There isn’t much hopeful news around, but here’s a small handful of things from the past four weeks or so.
Covid-19
The US has declared its support for a patent waiver on Covid vaccines. This is essentially what is needed in, for example, India: the country can make its own vaccines but can’t afford the fees levied by the pharmaceutical companies. The EU supports a waiver too. The most vociferous opponent has been… Pfizer. I am shocked – shocked! At the time of writing, the WTO hasn’t approved a waiver, but the US’s support is surprising and welcome.
Feminism (well, a bit)
On 4 May, the UK Home Office announced that marriage certificates would now bear the names of the couple, both their fathers, and both their mothers. Previously – madly – birth certificates bore the names of the couple and the names of both their fathers. But not their mothers. Is it a small thing? Yes, ish, although most of the people saying ‘shouldn’t we be addressing more important issues?’ have been men. Funny that. Go ahead, address bigger things. No one’s stopping you. But this is one less bit of everyday sexism in the pot.
(They are also creating a centralised register of marriages, rather than relying on local records. Dragging the registry office kicking and screaming into the 21st century.)
Environment
The All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group have published an online ‘Climate Policy Dashboard’ to monitor the UK’s progress in tackling the climate crisis. The Dashboard assesses the Government’s progress against recommendations made by the Climate Change Committee.
How are we doing? Well, rubbish, especially as regards rubbish. So why is this hopeful? Well, at least someone’s actually measuring how well we’re doing – a small step towards improvement.
The Dashboard is here: Climate Policy Dashboard
Meanwhile, Germany’s Green Party, under new leader Annalena Baerbock, currently leads in the polls (though there are still more than four months until election day).
Animal welfare
The UK government has announced a handful of welcome animal welfare measures, including:
– Halting most live animal exports.
– Banning the import of hunting trophies.
– Banning the keeping of primates as pets.
– Introducing a bill to recognise animals as sentient.
Inequality
The US administration has proposed global tax reforms to limit the ability of multinational corporations to shift profits overseas, and also create a minimum corporate tax rate. Measures like this have high public support, and would see significantly increased tax revenue return to governments. Less enthusiastic are Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
The core of the plan is that multinationals won’t be able to declare all their tax in a tax haven: they would have to pay taxes to all the national governments in which they operate, based on the sales they generate in each country.