{"id":224082,"date":"2022-11-21T12:01:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T12:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=224082"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:06:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T15:06:30","slug":"dont-be-fooled-climate-disasters-are-highly-lucrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/11\/dont-be-fooled-climate-disasters-are-highly-lucrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Be Fooled: Climate Disasters Are Highly Lucrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

17 Nov 2022 – <\/em>As much as wars \u2013or even more\u2013, climate disaster represents a great business opportunity, so don\u2019t bother those who pour their fortunes into fueling them with talks about stopping it.<\/span><\/p>\n

See what happens.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Multimillonarios-WA-629x472\"<\/p>\n

A new analysis of the \u201cinvestments of 125 of the world\u2019s richest billionaires shows that on average they are emitting 3 million tonnes a year, more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90% of humanity.\u201d Credit: WA<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Investing in wars<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

A couple of dozens of companies involved in manufacturing the most inhuman weapons of mass destruction\u2013 the nuclear warheads, have been supported by over 150 big banks by lending them money or underwriting bonds, according to the Nobel Peace Laureate International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN<\/a>). Its Don\u2019t Bank on the Bomb<\/a> report also shows that another 186 institutions seek to profit from holding shares or bonds. And that altogether 338 financial institutions have made more than 685 billion US dollars available to the nuclear weapon industry since 2019.<\/p>\n

This exercise \u2013and the huge \u2018investments\u2019 by the world\u2019s top rich corporations- has proved to be highly efficient.<\/p>\n

\n

Download PDF file: Don’t Bank on the Bomb<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In fact, in its report \u201cSquandered: 2021 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending<\/a>,\u201d ICAN<\/a> reveals that in 2021 \u2013the year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine\u2013 nine nuclear-armed states spent 82.4 billion US dollars on these weapons of mass destruction, that\u2019s more than 156,000 US dollars\u2026 per minute!<\/p>\n

Another prestigious investigation centre: the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI<\/a>) recently revealed<\/a> that, right now, of the total inventory of an estimated 12.705 warheads at the start of 2022, about 9.440 were in military stockpiles for potential use.<\/p>\n

Of those, an estimated 3.732 warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft, and around 2.000 \u2014nearly all of which belonged to Russia or the USA\u2014 were kept in a state of \u201chigh operational alert,\u201d SIPRI adds in its Yearbook 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Investing in climate catastrophes<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

But there is another highly lucrative business: climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world\u2019s richest people emit huge and unsustainable amounts of carbon and, unlike ordinary people, 50% to 70% of their emissions result from their investments,\u201d reveals a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice\u2013OXFAM International<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cA billionaire emits a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Its recent major study: Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world\u2019s richest people<\/a>, reports that a new analysis of the \u201cinvestments of 125 of the world\u2019s richest billionaires shows that on average they are emitting 3 million tonnes a year, more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90% of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study also finds billionaire investments in polluting industries such as fossil fuels and cement are double the average for the Standard & Poor 500 group of companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBillionaires hold extensive stakes in many of the world\u2019s largest and most powerful corporations, which gives them the power to influence the way these companies act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once destroyed, business set to make more money<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

In either case, wars and climate catastrophes cause vast destruction, let alone unspeakable human suffering, and death.<\/p>\n

Both of them further sharpen the world\u2019s unprecedented food crisis.<\/p>\n

Also here, market lords continue to make high profits.<\/p>\n

In fact, a \u201dsmall number of corporations exercise a high degree of influence over the global industrial food system, powered by mergers and acquisitions of one another to form giant mega-corporations, which enable further concentration horizontally and vertically, as well as influence over policy-making and governance nationally and globally,\u201d as already reported<\/a> by IPS.<\/p>\n

On the current energy crisis, the UN chief Ant\u00f3nio Guterres in mid-September 2022, stated<\/a> that it is \u201cabsolutely unacceptable to see that, when people are suffering so much in different parts of the world and, namely, because of the high costs of energy and high costs of fuel, to see fossil fuel companies having the largest profits eve<\/b>r or at least in the recent past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why not: in addition to speculating with the energy markets, these companies have been largely funded by governments. In fact, politicians have spent six trillion US dollars from taxpayers\u2019 money to subsidise fossil fuels in just one year: 2020. And they are set to increase the figure to nearly seven trillion by 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n

More business \u2018opportunities\u2019<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

Then comes the great business of reconstructing all that the money-making business has been greatly contributing. Buildings, highways, bridges, hospitals, schools, universities, etcetera, let alone in further synthetic food.. all of these are to be paid for by the victims.<\/p>\n

But there are more business opportunities, like continue buying vast fertile lands for monoculture and intensive agriculture, a money-making practice that by the way further opens the door for high technology corporations to digitalise more and more food production, among so many others.<\/p>\n

A production that, also, by the way, is being greatly disrupted due to both wars and climate disasters.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Baher Kamal, <\/em>a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, <\/em>is an Egyptian-born, Spanish national, secular journalist, with over 45 years of professional experience \u2014 from reporter to special envoy to chief editor of national dailies and an international news agency. Baher is former <\/em>Senior Advisor<\/a> <\/em>to the Director General of the international news agency IPS (Inter Press Service)<\/a> and he also contributed to prestigious magazines such as <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>, GEO, Muy Interesante, and<\/em> Natura, Spain<\/em>. He is also publisher and editor of<\/em> Human Wrongs Watch.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 human-wrongs-watch.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Nov 2022 – Companies involved in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, the nuclear warheads, have been supported by over 150 big banks by lending them money or underwriting bonds, according to ICAN’s ‘Don\u2019t Bank on the Bomb’ report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":198975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[1161,1104,1058,232,550,555,401,562,626,2090,450,2198,2060,875,1160],"class_list":["post-224082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-trade","tag-arms-trade-treaty","tag-capitalism","tag-corruption","tag-elites","tag-environment","tag-finance","tag-greed","tag-ican-international-campaign-to-abolish-nuclear-weapons","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-post-capitalism","tag-profits","tag-wmd","tag-world-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284587,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224082\/revisions\/284587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}