Climate change report predicts devastating worldwide impacts

Mark Wilson

By examining in detail the impact on a range of six developing countries, a research program led by Professor Rachel Warren at the University of East Anglia has confirmed the serious and rapid consequences of global warming on an international scale.

Climate activists march through the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 which is the host city of the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

The scientific consensus on climate change is undeniable. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released in 2022, synthesised tens of thousands of research papers and represents the most comprehensive overview of climate science.

It stated with high confidence that “human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming.” The IPCC warned that this had already “led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people.”

A 2021 analysis from Cornell University demonstrated a more than 99.5 percent consensus among the peer-reviewed literature on human-caused contemporary climate change. This fact was “no more in contention among scientists than is plate tectonics or evolution,” it concluded.

Climate change denial has never been a more untenable position than it is now.

Despite this widespread consensus, some knowledge gaps relating to climate change risks have remained. Specifically, a methodologically consistent approach to how climate change will impact different countries has been lacking. This is because research on global climate risks that uses consistent models and methods does not normally consider the differing effects between individual countries.

By contrast, national climate change studies will differ in their modelling methods from country to country. There is thus a need for a consistent approach to assessing climate change risk between nations.

The latest report addresses this knowledge gap through eight research papers produced from June 2021 to February 2024. The researchers chose six developing countries to analyse: Brazil, China, India, Egypt, Ethiopia and Ghana.

These countries were chosen to assess both different levels of development and different geographies. The six countries span 67th (China) to 134th (Ethiopia) on Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index from 2022 and are spread out over three continents.

In each of the papers, the same set of climate models was used for each country that was analysed, to provide a consistent risk projection across countries for each increment of global warming. Each paper covers a different topic relating to climate change risk, including droughts, flooding, crop yields, biodiversity and economics.

The combined findings of the eight studies were compiled in a synthesis report published in the journal Climatic Change on February 29. The results are in line with the consensus on climate change. “With a few exceptions, increasing warming leads to greater exposure to drought, fluvial and coastal flooding, and greater declines in biodiversity and crop yields,” the report stated.

While the scope of the research in this collection is far too large for one article to cover comprehensively, some of the key findings from this synthesis report can be outlined here, as well as how it relates to previous climate change research.

For all six countries, the study found major risks from climate change in terms of increases in drought frequency and severity. Specifically in Brazil, China, Egypt and Ethiopia, 3 degrees Celsius of warming could expose more than 80 percent of the agricultural area in each country to droughts of longer than one year.

Crop yields subsequently will be affected by such droughts. For all countries besides India, the study found major climate risks of decreased crop yields. Egypt, for example, is “projected to suffer impacts to welfare due to negative impacts of climate change on rice and wheat yields, subsequent production, and increasing crop prices.”

While more severe and frequent droughts are expected in some regions, others will be subjected to coastal flooding. The researchers found that climate change poses major flooding risks for China, Egypt and Ghana.

In Egypt, one of the papers in this collection estimated a shocking 50-fold increase in potential human exposure of fluvial flooding at 4 degrees Celsius of warming. This was a conservative estimate as it kept population constant. Using a population projection associated with a “middle of the road” scenario of 9 billion people globally by the year 2100, the study projected a potential 12,000 percent human exposure increase in Egypt to flooding at 4 degrees Celsius of warming.

Risks will vary between countries, but the global picture is grim. A 2016 paper cited by the IPCC report mentioned earlier found a 20-fold increase of flood risk in India and Bangladesh for 4 degrees Celsius warming.

On a global scale, the average risk of flooding from climate change corresponds to an additional 24 million people per decade at risk of flood impacts due to 4 degrees Celsius warming.

While 4 degrees Celsius of warming is on the higher end of climate change projections, it is certainly not ruled out in the absence of serious climate mitigation efforts, and could be reached by the 2070s.

Biodiversity is also at major risk from climate change in most of these countries. Climate change increases the exposure of many species to extreme conditions. The report stated that in countries such as Brazil, 3 degrees Celsius of warming would leave “very few climate refugia for plant biodiversity.” In India, only 17 percent of the country is projected to “act as a safe refuge for biodiversity” at 3 degrees Celsius of warming.

The lack of natural refuge from climate change in a warmer world will inevitably lead to biodiversity loss above pre-existing rates. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), over 1,600 threatened or near-threatened species are already being impacted by climate change. The IPCC noted in its latest report: “As warming levels increase, so do the risks of species extinction or irreversible loss of biodiversity in ecosystems.”

In an editorial introduction to the collection of studies comprising the new report, climate scientists Daniela Jacob and Tania Guillen Bolanos remark that “widespread and escalating climate change risk” is the future that awaits humanity if immediate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is not implemented.

They add that “the risk of severe impacts increases with every additional increment of global warming,” highlighting the necessity to limit the degree of warming as much as possible.

This is not happening under the capitalist system. The 3 degrees Celsius of global warming that researchers have warned about is exactly the trajectory that the earth is headed toward given current policies.

In the words of a recent study, “current midcentury net zero goals are insufficient to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures. The primary barriers to the achievement of a 1.5°C-compatible pathway are not geophysical but rather reflect inertia in our political and technological systems.”

