RELENTLESS ASSAULTS ON DEMOCRACY, genocide, indigenous injustice, and climate inaction. 2024 was hard. A year of fear and uncertainty for those working in our public services. A year where policies were written to erode the rights of the most vulnerable and to give more to the top. A year where this government doubled down on extractivism. A year where the coalition showed its true colours.
But it was also a year of defiance. A year of mass mobilisation, of communities organising against these threats. The largest hīkoi in our country’s history marched to the steps of parliament in response to the blatant disregard of te Tiriti o Waitangi. This mobilisation led to hundreds of thousands of submissions being presented on the Treaty Principles Bill, rejecting a future founded on racism, inequity, and the erasure of tangata whenua.
From the streets to the picket lines, from select committee hearings to occupations, we were strong this year.
Now more than ever we cannot afford complacency, to lose sight. We need to be unapologetic in our rejection of the status quo. We deserve to be angry. Power concedes nothing without demand, those in power count on our exhaustion, our silence, our fear.
There is so much to fear. And fear, historically, has driven action. It has given social movements momentum, fostered organisation, has been a proponent of transformative change. But fear can also be a paralytic, a tool of control manipulated by those with vested interests in the status quo. We must use it, channel it, and not let it consume us.
In this issue you will find unwavering and uncompromising voices of change that sharpen our resistance. You will find a lack of articles about ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill and the hīkoi. We felt we had nothing to add. Proposed pieces on this issue did not offer any new insight. We highly suggest you inform yourself on the undemocratic, racist, and divisive nature of this bill, as its nation-wide opposition will go down in history.
The Canterbury Memo has been no less busy than the hectic world around us. It was bold of me to establish this publication as bimonthly. In our defence, the magazine has been through a lot since we released the first issue back in September. Having encountered a fair few obstacles, we took the time to reflect on what works best. The Canterbury Memo remains committed to being the University of Canterbury Students’ voice of progressive and environmental writing—a platform for critical ideas and transformative visions, for all.
Discussions with the university to establish print distribution on campus have, after months of communications and negotiation, finally gotten somewhere. You’ll be able to find our magazine stand with each print issue in the Undercroft, where it will be safe from confiscation. This development means we can get to work.
At the beginning of February we published a press release. As well as discussing our agenda for the new year and the coming editions of the Memo, we put forward a call to action to expand our team as we tackle the big issues in 2025. We need you. Join us today as an editor, a contributor, a supporter, a reader. It all helps.
Let’s make 2025 a year of unyielding solidarity and resistance. The Canterbury Memo stands with everyone towards a brighter future.
Joseph Davidson-Labout Editor-in-Chief
A truly grassroots, independent student press, we are not affiliated with the University or UCSA. The Canterbury Memo does not necessarily reflect the views of these organisations. We do not receive funding from any organisation nor do we generate operational revenue; we rely solely on support from the community.
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Among older figures in the world of leftwing activism, especially outside the official party politics of the parliamentary left, there has been a recurring concept of "missing generations" of the left starting roughly in the 1990s. This article is intended to serve as a recollection of entering the fractious world of left-wing student activism during one of those "missing generation" moments, the post-Occupy malaise of the early 2010s. It recalls being a student radical in a time and place where few were interested in such a notion.
From the end of high school through to my postgraduate years, I was active in what passed for student politics in Dunedin. I was involved with a variety of projects over that time, many of which are now forgotten, and only some of which I will be able to include. Keep in mind throughout this article that a shifting medley of people were involved in not only the projects mentioned but an array of others which appeared on a near constant basis.
In 2011 I was enthusiastic when the news started carrying stories of radical movements spreading rapidly across the world in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis. I began visiting the Dunedin Occupy encampment but was too chronically shy to leave my friends to talk to the people demonstrating.
A friend would take me and some others to annoy Pentecostal preachers in the Octagon at this time. Juvenile, but a first taste of expressing our political displeasure at something. In my final year they took me to my first protest (against expanded surveillance powers for the GCSB), and introduced me to Black Star Books, a long-running local anarchist infoshop.
Soon after, in 2014, I graduated and began studying at Otago University. From a culturally stifling high school to the nominally open fields of tertiary education, I threw myself into the
activist scene. For me this took the form of joining the Black Star Books collective and becoming the student liaison for the local antiTPPA (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) organising committee. The committee was largely much older, made up of people who often had a background that included some connection to the left-wing of NewLabour/ Alliance back in the 1990s and 2000s. Meetings usually featured perhaps ten people at most.
