On Wednesday, I drove down to the University of Kentucky (UK) for a fireside chat with the new President and CEO of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA), Thasunda Brown Duckett. Why? We wrote her a letter, along with 112 other organizations, in the fall of 2021 demanding that TIAA stop grabbing…
The day after the closure of the 50th Committee on World Food Security (CFS), I’m not sure if I’m more angry or depressed. While millions of people are starving due to climate disasters, inflation, and conflicts, governments gathered at the CFS 50 expecting to coordinate a response to the global food crisis. Instead, they spent…
The Supreme Court has a major legitimacy problem that threatens American democracy and the future of our country. Considering recent Supreme Court rulings on women’s rights and the environment, two issues at the core of ActionAid’s work around the world, the Court and its reputation is timely and on the minds of many as we…
If there is one thing that I think the death of Mahsa Amini has proven and re-proven, it is that in Iran, women’s freedom has reached a whole new level of insignificance in the eyes of those in power. This, however, should highlight the increasing importance of protest and standing in solidarity with those who…
The Guardian has the latest exhibit of “Corporations don’t care if you die” in a story about Big Pharma objecting to a South African company replicating Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine: Moderna has filed several patents in South Africa and has refused to cooperate and share technology with the hub in Africa, likening the replica vaccine to…
NPR’s Ari Shapiro has a good article out today about the links between climate change, migration, and the rise of far-right ethno-nationalist politics. (Whenever this comes up I will always re-share my colleague Teresa Anderson’s sketch of this vicious cycle from several years ago.) Particularly useful in this piece is the differentiation between climate as…
Last week, ActionAid joined climate justice activists around the world and in New York City at the United Nations to demand that the wealthy governments in the Global North fund rebuilding efforts from “loss & damage” experienced by poorer countries around the world due to climate disasters, which are increasing in number and severity. Despite…
The 26th of September was a sad day for me. I woke up to the news that the right-wing coalition led by the “Brothers of Italy” party, directly descended from the Mussolini fascist party, won the election. This win means that Italy now has the most conservative right-wing government we have ever had since the…
Yesterday Reuters had a story on Special Envoy on Climate John Kerry’s trip to Africa, with a headline that qualifies as clickbait in international climate policy circles: “U.S. climate envoy Kerry calls on African nations to help curb emissions.” This prompted some angry tweeting, including from our own Director of Policy Brandon Wu. It’s worth…
The world is currently facing its largest and most critical refugee crisis. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) states that the United States has long been a safe haven for refugees from around the world. Since its creation in 1980, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has accepted more than 3 million refugees into the…