Fossil fuel companies and the ruling classes who defend their profit interests are sending these six countries and the rest of the world into climate catastrophe.

Polish Post plans to cut thousands of jobs

Martin Nowak

On March 5, the management of Poczta Polska (Polish Post, PP), the Polish postal service, announced an “employment and remuneration plan” for 2024. According to this, the number of postal workers is to be reduced from 62,939 to 58,482 full-time positions this year, i.e. by 4,457 jobs. This would continue a retrenchment programme that has seen over 10,000 postal employees fall victim to the cuts since 2021 alone.

Protest by Polish postal workers in Szczecin in 2021 [Photo by ZZPP Szczecin]

According to the new PP executive board member Sebastian Mikosz, the reduction is to be achieved through “natural fluctuation,” i.e., through expiring contracts and retirement. However, the NSZZ-Solidarnosc trade union has been informed that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Even more extensive savings and 10,000 redundancies are planned in 2024 alone.

Since the reintroduction of capitalism in Poland more than three decades ago, one attack on postal workers has followed another. The general assault began in the 2000s with the liberalisation and privatisation of the Polish postal system. Like all the “reforms” intended to make Poland “fit” for joining the EU, it led to massive cutbacks at the expense of the workers.

In 2012, the abolition of the government monopoly of the mail created a lever to make the postal service even more profitable in competition with other providers. Countless waves of staff cuts and thousands of closed post offices later, however, PP is still not profitable.

The idea that it is not possible to make a profit from public utilities such as the postal service, healthcare or waste disposal without devastating consequences for workers, is simply not criticized in the Polish media. This is not in the least due to the trade unions, which have helped organise all “restructuring” to date.

Even the monthly minimum wage of 4,242 zloty (around 933 euros), which has been in force since January 1, is not being adhered to by PP in the lowest wage bracket. It is only achieved because the basic salary of 4,023 zloty is topped up with special bonuses.

The fact that PP resembles a “zombie” that still “seems to be functioning but is already falling apart,” as Gazeta Wyborcza puts it, is not in the least a result of the complicity between all the establishment parties and the trade unions.

According to press reports, PP posted a loss of 787 million zlotys in 2023. As salary payments account for around 80 percent of expenditure, the trade unions also argue there is basically no alternative to making cuts. Faced with worker’s opposition to far-reaching cost-cutting measures, however, they are striking a combative pose, talking about the “imminent collapse” of PP and threatening to strike. But these brash speeches are part of a familiar game with which the nationalist trade union bureaucracies seek to disguise their corporatist role as co-managers.

This applies to both the postal section of Solidarnosc and the ZZPP postal union, which belongs to the competing trade union organisation OPZZ. Both knew about the cuts planned weeks beforehand. The ZZPP met with the new Minister of State Assets, Jacek Bartmiński, who is responsible for the postal service, in January, praising the talks as “very fruitful.”

A PP extraordinary general meeting was then held on February 8. As the state is the main shareholder, it was more of a consultation within the government. With the appointment of Paweł Wojciechowski as Chairman of the Supervisory Board and shortly afterwards, Sebastian Mikosz as Chairman of the Management Board, a hand-picked duo was formed to push through the austerity regime.

Wojciechowski had previously been a member of a government under Donald Tusk, who is now leading the Polish government again. When the far-right PiS was in government, Wojciechowski had campaigned for a flat-tax model as chief economist at the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS). He later became director of the consulting firm Whiteshield Partner and an economic expert in the election campaign team of the conservative Polska2050 party, which has been part of the governing coalition since last year.

Mikosz made a name for himself from 2013 to 2015 as head of the Polish airline, LOT, with a rigid austerity programme. He implemented wage cuts, redundancies and route closures and has since been regarded as a hardliner who simply cancels collective agreements.

The fact that the trade unions were involved in PP’s cost-cutting plans from the outset is also shown by their representation on the company’s management bodies. Robert Czyż (ZZPP) and Magdalena Lebiedź (Solidarnosc) sit as union representatives on the Supervisory Board. And with Andrzej Bodziony, Solidarnosc even provides the Vice President.

On February 21, a meeting was held at company’s headquarters between board members and trade union officials. In a press release, Solidarnosc subsequently reported favourably that the aim of Mikosz’s “action plan” was to “restore the company’s profitability, which required a significant transformation/restructuring.”

While the unions now claim they are the only ones who know how to restructure properly, all sides are concealing the real reasons for the financial difficulties. Due to price increases and rampant inflation, which reached almost 20 percent in 2022, Poland’s ruling class was also forced to significantly increase the nominal minimum wage, from 2,250 zlotys (495 euros) in 2019 to 3,600 in 2023, 4,242 in January 2024, to 4,300 zlotys (946 euros) in July 2024.

Although real wages still fell, the increases tore a hole in the finances of the state-owned company, which also has to compensate for the cost increases in the energy sector. As PP cannot simply raise prices at the same rate due to legal regulations, there is now a huge gap in its finances.

