whole way of life, and this demands compensation.   ‘We can join together to create a fund that will be used for loss and damage [because impacts are occurring that] demand compensation, from a climate justice perspective that demand compensation, from a human rights perspective that demand compensation.’ - Dr David Boyd, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment   ‘How many more lives should be lost? How much more damage should be seen for us to make these changes?’ - Chikondi Chabvuta, Actionaid - Regional Humanitarian Advisor for Southern Africa   We are up to the 26th conference on climate change, and it will be held in 2021 in Glasgow. But a blind eye continues to be turned towards the people suffering the loss of their dignity all over the world.   ‘We need to stop meeting and talking. We need to start acting.’ - Colin McQuistan, Head of Climate and Resilience at Practical Action   ‘The UK needs to take this opportunity to be the ‘climate leaders’ they claim to be… COP26 is the moment to make polluters pay for the damage they have caused.' - Zoe Rasbash, UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC)   An Historic Moment: Make Polluters Pay   Fossil fuel corporations have been lying about the climate crisis for decades, funding climate deniers, fake news think tanks and paying to establish fake online organisations to advocate for fossil fuels (in an industry practice known as astroturfing).   They have corrupted political processes and environmental action in order to drive our climate off a cliff edge. Enough is enough.   ‘COP26 needs to be remembered for the moment when real progress on loss and damage finance finally happened.’- David Hillman, Director, Robin Hood Tax Campaign   The Robin Hood Tax on polluters would scale back the use of fossil fuels because extracting climate-wrecking oil, coal and gas from the ground will come at an escalating cost for corporations.   This new Robin Hood Tax would raise money for people on the frontline of climate crisis. Join our movement to fight for action at COP26. Let’s make polluters pay.   http://www.robinhoodtax.org.uk/compensation-climate-justice-demands-un-expert Visit the related web page
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