Editors Note: The key phrase below is ‘potential backers of low-carbon projects.’ From the left, there is no reason these can’t be public ownership projects or worker-owned coops—but it will take a fight.
Davos Call for $14 Trillion 'Greening' of Global Economy
Political and business leaders warned of need to ensure sustainable growth
By Tom Bawden
SolidarityEconomy.net via The Independent - UK
Jan 22 2013 - An unprecedented $14trn (£8.8trn) greening of the global economy is the only way to ensure long-term sustainable growth, according to a stark warning delivered to political and business leaders as they descended on the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday.
Only a sustained and dramatic shift to infrastructure and industrial practices using low-carbon technology can save the world and its economy from devastating global warming, according to a Davos-commissioned alliance led by the former Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, in the most dramatic call so far to fight climate change on business grounds.
This includes everything from power generation, transport, and buildings to industry, forestry, water and agriculture, according to the Green Growth Action Alliance, created at last year's Davos meeting in Mexico.
The extra spending amounts to roughly $700bn a year until 2030 and would provide a much-needed economic stimulus as well as reduce the costs associated with global warming further down the line, said Mr Calderon, who leads the alliance.
It is better to try to pre-empt events like Hurricane Sandy, which cost $50bn, by keeping a lid on global warming, concluded the report, researched by the Accenture consultancy.
Mr Calderon, whose six-year term as Mexican President ended in November, said: "It is clear that we are facing a climate crisis with potentially devastating impacts on the global economy.
"Greening global economic growth is the only way to satisfy the needs of today's population and up to 9 billion people by 2050, driving development and wellbeing while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing natural resource productivity."
(more...)
by Daphne Wysham
As the Kyoto Protocol comes into force this month, a carbon rush is gaining steam in the financial industry. Investors predict that carbon could become one of the largest markets in the world, with a trading volume of $60 billion to $250 billion by 2008.
Supporters assert emissions trading allows the invisible hand of the market to do what the “command and control†approach to regulation of greenhouse gas emissions can not; that is, meet and even exceed expectations of emissions reductions.
Critics charge that carbon trading is a smokescreen: At best, it will represent a 
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
.US hegemony rapidly disappearing
US economic and political hegemony has degraded further in the rapidly globalizing world. At the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz has lost control through his own corrupt crony capitalism. But his problems stem as much from Iraq as his current missteps. Globalists who fill the bureaucracy at the World Bank never were comfortable with the US unilateralist coming to their home and Wolfowitz opened the door for their attacks. That the US can no longer control the internal politics at the World Bank is a good indicator of how far its political influence has fallen. 
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
. Income up for Venezuelan poor
A marketing research group, Datos, reports that the real income of the poorest Venezuelans, 58 percent of the country, have risen 130 percent under President Hugo Chavez. Although inflation is running at 19.3 percent that is lower than the 52 percent average in the early 1990s before Chavez took office.
. What they say
Neoliberal economist Adam Posen recently attacked Germany’s Mittelstand economic sector. These are the middle and small size business’ that employ 70 percent of the German people. Writing for the Peterson Institute for International 
by Cliff DuRand, Center for Global Justice
It is now generally recognized that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is an unmitigated disaster –some say the biggest foreign policy mistake in U.S. history, meaning it even surpasses the U.S. war on Vietnam. At the same time it has helped to lay bare the reality of U.S. imperialism. But lest we think of that as an aberration peculiar to the Neo-cons running the Bush presidency, I want to argue that there are basic continuities between the Non-con view of the role of the U.S. in the world and the Liberal view that has characterized the foreign policy establishment since at least WWII and certainly for the last quarter century. Let me begin by characterizing the Neo-con and Liberal views in the 
by Jerry Harris
.Viet-Nam’s stock markets grows
Viet-Nam’s six year old stock market is undergoing massive growth. Daily trading has gone from half-a-million in 2005 to $50 million a day in December 2006. Listed companies have risen from 30 to 107 and larger state enterprises, including commercial banks, are expected to be listed this year. Market capitalization has reached $14B. However Viet-Nam restricts daily share price movement for any stock to just five percent to protect the market from wild fluctuations and manipulation.
.India’s Muslims lack economic and social equality
India’s Muslim population faces similar social conditions as minorities in the US. They are unable to rent or buy property in many areas and their children are rejected from the better public schools. Literacy rates average 59 percent for Muslims compared to the national average of 65 percent. Average years in school for Muslim boys run only three years compared to the national average of four, and for Muslim girls the average is 
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
. IMF admits workers income is shrinking
The IMF has stated globalization is driving down the share of national income going to workers. The world labor force increased 400% over the past 20 years with China, India and eastern Europe integrating into the global economy. This has rapidly increased the number of educated workers which the IMF says has the biggest impact in the industrial countries, negatively effecting skilled workers. The IMF contends technology has a bigger impact on the unskilled and is responsible for the growing lack of income among workers in this sector. The IMF’s blame on technology sidesteps the question of who controls technology. Blaming “technology,†rather than how the capitalist class organizes its use, makes lower wages and more unemployment seem like a force of nature or the market. The IMF still defends globalization as increasing the overall pie, stating workers are doing better, they just have less of more. 
by Jerry Harris
