SLAVERY & CLIMATE CHANGE

Please use our A-Z INDEX to navigate this site

 

G20 human rights child labour, slavery and business

 

 

G20 UNITE ON CHILD LABOUR - With public trust in markets draining away, G20 Leaders sought to show their commitment to an “inclusive, fair and sustainable globalisation” by putting welcome emphasis on workers’ rights and conditions.

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, recently said “Citizens in rich and poorer economies are facing heightened uncertainty and stalled or declining prosperity, and lamenting a loss of control……Rather than a new golden era, globalisation is associated with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and striking inequalities.”

These are big promises in areas with a track-record of lamentable failure: virtually every global supply chain now has modern slavery within it, and wages have stagnated or shrunk, in real terms, in many countries South and North

But a strange and useful unity emerged to eliminate child labour and modern slavery. That’s perhaps because this issue is a concern both for international liberals, like Merkel, who believe slavery diminishes us all and brings global markets into disrepute; and to chauvinist nationalists, like Trump, who want to be seen to protect US workers from ‘unfair competition’ from trafficked migrants and refugees.

Mandatory Transparency: the UK Modern Slavery Act demands a compliance statement on modern slavery from any company with turn-over above £36 million who wants action in the UK market. The statement has to be approved by the Board, signed by a director, and have a link on the company’s homepage. The Act still requires an enforcement mechanism.

 

Mandatory Due Diligence: the US Department of Labour identifies 135 commodities produced in particular countries as at high risk of being produced by child or forced labour. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act insists that an importer of these goods must be able to demonstrate these goods were not produced by child or forced labour, otherwise they may be impounded at port (and three consignments have been). The French Duty of Vigilance Law demands the largest companies establish and implement a plan to mitigate and prevent major human rights risks, including egregious risks such as modern slavery.

 

Incentives for Responsible Business: public procurement by the EU and USA is worth billions of euros and dollars. The least states can do is ensure that the goods and services they buy are from companies that abide by the international standards on labour rights which the governments themselves have signed up to – including the ILO Convention on Forced Labour (which many more countries should ratify). This is what the USA’s Federal Acquisition Regulation requires. The same principle goes for Export Credit Guarantees – why would tax-payers’ money go to companies that do not demonstrate care and vigilance to eliminate slavery from their supply chains and operations?

 

Access to Remedy: the G20 also say “we support access to remedy” but much more could be done to ensure the security of trafficked workers who fear they will be summarily deported if they reveal their slavery to the police. Equally there needs to be far more access to the functioning courts of G20 countries for victims caught in the international supply chains of G20 companies (there’s often not much remedy to be found in the paralysed and corrupt judicial systems of countries where modern slavery is rife).

Alongside government action, a great deal more needs to be done by companies themselves to eliminate slavery. There are leading companies in all three sectors - clothing brands, IT, and food and beverage - we have ranked as KnowTheChain, with Humanity United and Verité. But there are also many more laggards whose irresponsible behaviour towards victims of slavery in their supply chain would be challenged by concerted G20 action. Equally, the laggards can learn quickly from the leaders such as adidas, HP and Unilever.

 

 

FINANCIAL SLAVERY FUELS CLIMATE CHANGE

 

Politicians would not be talking now if there had not been climate change marches and protests. It seems that if citizens of planet earth want to see change that they will need to keep up the pressure until the G20 finally agree to binding targets that stand some kind of a chance of saving planet earth.

 

The electorate have allowed the favoured few to make mountains of cash by charging interest on money that you should not have needed to borrow to be able to afford a decent living. The unnecessary interest you pay erodes your quality of life. Banks and bankers love lending money, the more you borrow the more Bentleys and Yachts they can buy on the sweat of your brows.

 

One of the root causes of a rental regime is the high cost of houses, where those in positions of authority should be granting consents to build genuinely affordable units, such that fat-cat landlords are ousted as people can afford to buy their own homes.

 

 

 

EMPIRE BUILDING - The problem with empires is that they do not last. Their builders always lose sight of the natural limitations that have governed the evolution and ecological balance of planet earth for millions of years before man came along and thought he knew better.

 

 

FINANCIAL SLAVERY

 

Financial slavery should be illegal. Our present Governments have fostered the making of a renting society, where poorer families are forced to rent homes that are not climate friendly. But where houses could be built that any family might purchase at reasonable prices - to avoid the rental trap.

 

Instead of that house building in (for example) East Sussex has concentrated on large brick units that only landlords and executives (or highly paid civil servants ) can afford to purchase as investments to populate with modern slaves.

 

Sustainable buildings made of timber as flatpacks will provide a carbon lock. If equipped with solar water heaters and pv panels, these same affordable units will generate much of the energy required for comfortable living.

 

Councillors and town planners do not want sustainable homes built, because they won't get the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) payments - and they could only value in band A. Hence the rates payable would be lower. When councils are all about empire building and charging more for services. Hence, they are defacto, violating the human rights of the poorer members of society, by engineering and perpetuating a situation where low income families might never attain a decent standard of living at equitable rates. I.e. rents or mortgage payments that are linked to their incomes.

