The 2022 Qatar World Cup is now well under way but the controversies surrounding the event don’t seem to be dying down in the media despite the best efforts from FIFA and the Qatari regime to “focus on the football”[1]. In fact, this has arguably become one of the most politically charged major world sporting events of recent years, with engagement coming not just from fans but also from competing athletes and sports officials. FIFA have been particularly under pressure in the run-up to the tournament, with President Gianni Infantino delivering a bizarre monologue comparing his own childhood bullying experience to the suffering endured by migrant workers at the hands of the Qatari regime[2], which has since blossomed into a trending meme template on social media. Part of the reason politics continues to linger is that there doesn’t seem to be a dominant consensus yet, which has resulted in some quite interesting discourse about the role of sports in international politics. On the one hand, this issue might seem fairly straightforward because it only takes a quick overview of Qatar’s human rights record and international activity to question whether they ought to be hosting such a major world event. Freedom of expression is limited, with public opposition towards the government regularly resulting in arbitrary detainment and sentences based on unfair trials[3]. Doha has also been described by US officials as the biggest source of private donations to terrorism in Syria and Iraq[4], with huge sums of money being funnelled into Hamas[5], Al-Qaeda[6] and ISIS[7]. Qatar’s Kafala system has been widely described as modern-day slavery[8], with 94% of its workforce being from vulnerable foreign backgrounds[9], subject to dangerous working conditions[10] and unable to leave the country without permission from their employer[11]. If that wasn’t enough, homosexuality is strictly illegal and can result in up to 10 years imprisonment[12] or potentially death for Muslims under Sharia Law. Shocking testimonial evidence has now revealed that Qatari police actively hunt gay men by luring them into hotel rooms and, in some cases, gang raping them[13]. Altogether, the impression we get of Qatar is probably not one we would wish to celebrate on an international platform, so the Western backlash seems entirely justified. Despite vehement denial from fans, football has always been inherently political and there is a long history of it being weaponised by equally oppressive regimes. The World Cup has been hosted in fascist Italy in 1934, Argentina in 1978 under a military dictatorship and most recently Russia in 2018 even after the annexing of Crimea. Outside of FIFA, Real Madrid’s historic success was largely due to the influence of Franco[14], another fascist dictator, and the club continues to receive charitable status from the Spanish government. More recently, Newcastle United was purchased by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund[15], who will no doubt adopt the same strategy of avoiding financial fair play as Manchester City’s owners[16]. Looking towards sports as a whole, the recent Usyk Joshua rematch was hosted in Saudi Arabia, which has arguably an even worse record than Qatar, and the 2022 Winter Olympics took place in China, who have up to 1.2 million Uyghur Muslims detained in concentration camps[17]. It’s clear then that sportswashing is not a new phenomenon and yet the debate seems to have shifted slightly with this World Cup. Critics of the boycott movement have been quick to point out the Western hypocrisy towards Middle Eastern countries, when their own records are nothing to be proud of. Speaking to Emily Maitlis on the News Agents podcast, Piers Morgan pointed out that one in four countries in World Cup finals outlawed homosexuality and questioned whether Britain could be considered “morally clean enough” to host, given its involvement in the illegal invasion of Iraq[18]. This argument becomes all the more poignant when considering that America will be hosting the event in 2026 and has faced heavy criticism for its stance on abortion, use of torture and the death penalty. The question that human rights activists need to provide a definitive answer to, therefore, is what the minimum standard ought to be for a country to host an event like the World Cup. Some have tried to shift the conversation away from moral condemnation and towards practical improvements, arguing that, as a bare minimum, host nations must be able to ensure the safety of all visiting fans. As a queer man, I can confidently confirm that Qatar does not meet these requirements but, having gone out to watch England play Iran wearing a pride flag and ended up becoming a victim of hate crime, I’m not sure the UK does either. Probably the strongest argument put forward against Qatar 2022 is that it has directly contributed towards modern slavery as the driving force behind their infrastructure investment. No amount of whataboutery can overcome the damning reality that 6500 migrant workers died building the stadiums we are seeing on TV[19], which makes this World Cup truly unique. However, even if we can overcome the aforementioned challenges to the Western perspective, this does not guarantee that a boycott is the right course of action. Aaron Bastani, cofounder of the alternative left-wing Novara Media platform, was quick to point out that refusing to watch a football match on TV is not a form of political action and that visiting the country, speaking to workers and Qataris is arguably a less passive form of engagement[20]. Fundamentally, it should not be the responsibility of fans and competing athletes to apply social pressure when the governing authorities, be it sporting or otherwise, hold the power in choosing whether or not to participate. That being said, the distinct lack of Western fans at the tournament has revealed just how little Qatar are expected to gain in the way of tourism and foreign approval, with the hosts having to resort to paying fans to fill empty seats[21]. What very few sources are talking about is how embarrassing this has been for Qatar, who seem to have been completely unprepared in dealing with the level of media exposure they have now opened themselves up to. Days before the first match, Qatari security threatened to break a Danish TV crew’s camera during a live broadcast[22] and rumours began to circulate that eight Ecuadorian players had been bribed $7.4 million to throw the opening match against the hosts[23]. Videos of fans singing “we want beer” also went viral[24], turning Twitter into a meme goldmine. This might all seem insignificant but, from the Qatari perspective, it’s a significant blow because they have been trying to buy their way into the world of football for over a decade, in an attempt to achieve soft power goals in the international community[25]. Qatari sports policy extends far beyond major sporting events like the World Cup and includes the acquisition of high-profile clubs like Paris Saint Germain, the building of a world-class airline, which sponsors other major teams like Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Roma as well as the positioning of itself as a leader in sports medicine[26]. What has actually been exposed here isn’t Qatar’s appalling human rights record, which everyone was already aware of, but rather their inability to integrate with football culture, despite colossal financial efforts. Bearing in mind the disruption to domestic football caused by the tournament being hosted in the winter, it could be argued that the real reason FIFA has received so much backlash is not due to a greater interest in LGBTQ+ rights but simply because, from a football fan’s perspective, this will be one of the worst World Cups in history. Overall, it’s difficult to know whether any progress has been made in discourse about the role of sport within international politics. On the one hand, with competing teams like Germany making bold protest gestures[27], FIFA is under more scrutiny than ever before and might be forced to respond to pressure from human rights activists. On the other hand, if the recent comments from Infantino about North Korea being a potential future host[28] are to be taken as anything more than a tantrum, then strict authoritarian regimes might become the new norm at the World Cup. Like it or not, fans need to accept that sportswashing is a real thing and decide what their stance is on football being used to legitimise oppressive regimes within the international community. Increased investment is, of course, a good thing for the sport but if this interest is coming only from Russian Oligarchs and Middle eastern sovereign wealth funds then the beautiful game is in danger of becoming nothing more than a play toy for some of the world’s most unsavoury people.