At the time there were national demonstrations every few months, probably around five over 2014/15, which in Dunedin tended to number around 1,500 to 3,000 people. Between these there were regular committee meetings, pickets, lectures, letters to media, leafletting, and everything else which kept me for my small part quite busy in my spare time.
At this time, I volunteered most weeks at Black Star Books, often using the opportunity to study, read, or organise other political affairs. With that project I opened the infoshop and ran a weekday afternoon shift perhaps two or three times a month, it being open two afternoons a week at the time. I helped run the People’s Kitchen, a free meal service held varyingly from once a week to once a month, and my old high school friend was usually the cook. There was opening the space to be used by various campaigns as a meeting venue and hosting occasional talks or documentary screenings.All this was organised by a loose-knit collective that might have a dozen people at a wellattended organising meeting but was often kept running by maybe eight or so. Their political affiliations spanned the anarchist spectrum, and were of a younger cohort than the anti-TPPA organisers (being perhaps in their late-20s to early-40s).
This was on top of various other activist causes, a brief summer stint on student radio, and the usual undergrad experience.
The head of the Dunedin People's Climate March, 2015. To the right of the banner is future Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins, on the left is a contingent of Bayfield High School students - a forerunner to the school strike for climate movement.
Anti-TPPA Protest, 2016.
Anti-TPPA Protest, 2016. The Robbie Burns statue resplendent with red flag, a common sight at protests around the time.
By late-2015, I properly burned out for the first of a few times. I was overextended, obviously, and constantly working with small collectives to conduct such large projects was exhausting for all of us.
In my last year of undergrad, I tried again. I tried my hand at community access radio, and we attempted to cohere a more concrete student collective which could be the centre-point for activity. This was affiliated with the student union as a club to gain access to resources.
A couple friends and I made it a few chapters into an ad hoc reading group which tried Capital and Caliban and the Witch (falling apart only due to the others moving). Our student collective set up our most ambitious project, Radical Orientation. With this, we tried to put on a full week of events as an alternative to O-Week. RadOri to counter ReOri.
We pulled off two of them, building a coalition of progressive campus groups to host at least one event per day for the whole week. Each culminated in a gig. One was a “spontaneous” gig on campus (university authorities were very mad about that one), and one was held at stalwart local venueThe Crown. Bundled in were film screenings, talks, craft workshops, introductory sign-up days for radical study groups, and attached to each gig was a progressive clubs day, tabled by all the organisations who contributed to the overall project.
These were still grasping efforts to forge our own way with no real advice or platform to build off. In retrospect, however, it was an attempt to get more serious. What we had tried to do was give some level of structure to our activity, and to start learning rather than just always being active. RadOri didn’t lead anywhere, though. We put a huge amount of energy into it, a student at the Polytech even made a short documentary about us (now lost to time), but after the bang there was no rush of interest. We built it, showed it off, had a bunch of people turn up, and after the fact almost nobody came.
We hit the same brick wall we’d hit the last time – very few students on campus were interested in what we had to say. We could be as active as we wanted, but it would accomplish
nothing if we simply could not convince the people who we wanted to be active with us of our ideas or that the matters at hand had anything to do with them. And especially if those people not only disagreed but just did not want to hear it.
So, I burned out again, and all our groups once more fell apart. By this time, I was nearing graduation and postgrad loomed. In 2017 I was still active but largely retreated to Black Star Books off campus and became an at-large member of the Canterbury Socialist Society.
While I attended and organised various events over this time, I was far more focused on completing my master's over the next year. I began writing, not just for university but for a general audience. My topics were niche and not always well received, but I felt it was better as part of my changing appreciation for the intellectual side of politics.
By 2019 I was working a dead-end job while I figured out what to do with myself, and some of my contacts began to rope me into helping out with an exciting new wave of high school environmental protesters who were planning their first action soon. This was seemingly the point where, in my mid-20s by this point, my circles were no longer the youngest faces in the scattered activist scene. We were largely either graduated or finishing postgraduate studies, out the other side after the turbulent handful of years in which one is part of the student milieu.
A lot of relearning old lessons happened in a few short years, and I suspect I'm not alone in taking them with me into the projects I've been involved with since. The point of this piece is not to promote those, but to see if this experience resonates with today's student activists. From the vantage point I am at today, the conditions seem better suited to the kind of student radicalism we had wanted but could not pull off a decade back. My hope is that even if the times have changed a great deal in the years since, this piece might provide some encouragement for the campus radicals of today.