Donald Tusk’s government, like its predecessor under the PiS, is spending billions and billions on armaments and war. Now it is using PP’s deficit as an excuse for a drastic “cure.”

The latest parliamentary resolution on the new postal law passed last week only provides for an increase in state subsidies from 593 to a maximum of 750 million zlotys this year, and from a further 651 to a maximum of 1,302 million zlotys in 2025. This is nowhere near enough to cover the cost increases. The same Tusk government that recently purchased Swedish weapons for one billion zlotys is not prepared to pay decent wages to postal workers, but is continuing the PiS-era policy of cuts.

The trade unions also fear that this attack on postal workers will not be without consequences. They quote the Wyborzca at length with the warning that the massive attack could lead to “a dangerous escalation of social tensions, followed by an escalation of protests and even a general strike.”

Genetic makeup of modern Europeans derived through ancient migrations from Asia

Frank Gaglioti

Astounding research in four scientific papers published on January 10 in Nature, show that the genetic makeup of modern Europeans was largely determined through migration waves from Asia starting 45,000 years ago, and not from the adaptation to the local environment, as was previously thought. 

The studies indicate that diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) that are prevalent in northern European populations entered via these migrations. Differences in height between taller northern Europeans and shorter southern Europeans also resulted from the migrations. 

Lluís Quintana-Murci, population geneticist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, who was not involved in the study told Nature, “This is a tour de force.” He explained that the research provides unprecedented detail on how ancient ancestry can influence disease risk to this day, saying, “It’s a beautiful example of how, by addressing very basic fundamental anthropological and genomic questions, you can inform medicine.”

The studies involved a large international team of 175 scientists led by evolutionary geneticist Professor Eske-Willerslev at the universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen, and Clinical Professor Thomas Werge at the University of Copenhagen, and statistical geneticist Professor Rasmus Nielsen at the University of California, Berkeley.

Left to right: Eske Willerslev, Rasmus Nielsen and Thomas Werge [Photo: Cambridge University, University of California at Berkeley]

The researchers extracted and sequenced the DNA of 317 ancient European skeletons aged between 3,000 and 11,000 years old. These were compared to an existing database of 1,300 ancient Eurasian gene sequences. Researchers were able to develop a gene map of Eurasia, sampling the bones and teeth of 5,000 humans who lived across the land mass from 34,000 years ago. The extracted ancient DNA was compared to that of modern populations.

“Creating a gene bank of ancient DNA from Eurasia’s past human inhabitants was a colossal project, involving collaboration with museums across the region,” said Willerslev.

The research was made possible by the DNA revolution, the fact that genomes can be sequenced on a mass basis relatively cheaply and that ancient genetic material can be extracted from fossil remains.

Modern Europeans are the result of three migration waves, with the first roughly 45,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers from Asia. The second wave were farmers from the Middle East, who arrived 11,000 years ago. The last migration wave, about 5,000 years ago, consisted of pastoralists and animal herders from western Asia and eastern Europe.

A comparison of the age, burial location and genetic characteristics of the human remains enabled the scientists to develop a genetic map and determine how the genetic makeup of the populations changed over time. Willerslev and his team found that the steppe pastoralists mostly went to northern Europe, while the Middle Eastern farmers went to the south and west.

The researchers who contributed to the paper “Population genomics of post-glacial western Eurasia” found that in some cases the new populations totally replaced the established population.

“Large-scale ancestry shifts occurred in the west as farming was introduced, including near-total replacement of hunter-gatherers in many areas, whereas no substantial ancestry shifts happened east of the zone during the same period,” the researchers state.

A similar shift occurred across Europe when the previously existing hunter-gatherer population was replaced by the Yamnaya people, who spread across western Eurasia about 5,000 years ago. The process is thought to have taken place over about 1,000 years.

The Yamnaya people are thought to have originated in what is today western Russia’s Don River basin. They became known from an excavation at a graveyard called Golubaya Krinitsa in 1903 with remains the researchers now think were from about 7,300 years ago. Previously archaeologists dated the remains at around 5,400 to 5,300 years ago. 

The Yamnaya people are named after their burial practices of placing their human remains in tumuli (mounds) with simple pit chambers. The name Yamnaya means related to the pits in Russian. They are thought to have inhabited a large part of south-west Asia.

When the Yamnaya people arrived in Europe, they mated with the people known as the eastern European Globular Amphora Culture, known from their distinctive dome-shaped ceramic vessels. The resulting hybrid population known as the Corded Ware Culture became dominant in the area and then migrated to northern Europe.

Pottery of the Corded Ware Culture of north-central Europe

The Corded Ware Culture was named after their distinctive pottery found in archaeological excavations. They are thought to have inhabited an extensive area in central Europe from the Rhine to the Volga rivers. 

The Corded Ware Culture was a “hybrid population adapted rapidly to its new surroundings and formed a dominant culture,” evolutionary biologist Morten Allentoft, of Curtin University in Perth, Australia and an author of the paper, told Science.

According to archaeologist Volker Heyd of the University of Helsinki, who did not participate in the new research, “These genetic discoveries align with previous archaeological evidence.”

