What went right this week: Spain’s wealth tax, plus more

The world could raise $2.1tn (£1.5tn) a year by emulating Spain’s wealth tax on the richest households – double the sum needed for developing nations to implement their climate action plans by 2030. 

That’s according to research by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), which found that the richest 0.5% own a quarter (25.7%) of the world’s wealth. Members of this super-rich cohort are taxed on their assets to the tune of 1.7% to 3.5% in Spain. Were other nations to follow its example, TJN estimates that – on average – each country could raise the equivalent of 7% of its spending budget. Critics claim that such taxes hamper investment and drive rich residents abroad. 

The study’s authors put current inequalities down to ‘two-tier’ tax systems, which see ‘collected wealth’ – such as dividends, capital gains and rent – taxed at lower rates than salaries. 

The TJN research follows a joint declaration by G20 finance leaders, who agreed that the super-rich should “contribute their fair share in taxes”. Even many billionaires want to pay more tax, having signed an open letter pleading for as much in January. However, the US is among the nations opposing a global wealth tax. 

“This needs to change now,” said Alison Schultz, research fellow at the TJN. “The climate can’t wait, and nor can the people of the world.” 

Image: Viktor Ritsvall

The world could take a “major step” towards meeting the emissions targets of the Paris agreement by focusing on 63 climate policies that have had the most impact. 

That’s according to a study published this week in the journal Science. For the first time, researchers measured the emissions breaks following policy interventions, and then ranked climate policies according to their effectiveness. 

Across 41 countries, two decades and 1,500 policies, just 63 policies with “large effects” were identified. In the UK, large emissions breaks were recorded in the electricity sector following the introduction of a carbon price floor in 2013. The policy imposed a minimum cost for carbon emissions to drive investment in renewables.

Despite a dearth of successful policies, researchers said the good news is that policymakers could learn from the 63 effective cases. “Scaling up good practice policies identified in this study to other sectors and other parts of the world can in the short term be a powerful climate mitigation strategy,” said co-author Prof Felix Pretis of the University of Oxford, England. 

The research was led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, and the University of Oxford. Its findings will be made available to policymakers. 

Image: Marcin Jozwiak

A date has been set for a landmark climate case that will seek to determine “the obligations of states in respect of climate change”. 

The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, this week announced 2 December as the start date for hearings. Its panel of 15 international judges will set out to answer two key questions: what are nations obliged to do under international law to protect the climate? and what are the legal consequences for governments that fail to act?

Judges will take months to consider all the legal arguments and issue a non-binding advisory opinion.

Litigation is emerging as an effective tool for ramping up environmental action. In April, the Swiss government was ruled to be in breach of human rights for its insufficient climate policies, while in May the UK government was defeated in the courts over its inadequate climate policies.

Image: Creative Commons

Demand for fossil fuels is showing signs of peaking in advanced economies thanks to the rapid rollout of renewables. 

That’s according to the latest Statistical Review of World Energy, published this week by the Energy Institute (EI). It showed that renewable energy consumption hit a record high in 2023. 

While surging solar and wind were bright spots in the report, authors noted that global fossil fuel consumption hit a record high in 2023. And while the link between growth and emissions appears to be weakening in advanced economies, the EI said that in the global south “improvements in quality of life continue to drive fossil growth”. 

Overall, the report painted a picture of a “slow” and uneven energy transition led by China, currently the world’s largest emitter. But not, perhaps, for long.

Image: Philipp

Brain implants that adjust electrical stimulus in real-time could offer people with Parkinson’s more control over their symptoms, the first clinical trial of the technology has shown. 

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is already a routine Parkinson’s treatment, having been shown to ease symptoms such as tremors. It involves implanting fine electrodes in the brain to provide electrical stimulation to areas that control movement. Currently, such stimulation is set at a constant level and does not respond to a patient’s needs in real-time. But that could soon change thanks to researchers at the University of California San Francisco. 

Trialling the new technology, they found that it reduced the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s by half compared to conventional DBS implants. Only four people were involved in the trial, but the results are nonetheless promising. 