Editorial by Will Kingston-Cox This article was written by Will Kingston-Cox on the murder of Takeoff, a well-known artist. Kingston-Cox provides us with a tribute piece for the blog whilst highlighting a wider issue that should be discussed on a larger platform- the culture of hip-hop and its links to gun violence in the US. He begins with a tribute to the artist and then dives deeper into the discussion of the culture and the issues that the music community promotes. In the early hours of Tuesday 1 November 2022, Kirshnik Khari Ball – better known as Takeoff – was fatally shot outside a bowling alley in Houston, Texas. As one-third of the hugely successful and influential group Migos, alongside his uncle Quavo and cousin Offset, Takeoff was not only a pioneer in the Atlanta rap scene, but the wider American hip-hop community. His untimely, tragic death has devastated his family, peers, and fans (for which I am one), as well as sending shockwaves across the American nation. It also demonstrates the real obligation on the community itself, as opposed to US policymakers, to tackle the scourge of gun violence that pervades American hip-hop. Before I elaborate into the recent history and politics of gun violence in relation to American rap music, it is only just that I pay tribute to Takeoff. Born in Lawrenceville, Georgia in 1994 (around 30 miles northeast of Atlanta), Takeoff was raised with his uncle Quavo (only three years his senior) by Quavo’s mother. Both Quavo and Takeoff began honing their musical style from a young age, with Takeoff being quoted as “put[ting] the most early hours into the craft of rapping”, inspired by the likes of Tupac and Biggie – poignantly, both died from gun violence in 1996 and 1997, respectively. In 2013, Migos released Versace, their first mainstream hit, which was voted by Billboard among the 100 songs that defined the decade. The single would go on to become one of the most influential tracks in recent hip-hop music history, with the “Migos flow” - rapid triplets interspersed with trademark adlibs – becoming a defining feature of modern rap music. The Migos reached international stardom with their 2016 hit single ‘Bad and Boujee’, featuring Lil Uzi Vert, kickstarting an enriched, prosperous career. The rap trio subsequently released the critically acclaimed trilogy of Culture albums, with various hits such as ‘MotorSport’, ‘Stir Fry’ and ‘Walk It Talk It’, cementing the Migos's status as ‘rap royalty’. As a solo artist, Takeoff had two significant releases: his 2018 solo album The Last Rocket which debuted at number four in the US, and his latest release Only Built for Infinity Links with Quavo, published less than a month before Takeoff’s death. All of Takeoff’s musical projects exuded real talent and flair. It is indisputable that Takeoff was a gifted young man. It is a tragedy that such an accomplished artist was taken in such a violently arbitrary manner. For many, Takeoff was regarded as the most talented of the Migos, the most lyrical. Years of chart domination and worldwide fame, notwithstanding the production of legendary music which will continue to influence America’s hip-hop scene for years to come, has now come to a regrettable end. It is fair to say Takeoff, and the Migos, deserved a much better ending. Sadly, Takeoff’s killing is shocking but unsurprising. 2022 has been a catastrophic year for hip-hop and gun violence, in trend with recent years. Senselessness has too often caused misery. In February, Snootie Wild, best known for his hit-single ‘Yayo’, was shot and killed in Houston. On 27 July, JayDaYoungan, a pioneer in the ‘mumble rap’ genre, was murdered in Bogalusa, Louisiana, just days after his 24th birthday. The latest hip-hop tragedy this year, prior to Takeoff’s killing, was the shooting of PnB Rock in Los Angeles back in September. 2022’s murderous streak only compounds a litany of gun violence that has plagued the hip-hop community, losing major figures such as Young Dolph, King Von, and Pop Smoke in 2020, and XXXTentacion and Nipsey Hussle in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The one common denominator? Talented, young African American musicians losing their lives unnecessarily to pernicious gun violence. Journalist Justin Tinsley surmised the crisis facing hip-hop succinctly: “If hip-hop is to survive, then the art must do so. And if the art is to survive, then artists have to live. Tragically, this won’t be the last article about a young rapper whose life was cut short too soon”. So how does the American hip-hop community, then, tackle this miserable affliction of gun violence and the premature deaths of its pioneers? Unfortunately, the answer is not so clear-cut. Gun violence, and the glamorization of such, is entrenched within the culture, lyrics, and audience of American hip-hop since its inception back in the 1990s. Whilst many artists claim the ‘glamorization’ is merely a reflection of the lives they lead or have led, the normalization of gun violence in hip-hop music, as it becomes one of America’s most popular genres, roots the problem societally. However, scholars, such as A.D. Carson, have raised warnings of ‘vilifying’ rappers as “sources of the crisis of violence in America” and not blaming their music “that reflects it”. In this view, it is not rap music that has created the scourge of gun violence, but rather that rap music and its lyrics are a byproduct of the current gun situation in the US. Either way, the way in which hip-hop and gun violence has become intrinsically linked compounds the problem facing the community in tackling gun violence against its own. Moreover, police and investigators, since the emergence of hip-hop and rap culture, face an “anti-snitch culture”, similar to that of the Mafia’s Omertà. It was only in 2020 did Quavo appear on a posthumous track by Pop Smoke entitled ‘Snitching’, “which decried ‘rats’ and talking to the police”. The problem is therefore rooted within the culture and the community, to its own detriment. Furthermore, the influence of social media plays a central role in the spiraling violence seen within the hip-hop community. Artists seek to ‘flex’ - to show off their wealth, status, weaponry – to the “detriment of their safety.” Whilst some are only too happy to see their peers become successful, with overt ‘flexing’ comes jealousy and anger. Often, this is the jealousy and anger of strangers which can have fatal consequences. In February 2020, a day before the armed robbery that took his life, Pop Smoke and his friend Michael Durodola posted a series of images on social media of the Airbnb they were renting – that of Real Housewives star Teddi Mellenchamp. In the social media posts, both the location of where Pop Smoke was staying and the luxurious items in his possession – cash and jewellery – were made public. Such information fell into the hands of Pop Smoke’s killers, with the intent of robbing the artist. Now, this is not to say ‘flexing’ warrants gun violence, but the inducement of jealousy, covetousness, and anger that such public displays of wealth can conjure within the African American community provides a causal link between current attitudes within the hip-hop community and the prevalence of gun violence. So how does America’s hip-hop community tackle the scourge of gun violence which plagues itself from within? Houston police chief Troy Finner’s approach is one that I would consider the only effective option. When addressing a press conference on the death of Takeoff, Finner urged the hip-hop community that “we got to police ourselves...and we all need to stand together and make sure nobody tears down that industry.” Finner’s call for sensibility and calm within the community is wise. Takeoff’s life was lost to a disagreement over a game of dice; a disagreement that did not, in any shape or form, require guns to be fired indiscriminately. If left for US federal agencies, such as the FBI, to enforce a ‘crackdown’ on gun crime, it is reasonable to assume a high degree of racial profiling in attempting to reduce gun crime. Whilst “black and brown Americans are disproportionately harmed by the direct and indirect consequences of gun violence”, federal attempts to combat such gun violence will, in turn, have the paradoxical effect of worsening the problem. The potential to perpetuate the prison-industrial complex and exacerbate the disproportionate population of African American men in the US prison system is great. Thus, we must make the point that those within the rap scene have agency themselves. Only when the glamorization of gun violence, the necessity to ‘flex’, and the unwillingness to cooperate with authorities to tackle the scourge of gun violence within both the African American and hip-hop communities, becomes consigned to the history books can this murderous, lamentable era come to an end. It is my sincere hope that if any good is to come from the tragic death of Takeoff, it will be the awakening of many hip-hop artists, and their fans, to the notion that life does not have to be like this, and that it is themselves who can change it. Future generations are watching; this cannot be the precedent. For more information on the prevention of gun violence, please visit: www.rocket-foundation.org This is a foundation that has been set up in Takeoff's memory to prevent gun violence. Thank you.