Intriguingly, the Yamnaya migration introduced the gene associated with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) into northern European populations. Northern Europeans have double the incidence of MS than southern Europeans. Some scientists think that MS is the result of infection with the Epstein-Barr virus, but others feel there is a genetic basis for the disease. 

MS is an autoimmune disease that damages the outer lining of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The disease is thought to have once given a biological advantage in resisting diseases humans may have acquired from their herd animals. The neolithic period saw the development of agricultural societies, resulting in an increased prevalence of diseases due to humans living in denser populations.

The research reported in “Elevated genetic risk for multiple sclerosis emerged in steppe pastoralist populations” was led by computational biologist William Barrie from the University of Cambridge. 

“Our analyses indicate that MS gene variants helped people survive in the past,” Barrie told an online news conference held by the researchers in Copenhagen in January.

Barrie and his group compared ancient Eurasian DNA to DNA collected from 410,000 white British people. The researchers looked at gene changes associated with MS. 

Barrie et al. stated, “The last 10,000 years have seen some of the most extreme global changes in lifestyle, with the emergence of farming in some regions and pastoralism in others. While 5,000 years ago farmer ancestry predominated across Europe, a relatively diverged genetic ancestry arrived with the steppe migrations around this time. We have shown that this genetic ancestry contributes the most genetic risk for MS today and that these variants were the result of positive selection coinciding with the emergence of a pastoralist lifestyle on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and continued selection in the subsequent admixed populations in Europe.”

They also found evidence that genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease and Type 2 diabetes were brought to Europe by the migration of the Yamnaya people. It is not clear if those genes gave any adaptive advantage to the population. 

Mapping of various sub-cultures in the post-glacial development of Europe.

Their genetic influence on today’s population of southern Europe is much weaker.

In another paper by Assistant Professor of Molecular Ecology and Evolution at the University of Copenhagen, Evan K. Irving-Pease and his team, “The selection landscape and genetic legacy of ancient Eurasians,” examines the transition with the Holocene period that began around 12,000 years ago and is characterized by the development of agriculture. This period saw enormous changes in human diet and general lifestyle as people started living in denser communities, which meant more likely exposure to pathogens.

The researchers found that strong selection in the HLA region of chromosome 6 that influences the immune system in this period. They found that selection occurred near the LCT locus, responsible for the formation of the protein lactase, which enables lactase persistence but predates the emergence of the gene by thousands of years. This is the mechanism that enabled the digestion of milk to persist into adulthood. 

In “100 ancient genomes show repeated population turnovers in Neolithic Denmark,” Morten Allentoft and his team sequenced genomes from 100 skeletons spanning 7,300 years of the Mesolithic period, Neolithic period and Early Bronze Age in Denmark. This is a critical period in human culture as it spanned the latter part of hunter-gatherer society in Europe, followed by the development of agricultural communities, up to the formation of urban societies.

The scientists found, genetic homogeneity from around 10,500 to 5,900 years before the present when neolithic farmers from Anatolia arrived. The researchers ascertained there was a very rapid population turnover thereafter, with very limited evidence of the original hunter-gatherers. 

Allentoft and his team stated, “The succeeding Neolithic population, associated with the Funnel Beaker culture, persisted for only about 1,000 years before immigrants with eastern Steppe-derived ancestry arrived. This second and equally rapid population replacement gave rise to the Single Grave culture with an ancestry profile more similar to present-day Danes.”

The four papers have made an invaluable contribution, illuminating the complex history of human evolution. They show that modern Europeans are the result of mass migrations and the repeated mixing and intermingling of a variety of populations.

Australia’s Rich List: Bonanza for billionaires amid cost-of-living crisis

Eric Ludlow

The annual “Rich List” of the Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper was published last week. It hails the obscene wealth of Australia’s richest 250 individuals which has climbed to more than $591 billion—an increase of $60 billion, or 11 percent, over the past 12 months. This rise is nearly six times greater than the increase registered in last year’s list.

Gina Rinehart and Twiggy Forrest

An additional 20 billionaires were included in the list compared to 2023, taking the total number Australian billionaires to 159.

The ultra-wealthy have increased their fortunes by profiteering from skyrocketing commodity prices and the ongoing property bubble. These movements in the markets have come off the back of the ongoing US-NATO imperialist war against Russia in Ukraine, the profit-driven dismantling of any COVID safety measures, killing millions, and increasing global financial uncertainty.

Amid the soaring cost of living for ordinary workers and cuts to social spending in order to fund militarism and genocide, the Australian published an editorial on 14 March titled “The List – Richest 250 cause for celebration.”

“We strongly believe there is nothing wrong with making money,” the editorial declared.

It continued: “Reading the stories of how money is made should be an inspiration.… The Richest 250 List is not a road map but it is a field guide for anyone with the determination to succeed. It is proof there still are no limits for those who are willing to back themselves and give it a go.”

It is doubtful that working people will be joining these celebrations.

The same week the Rich List was published, an analysis of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that the two-year drop in real disposable income of Australian households since 2022 was the biggest in 50 years. Falling living standards coupled with soaring house prices and inflation far higher than nominal wage “increases” have seen more Australian workers finding it difficult to make ends meet.

