Will COP26 deliver the political action necessary to tackle climate breakdown? Probably not, says Paul Rogers, but the experience of the 1970s World Food Crisis suggests that its intense highlighting of the climate crisis and the inadequacy of political leadership can and should catalyse much more urgent pressure for radical change in the next few months and years.
The United States has made a radical change in its approach to climate change since Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump to the presidency in January. Paul Rogers argues that Washington is still doing too little but its recognition of the urgency of climate breakdown should encourage other leaders and activists to push for accelerated global action, including at UK-hosted G7 and COP26 summits.
War and climate change are intimately linked, argues Brian Larkin. He explains why he and fellow activists from XR Peace blockaded BAE Systems London headquarters in 2019 over its links to the bombing of Yemeni civilians and the UK nuclear weapons programme.
At the heart of human security is freedom from the fear of harm and want, writes Diana Francis. It is something that we owe each other. Yet it is constantly denied to millions by poverty and neglect, war and famine, preventable and treatable diseases, war, oppression, discrimination neglect and individual acts of physical violence.
In a month of dire warnings of our potential to destroy our civilisation and planet, Andrew Rigby draws hope from the self-interested mobilisation that moved Victorian Britain beyond a public health crisis comparable to Covid-19.
What has oil extraction got to do with migration to the UK? Birmingham volunteer worker Rosemary Crawley tells the story of one woman driven to leave her home in the Niger Delta, and her experience as she came to seek security in Britain.
We are already in climate triage, argues Sam Adelman, and the responsibility to address global heating lies disproportionately with countries like the UK with the largest historic greenhouse gas emissions. Climate justice is the new imperative.
Veteran peace campaigner Michael Randle reflects on his experience with the mass movement against nuclear weapons in the early 1960s and what lessons it holds for Extinction Rebellion and contemporary nonviolent protest movements.
Why are we so unperturbed in the face of the catastrophic risk of ecological collapse? Psychologist Breda Kingston highlights the challenges, collective and individual, of confronting our ‘ecoanxiety’, embracing uncertainty and working together for change
Molly Scott Cato argues that the unjust and unequal impacts of climate chaos, as experienced most acutely in Africa and the Global South, are deeply linked to centuries of racism and exploitation by colonialist European states.
Natasha Brian explains the challenges of convincing policy-makers to take future issues seriously and why scores of parliamentarians from across the political spectrum are backing the draft Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill.
Abigail Watson and Alasdair McKay make the case for Sustainable Security, incorporating a broader range of risk drivers and responses than the national security approach. Embracing this would be an opportunity for the UK to strategise a more secure society and world after Covid-19.