As the unipolar world collapses amidst a flurry of sanctions volleyed at each other by ‘opposing’ blocs of an increasingly multipolar world, the unanimously adopted UNSC resolution calling for the end of violence in Haiti and imposing sanctions on certain gang leaders was an example of an increasingly rare diplomatic event wherein members came together to act in the interest of the "greater good". While this resolution could aid in alleviating the crisis by limiting the resources available to Haitian gangs, the follow-up resolution that is currently being prepared by USA and Mexico which seeks to obtain UNSC approval to authorise a “non-UN international security assistance mission” to Haiti is less likely to succeed and could even be disastrous for Haitians. To understand why such drastic action is being considered, one first needs to understand the scale of the crisis in Haiti. Haiti has witnessed recurring spells of violent anti-government protests since 2018. In August 2022, the latest iteration of these protests broke out in response to fuel shortages, gang violence and rampant inflation. The protestors demand a better quality of life and the resignation of Ariel Henry, the acting President of Haiti. Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital and home to nearly 3 million of the nation’s 11.7 million citizens, has seen the worst of the aforementioned problems owing to the fact that gangs control over 60% of the city. When these gangs go head to head, residents of the localities where these conflicts occur are often killed or are forced to flee. In 2022 alone, two separate instances of gang-related conflict resulted in the deaths of over 450 Haitians. The gangs also consider kidnapping to be an important source of revenue which has resulted in around 755 kidnappings between January and September 2022. Human rights defenders in Haiti have observed that the police often deploys a strategy of non-interference when faced with inter-gang conflict and have argued that in addition to being outgunned by these gangs, the state shirks effective action because they are bonded by corruption. This corruption coupled with the general breakdown of the Haitian state owing to a succession of natural disasters and long-term socioeconomic crises has resulted in a situation where gangs are more powerful now than they ever were before. The G9 coalition of gangs led by Jimmy Cherizier has used this power to shut down the principal fuel terminal of Haiti, the Varreux fuel terminal, either directly via blockades or indirectly through turf wars near the terminal. These actions were responsible for the exacerbation of fuel shortages in the country which resulted in the suspension of transport facilities and difficulties in obtaining clean water. To compound this crisis, on October 2nd, Haitian officials declared that cholera had returned to the shores of Haiti. As the arrival of cholera coincided with Barbecue’s blockade which restricted the availability of potable water, it can be argued that the blockade is the reason why authorities have not been able to manage an epidemic that has already claimed 136 lives. Both domestic and external actors have played a role in bringing about the present state of affairs in Haiti. The previous paragraph details how criminal gangs (the first set of domestic actors) have contributed to the breakdown of security in Haiti. These gangs are linked to the political fabric of the country in multiple ways. One such way is the propaganda strategy employed by some gangs wherein they portray themselves to be the champions of the people in an effort to justify their criminality. For example, the resignation of the unpopular Ariel Henry was one of the main demands made by the G9 coalition of gangs when blockading the Varreux fuel terminal. Besides this link, the second set of domestic actors – the political elite – also finds themselves bonded to the first via the more traditional links of corruption. However, this link between the two sets of domestic actors is tenuous as is made visible when politicians find themselves on the receiving end of gang violence. Therefore, Haitian criminal gangs can be characterised as violent entities that often co-opt politics and politicians in an effort to advance their own self-interest. The political leadership of Haiti has exacerbated the crisis by clinging on to power even while lacking the legitimacy to do so in the eyes of the majority of Haitians. This illegitimacy is not limited to Henry’s government and includes that of his predecessor Jovenel Moise. Anti-government protests first broke out in 2018 in response to increases in fuel prices but they quickly mushroomed into larger anti-corruption protests when it was revealed that one of the reasons for the price hike was stolen state oil revenue. Moise’s legitimacy issues were compounded when he effectively dissolved Parliament and began to rule by decree in 2019. In 2021, he invited the ire of protestors when he argued that he had one more year of his presidential term remaining due to his late entry to office and would therefore not demit office until 2022. He was assassinated later that year by mercenaries. Henry, his replacement, was first selected to be the Prime Minister by Moise and then appointed as the President after Moise’s death. In other words, Henry has not been elected to his present office. One of his first actions was to fire the chief prosecutor investigating Moise’s assassination when he started looking into Henry’s possible role in the plot. Both Henry and Moise have remained in power largely due to the support they enjoy from the CORE group which is an alliance headed by the USA and includes France, Canada, UN and OAS representatives. This is the first set of external actors who bear responsibility for the crisis. USA has regularly intervened in Haitian politics in order to install ruling dispensations that are more pliable to American interests. Both Moise and Henry enjoyed US support because they have demonstrated themselves to be aligned to American interests with Moise snapping ties with Venezuela on Trump’s orders while Henry currently supports the CORE group proposal to send foreign troops to Haiti. The second set of external actors are multilateral bodies like the IMF and the UN that ignited the fire. The IMF called on Haiti to cut fuel subsidies in order to avail a loan required to ensure that Haiti met its debt repayment commitments. This external pressure contributed to Moise cutting fuel subsidies. The UN is cheerleading the next invasion of Haiti even when it has refused to take responsibility for bringing cholera to the shores of Haiti for the first time in a century through an epidemic that killed over 9000 people. Right now, there are 2 routes out of this crisis. The first is the strategy outlined in the US-Mexico UNSC resolution. Negotiations are currently underway among members of the CORE group to iron out any concerns that they may have about a possible intervention in Haiti. This strategy is premised on the belief that an intervention will bring short-term stability which can then be utilised to bring about lasting peace by stamping out the gangs, revamping economic policy and holding elections to shore up legitimacy. However, a glance at the failure of interventions in Haiti which were justified as efforts to restore stability should be enough to argue against this strategy. There is another option that is more broadly supported by Haitian society. The Montana Accord is the result of broad civil society discussions involving civic leaders, journalists, economists, entrepreneurs, and former political leaders. It envisions setting up a provisional government for a period of two years to bolster security so that free and fair elections involving a large section of Haitian society can be conducted. Most recent Haitian elections have been marred by low turnout due to insecurity which has added to the illegitimacy of many Haitian governments. Henry has refused to entertain this strategy highlighting the tenuous claim of there being no legitimate way to elect the interim heads of government. The US continues to maintain that Henry’s camp must be a part of any future solution even when he has limited legitimacy to occupy his present seat rather than fully supporting the Montana Accord. The only way out of this crisis that does not kick the can down the road is one that enjoys the support of Haitians. Haitians are viscerally opposed to foreign military interventions but would appreciate external support in ushering in a legitimate democratic government. Therefore, it is incumbent on the CORE group to place the Montana Accord front and centre of any non-interventionist policy to solve the Haitian crisis. Haiti has been the neo-colonial playground for Western countries ever since it managed to secure its independence through the first successful slave revolution in 1804. It is beyond time for the CORE group and its allies to let Haitians chart their own political future and stop interfering in the political processes of resource-rich Haiti in an effort to maintain their hegemony over the nation.