This transfer of wealth has been overseen by the Labor government of Anthony Albanese which was elected in 2022 on fraudulent slogans of “a better future” and “no one left behind,” only to implement harsh austerity measures and to insist on “sacrifice” once in office.

Like previous years, even among the richest 250 individuals, wealth is highly concentrated among the top 10 billionaires. Their combined wealth exceeds $224 billion—nearly 40 percent of the total wealth on the List.

Retaining their positions at the top are iron ore mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest.

Rinehart’s fortune increased by a staggering $13.4 billion, or 36 percent, in one year to $50.48 billion. Forrest and his wife Nicola saw their wealth increase by $1.96 billion over the last 12 months to $37.17 billion in 2024.

Fellow mining magnate Clive Palmer dropped to eighth place, though his wealth continued to rise by $1.52 billion in the last year to $21.92 billion.

Labor has revealed its commitment to providing the conditions for the mining billionaires of Australia to continue making profits despite the disastrous impacts of climate change. Last week, treasurer Jim Chalmers pledged to “streamline” approvals of new gas and other mining projects.

The only new faces in the top ten compared to last year are Nicola Forrest, whose combined wealth sees her sit in third below her husband, and Kerry Stokes—chairman of the commercial broadcaster Seven Network. He holds the ninth position with $11.01 billion.

Also in the top ten is the owner of cardboard and recycling behemoth Pratt Industries, Anthony Pratt ($27.66 billion—slightly down from $27.87 billion last year) in fourth, and 91-year-old housing mogul Harry Triguboff ($26.01 billion—up from $23.6 in 2023) in fifth.

In sixth and seventh place are the co-founders of Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. Their combined wealth rose by nearly $14 billion in the last 12 months to more than $45.5 billion after a fall of $19.57 billion in the previous year.

Co-founders of tech company Canva, Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins, share tenth position. Their combined wealth continued to fall to $10.92 billion—nearly half their 2023 fortune.

The individuals on the Rich List are presented as contributors to society and an “inspiration” through their “determination” and willingness to “give it a go.” The reality is that their fortunes were extracted through a parasitic relationship to the economy tied to the socially destructive activities of finance capital.

Of the richest 250, 38 are in their 40s or younger—many have made their millions through cryptocurrency trading and e-commerce. These highly speculative forms of wealth accumulation are closely related to the stock market boom.

Property investment is a prominent feature of those on the List. For decades, successive Australian governments including those of the Labor Party, have fed the ability of property developers to increase the profits they can make through the real estate market.

This includes leaving negative gearing and capitals gains tax unchanged, allowing private property developers, landlords and investors, and last year’s decision by the Labor-dominated “National Cabinet” to deny a freeze or cap on rents, instead further slashing planning and building regulations.

Most starkly expressed in the likes of Triguboff, the Rich List highlights how Australia’s wealthiest individuals have used property investment to turn their millions into billions.

Paul Little (number 76) was the managing director of global transport giant Toll before making his billions in property. Lawyer Shaun Bonétt (78) and Tony Perich (81), from a dairy farming family, also became billionaires through property investment.

In an Australian article published on 14 March titled “Move over boys, women are taking their rightful place among wealthy Top 10,” a cynical attempt is made to present the Rich List as some great leap forward for gender equality, highlighting the reactionary nature of feminism and identity politics more broadly.

The article begins, “Australia’s three richest women control business empires worth almost $100bn.” Another article in the newspaper celebrates the fact that 33 of the richest 250 individuals in the country are women.

No matter the gender or, for that matter, any other identity of those on the list, they inhabit a world completely removed from the daily struggles of working-class people in Australia and internationally of all genders and backgrounds. In its own way, the List highlights that the fundamental division in society is class, not various identities such as race or gender.

While the rich continue to get richer, the working class in Australia, like their class brothers and sisters internationally, are paying the price for the crisis of global capitalism. That includes the vast diversion of resources to the military, as imperialist governments, including in Australia, support the genocide in Gaza, the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and Washington’s preparations for a catastrophic conflict with China.

A year ago, the Albanese government signed off on a $368-billion-dollar nuclear submarine deal as part of the anti-China AUKUS military pact with the US and UK. Money spent on machines of war is coming out of education, healthcare and social welfare.

Sunak UK government oversees “catastrophic” teacher shortage and education funding crisis

Tom Pearce

A reception class teacher (left) leads the class at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, May 24, 2021. [AP Photo/Alastair Grant]

Teacher numbers in the UK are showing no signs of improving as recruitment and retention of teachers continue to fall due to the pressures of the profession.

The Department for Education (DfE) in England under the control of the Conservative government has slashed its recruitment targets for secondary teacher trainees by 9 percent in response to missing its target by half this year. There is mounting evidence of a deepening supply crisis as year on year the government has missed recruitment targets.

The government sets annual targets against which recruitment is assessed and predicted that there needs to be 23,955 postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) secondary trainees next academic year to provide enough new teachers for 2025-2026.