Tyler West
ART/GAZA
TheOrange.
ARTWORKANDWORDS
BYRATAJAMIESON
The orange has become a symbol for Palestinian national identity.
For centuries, Palestinians have grown citrus, and by the 1900s, it was a major export. After the Nakba of 1948, when the state of Israel was created, many Palestinians were forced to leave their carefully tended orchards. After the occupation beginning in 1967, Israeli authorities prevented the lucrative citrus industry from growing by imposing export restrictions. In the following decades, Israel destroyed citrus groves since they could potentially be used to hide resistance fighters. Then, more recently, Israel imposed 'security checks’, which often took so long that the fruits were spoiled before they could be sold.
And now, in 2024, the citrus groves of Palestine are devastated, and millions of Palestinians are struggling to feed themselves.
The cities where Palestinian produce was sold are bombed to rubble. The universities and libraries in which Palestinians could read books and poetry featuring the fruit have been razed to the ground. So many Palestinians who would have enjoyed these oranges have been bombed, shot, and orphaned.
Despite all of this, there is hope. There is resistance There is a dream of peace, where the citrus scent of the orange groves make Palestine fragrant, the flesh of the oranges feed the people, the trees can again be tended to, and make the people prosperous.
Aotearoa New Zealand is a distant, sheltered island nation, known for its laid-back lifestyle. Our news tends towards mundane, amusing stories. We brush off adversity with a casual “she’ll be right” and we keep mostly to ourselves in daily life.
Yet the news that the HMNZS Manawanui sank near the coast of Samoa recently seems to have skirted people’s attention. Despite our supposed lack of ‘anything interesting’ happening on our shores, I’ve barely heard about the incident, which bordered on a disaster for both the crew and the locals of Upolu.
mess, locals were not so easily placated. Some rebuked the long wait for a cleanup crew, expressing concern for the loss of fishing grounds and damage to the reef, and several criticised the lack of apology and punctual communication. Navy Commodore Brown has continually reassured anyone paying attention to the NZDF that, “While this response is complex and technical, New Zealand is committed to doing the right thing.” Well, at least we’re committed. He goes on to remind us about five times about the “complex and technical” nature of the situation.
Let’s briefly explore the sinking of the NZ Navy ship. In October last year, the ($100 million) vessel sank off the coast of Upolu, Samoa. In the midst of a marine survey, the ship grounded several times on a swath of reef, catching fire shortly after the crew evacuated safely. Reports show that the crew forgot the ship’s autopilot was on, thwarting efforts to reroute the ship as it sped towards the reef. Shortly after the sinking, locals reported oil-tainted fish, the smell of diesel and sheens of oil on the water in the ship’s vicinity. A great fuss was kicked up by the Navy and our Minister of Defence Judith Collins, and several (futile) promises of removing the 950 tonnes of diesel fuel were made over the following months. Eventually, three months after the sinking of the ship, the fuel extraction began on January 2nd. As of a week later, 100,000 tonnes had been removed successfully.
While the Navy and by extension Aotearoa has taken important steps to clean up their
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the environmental fallout of military activity in the Pacific, and much of the world for that matter. The region has long been treated as a convenient dumping ground for the consequences of militarism—shipwrecks, waste, and of course, the nuclear testing spree conducted by Western powers after the Second World War. The callousness of these actions speaks for itself. And while global militaries will carry on about the “complex and technical” nature of their operations, their environmental accountability tends to be an afterthought. *
Perhaps the sinking of an expensive Navy ship is frustrating news, but otherwise meaningless to you and me. But if we consider this event a little closer, we can ponder the importance of such expensive and damaging mistakes. Currently the New Zealand Navy has eight ships in operation. Most of them are used “to ensure the security and prosperity” of our country via “maritime
security patrols and surveillance operations” which is all well and good. But who are we defending from exactly? Our allies in theWest have no reason to invade, attack or take over this land—relatively empty (to Minerals Minister Jones’dismay) of precious minerals, oil or other resources. Not strategically positioned either, sitting in the middle of the Pacific ocean as it were. Our biggest asset might be the capacity for rocket launching and testing, but even that can be done in America or elsewhere. Hence I begin to question the inarguable necessity of a defence force.