It is no secret that the fast fashion industry is rooted in the exploitation of the Global South, in order to satisfy the material greed of the Global North. With employees forced to work inhumane hours, in dangerous conditions, for an unlivable wage, the human cost for those in the nations creating the clothes is abundantly clear. The global structure through which fast fashion operates, is reliant upon the majority of demand coming from the Global North, whilst the bulk of production is carried out in the Global South. These are nations under desperate financial strain that has been historically caused by the Global North’s exploitation of their resources, raw materials and peoples. Now, as fast fashion powerhouses, like H&M, Primark, and the Boohoo franchise, seek to mass produce clothing for the lowest possible prices, they capitalise upon the vulnerable position of the Global South. Yet the horrific ramifications of fast fashion are not limited to the humanitarian cost. The nations producing the garments also bear the brunt of the industry’s environmental destruction, despite it being fuelled by the mass materialistic consumption of the Global North. The fast fashion industry creates advertising that pressures consumers to repeatedly invest in their pieces, but with the current influence of social media, this encouragement to partake in mass consumption has skyrocketed. ‘Aesthetic’ trends seen on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok change so rapidly that those engaging with this content must make a constant stream of purchases in order to keep up. And these fast fashion brands entice the customer to do just that, offering deals on already extremely cheap clothing, and in the case of Pretty Little Thing, even going as far as to run 99% off sales. These clothes are designed to be discarded. Operating through this business model, fast fashion companies rake in profit as consumers become hooked on the latest trend, quickly discarding their previous purchases. In recent years, Shein has dominated the global fast fashion market, now reportedly producing up to 10,000 new products every day. With tops from just $3 (US) and shoes starting at $5, before even considering items on sale, Shein’s prices are lowered to such an extent that the customer is encouraged to justify buying clothing for a single wear. Because the exploitation, both human and environmental, is concentrated in the Global South, customers can fund this business model without concerning themselves with its detrimental effects. One narrative that is consistently perpetuated to absolve consumer guilt is what I shall call the ‘charity shop solution’. The Global North upholds the narrative that quickly discarding fast fashion is not an issue, provided one donates it to a charity shop. Yet this line of logic is entirely flawed. The garments are so cheaply made that they cannot withstand long-term wear. The commonly used cheap materials, like polyester, can take more than 200 years to decompose, but the garments themselves will not only rapidly go out of demand when trends change, but will also cease being wearable as they become damaged or fall apart, long before their materials could decompose. An estimated 10-30% of clothes donated to charity shops are resold within the same country, then a small percentage are recycled or downcycled. This leaves more than half of all donated clothes unaccounted for. Rather than take responsibility for the masses of textile waste created by consumer greed, countries in the Global North export the unwanted clothes to less wealthy nations. Disgracefully, a saviour narrative is put forward here, as these wealthy nations depict their dumping of material waste as ‘donating’ clothes. In reality, these poorly-made clothes end up in landfill, polluting the land of the very same people who were exploited to create them. A Greenpeace investigation in Kenya, one of the major recipients of unwanted garments, uncovered that “nearly half of the clothes are unusable and have no market value: their quality is too poor, or they are broken or soiled and are nothing more than textile waste.” The consequences of textile waste caused by Global North greed are thus forcibly shouldered onto the Global South, despite these nations typically having little to no infrastructure to handle this problem. Without the facilities to manage the waste, clothes end up being burnt, releasing toxic fumes, or overflowing into the natural landscape, including into bodies of water. The textile industry is responsible for approximately 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, as well as approximately 20% of global freshwater pollution. This is primarily the result of the combination of the aforementioned dumped textile waste and the pollution created in this process of producing the clothes, both factors which have devastating impacts on the Global South, but remain out of sight and thus out of mind to the Global North consumers. The process of producing fast fashion clothing and shoes is rife with toxic chemicals. The process of dying garments is particularly harmful, as toxic chemicals including lead and mercury are used, which can then contaminate water and soil. These water sources can be used for washing or even drinking, leading to the risk of chemical poisoning, whilst the soil is often agricultural land desperately needed to produce food. Furthermore, wildlife in these waters can be killed by the toxic chemicals released through the production of fast fashion. Not only does fast fashion contaminate bodies of water, but the garment production process also uses staggering amounts of water: we require nearly 3,000 litres of water to produce just one cotton t-shirt. And the effects of this demand are being felt already: the Aral Sea, which sits between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was once the fourth biggest lake in the world. Now it has dried up, as a consequence of mass cotton farming for the hungry demand of the fashion industry. This exploitation of resources in the Global South has echoes of Empire, and its history of stealing other nations’ natural resources for its own material benefit. Fast fashion’s exploitation of the people and the environment in these Global South nations is clearly evidenced. Yet there is a distinct lack of legislation in place to combat the problem. In the past 30 years, the UK has proposed just 5 strategies and 19 policies to tackle fast fashion. Only 32% of these policies relate to direct action, as opposed to simply ‘raising awareness’, and only 5% went as far as to contain budgeting for implementation, reflecting that the vast majority of these meagre few policy proposals were merely performative. To put this into perspective, research undertaken by Cambridge University in 2021 found 689 Government policies to tackle obesity in the UK. It remains abundantly clear that the UK Government has no intention of taking accountability for the nation’s role in enabling the fast fashion industry. When considered alongside the dismal display of UK policies on fast fashion, EU policy is vastly superior. Earlier this year, EU commissioner, Frans Timmermans stated: “We want sustainable products to become the norm on the European market”, as the EU announced that fast fashion companies will be held accountable for the quality of their clothing, toxic chemicals released and the waste that the industry produces. This year, it became the first region in the world to formally identify the correlation between fast fashion and increased fossil fuel emissions. The body has announced plans for a ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ scheme, to be implemented across all EU nations. Provisional plans outline that fast fashion brands will be required to pay a ‘waste fee’ for every item sold, with the fee amount being dependent on how ecological the item is deemed. The EU has called for an end to fast fashion by 2030, demanded company transparency on the amount of unsold stock sent to landfill, and promoted a vision for a circular economy for fashion. Yet, whilst the EU’s progress far exceeds Britain’s embarrassing absence of action, the reality is that nobody is doing enough. The ambition and targets of the EU are refreshing to see, but they are still missing two crucial elements. Firstly, the proposals fail to properly acknowledge the disproportionate impacts of fast fashion’s environmental destruction of the Global South, which is reflective of the Global North’s resistance to face accountability for its role as the driving force of this disaster. Secondly, there remains a lack of explanation for how the EU will reach the goals it sets out, leaving us to wonder the extent to which this legislation may be performative. It is imperative that the Global North looks beyond its own greedy, selfish motives and moves rapidly to clear up its own mess, rather than continuing to push it out of sight and out of mind, by forcing the problem onto those already exploited by the industry.