However, this target is down from the 26,360 secondary trainees that the DfE said it would need for this year—a target that it missed by half which has sent alarm bells ringing around the sector. Only 50 percent of the 26,360 secondary trainees (13,102) the government said were needed this year were recruited onto courses, prompting school leaders to label once again the teacher shortage as “catastrophic”.

The only outcome is one of desperation for schools who are struggling right now to fill vacant posts. This will only be exacerbated by the reduction of teachers entering the profession in the future. The crisis will not be solved by government fudging the numbers and hoping that teachers will miraculously appear.

The government's other plan is to devalue the profession even further by developing proposals for a new non-graduate route into teaching, labelled the Teacher Degree Apprenticeship (TDA). The TDA will offer an employed route for non-graduates to enter teaching. These apprentices will study for a degree and Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) while working in a school over a period of about four years, with about 40 percent of their time spent on academic study each year. The DfE described this as an “earn and learn” approach, attractive to teaching assistants and other career changers.

The lowering of entry requirements to admit non-graduates to a course of ITT will only undermine teaching as a graduate career choice, making recruitment worse. It also aims to create a two-tier workforce on the cheap.

The recruitment situation is even worse in subjects such as maths, science, art and design suffering from lower numbers, which have therefore seen an increase in targets. Overall, trainee targets increased across eight secondary subjects for 2024-25, and decreased for nine subjects.

There has been some recognition of shortages in the primary targets with the raising of the primary teacher trainee target by 2 percent, from 9,180 to 9,400, after the Tories lowered it last year. The DfE said the increase was a result of primary recruitment and retention forecasts “becoming less favourable this year, leading to a slightly increased need for ITT trainees to meet future demand, despite falling pupil numbers”.

The DfE has justified the reduction due to “more favourable supply forecasts” for both new teachers and returners in the secondary sector. The department also said it has lowered the secondary teacher trainee target this year because the growth of secondary student numbers has slowed.

But this takes no account of the number of educators that are leaving the profession and are also considering a move out of the classroom in the next academic year. The government is totally impervious to the reality that teachers are exhausted, burnt out and leaving the profession in droves. There has been an influx of social media sites that are places of solace for educators. One Facebook site “Life After Teaching - Exit the Classroom and Thrive” has over 150,000 members.

In Scotland, under the Scottish National Party-run devolved parliament there is a refusal to staff schools beyond the absolute bare minimum (and sometimes not even to that level) making a difficult job increasingly impossible. Figures released by the Liberal Democrats show that, since 2018, more than 1,300 new teachers have walked away from the classroom entirely within the first five years, not even taking up a different role within education.

The biggest increases have come from new teachers leaving the profession within three or four years of having qualified. In 2018, 110 individuals fell into this category, but by last year that figure had almost doubled.

Analysis of DfE data the National Association of Head Teachers and school leaders’ union (NAHT) shows that England currently has the highest number of unfilled teaching posts in over a decade, with one in seven schools in England reporting at least one vacancy.

Vacancies more than doubled between 2020 and 2022, from 1,098 to 2,334, the NAHT analysis revealed. The union found that one in four secondary schools have reported a vacant or temporary role. Over half of schools in the outer boroughs of London had a job available.

The NAHT call for a “double digit” pay rise for teachers despite Downing Street demanding that pay awards should “return to a more sustainable level”. This would be as low as a 1 percent increase if the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB)—which makes pay recommendations in England—is to be believed.

School leaders are asking for at least a 10 percent increase in all teaching salaries. The NAHT stated in evidence submitted to STRB that this is needed to counter the “recruitment and retention crisis”, and the uplift must be higher than average pay settlements in other industries across the country.

Last year hundreds of thousands of teachers—as part of a strike wave across the public and private sectors—went on strike demanding a fully funded, above inflation wage rise of 12 percent. Instead, the education unions, including the NAHT pushed through a sell-out deal of 6.5 percent (of which 3 percent would have to be funded from schools’ decimated budgets). The deal was put at the point where for the first time ever all major education unions had passed ballot thresholds for action which could have shut all schools nationally. The response of the union leaders was to sabotage this collective action, with the NAHT declaring that 6.5 percent was “an offer that our members can live with.”

A demonstration in Leeds by teachers during the nationwide strike, March 1, 2023

Following this rout, the unions are dialing up the rhetoric again with NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman stating that the union’s evidence shows “the real-life impact of the government’s neglect of teaching staff over the last decade”.

“It could not be clearer that teachers and school leaders are reacting to eroded salaries and the cost-of-living crisis, as well as increasing workload, pressure and lack of wellbeing, and are leaving the profession,” he said. Whiteman added that the government needed “to send a clear signal to the workforce that change is coming—that starts with an urgent double digit pay uplift”.

Commenting on the government’s decision to cut secondary school training targets, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said, “This Government’s failure to hit its own teacher training targets stretches back more than a decade. A generation of children have already had to endure the consequences, in many cases taught by teachers without the relevant subject specialism. Teachers and school leaders are forced to bake this into the system, making the best of a bad situation.