 

 

THE GREEDY 20 HEADS OF STATE (2020) UNSUSTAINABLE POLICIES A - Z

 

 

 

Alberto Fernandez

 

ARGENTINA

 

 

Scott Morrison, Australian Prime Minister 2020

 

AUSTRALIA

 

 

Jair Bolsanaro, Brasilia premier

 

BRAZIL

 

 

Justin Trudeau

 

CANADA

 

 

Xi Jinping

 

CHINA

 

Charles Michel

 

EUROPEAN UNION

 

Emmanuel Macron, French Presidente

 

FRANCE

 

Angela Merkel

 

GERMANY

 

Narendra Modi

 

INDIA

 

Joko Widodo

 

INDONESIA

 

Giuseppe Conte

 

ITALY

 

Shinzo Abe

 

JAPAN

 

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexicano Presidente

 

MEXICO

 

Vladimir Putin

 

RUSSIA

 

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

 

SAUDI ARABIA

 

Cyril Ramaphosa

 

SOUTH AFRICA

 

Moon Jae-in

 

SOUTH KOREA

 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

 

TURKEY

 

Boris Johnson, Prime Minister, United Kingdom

 

UNITED KINGDOM

 

Donald Trump

 

UNITED STATES

 

 

 

Add electric and hybrid cars to the equation, and we'd have very low carbon transport. With mass production of these vehicles, rather than diesel and petrol powered cars, the operating and purchase costs also reduce, hence the borrowing goes down and unearned income for banks and their shareholders reduces, thus lowering the levels of financial slavery that at present is making billions of lives a misery.

 

 

 

 

COP HISTORY

 

1995 COP 1, BERLIN, GERMANY
1996 COP 2, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1997 COP 3, KYOTO, JAPAN
1998 COP 4, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
1999 COP 5, BONN, GERMANY
2000:COP 6, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
2001 COP 7, MARRAKECH, MOROCCO
2002 COP 8, NEW DELHI, INDIA
2003 COP 9, MILAN, ITALY
2004 COP 10, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
2005 COP 11/CMP 1, MONTREAL, CANADA
2006 COP 12/CMP 2, NAIROBI, KENYA
2007 COP 13/CMP 3, BALI, INDONESIA

2008 COP 14/CMP 4, POZNAN, POLAND
2009 COP 15/CMP 5, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
2010 COP 16/CMP 6, CANCUN, MEXICO
2011 COP 17/CMP 7, DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA
2012 COP 18/CMP 8, DOHA, QATAR
2013 COP 19/CMP 9, WARSAW, POLAND
2014 COP 20/CMP 10, LIMA, PERU
2015 COP 21/CMP 11, Paris, France
2016 COP 22/CMP 12/CMA 1, Marrakech, Morocco
2017 COP 23/CMP 13/CMA 2, Bonn, Germany
2018 COP 24/CMP 14/CMA 3, Katowice, Poland
2019 COP 25/CMP 15/CMA 4, Santiago, Chile

2020 COP 26/CMP 16/CMA 5, to be announced


March 15 2019 is global climate strike day

 

MARCH 2019 CALL TO ARMS - They are school kids temporarily sacrificing their education in order to save our futures from dangerous climate change. What stars. On November 30, over 15,000 boys and girls went on strike from school in every capital city and over 20 regional centres across Australia. On March 15, they are going even bigger and inviting adults to join them in solidarity for a Global Climate Strike. We're in!

 

 

SIX STEPS TOWARD A COOLER PLANET

 

1. TRANSPORT: Phase out polluting vehicles. Government aims to end the sale of new petrol, and diesel vehicles by 2040 but have no infrastructure plan to support such ambition. Marine transport can be carbon neutral.

 

2. RENEWABLESRenewable energy should replace carbon-based fuels (coal, oil and gas) in our electricity, heating and transport.

 

3. HOUSING: On site micro or macro generation is the best option, starting with new build homes.

 

4. AGRICULTURE: We need trees to absorb carbon emissions from a growing population, flying, and to build new homes. Reducing food waste and promoting less energy intensive eating habits such as no meat Mondays.

 

5. INDUSTRY: Factories should be aiming for solar heating and onsite renewable energy generation.

 

6. POLITICS: - National governing bodies need to adopt policies to eliminate administrative wastages, to include scaling down spending on war machines, educating the public and supporting sustainable social policies that mesh with other cultures.

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCE

 

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/g20-and-modern-slavery-what-next

 

 

Extinction Rebellion

 

PROTESTS - Extinction Rebellion are a group of peaceful protestors who don't want mankind to die out like the Neanderthals, dinosaurs, and many other species that humans are killing by burning fossil fuels and other nasty habits.

 

 

 

GRETA THUNBERG - is a Swedish climate activist. At the COP24 climate talks in Poland, December 2018, Miss Thunberg addressed the Secretary-General of the United Nations. She received a standing ovation for one of her talks. She is behind the global school strike created to call attention to climate change. She is a rebel. With a cause. Miss Thunberg is 15 and autistic and the newest, youngest and most powerful voice on the world stage demanding the world address global warming.

 

 

COP 25 Santiago, Chile December 2019 climate change conference

 

CLIMATE CHANGE - The United Nations' climate summit talks are known as COP (= Conference Of the Parties). During these discussions action for climate policy is negotiated with each country fighting for points in a global economic struggle. Nobody wants to give ground, except that every party agrees in principle that they need to make concessions - otherwise, with deaths from heat exhaustion and strokes, eventually, there will be nothing to argue about. We will all be dead.

 

So far with over twenty-four years of haggling the arctic ice is still melting - and faster than ever. No wonder so many high profile people and corporations are worried. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international treaty adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro from 1992. The UNFCCC objective is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".

 

 

 This website is provided on a free basis as a public information service. copyright © Climate Change Trust 2020. Solar Studios, BN271RF, United Kingdom.

 

 

FINANCIAL SLAVERY IS BEING FORCED TO PAY RENT FOR A HOME THAT IS NOT CLIMATE FRIENDLY