The following piece is in addition to the work of the Policy Analysts. It is part of a wider research project conducted by Drishti Patel and Vriddhi Khattar through the scheme of the URSS. This article covers the themes discussed on the poster and they hope to share their findings in a more accessible way- through the article below. Please do contact the individuals above if you have any further questions. Design has always been an interpretation of contemporary culture. With shifts in time and circumstances, design, especially worn design, has been a sophisticated indicator of the condition of society and whether or not they are flourishing economically. This is not only exemplified by changes in styles across time but by particular changes in the length and appearance of clothing too. For instance, the Hemline index rose and fell with stock prices. However, in the twentieth century, this indicator of the economic welfare of a state had a different trend where the length of the skirt was shorter in good economic times whilst it was longer in times of hardship, like after the Wall Street Crash in 1929. Somewhat on the flip side, in countries like Japan, fashion has forced society to change and accept other values. Here, a fashion aesthetic called Yami Kawaii (literally translating to sick-cute) emerged in a society where mental health was considered taboo. Through the utilisation of the pre-existing ‘cutesy’ aesthetic, Yami kawaii seeked to normalise mental health struggles by incorporating dark characters and quotes like ‘I want to die’ or ‘Give me love’ with pastel colours and chibi drawings, making society in Japan more comfortable with such struggles and thereby making it easier to access help. Ultimately, it can be reasonably deduced that fashion has not only been influenced by society but has also served as a tool to influence society. Our study involved a comparison of two very different societies: the UK and the UAE. Whilst individuals in the UK are typically more expressive in the way they dress, individuals in the UAE are not only bound by the climate of the region but also the socio-political climate, which disproportionately affects women. Thus, we used this opportunity to do a comparative analysis of women, looking at factors like age, economic status and profession, to see how these factors affected their individual expression. Whilst having the exact same brackets for many of the factors was difficult, we tried to have individuals who had fairly similar backgrounds, ages and stages in their careers to try and make it as accurate as possible. We first conducted questionnaires (mostly consisting of Likert scales), in order to gather baseline results, which then helped us gather information on the themes that we could streamline and also gather participants, after asking them for consent for further information. We ended up with two interviewees from each country: One middle-aged woman working in Education and another student in her early 20s entering the workforce. Through the semi-structured interviews, we were able to ask further questions on the answers they had provided and the results of the overall research but also go into much more detail on some of the key details they brought up during our conversations. In the UK, when the participants were asked what influenced their styles the most, both participants expressed the impact social media and trends have on their aesthetics. In the UAE, while the younger participant expressed similar influences from social media and characters on TV shows, the older participant mentioned that she is influenced most by the practicality of what she wears. Alongside being true to her personal style, the participant expressed that she needs to adapt it to the specific dress code restrictions (especially in institutions of education) in the UAE. At the same time, when asked if they felt constrained by any external factors within society like gender norms or social class, participants in the UK mentioned that there was an equal expectation for both men and women to dress a certain way while the participants in the UAE felt as though more was expected from them than from men, especially in terms of how they presented. It is interesting to note that while the UAE, can be argued as being much safer for women than the UK, women in the UAE are not permitted to dress in revealing clothing or have their underwear shown in any way in public places like malls and public parks, which are typically seen as more family-friendly. However, no such legal restrictions are applicable to women in the UK. While this was the case for all of the emirates in the UAE earlier, Dubai, owing to a popular tourist destination for influencers, recently legalised crossdressing and eased overall dress code restrictions. In this way, it is reasonable to deduce that not only did people adapt to restrictions in the UAE, the UAE also adjusted its restrictions to account for growing influencer fashion and culture. All participants were also asked how they thought their style had evolved over time and the only commonality lay between both the older participants who mentioned how their style evolved as they grew older and felt they were free from the shackles of societal judgment. Both participants expressed how they started incorporating patterns and brighter colours into their stylistic preferences in their professional spaces to be more expressive, whereas these weren’t as easily accepted in the earlier days of their careers. Now that they were well situated, these women had more autonomy over what they wore in their workplace. Fashion is an interesting tool that not only influences culture but is also heavily influenced by it since it not only promotes diversity through preferences but interestingly also promotes solidarity through trends (like Yami kawaii and cutting of hair in solidarity with Iranian women). Through this study, it can be discerned that despite differences in location, careers had a significantly larger impact on fashion than cultural differences, which is clearly exemplified by the similarity in the outlook on fashion in the older participants. Simultaneously, while the culture of the location had an impact on restrictions and constraints on fashion, it is very likely that since older participants have been accustomed to it for a longer period of time, there is a convergence of practicality and local fashion trends. Hence we can deduce that practicality and expression were what ultimately led to similar fashion outlooks for all participants, irrespective of location.

On the 13th September, 22 year old Mahsa Amini was arrested by Iran’s Morality police for supposedly wearing her headscarf inappropriately. After three days of torture and brutal beatings, Amini died in custody. She was murdered by the Iranian government and their perceived impunity for violently oppressing Kurdish peoples. Her death has added ferocity to protestors in Iran demanding liberation from the oppressive Islamic Regime. The Morality Police in Iran are responsible for monitoring Iranian citizen's attire. They are imbued with the power to arrest any person they feel is dressed inappropriately, whether that be that their hijab has fallen down, or that their clothes are considered too tight. Held in police stations overnight, the detainee is expected to declare commitment to changing the way they dress. In Iran, women are required by law to wear a hijab, as is also the case in Afghanistan but nowhere else in the world. This law has nothing to do with instating Islam as the state religion in these regions. Instead, these laws violate human rights and sanction the oppression and silencing of women living in Iran and Afghanistan. The President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, sat at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this year. He has not faced repercussions for committing crimes against humanity. Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the land was divided into four Nation States: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Kurdish people living across all regions have since faced marginalisation, exclusion, oppression, and suppression, being denied political recognition, forbidden from speaking the Kurdish language, and left internally displaced in regions across the Middle East. Western states have known of the oppression of Kurdish people and have chosen either to ignore it or in some cases be complicit in it. In 1953, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was overthrown following Western intervention. His crime was that he tried to nationalise Iran’s oil supplies. With assistance from Great Britain and the United States, monarchy was reinstated in Iran and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ruled Imperial Iran until 1980. During his rule, the Shah used a CIA-trained institution to spy on Iranian people, torturing and killing people who expressed opposition to the capitalist system and to his rule. Under the Shah, Iran was a strong ally to the West in the Cold War. The West has an extensive history of breaching laws of democracy and staging interventions in reaction to perceived threats to the capitalist system. In 1956, Britain and France (unsuccessfully) attempted to overthrow President Nasser of Egypt after announcing his plans to nationalise the Suez Canal. In 1966, the first prime minister and president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown, having survived six assassination attempts, in consequence to inspiring and encouraging independence movements throughout the African continent. Wearing hijab became compulsory for all Iranian women in 1983 following the idea of hijab law introduced during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Since the inception of this law, Iranian women and men have fought tirelessly to end the violence and oppression of women in Iran. Following the murder of Jina Amini, protests have become global. In Iran, there have been reports of over twenty-thousand protestors being arrested and over four hundred murdered at the hands of the brutal Islamic Republic regime. The slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” has been adopted the Kurdish language, first used by Kurdish women’s liberation groups in Istanbul in 2006. It is being chanted so women are seen, so Iranian people are seen, and so Kurdish people are seen. But with visibility, liberation must follow. Clothing is a personal choice. Religion is a personal choice. Now, it is required of the international community to stand for human rights and stand for the rights of women, the right to life, and the right to freedom.