He complained of a government “crisis of their own making. A decade-and-a-half of pay cuts. Sky-high workload… The sooner [Education Secretary] Gillian Keegan wakes up to the causes of the shortage, the better the education system will be.”

Why should educators put their trust in the NEU, NAHT, or any of the sell-out unions to challenge the Conservative government on the schools crisis? They have collaborated in a “decade-and-a-half” of cost cutting, below inflation pay deals and sacrificed safety against COVID in schools.

The American oligarchy and the 2024 election

Patrick Martin

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Figures published over the weekend by Inequality.org, based on an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies of the running totals of billionaire wealth maintained by Forbes magazine, reveal the staggering concentration of wealth in the United States in the hands of a tiny oligarchy.

The number of billionaires in the US has risen from 614 to 737 over the past four years, coinciding with the four years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their combined wealth has nearly doubled, up 88 percent over that period, from $2.947 trillion to $5.529 trillion.

Among the top 10 billionaires, eight are based in the information technology industry or its offshoots. This includes the top four wealthiest individuals in the US: Jeff Bezos ($192.8 billion), Elon Musk ($188.5 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($169 billion) and Larry Ellison ($154.6 billion). The only exceptions are Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway investment firm has holdings concentrated in such “old” industries as railroads, and Michael Bloomberg, the media billionaire.

The growth in wealth, during a pandemic that killed more than 1.4 million people in the US, is staggering. Musk’s fortune was up 600 percent in four years, while Zuckerberg of Facebook and Ellison of Oracle nearly trebled their wealth. The assets of Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) and Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google all more than doubled. Bezos of Amazon regained his status as the world’s richest man. He would have doubled his fortune as well but for a $40 billion divorce settlement with ex-wife Mackenzie Scott.

These vast sums are difficult to grasp merely as numbers. In several tweets Tuesday, Joseph Kishore, presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party, translated these figures into human terms. The combined assets of $5.5 trillion is equivalent to three times the total US student debt; seven times what is spent on K-12 education in the US; nearly 150 times what is estimated would be needed, per year, to end global hunger by the end of the decade; more than 178 million times the US median income; and more than 700 million times the median savings account balance for families in the United States.

The oligarchic character of American capitalism infects every institution of the state, the courts and the media. And it dominates the entire 2024 presidential election.

America’s ruling elite are aware of the fragility of their position at the top, amid widespread social suffering and rising class struggle. Their response is to reinforce the political straitjacket of the capitalist two-party system in America. Accordingly, the billionaires sustain both of the two capitalist parties competing for their favor in the 2024 presidential election, which pits the fascist ex-president Donald Trump against the current president and advocate of world war and genocide, Joe Biden.

Trump’s support among the billionaires is actually weaker than Biden’s, in large part because he is regarded as unreliable on key questions of foreign policy, above all the US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine.

A substantial section of the oligarchy, however, is prepared to break with all pretense of legality.

On April 6, billionaire hedge fund boss John Paulson will host a fundraiser for Trump in Florida, co-chaired with real estate “investor” Robert Bigelow, previously the biggest donor to the abortive presidential campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Shale gas and oil billionaire Harold Hamm, a previous opponent of a Trump reelection bid, has also agreed to co-chair, according to a report in the Financial Times.

“The invitation to the fundraiser,” the newspaper reported, “shows two categories of donors: those who give $814,600 per person and can sit at Trump’s dinner table, and those who give at least $250,000.”

The financial oligarchs co-chairing the event come mainly from the world of financial speculation (Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Scott Bessent, Jeffrey Sprecher) and casinos and entertainment (Steve Wynn, Phil Ruffin, Linda McMahon). An even more dubious and reactionary co-chair is Pepe Fanjul, described as a “sugar tycoon” by the Financial Times. A member of a Cuban exile family and owner of Domino Sugar, he collects vast federal subsidies every year and notoriously employed the neo-Nazi wife of white supremacist David Duke as his executive assistant for many years.

The Wall Street backing for the presidential ticket of Biden and Kamala Harris is broader, reflecting the transformation of the Democratic Party over the past three decades into the principal party of the stock exchange and major banks.

The Biden campaign has amassed $155 million in cash, which it is hailing as the “highest total of any Democratic candidate in history” at this point in the election. This included a record $53 million raised in February.

While the corporate media describes Biden going out on the “campaign trail,” the reality is quite different. Biden’s face-to-face contact is almost entirely with big campaign donors, and his real focus during the spring and summer will be to gather the financial resources required to mount a massive media barrage in the months leading up to the November 5 vote.

In many cases, particularly on trips to non-competitive states like California, the Democrats dispense with any pretense of public campaigning and simply address their real constituency in the financial oligarchy. Last week, even in tightly contested Michigan, Biden did not appear in public because of fears of counter-demonstrators protesting the US-backed genocide in Gaza.

Headed into the fall campaign, there are two main components of the Democratic Party strategy: piling up financial resources and suppressing efforts to place third-party candidates on the ballot, particularly left-wing opponents like the Socialist Equality Party, which has launched its initial ballot drive in Michigan, one of the most critical battleground states.

