Blog

James Angel, campaigns and policy intern

Remember 2008? After decades of unchecked greed and corruption, the neoliberal house of cards finally toppled over, leaving us with the worst economic crisis since the great depression. The big banks have been gambling with our money for years but, as we all know, the costs of the crisis – the unemployment, the lost homes, the austerity measures – have been borne by us. 

Since the crisis, public bail-outs to the tune of several hundred billion pounds have quickly secured a return to record profits and bonuses for the guilty banks. At the same time, their destructive activities have only increased. As has been exposed by the World Development Movement, since the 2008 housing crash banks like Goldman Sachs and Barclays have turned to betting on food as a new means of extracting profit. Financial speculation on food commodities markets has pushed up food prices, leaving the world’s poorest people unable to afford to eat.

In its starkest moment of crisis yet, neoliberalism’s true colours have been made plain for all to see: whilst the banks are ‘too big to fail’, people’s lives can slip by the wayside....

Amy Horton, Food campaigner

Soon after it got light on Saturday morning, I set off from a tiny chalet, lugging my bags through a blizzard down a snowy track impassable to cars. The bags were heavier than when I’d arrived, because I was carrying an award. The previous day, Barclays – the UK’s biggest food speculator – had declined to show up to the Public Eye Awards to collect its prize for being the world’s worst corporation. Following WDM’s nomination, Barclays was selected by a jury, while the ‘winner’ of a second prize decided by over 90,000 voters was mining giant Vale.

Last year, WDM revealed that Barclays makes up to £340 million a year from betting on food prices. Our groups across the country helped to bring home to people in the UK what rising food prices mean in the global south, holding sales of impossibly expensive food outside their local branches of Barclays.

But Barclays continues to speculate on food and maintains a close relationship with UK Treasury ministers who are seeking to scupper EU...

Kirsty Wright, climate campaigner

The Durban UN climate talks saw a repetition of the pattern of injustice and inaction of previous climate talks, with rich countries protecting their own interests and those of multinational industries over those of people.

The Durban climate talks were my third experience of what has increasingly become a farcical annual event in the arena of international politics. Throughout two humid, wretched weeks, rich industrialised countries dedicated themselves to protecting economic elites and polluting industries over the survival of people and the planet.  Each year, I have seen bullying and bribery tactics become more ingrained into the process, and the drive to ensure the forum becomes a space where the interests of corporations are ranked higher than the well being of humanity becoming ever stronger, as rich countries desperately struggle to protect the status quo by avoiding the key question: how are global emission cuts to be reached?

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Liz Murray, head of Scottish campaigns 

It’s heartening to hear that President Obama has stood up to Big Oil by rejecting the permit for the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline sought by Canadian oil firm TransCanada. The reason given was that the project is not in the national interest. The pipeline was planned to carry tar sands oil more than 2,000 miles from Alberta in Canada to the oil refineries and ports in Texas. A huge campaign from indigenous activists, environmentalists, farmers, ranchers and youth climate activists was run against the project, and American citizens submitted more than 250,000 public comments against the proposal. 

This is good news. While it is still possible for TransCanada to reapply for the permit to build the pipeline, it must surely be a major blow to the tars sands industry in Canada, which needs to be able to get the oil out of Canada if it is to be economically viable.  

But the tar sands industry has to be stopped. Tar sands are one of the most polluting sources of fossil fuel, threatening water supplies and land locally when it is extracted and threatening the climate when it is burned. 

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