This article is an expression of our solidarity with the university staff on the UCU strike in the UK on the 24th, 25th and 30th of November 2022. It provides all the information you need about the strikes and how you can show your support to UCU members. Last month, members of the trade union, University and College Union (UCU), voted a resounding ‘yes’ to take industrial action against 1) pay and working conditions and 2) pension cuts. Over 70,000 university staff across 150 universities will be striking on the following days, making it the biggest strike in history to hit UK universities: · Thursday 24th November · Friday 25th November · Wednesday 30th November In addition, from 23rd November, staff will begin industrial action, including working to rule, refusing to make up work lost due to strike action, and refusing to cover for absent colleagues. It is estimated that these strikes will impact 2.5 million students. However, all of this disruption could be mitigated if employers act fast and meet the UCU’s demands – we are speaking to you, Stuart Croft. Not only has the Vice Chancellor attempted to villanise the staff going on strike, but created a false narrative around the reasons for the strike, making it seem as if it is a selfish motive. Let’s try to remember the following very crucial words, the NUS Vice President of HE, Chloe Fields said: “staff teaching conditions are students' learning conditions”. The UCU has Four key demands: 1. A pay rise to manage the cost-of-living crisis Last year, the UK University sector made a record £41.1 billion. These profits have not been reflected in the wage rises of university employees. In fact, pay rises granted to the staff at universities have yet to rise above the inflation rate. In some cases, they have failed even to meet inflation rises, which is essentially receiving a pay cut. Moreover, Warwick University itself has outrageous pay inequalities, with a gender pay gap of 20% and a racial pay gap of around 13% across its staff members! If Universities have money to channel into vanity projects (think, FAB), they have money to pay a decent wage to their workers. Remember, the Vice Chancellor, Stuart Croft, has chosen not to raise the wages of Warwick staff members. 2. An end to insecure contracts One third of academic staff are on a temporary contract. Working precariously has devastating implications for mental and physical health, and makes it hard for the employee to make long-term financial and family plans. The fact that these contracts keep the staff on their toes, always looking for other opportunities due to the nature of the work that they do. It means that students don’t have the security of academics either. This affects every individual’s learning experience too. Hence, the strikes are not only for the betterment of the employees of the university but for a better learning experience for us, the students, too. 3. A manageable workload The workload expected of academics is almost impossible, with reports of university academics being pushed to breaking point. There has developed an implicit expectation that university staff members will react immediately to student demands. In addition, the emphasis on admin and statistics requires academics to complete masses of paperwork alongside their other work commitments. Effectively this plays out as academics doing unpaid work. In fact, a recent study has shown that academics on average spent the equivalent of two days a week doing unpaid work! 4. A reversal of pension cuts Earlier this year, University UK and USS announced a 35% cut on the pensions of university workers. This cut is completely unjustified and unnecessary, and will have severe implications to the quality of life for staff members when they retire. Ultimately, the UCU members are simply demanding for university staff to be treated with dignity. By doing-so, they face a lot of barriers. Strikers always get bad press. During these strikes, academics will likely face lambaste for “wasting students’ money”, “letting their students down”, and “jeopardizing students’ degrees”. However, strikers are never to blame for the repercussions of them not working. If employers treated their with respect, strikes would not need to happen. If your lecturer is on strike, Stuart Croft put them there. There are also structural barriers that limit the effectiveness of industrial action and strike action. Perversely, Warwick’s campus has been purposefully designed to prohibit strike and industrial actions. Established in 1965, much of Warwick’s campus was built when the UK was experiencing high waves of strikes and industrial action across many sectors, including universities. Warwick’s architectural layout makes it impossible for the entrance to the university to be blocked. However, there are ways you can help the UCU members to win their demands. You can: - Email Warwick’s Vice Chancellor, Stuart Croft and let him know you stand in solidarity with UCU members. His email is: S.Croft@warwick.ac.uk and if you want a template email, you can use the one linked here: template email - Email staff members to let them know you support them in striking, and also to check how they are feeling. Remember, academics love what they do, so giving up their work for a day will be really hard for them! - Join staff members on the picket-line (on Thursday 24th from 8.30 AM and Friday 25th from 10 AM, the picket line will be by Varsity Pub or University Interchange; on Wednesday 30th, the picket line will be in Central London) - Boycott Warwick outlets – The money made from Warwick’s outlets - its cafes, Rootes Grocery store, the Dirty Duck Pub, etc. - clearly is not reflected in the staff member's wages. Instead, it gets reinvested into Warwick’s and Stuart Croft’s vanity projects. So until the UCU demands are met, let’s boycott Warwick outlets! Warwick ThinkTank Society supports all university staff going on strike and we encourage everyone to engage in conversations around this issue. This article was written by Caitlin Hoyland and Drishti Patel

After just 44 days of economic and political upheaval, Liz Truss announced her resignation as the PM of the country. By the end of the month, the UK would have had 3 Prime Ministers in just 8 weeks, 2 of whom did not have to face a general election to reach office. Further, Jeremy Hunt (the new Chancellor of the Exchequer) is expected to announce new fiscal policy plans after essentially scrapping the disastrous ‘mini-budget’. Expected to take place on the 31st of October, this might be derailed by the new Prime Minister’s possible reselection of the Cabinet. Politically speaking, the Conservative Party has lost wide swathes of public support and the last 6 weeks have forever tainted their reputation of a good economic record. With Labour peaking at more than 30 points ahead, there was a point where predictions suggested the SNP could have become the official opposition party if there were a general election held now. Institutional decay However, arguably, the biggest lesson to come out of this debacle is the ideal of confidence and credibility. Truss, in the Conservative party leadership races, commented on the ‘orthodoxy’ of the Treasury and –through her policies – showed disregard for the Bank of England, the independent Office of Budget Responsibility, and the civil service. The government labelling the mini budget as a fiscal event was most likely their flawed reasoning to block an official Office of Budget Responsibility report that would have been extremely useful for the Monetary Policy Committee to use as an official forecasting tool ahead of the 3rd of November decision regarding the interest rate. Truss’ pre-emptive firing of Tom Scholar – the Treasury’s permanent secretary – was also likely a plan to control dissent within the party. Without reliable forecasts from the OBR, their policies are essentially a blind leap of faith, which the public do not share. In a time of economic turmoil and the prospect of thousands facing absolute hardships, the least we can expect from the government is transparency and integrity. Most significantly, the reeling markets forced the Bank of England to act against their earlier plans for a ‘quantitative tightening’ when they had to bail out the gilt markets for £65 billion. For a few days, tensions were extremely high when it was unclear if Andrew Bailey was serious about the emergency buy-ins ending strictly on the 14th of October. If the markets had not yet adjusted and the central bank were pressured into going back on their word, it would have caused irreparable damage to its credibility. Ironically, it's these institutions that Truss tried to undermine that have stood strengthened and had a significant role in her resignation. Slightly reminiscent of Johnson’s departure, the loss of power recently has been coupled with problems of foregoing institutional checks and balances and not accepting accountability in the face of grave mistakes. Proposing unpopular policies and promising to follow through until public pressure reaches a boiling point to then announce another U-turn has been the modus operandi for much of the past 2 years. Poor governance has meant that the UK has an extremely tough road ahead in convincing investors of its potential. However, and more troubling, is the effect this has had on regular people. With the prospect of another period of austerity looming, and this winter set to be particularly tough due to the cost-of-living crisis, it is unlikely we will see the economy recover for the foreseeable future. The future This horrible episode in British history has delivered an effective blow to the rising anti-institutional rhetoric that has been on the rise for recent years. The importance of the Bank of England and the OBR, especially, has taken centre-stage and might make international investors more comfortable. There does, however, lie a huge caveat about who is elected as the next Prime Minister. If Johnson were to return, it would be farcical and would lead to important questions about the health of democracy in the UK and is extremely unlikely to boost confidence. Sunak would be more likely to prioritise stability and might not delay the 31st of October fiscal plans by Hunt, which might prove crucial. The cost of restoring market credibility is likely to be in the form of spending cuts. Another round of austerity would add pressure to already buckling sectors of the NHS, the care industry, and other public services. It is also unclear if the plans to help people with rising energy costs will continue and the degree of assistance it would offer. Further, the chaos caused by poor fiscal management might lead to an overly cautious fiscal restraint that is likely to plague the direction of economic policy, at least until the next general election. The resignation of Truss has also led to predictions that the Bank of England might raise interest rates by less than previously thought on their 3rd of November MPC meeting. ING’s analysis suggests that “The Bank essentially faces a choice between hiking aggressively and baking in the ultra-high level of mortgage and corporate borrowing rates, amplifying the depth of a recession through the first half of next year – or undershooting market expectations, at risk of a weaker pound and more imported inflation.” In the longer term, ING economists put the ‘political risk premium’ at around 0.5% in 10-year borrowing costs in comparison to the USA and Germany, possibly affecting millions of households and businesses. They also commented that it takes years to build confidence, and only one day to destroy it. Overall, economic institutions that have provided checks and balances to the government have come out of this with a bolstered reputation, in stark contrast to the Conservative party. The next few weeks will be crucial in seeing if the markets remain fairly stable with the new premiership and the next government will have a tough road ahead trying to restore its battered credibility.