The New Zealand Defence Force budget sits around $4.9 billion this year. While this
has slightly reduced from last year, it is still a significant amount of money. And when that much money is being spent, it is prudent to be aware of what it is going towards. Is this the most effective use of our money? We seem to be raised with the mindset that the military is the only thing that can keep us safe. That without an army ready to fight off attackers, we are helpless, and at the mercy of the world’s evils. Without considering what those evils are, where they come from, or how we would even defeat them. With a combat-ready force of only about 8,900 and 3,000 reserves, we aren’t exactly equipped to deal with any powerful nation that would seek to invade us.
Forget a foreign invasion, the biggest problems facing this country today are arguably not defence-related. Climate change presents immediate and devastating consequences—with severe flooding and weather events already occurring close to home in the Far North and Dunedin in recent years. Our hospitals and entire public health system are underfunded. Disabled people may still face wages as low as $2 per hour due to blatantly unethical minimum wage loopholes. People are scrambling to cross the Tasman for a decent income. Social services face relentless cuts, our social science and humanities research funds are being slashed, and renters face uncertainty and instability while landlords are basically handed free cash. None of these issues can be solved by the NZDF. None of these issues are caused by overseas turmoil. We should be turning our focus to the social threats within our borders, not the prospect of needing to defend them from foreign actors. *
Over the decades, the military has come to form a large part of our national identity. Each year we celebrate our beloved ANZAC heroes, singing the praises of the brave New Zealand soldiers fighting alongside our international brethren. This is of course omitting atrocities such as the killing of villagers in Surafend, Palestine, in 1918. The confusion, doubt and war crime allegations surrounding NZSAS operations in Afghanistan in the last 20 years. And more recently, sending troops into the Red Sea to defend shipments to the apartheid state of Israel. These surface as stains on the army’s ‘Good Kiwi’identity, raising questions on the impact of those actions—the good and the bad.
Our national identity should rather be built on our virtues. On our compassion, our strength, our ability to come together in times of need. We should be known throughout the world for our advancements in peacekeeping, for our generosity and humanity, just as we were renowned for being the first to bravely
become nuclear-free. Violence only ever brings more violence. A better world can’t be fought for with guns and bombs, can’t be won through vanquishing our enemies. We should turn our efforts instead to building a better society; where people have enough food, shelter, education, all the basics required to access opportunities in life. Allowing people to feel secure, in turn shaping a safer society. I don’t claim to have the answers, or even know all of the problems we face. I merely present alternatives to the deeply entrenched mentality that we require a military, and that it is irreplaceable. *
Costa Rica, a nation with a similar population to us, abolished its military some 80 years ago to focus on social development.Think of what an additional almost-five-billion dollars a year could do for our nation’s welfare. Instead of sinking funds—quite literally—into ships that ground themselves on reefs and harm the environmental outcomes of our neighbours, our allies, we could invest in housing, healthcare, education, and climate resilience. Costa Rica’s success shows that security isn’t synonymous with a fleet (in the loosest sense of the term) of warships; it’s about strong communities, equitable access to resources, and a planet that can sustain future generations.
With the lifelong mental illnesses and problems that soldiers face, the extraordinary
cost of war—be it social, economic or environmental—and the very real fact that it doesn’t serve as a solution to the problems it faces, I wonder whether we are putting too much faith in the myth of the NZDF. Whether it’s time to consider something different, something that hasn’t been done before in this
country. Break tradition and refuse to idolise those who don’t represent our values; whether in power or in the army, those who don’t lead in a manner we can respect.
In the face of climate disaster, economic uncertainty, and a government that seems set on selling out our futures, uprooting the norm might be the only way to get us out of this mess.
Textbooks are important. They’re a major part of university study, and for subjects like law, continue to be important throughout careers. But even though they’re targeted at students, a very unlikely group to be able to afford them, they’re incredibly pricey. So how are students accessing their textbooks in spite of the costs?
Well, it’s not Studylink course-related costs. With an allowance of $1000 per year, that doesn’t cover more than three $300 textbooks. And it’s usually not high-demand copies at the UC Library either, because these are designated by lecturers, and even if there are there’s rarely if ever enough copies to cover whole classes trying to access the limited available copies.
That leaves electronic copies. As time goes on, the publishers charge university libraries more per book and per copy. In many cases, the UC Library will have only one electronic copy, which definitely doesn’t service a whole class. This leaves a “grey market” approach to books.