Claire Bale, associate director of research at Parkinson’s UK, said: “Current DBS can be lifechanging and has the promise to be even more effective if it could be responsive to the needs of the individual. This research represents a major step towards this.” 

Image: Hans Eiskonen

Researchers in Sweden claim to have developed an AI model that can correctly identify autism in toddlers 80% of the time. 

The tool uses machine learning to analyse “readily available” medical data obtained from children under two without “extensive assessment”. 

Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet tested it on a US database containing information on approximately 30,000 individuals with and without autism spectrum disorders. It was found to correctly identify autism 80% of the time for children under the age of two. 

“The results of the study are significant because they show that it is possible to identify individuals who are likely to have autism from relatively limited and readily available information,” said lead researcher Shyam Rajagopalan. “This can drastically change the conditions for early diagnosis and interventions, and ultimately improve the quality of life for many individuals and their families.”

The authors cautioned that the tool is not a replacement for human diagnosis of autism, and said that more research is needed. 

Image: Jerry Wang

In a welcome policy shift, the US has signalled that it will back a global plastics treaty to limit the amount of plastic produced each year.  

The US is one of the world’s biggest plastic producers and has resisted calls to back a global plastics treaty. However, according to the Financial Times, US officials have indicated they will now back such a treaty. 

The UN hopes to unveil a global plastics treaty by the end of the year. US backing will likely boost its chances of succeeding. 

“This is a major shift from one of the world’s largest producers of plastic, taking us a step closer to a strong global plastics treaty that puts proper limits on plastic production,” said Greenpeace UK’s political campaigner, Rudy Schulkind. 

Image: Jas Min

Nineteen female medical students who were banned from attending university in Afghanistan arrived in Scotland on Wednesday to complete their studies.

The women were forced to give up their education when the Taliban took control of the country three years ago and rolled back women’s rights. 

However, the Linda Norgrove Foundation – a charity set up by the parents of Scottish charity worker, Linda Norgrove, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010 – arranged a safe passage and student visas for the women so they could complete their studies. 

“We endured 1,000 days of suffering to reach this point, 1,000 days of being confined to our homes, of having our voices silenced with nothing but tears and sorrow, our lives wasting away,” said Omulbanin Sultani, one of the students. “When we heard about the visa approval, we were so excited I felt like I was flying. We are going from hell to paradise.” 

Image: Nk Ni

In a further sign that repair culture is going mainstream, London is to get three more ‘fixing factories’ where people take broken appliances to be fixed for free. 

Two such sites already exist in Camden and Brent. Since opening in 2022, they have reportedly diverted three tonnes of e-waste from landfill and saved around 53 tonnes of CO2.  

The repair centres are a collaboration between Possible, a climate action charity, and the Restart Project, a social enterprise. Now the concept is set to be rolled out to three as-yet-unspecified sites following a £1.27m funding boost from the National Lottery. 

The Restart Project’s Shelini Kotecha said: “Over the last decade we’ve seen the community repair movement grow and flourish. Whether it’s toasters or tablets, people want to fix their electricals rather than throwing them away. Often community led repair is the only option for these products, so we’re delighted to be scaling up the fixing factories.”

Image: Petra Bachovska/Possible

Arachnophobes might shudder at the thought, but a rat-sized, fish-eating spider is making “an incredible comeback” in the UK. 

The fen raft spider was on the brink of extinction in 2010, due to the loss of its wetland habitat. But according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the species is on course for its “best year” since 2012, when ecologists started reintroducing the arachnid to restored fens in southern England. 

The charity recorded 12 “stable” populations in England – up from three in 2010. It puts the female population at 3,750.  

Fen raft spiders hunt insects, tadpoles and fish, but are harmless to humans. One of the ecologists responsible for their return “jumps onto the chair” if a spider enters his home. Nevertheless, Tim Strudwick, the RSPB’s reserves manager for Mid Yare Valley, Norfolk, is delighted to see fen raft spiders bouncing back. 

“It is a great story to tell,” he says. “Go back ten years or more and there hadn’t been many translocations of invertebrates and most of them had been failures. It’s great to see one that is really succeeding.”

Image: Matt Wilkinson/RSPB Images
Main image: Jorge Fernandez Salas