Tech companies have, in the recent past, come out to show support for tackling the dooming climate crisis. For example, shortly before the COP26 UN summit in Glasgow last year, giants including Apple and Microsoft pledged to reach a carbon-neutral supply chain and carbon negative by 2030, respectively. Private players are essential to achieving the broader sustainability goals as they bridge gaps that governments cannot deliver on themselves. However, their ongoing partner contracts with significant oil and gas producers, like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Suncor, raise doubts over the credibility of such commitments, and their combined power usage of more than 45 terawatt-hours a year from their data centers poses a deep-seated issue. In other words, action is necessary. The amount offset is not an accurate measurement but a small part of the equation. Scope 3 GHG emissions indicate the real impact of these firms as they take into account all indirect emissions, including employee commuting, waste management, and use of purchased capital goods, which collectively constitute a significant contributor to a company’s carbon footprint. GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) forms approximately 2 to 3 per cent of the global Scope 3 GHG emissions, and Amazon leads with over 45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e). Companies often grapple with reducing such emissions due to their immeasurability, which is worrying on a large scale. Can Big Tech be trusted? For years, firms mastered manipulation and treated their audience’s attention as a scarce commodity. Therefore, it is not hard to believe that our decisions are greatly affected by the tech we use. Shifting gears can be challenging, and this is not unknown to corporations but used to their advantage. The Big 5 tends to command unprecedented levels of dominance, making up to 18 per cent, in value, of the S&P 500 by market capitalization. Such figures indicate a cycle that we cannot fix unless pledges are followed through with consistent progress. This invokes the fundamental question, how much truth is there to these “carbon offset” and “net-zero” claims? Research by NewClimate Institution and Carbon Market Watch evaluated 25 major companies across different sectors and geographies to assess their transparency and integrity rating. On average, the most prominent firms planned to reduce absolute carbon emissions by only 40 per cent, not 100 per cent, as mentioned in their pledges. Shockingly, none of the companies scored a high integrity rating, with even Apple and Sony in the moderate range. Lead author of the study, Thomas Day, also said, “We set out to uncover as many replicable good practices as possible, but we were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies’ claims.” Carbon offsets are, therefore, simply a license to pollute, with companies buying carbon credits from organizations that plan to minimize such effects through clean energy and other sustainable practices. Carbon contracts are not always under standardized rates or made with ethical parties. Quite often, the companies themselves tend to forgo the occurrence of any moral hazard. Therefore, we must not consider promises of this nature at face value without climate disclosure. The 2022 UN report also recognized these false pledges, emphasizing regulatory action. Secretary-General António Guterres, at the recent Egypt COP27 summit, vowed that there would be “Zero tolerance for net zero greenwashing.” This is proof enough that more light needs to be shed on the issue of accountability concerning the climate crisis, which can be destructive if not dealt with sooner. Climate tech, emerging as a maturing asset class, has seen a strong investment surge since last year. This investment class currently stands at a staggering $73.86 billion. Globally, 160 climate tech unicorns have come to the fore, with companies valued at over $1 billion. PwC’s State of Climate Tech 2022 report echoed the same trend, suggesting that over $50 billion was injected as VC funding this year. While this is a step forward in the right direction, the funding falls short of the $1 trillion required to curb climate change. To collectively reach the 1.5-degree celsius target set by world leaders at COP26, businesses need to curb their net Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions. As opposed to just the net zero targets, entities can establish trust by setting defined guidelines using the Science Based Targets initiative. COP27 builds on the ambitious targets of the Glasgow summit to check for accountability, and SBTi metrics can aid in striking that balance between optimism and reality. There is a dire need for integrating sustainable tech through greater climate financing by governments and private institutions. Along with these measures, we can utilize the substantial power of Big tech for accelerated change. Climate crisis, as we know it, is a result of such institutions and their actions, and only by making structural changes can we reach our climate goals.

Have you heard about the five covid-19 vaccines developed in Cuba? Have you heard that Cuba has one of the highest vaccination rates in the Western hemisphere? It is hard to hear of Cuban successes over the incessant anti-socialist racket made by mainstream Western media. However, the Cuban people deserve recognition for the way they have reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic, in part because it places them in precedence over all Western countries. But also, because Cuba has achieved all of this whilst battling an equally egregious aggressor: the United States. For six decades, Cuba has endured blockades by the United States which have intended to suffocate the Cuban economy. In reverence of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States is determined to neo-colonise Cuba by forcing the Cuban economy to capitulate to neoliberal economic policies. One of the most devastating consequences of this blockade is the inability of Cuban doctors to access vital technology and equipment to treat their patients. This includes the prohibition of crucial covid vaccinations and ventilatory equipment being exported from the United States to Cuba. Despite this, in 2020 amid the height of the pandemic, Cuban healthcare ranked higher than the United States and Cuba has since become the smallest country in the world to successfully develop its own Covid vaccinations. Human flourishing, not corporate profits, is the fulcrum of Cuba’s biotech sector. In fact, it is stipulated in the Cuban constitution that healthcare is a human right and that all Cuban nationals have the right to receive free healthcare. Each Cuban citizen knows – and is regularly visited by - their neighbourhood primary care physician. Unlike the vaccines produced by Big Pharma, Cuban vaccine technology is accessible for low resource settings. The vaccines are easy to mass produce and are stable at temperatures 2-8 degrees celsuius, so do not require expensive specialist refrigeration equipment. This makes them invaluable to countries unable to afford the high prices demanded by major international pharmaceutical companies. Incongruent with the Western trend of vaccine hoarding, Cuba has extended offers to transfer technology and local production of vaccines to fifteen countries that also endure oppression by the United States. Such acts of solidarity by Cuba have not unique to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Henry Reeve foundation was established by Fidel Castro in 2005 to provide over-sea medical assistance to countries hit by natural disasters and epidemics. Since then, the Brigade has provided support following humanitarian crises including the 2005 hurricane in Guatemala; 2008 earthquake in China; 2017 floods of Sierra Leone; and 2019 hurricane of Mozambique. Assistance has never been denied even if they are not ideologically aligned with Cuba. Following the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina in 2005, Cuba offered to send medical assistance to the United States (an offer the US declined). With absolute conviction, Cuba is refusing to succumb to US bully tactics. Instead, Cuba has become a beacon of kindness and friendship amongst other countries facing similar US subordination. In July this year, the Cuban people took to the streets to urge for an end to the US blockade, to which President Diaz-Canel of Cuba said, ‘Cuba is love, peace, and solidarity’. To see Cuban moral philosophy in action, you need only examine their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. In doing-so, it is difficult to refute Diaz-Canel’s statement. Cuba is love, peace, and solidarity.