The Democrats are preparing an “all-out war” on third-party candidates. According to an article published in the New York Times yesterday, the Democrats are hiring an “army of lawyers ... to challenge the steadily advancing ballot-access efforts of independent candidates.”

The Times cites one of the lawyers as stating that the aim “is to ensure all the candidates are playing by the rules, and to seek to hold them accountable when they are not.” For the Democrats, no less than the Republicans, the “rules” are those set out by the corporate-financial oligarchy to block any challenge to their wealth and power. 

Russian miners trapped 30 stories below ground

Andrea Peters

Over a dozen Russian miners remain buried under thousands of cubic meters of soil, after a rockfall at a gold operation in the Zeysky district of Amur Oblast on Monday at 8:40 p.m. local time. The 13 to 15 men—authorities have given conflicting numbers—are trapped at a depth of about 410 feet, roughly 30 stories. Rescuers have been unable to establish contact with them and it is unknown whether the workers, who range in age from 31 to 57, have any food or water. One news outlet reported on Tuesday that faint knocking has been heard along a ventilation shaft that is being used to try to reach the miners.

Map of Amur Oblast in Russia. [Photo by Stasyan117 / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Emergency crews from mining regions around Russia, as well as specialists in mountaineering rescues, are onsite. Thus far, about 3,000 cubic meters of soil has been removed of the 9,000 sitting atop the men. Groundwater, liquefied soil and large rocks are making the work hard going. Rescuers are clearing about 100–200 meters of material every two hours in below-freezing temperatures as they labor to get to the trapped drivers, drainage fasteners, mechanics and welders.

So far, neither the mine owner, Petropavlovsk PLC, nor the government has issued an official list of the miners’ names, although it was published by Telegram channel 112 on Tuesday. According to officials, none of the men were from the Amur Oblast, as they were all contract workers from other regions. Families are still in the process of being contacted and have yet to be brought to the area to wait for their loved ones.

The Pioneer mine, which is located in far eastern and southern Russia near the border with China, is one of the country’s largest as measured by the volume of gold processed. Workers extract 6.7 million tons of ore per year, using a combination of open-pit and underground methods. It is owned by Petropavlovsk PLC, which, after entering bankruptcy proceedings a couple of years ago, was placed under the administrative oversight of British financiers from the corporate restructuring firm, Opus. Petropavlosk PLC has since delisted from the London Stock Exchange due to western sanctions. In 2021, it brought in over $800 million in revenue.

Both the Russian and international investors making millions off the Pioneer mine are directly responsible for the fate of the men buried under the rubble. The mining industry in the country, as it is around the world, is notorious for violating safety standards, which are routinely ignored in pursuit of profits.

Major mine explosions killed 52 Russian miners in 2021 in Kemerovo, 36 in 2016 in Vorkuta, 91 in 2010 in Raspadskaya and 38 in 2007 in Yubileynaya. Smaller scale disasters are routine, as they are across other sectors of the economy.

Just this week, Russia’s workplace harvest of death saw a construction worker in Ryazan get flattened by a two-story fall, a 34-year-old concrete worker perish from plummeting 16 floors, two city employees in Belgorod get blown up by a gas leak, a worker at a container manufacturing plant in Khakasia die when a floor crane fell on him, a 41 year old in Sverdlovsk crushed to death by a falling boom and a driver at a rail transportation hub who was past retirement age lose his life in a crash. This is a very small sample.

Concerned about the eruption of social anger over the Pioneer mine disaster, the general prosecutor of the Amur region announced on Tuesday that it is opening a criminal investigation. It is “inspecting the scene of the incident, questioning witnesses and persons responsible for compliance with safety rules, and seizing the necessary documentation.” Of this one can be assured of three things. First, the findings will be a cover-up. Second, the corporate executives and their government allies will walk away unharmed. Third, nothing will change for miners.

The Kremlin has responded to the Pioneer disaster with rescue bravado, as it is highly aware of the fact that despite Vladimir Putin’s reelection on Sunday, there is seething social discontent in the country over poor wages, low incomes, high prices and dangerous workplaces.

Presidential Press Secretary Dmitri Peskov declared Tuesday, “The president gave the order to take all necessary measures to save the miners who are now blocked.” Amur Oblast Governor Vasily Orlov asserted the same day, rescue “forces and means are sufficient,” “the situation is controlled at the highest level” and “IL-76 aircraft are on reserve ready to deliver specialized equipment if necessary.” Newscasts on the disaster carry footage of emergency workers being rushed to the site.

The government knows that every working person in Russia, and anyone around the world who is aware of the situation, is desperately hoping to see a dozen and more men pulled from the underground alive. When people move heaven and, quite literally, earth to save others, it taps into the very best of human sentiments. And in making a show of its own allegedly firm actions, the Kremlin is attempting to use these feelings to divert attention from the fact that the state is fully responsible for allowing all the safety violations that contributed to the present disaster and every other one that has happened in Russia’s mines. No one in the ruling class cares in the slightest about the brutalizing conditions under which Russian miners labor, which in 2022 the country’s general prosecutor described as “bondage-like.”