Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

July 8

The Guardian on the heat dome burning through the climate models:

Last week’s shockingly high temperatures in the northwestern US and Canada were – and are – very frightening. Heat and the fires it caused killed hundreds of people, and are estimated to have killed a billion sea creatures. Daily temperature records were smashed by more than 5C (9F) in some places. In Lytton, British Columbia, the heat reached 49.6C (121F). The wildfires that consumed the town produced their own thunderstorms, alongside thousands of lightning strikes.
An initial study shows human activity made this heat dome — in which a ridge of high pressure acts as a lid preventing warm air from escaping —- at least 150 times more likely. The World Weather Attribution Group of scientists, who use computer climate models to assess global heating trends and extreme weather, have warned that last week exceeded even their worst-case scenarios. While it has long been recognised that the climate system has thresholds or tipping points beyond which humans stand to lose control of what happens, scientists did not hide their alarm that an usually cool part of the Pacific northwest had been turned into a furnace. One climatologist said the prospect opened up by the heat dome “blows my mind”.
The disturbing signs of climate disruption are not limited to north America. Pakistan and Siberia have also had record-breaking high temperatures within the last few weeks, as have Moscow, Helsinki and Estonia. In Madagascar, the worst drought in 40 years has left a million people facing food shortages. The climate author David Wallace-Wells suggested that current conditions should be regarded as heralding a “permanent emergency”. With policymakers struggling to absorb the very serious implications for human societies of current models, it is frankly difficult to take in the suggestion that these models may underestimate the threat. The prospect of the jet stream becoming locked, and weather systems such as tropical storms ceasing to move in the way to which we are accustomed, carries nightmarish possibilities. More hot weather is on its way to California, with the bulk of the wildfire season ahead.
If there is anything positive to be taken from this new information, and reports of the suffering and destruction caused by the heat, it can only be that it intensifies the pressure on policymakers to act. On Wednesday, the Switzerland-based Financial Stability Board issued a warning in advance of a G20 meeting in Venice this weekend. It urged finance ministers and central banks to take more notice of “far-reaching” climate impacts. Just how far-reaching these impacts will be depends on decisions taken by governments in the next months and years. So far, binding commitments to make the cuts in carbon emissions that are needed to avoid temperature rises above 2C are notable by their absence. With every worrying piece of climate news, the stakes ahead of November’s Cop26 conference keep growing.
Environmentalists used to shake their heads when highly unusual weather was reported in terms that ignored climate change’s contribution. Now, thanks to attribution science, the link is firmly made. To avoid future heat domes, countries including the US and Canada must stop pumping so much energy into the climate system.
ONLINE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/08/the-guardian-view-on-the-heat-dome-burning-through-the-models
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July 13

The Boston Globe on an elusive chance to curb corporate tax evasion:

President Biden and other world leaders are on the brink of an extraordinary agreement that could curb the maddening — and until now, seemingly insoluble — problem of corporate tax evasion. Success would mean hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue for fixing crumbling infrastructure, healing the sick, and improving schools from Massachusetts to Mumbai.
But the president cannot deliver on the American end of the deal alone. He will need help from Congress if the world’s most powerful country is to do its part to bring a measure of justice to an unjust system.
For decades, jurisdictions from Ireland to Bermuda have engaged in what US Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has called a “race to the bottom” on corporate taxes — slashing rates in a bid to attract some of the largest firms in the world. American companies like Apple and Nike have taken full advantage — stashing billions offshore, cutting their tax bills, and effectively shifting the burden for funding government services to a struggling middle class.
For the longest time, a global solution to this problem felt out of reach. But an effort overseen by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development made notable progress toward a multilateral agreement in recent years — only to watch the effort stall amid the pandemic and the Trump administration’s insistence on a provision that would have favored American companies.
The Biden administration revived talks after taking office. And earlier this month, 130 nations representing more than 90 percent of worldwide GDP signed on.
The agreement has two major pillars. It would create a near-universal 15 percent minimum corporate tax, designed to dampen the motivation for corporations to shop around for low rates. And it would impose a separate levy on the largest companies in the world — requiring firms like Facebook and Amazon to pay taxes where they sell goods and services, even if they don’t have a physical presence there.
The pact, which still needs to be finalized, would be more than a diplomatic victory. It would be a triumph of the imagination.
Jeffrey Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites, says there has long been a sense that globalization is an “impersonal force of nature” that “no one controls” and that big, wealthy players will inevitably game the system. But the new agreement, which he calls “a breakthrough,” is a striking statement that the community of nations can, in fact, exert control.
Still, as Winters and other observers argue, the pact is just a start. The 15 percent corporate tax minimum is actually quite low. It’s a floor. And parties to the agreement can and should aim higher.
Gabriel Zucman, a University of California, Berkeley, economist known for his pathbreaking work on inequality, has called on Congress to approve a 25 percent levy that might inspire other nations to follow suit, “replacing a race to the bottom with a sprint to the top.”
As lawmakers work to build on the agreement, they should also strengthen its foundations. A handful of countries with low tax rates, including Ireland, Hungary, and Barbados, have declined to join the pact and must be brought along.
One way to get them on board is to apply political pressure. And diplomats are doing plenty of that. But Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, says American lawmakers could “seal the deal” by approving a Biden administration proposal called Stopping Harmful Inversions and Ending Low-Tax Developments, or SHIELD, which would impose substantial tax penalties on companies from holdout nations operating in the United States.
It’s an aggressive approach, more of a sword than a shield. But lawmakers should embrace it. And they should move quickly. Democrats are clinging to narrow majorities in the House and Senate, and Republicans have been hostile to the emerging agreement.
The nation and the world have a rare opportunity to curb a damaging run of corporate tax evasion — providing economic relief for a beleaguered middle class and hope for some of the poorest people on the planet. We can’t let that opportunity slip away.