Online, a lot of content tells students to use “Shadow libraries” like LibGen and Anna’s Archive. These are online databases that people worldwide upload copies of books to. Because these databases are very popular, they occasionally get shut down, and they occasionally get copied by scammers. As such, students investigating these shadow libraries should verify that they’re accessing the correct websites.
However, for more niche subjects, the books won’t have been uploaded to shadow libraries. They still might, however, be available on the UC Library website. This isn’t a particularly good solution; the number of “online licenses” will be limited, so the chances are that every student borrowing a book is potentially depriving another student of the chance to study. Because of “Digital Rights Management” (for this purpose, essentially inbuilt anti-copying self-
destruct in book files), there’s no way to borrow the books once but download the content permanently.
But there are solutions to this too. One way that students describe getting their textbooks without preventing other students from learning is by using “DRM stripping” software, which can create permanent copies on computers. Books downloaded from the UC library usually have a “watermark” that identifies who downloaded the
file, so students who do this generally don’t share the files beyond trusted friends.
One student described their process for this as “Using the Calibre ebook software, with the ‘DeDRM’ plugin by ‘Apprentice Alf’ on Github (both being free software), make copies of borrowed textbooks on my computer so I don’t prevent other students from accessing them.”
The phenomenon of expensive textbooks challenges the university twice over. When publishers notice that students buy fewer books, they raise the prices, which raises prices for the university library, in turn encouraging piracy. But textbook piracy is something that universities don’t want happening on their campuses, so they block the shadow libraries on campus networks, as well as other methods.Until universities reorient their university presses to publish affordable learning material for their students, it seems unlikely that textbook piracy will go away any time soon.
Four years ago, I was locking my bike to the refrigeration equipment behind the Countdown on Church Corner, because good bike stands are hard to come by. Hearing the swing of a door behind me, I whipped around to see the toothy grin of a young man clad in a fine suit, as black as the soot that stained the walls. He seemed entirely unconcerned by my secreting behind the loading dock. Curious, I inquired why a bloke with such a flash getup was doing behind a supermarket. His grin grew wider still, as though the question were a secret delight. He answered that he was the supermarket's sadist. Confused, I retorted that he did not look sad in the slightest. He confided:
"Behind the eyes of every security camera, there is a supermarket sadist. He is employed to watch each customer closely, so that there is someone to enjoy the expression of despair that they let out when they discover that capsicum costs $1.99 each, even at Pak'n'save."
I saw then that the man was astride a black horse, and in his hand was a pair of balances, and a voice did say:
"A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." And when the lamb had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say: "Come and see."
I resolved there and then to start a vegetable garden. * When considering starting a vege garden, "am I allowed to" is usually a far more imposing obstacle than the deficit in gardening skill. This question was answered in February 2021, with
changes to the Residential Tenancies Act that allow for "minor changes" to the property. A vege garden that replaces a patch of lawn counts as a "minor change" as long as you turn it back to lawn when you leave. Therefore, in order to be legally entitled to make a garden at your flat, you need to make a written request to the landlord, which they must allow in 21 days, unless they have reasonable complaints. I recommend using the "Request to make a change to the property" form on tenancy.govt.nz.
But before jumping to the thrill of filling out paperwork, ask yourself two questions:
Firstly, will you be at your flat over summer break? Lectures run over the coldest, least productive months of the year. If you are not at the flat to take advantage of the summer harvest, you'll be losing out on the most desirable and diverse produce. Furthermore, over the Christchurch summer, regular watering is essential. If you aren't there to water, you'll be coming back to a dead garden.
Secondly, will you be at your flat for multiple years? A well tended organic garden will improve each year. It's gutting to lose that progress when you move. It's impossible to determine when a landlord will kick you out, but you can at least ask yourself when you're likely to leave.
If you can't resolve these questions, I highly recommend shelving your flat garden plans in the short term, and sticking with the superb university community garden's working bees on Friday afternoons. This welcoming communal garden is an exceptional source of fresh vegetables, and knowhow. All you need to provide is a few hours of labour in the sun, once a week.
In order to actually harvest vege over the lecture period, stick with hardy greens, brassicas, and cold weather herbs. If germinated early in the lecture period, these plants will be big enough to produce over winter and autumn; the seasons that dominate the academic year. The Bunnings at Tower Junction will supply you with the following suitable seeds: silver beet, spinach, kale, bok choy, beetroot, broccoli, cauliflower, snow peas, parsley, coriander, and thyme. Try to grow the plants from seed, rather than buy seedlings, as this is much cheaper. Germinate the seeds in seed raising mix, using the free, second hand pots that you can pilfer from the crate north west of the Bunnings entrance. Review Tui Garden’s planting calendar for timing on planting, growth times, and harvests.
