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Who Pays for Politics?
You might think that politiicians are working in the best interests of everyone, but it's interesting to see what other motives may lie behind their decisions...
For example the Tories, who failed to make an impacet at the COP21 conference in Paris. Despite promises to cut emissions globally, the unsatisfactory agreement reached in Paris is projected to lead us to 3 degrees of warming.
Scientists worldwide have repeatedly stated that we must limit warming to under 2 degrees. Exceeding this will lead to catastrophic changes in weather that we will be unable to fix. Expect intense storms and sea levels rising to submerge some cities. Even the UK fell victim to some of the worst floods on record in 2015.
(Flooding in Carlisle, Cumbria, UK, 2015. Source: BBC)
The effects of global warming are becoming increasingly apparant and its consequences are being felt by all of us but the worst is yet to come. .
We believe that this is because politics is largely paid for by companies who's financial interests rely on burning fossil fuels.
USA
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008 corporations who were major donors were:
Goldman Sachs
JP Morgan Chase & Co
Citigroup Inc
Goldman Sachs:
Donated over $1.3 million. They own part of these energy intensive companies: Congentrix Energy, East Coast Power LLC and Hongshi Cement.
In the same year Obama was elected, Goldman Sachs were criticised for their 'revolving-door' policy with the US Government.
They allowed former CEO Henry Paulson to be elected as US Treasury Secretary in 2006.
JP Morgan Chase & Co:
Donated over $1.1 million.
They also propped up Enron, the US energy company that went bankrupt in 2001 after committing accounting fraud.
Later, in 2013 JP Morgan would agree to pay out $410 million in penalties after allegedly manipulating the energy market. They also had to return $125 million in unjust profits.
Citigroup Inc:
Donated over $1,000,000.
Between 1998 and 2014 Citigroup spent over $100,000,000 lobbying the federal government (Wikipedia).
Between 1989 and 2006 members of the firm donated over $23,000,000. 51% of which went to the Republicans (Wikipedia).
In 2001 Citigroup was sued for 'violating federal security laws' after failing to disclose their full involvment in the 'Enron Scandal'
In the year Obama was elected (2008) Citigroup had to pay almost $18,000,000 in refunds and fines after being caught stealing from customer accounts (Wikipedia).
In 2008 Citigroup paid out $5 billion in fines for their role in financing Enron Corporation.
They too have been involved in numerous other scandles related to stock-market manipulation.
This accounts for only three of Obama's biggest campaign investors.
One thing that these companies all share is a interest and involvment in the energy market.
The people who pay for politics make a lot of money from burning fossil fules and they want to keep it that way, no matter the cost.
The ties between government and big business have always been suspicious and today this is truer than ever.