Economics tells a lot of stories to make it seem inevitable the things it tells us to do. When it comes to climate action, the orthodox view has been to conceive of people as atoms; atoms who cannot hope to coagulate into some productive molecule: where we all know in some sense that cooperation would be wise, but cannot for the life of us put down our vanity. Now this is where capitalism sets up its stall. The incentive of profit, a return on green investment, rescues us from these unproductive collective action stalemates. Profit guarantees the benefits of cooperation; remunerating the productive whilst fobbing off the free-riders. This is the story that has been invoked to rationalise our current decarbonisation trajectory. Appease and reward the ‘productive’ (read the asset managers, the big financiers). Or else we are doomed. Decarbonising energy production alone will be formidable. 14% of the emissions reductions needed by 2050 could require technology currently non-existent. The price of appeasement? Just a guaranteed rate of return, please and thank you. As ever, how we describe our problems constrains how we might remedy them. Needless to say, we do not have to become global finance’s butler to save the planet from ecological breakdown. There are other ways of securing cooperation. We are now merrily traversing, what has been promised to us as, the path of least resistance. Beset by an understandable cynicism, we cannot seem to conjure how people might come together and mitigate the climate crisis deliberatively. Such creative imaginaries are utopian, pie in the sky thinking, time-wasting, and what we need now is action. Note here the persuasive radicalism, the rhetoric of urgency, awkwardly melded to a conservative politics. A politics of resignation. Or in the de-growther Geoff Mann’s words ‘desperation.’ It is as if we have no choice. But the current paradigm of decarbonisation cannot shunt the burden of proof onto alternative trajectories. Why? Because the present method, despite deploying $2.6 trn of resources on renewable energy in the past decade alone, has achieved little. Fossil fuels account for 84% of electricity generated globally. The figure was 86% in 1995. Moreover, finance for energy transition delivered to emerging market economies has flatlined. Our carbon offsets, Californian trees to be precise, have succumbed to forest fires – I mean the irony. Carbon Capture remains a boondoggle for now, a mere glint in the eye of those oil barons who really want to emphasise the ‘net’ in net zero. The marketising of ecosystems, putting a price on ecological services, has metaphorically flattened the unquantifiable – nature, and has actually flattened 99% of the habitats in a study of 558 such projects . HSBC has helped fund several questionable projects, one Indian cement company’s CO2 emissions outstripping the whole country of Greece, as parts of its green investment drive. The cold calculus of risk and reward, of profit and loss, should have gotten us much further. What gives? A carbon price of at least $135/t could equate to a balmy 1.5 degree warming. Perhaps we ought ditch the carrots and sharpen our sticks. So the current, hoped for, route to the sunlit uplands of net zero is not obviously efficacious. And nor is it efficient. At a 2% reduction of fossil fuel derived electricity in near three decades(!), the official policy of appeasement is decidedly wasteful. On this topic, and on giving a catchy name to our predicament, Daniela Gabor is essential. She finds that we are living under the ‘Wall Street Consensus.’ Under this consensus, the elite agreed paradigm of decarbonisation, the state pursues green development as ‘de-risking.’ That is the socialising of risks, and the privatising of gain. It therefore becomes the job of governments around the globe to assemble the choicest portfolio of assets. These investments will be suitably de-risked, think a new offshore wind farm contractually guaranteed to have its output bought at a set price in perpetuity. Now that’s a deal! Having read Gabor, and having waded through reams of green finance policy papers, our current paradigm really boils down to this. This is our mission: If the conditions are not right for private investment, we need to work with our partners to de-risk projects, sectors, and entire countries.’ Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President. The onus is on governments (and citizens it must be said) to lay the ground for private finance, more like the red carpet. The language may be one of partnership, but this is no egalitarian union. Indeed, the operative concern is about tending to the ‘conditions’ that are deemed to be ‘right for private finance.’ Private finance is very much the privileged constituency. You won’t believe what these conditions are for private finance to parachute in. For the World Bank, they just happen to be ‘fully consistent’ with past non-green World Bank programmes. Shocker. Again, countries are being asked to trade away economic sovereignty for the promise of cheap private capital tomorrow. Accordingly, Green investment requires Creating investment-friendly business environments. Treasuries should be repurposed, with the goal of guaranteeing revenues… providing investors with the confidence, and mending the social dislocation some of these disruptive infrastructure projects will create. Currently the transition to Net Zero is creating the greatest commercial opportunity of our ageand little else. We can have decarbonisation without the ransom demands. Be that from private finance, petrostates, or emergent electrostates. It simply cannot be that we are hopelessly beholden to this conspiracy against the social. We must radically open up the realm of the possible. Cooperation is what we need. This must be conducted on terms more egalitarian than the present method of privileging those who happen to exercise a monopoly on finance. Why? Because it turns out that creating masses of veto points – who can withhold investment on a whim if the conditions are just not ‘business-friendly’ enough – is not conducive to the rapid decarbonisation of human activity. We can no longer afford to be held to the pace that private finance sets.

A 2020 article by CNBC offered that the racial wealth gap in the United States would be solved through education on financial institutions and processes alongside job training. This was primarily based on the McKinsey report that mentioned that Black Americans expect to earn $1 million less than White Americans. But while education surrounding finances is essential, it does not exactly explain the systemic problems faced by people of colour. While it is assumed and offered as a solution by several economists and financial analysts, financial literacy and ‘portfolio management tactics’ can change individual behaviour and decision-making, thereby allowing individuals to close the racial wealth gap. Various economic papers also attribute this loss to impatience and loss aversion behaviour, which is statistically more present in individuals at the bottom of the social ladder, such as ethnic minorities or households in lesser economically developed areas of the country, leading to more portfolio imbalances as a result of poor financial literacy. Literature over time has attributed this wealth gap to the lack of agency or education which ultimately makes individuals believe that access to these opportunities will, over time, reduce this divide. However, this is not seen in practice. Individuals who have access to the same financial institutions and education opportunities and are aware of these portfolio management tactics relating to investments and the like still see a $1 million lesser income than their white American counterparts over a lifetime. This means that financial literacy is not a leading factor of the wealth gap or even the access to opportunities but rather socio-economic circumstances that are inherently institutionalised. Of the 650 leading investment bankers in the UK, only three are black. While at face value this statistic might not mean much, this represents the very institutionalised racism within the credit system in the country. Mortgage lenders in the UK charge an extra eight percent interest rate on mortgage loans for ethnic minorities compared to white borrowers with similar overall financial situations. Similarly, their mortgage applications are also fourteen percent more likely to be rejected than their white counterparts. In 2015, it was also found that black borrowers pay about 29 basis points more than their comparable white counterparts. This statistic is found to be the worst for financially vulnerable black women in the UK. While this explains the wealth gap in part, a huge chunk of this is explained by the racial wage gap. A significant amount of this is attributed to bias in hiring. It is interesting to note that several educational institutions encourage students to amend the way they speak in order to sound more ‘white’ which is correlated with being ‘professional’. Similarly, fashion choices such as wearing hair a certain way such as having it cropped for men while wearing wigs for women are encouraged in order to avoid such racial biases. More subtle biases also exist in the hiring process where the ‘whitening of resumes’ - changing ethnic names to sound more ‘white’ ultimately led to more callbacks for interviews. This bias further explains why black individuals are less likely to be employed in higher-paying jobs which ultimately means that they can barely save up to purchase a home, where again, they are met with exorbitant interest rates on their mortgage loans. Buying a home is again a contributor to wealth accumulation and an overall better financial position due to the tangible nature of property ownership. Ultimately, wealth accumulation in black communities is affected not only by the lack of asset procurement financial systems such as mortgage loans but also the institutionalised racism due to biases in the hiring system. Financial education serves as a cop-out solution to reduce the wealth gap, especially because the exacerbation of this divide is due to socio-political forces. Building wealth and reducing this divide may therefore need further policy interventions and changes such as but not limited to redistributive policy and the upgradation of internal socio-economic processes.