Getting your seeds growing early in the academic year is the most time sensitive task. With it knocked off, starting a compost using green waste and kitchen scraps is the obvious step two, to secure ongoing fertiliser supply for your plants. If you're running short on high carbon material for this compost, Middleton Park has a huge pile of old wood chips under some trees. I think the council dumped these wood chips here, then subsequently forgot about them. It is important to put advice on stealing from the council at the end of one's article, rather than the start.
Richard Dough, useful resources:
tuigarden.co.nz/planting-calendar, planting calendar for planting and harvest timings.
tenancy.govt.nz/maintenance-and-inspections/ regular-maintenance/tenants-making-changes-tothe-property, information on changes you can make to your rental property.
tenancy.govt.nz/assets/forms-templates/requestto-property-change.pdf, template for request to landlord to make a change to the property.
canterbury.ac.nz/life/sustainability/get-involvedin-sustainability/community-gardens/waiutuutucommunity-garden, information on UC’s community gardens.
We’ve been talking about it for years, the Green Party campaigned on it in 2023, the greater Christchurch councils have made a business case for it. A light rail network for the wider Christchurch area is a wonderful thought. Being able to travel rapidly across the city’s main meridian and parallel is what Ōtautahi needs to give it some chance at redemption from (sub)urban hell.
As attractive as the final product may sound, I don’t want to wait ten, fifteen, twenty years for efficient transit. If we ever do get the proposed MRT line, I’ll be thrilled, but I have many journeys and commutes to make before I’m middle-aged.
Ecan operate a comprehensive bus network; the number 1 and 5 bus routes, which operate at ‘high’ frequency, cover the scope of the proposed MRT line. We can quickly prove the concept of the efficacy of such an MRT line by expanding the frequency, operating times and dedicated infrastructure for the 1 and 5 buses.
The bottom line is that we need to incentivise as many people to get out of personal vehicles as quickly as possible. Every vehicle we get off the roads reduces emissions and congestion. While people are more likely to be swayed by swanky trains, a better bus network will help repair resident’s perception of Christchurch’s public transit network. Providing us an interim solution at the fraction of the price.
Now is the time to be planning the city’s transport vision. But vision without action is just wishful thinking. Let’s start by making buses work better—because if we can’t get that right, how can we expect to run a metro line?
From anonymous bus nerd (enthusiast)
Email editor.thememo@gmail.com with a letter to be considered for publication.
Staring out at a pōhutukawa tree from the window of my office, its swaying branches are decorated with fuzzy red flowers and glimmering in the warm Wellington sun. It’s hard to reckon with the fact that we are living through the most dire and consequential time in human history. Knowing that our planet is facing an extreme catastrophe that requires urgent action, contrasted with the mundanities of life, it sometimes feels like my brain is short circuiting. We aren’t built to comprehend the fact that what humans do today will affect the next 10,000 generations on this planet. But we have to try, and it could not be more urgent.
The 29th Conference of the Parties (COP) is currently underway in Azerbaijani Baku1 . These annual meetings were originally set up by the UN as a dedicated space to promote international cooperation around “solving climate change”, or in other words, averting the destruction of the living planet and the murder of hundreds of millions of the poorest people on Earth.
However, the COPs have now morphed into something perverse. These conferences have been captured by the machine of fossil capital, and now serve its interests through the facilitation of industry expansion and greenwashing. The fact that this is the 29th COP, and the world is experiencing the hottest temperatures in human history while seeing the highest use of fossil fuels ever, is enough to understand the complete and utter failure (or intentional plan) of world leaders and the economic elite.
Last year's conference was when this deep corruption became truly evident; COP28 was held in the United Arab Emirates, a petrostate that pumps out 3.2 million barrels of petroleum per day and is among the world's ten largest oil
1 COP29 ran from November 11 to 22, 2024
producers. The President of COP28 was Sultan Al-Jaber, who is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Al-Jaber announced at COP that there is “no science” behind the call to phase-out fossil fuel use, and the amount of fossil fuel industry lobbyists quintupled from previous years, increasing from 636 at COP27 to enormous 2,456 at COP28 last year in Dubai. This year's conference confirms the firm and oily grip of capital. Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister (who
spent 26 years as the CEO of their national oil company) and chief executive of COP29 was filmed agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at the climate summit, speaking of a future that includes fossil fuels “perhaps for ever”. Furthermore, the president of Azerbaijan told the UN climate conference that fossil fuels are a “gift of god”. These facts should come as no surprise as Azerbaijan is a petro-dictatorship, with 90% of its exports being fossil fuels and a
record of extreme violations of human rights and international law.
Azerbaijan has been ethnically cleansing Armenian communities in the NagornoKarabakh enclave, using methods of violence, terror, blockades, cultural erasure, property destruction, and cutting access to food, water, and electricity. In September 2023, a military offensive caused 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee though the Lachin corridor intoArmenia.A report from FreedomHouse and others concluded that Azerbaijan was guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This couldn’t be further from the progressive vision of climate justice.
To make things worse, Azerbaijan has a thriving relationship with Israel; these two countries are intertwined in their economies of death, with Azerbaijan supplying almost 40% of Israel’s oil supply. This fuel is directly funding the Zionist war machine’s occupation, genocide, and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, as well as war crimes in Lebanon and the bombing of Iran, Yemen, and Syria. In return for this fossil energy, 69% ofAzerbaijan's arms imports come from Israel, with advanced Israeli weaponry and spyware enabling the brutal repression of civilians and minorities. In the lead up to COP29, a spree of arrests took place which included journalists, activists, and political opponents, almost all of whom remain behind bars today.
The COP conferences have become a grotesque performance in greenwashing where rich and powerful elites engineer the coming holocaust that is climate catastrophe. A peer reviewed article published in the Energies scientific journal in 2023 states that “if warming reaches or exceeds 2 °C this century, mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly 1 billion mainly poorer humans through anthropogenic global warming, which is comparable with involuntary or negligent manslaughter.”
Another 2023 peer reviewed article in the Bioscience journal claims that by the end of the century “an estimated 3 to 6 billion individuals [...] might find themselves confined beyond the liveable region, encountering severe heat, limited food availability, and elevated mortality
rates because of the effects of climate change”
The Guardian published an article in which hundreds of the world's leading climate scientists were surveyed, and 77% of them expected the Earth to reach at least 2.5°C this century, with a significant number expecting 3°C or above. Furthermore, around 60% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been emitted in the last 30 years. 30 years where the devastating effects of climate collapse were well known to all, especially to the architects of neoliberal fossil capitalism.
All of this is to say that our “world leaders” are not going to avert the climate crisis. They are actively collaborating with fossil fuel tycoons to continue economic growth and capital accumulation at the expense of our planet, and all the people on it for the foreseeable future. Let’s be clear, “climate change” is not a technological problem that can be “solved”, it is the final death project perpetrated by the ruling class, and it must be resisted at all costs.
Yes, it’s a lot to take in. Sometimes I feel as if I should withhold talking about the apocalyptic reality of global warming, as it weighs heavy on the heart and mind. But the sooner that we come to terms with the truth, the sooner we can be activated into resistance, in whatever form that may take. I believe that the COP conferences are now a distraction that only seek to stall local political organising. They are not worth our precious time and attention.
We, the People, are the only ones who can achieve true collective liberation and systemic change. So don’t keep checking news articles about whatever is happening in Baku. Instead, talk to your friends, get involved in a community that is pushing for justice, stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples and all people suffering from oppression, make mistakes and learn from them, be creative, read, write, and don’t stop fighting for a just future.
We have everything to lose, and a world to gain.
Hugh Acton
ENVIRONMENT/CLIMATECRISIS
TheBottomLine. 2024inreview:welcome
anew,post-1.5°C,era.
Last year was the hottest year on record. The global average temperature sat between 1.55 and 1.6°C higher than pre-industrial levels.
This signals a new era of the climate crisis; the post-1.5°C world. While it’s important to note that we have not yet necessarily missed the goals under the Paris Agreements of limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees as this measure needs long term averages, it signals that our window is rapidly closing. The last 10 years have been the hottest on record, almost perfectly year-on-year. If this pattern continues, which it is expected to do, we will not meet these climate targets.
Discreet, extreme, weather events continue to become more frequent and devastating. The planet’s geological and hydrological cycles face further disruption; Antarctic sea ice cover dropped to its second lowest level on record. It has been 48 years since the planet had a colder-
than-average year. The amount of heat stored in the upper levels of the ocean reached record highs last year since records began in the 50s. The list goes on.
Theclimatecrisisisnolongerhypothetical,safely obscured behind a lack of immediacy; the post1.5°C world is one where we will all feel the effects of anthropogenic emissions. This is the final chapter where we will have any chance at altering our path, at rectitude.
What needs to happen now is clear. If we wanted agradualtransitiontoacleaneconomyweneeded to start 15, 20 years ago. We need rapid, drastic, systemic change to our political, social, economic and justice systems immediately. Climate scientists and activists are beginning to sound like broken records, but 2024 should scare everyone.
Kamala Harris should represent a sense of normalcy. Her credentials are immaculate. She served as a DA, Attorney General and Senator for California before becoming Vice President.
In comparison to Republican Donald Trump, a convicted felon and conman marred in further legal drama, Harris is an entirely reasonable candidate for election.
For the majority of New Zealanders, this is a nobrainer.An NZ Herald poll showed that 81% backed Harris over Trump.
But while the 59-year-old is no stranger to breaking the glass ceiling, becoming the first AsianAmerican Presidential nominee and Vice President, she is yet to convince many progressive voters. Despite her lead across popular vote polls, Trump has narrowed or surpassed Harris’s lead in several swing states. Polymarket now lists his election odds at 54%.
Two University of Canterbury students of American heritage shared their views on the Kamala conundrum. Riley Neupauer, a Bachelor of Arts
student hailing from New Jersey, offers a brutal assessment of Harris.
“There is nothing progressive about Kamala, and her identity as a black woman highlights the insidious façade of representative politics.”
Harris was initially viewed as a progressive candidate, through her passionate defence of women’s freedoms, justice and environmental reforms. As recently as 2019, Harris openly advocated for a ban on the extraction of natural gas via fracking.This practice releases greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the environment. But she has now shifted in support of fracking, aligning with the centre-right perspectives that lack environmentalist input. Harris’s flip-flop contrasts with her progressive reputation. It is these policy positions that make Neupauer question her progressiveness.
“The fact that manyAmericans genuinely believe she resembles anything close to a leftist - or a communist, if you ask Republicans - is a testament to the disturbing success of McCarthyism.”
UC student Jackson Duguid shares similar concerns. The Washington native, a first-time voter, displayed dismay at the lack of progressive options between the two candidates.
“I’m mainly annoyed that we only have two options, one who’s right wing and one who’s righter wing.”
Harris remains notably progressive on certain policy positions. She is an outspoken advocate for ratifying Roe v Wade in a contentious abortion debate. She spoke passionately on the topic as part of the Call Her Daddy podcast.
“You don’t have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government or Donald Trump shouldn’t be telling women what to do with their bodies.”
It is these issues, and the injustice of sexual violence against women, that drew Harris to the law and eventually public office. But it is Harris’s ties to
the Israeli assault on Gaza that troubles Neupauer and Duguid.
“Her undying support of Israel makes us dislike her as a candidate. We cannot support that.”
On CBS 60 Minutes, Harris committed to ensuring a ceasefire in Gaza. But at the Democratic National Convention, her speech reinforced support for Israel.
“Let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself”
Many, Neupauer and Duguid included, view this as a commitment to supporting Israel’s war. The IDF’s offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, including many women and children. Around 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas during the October 7th attacks, while a further 1,200 have died since. Gaza continues to divideAmerican politics.
Trump frames himself as a protector of Israel, lambasting Pro-Palestinian protestors as “Raging Lunatics.” However, he has equalled goaded his supporters as they labelled Biden “Genocide Joe.” For him, it is simply a means to political gain.
Green Party nominee Jill Stein is an outspoken advocate for Palestinians. She has labelled a vote for Harris orTrump as a vote for genocide. But her party consistently fails to establish the grass-roots
movements that propel Green parties globally. They hold only 149 of 500,000 elected positions nationally. Stein faced criticism from Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for this very reason.
“All you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious”
While Harris is not entitled to a progressive vote, many Americans recognise that Stein has no chance of electoral success. Neupauer and Duguid are resigned to this fact but will not vote for Harris in the election.
“We do recognize the value of strategic voting. However, being from true-blue New Jersey (and Washington), where our votes don’t matter, we will be voting Independent.”
If voting in a swing state, they would be supporting what progressives view as the lesser of two evils. The electoral college ensures their views will not be represented. But sometimes, democracy calls for a deeply flawed candidate over a fundamentally broken one.
