Jon Sward

Winter 2025 This issue spotlights how today’s architecture continues to fail developing countries despite renewed momentum for reform at the UN’s FfD4 conference. It explores mounting calls for fairer IMF and…

NEW #BWObserver Winter 2025! ❄️

We unpack rising sovereign debt pressures, what FfD4 actually delivered, fresh scrutiny of IMF data, World Bank shareholding reform debates, legislatures’ role in debt workouts, and the macro impact of extreme wealth concentration.
🔗 tinyurl.com/ObserverWinter25

Winter 2025 This issue spotlights how today’s architecture continues to fail developing countries despite renewed momentum for reform at the UN’s FfD4 conference. It explores mounting calls for fairer IMF and…

The @brettonwoodsproject.org’s Winter Observer is now out, featuring coverage of #WorldBank shareholding review, the Bank’s new critical minerals strategy, what the #IMF gets wrong on proposed UK private creditor debt legislation - and much more! 🎅🏻

www.brettonwoodsproject.org/publications...

Annual Meetings 2025 Wrap-up: IMF and World Bank declare uncertainty the “new normal” amid spectacle showcasing US and private capital interests Annual Meetings showcased the BWIs’ efforts to prove their loyalty to the current US administration and prioritise private capital, even as multilateralism erodes and civil society space shrinks.

The IMF and World Bank #AM2025 declared "uncertainty" the new normal, amid spectacle showcasing US and private capital interests.

Civil society was sidelined, austerity remains the prescription and genuine reform is missing.

Read our Annuals 2025 Wrap-up👇
tinyurl.com/WrapUpAnnual...

Annual Meetings 2025 Preamble: Bank and Fund struggle to find response to global backlash to neoliberalism, as ‘new Bretton Woods’ reforms sputter The mounting contradictions between rhetoric and practice at the IMF and World Bank grow as geopolitical tensions and poor economic prospects strain social and political stability.

The #WBGMeetings #IMFMeetings Annual Meetings come as the IMF & World Bank struggle to find response to global backlash to neoliberalism, as ‘new Bretton Woods’ reforms sputter👇

🔍 Read our Preamble: tinyurl.com/PreambleAnnu...

Future of IMF’s climate work uncertain, as climate crisis intensifies US hostility to IMF’s climate work risks further exacerbating macroeconomic fallout from climate crisis.

📰 Future of IMF’s climate work uncertain, as climate crisis intensifies

“The IMF has made extremely slow progress in supporting countries’ fulfilment of the Paris Agreement goals,” said Federico Sibaja from Recourse, in article 👉 www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2025/10/futu... @brettonwoodsproject.org

Autumn 2025 This edition exposes how IMF and World Bank austerity and debt policies fuel inequality, repression, and democratic erosion. From Angola’s mass protests to Argentina’s debt crisis…

Our new Bretton Woods Observer – Autumn 2025 reviews key global trends, from IMF-backed reforms to IFC sustainability Framework review, climate and debt challenges shaping the current international development landscape. Explore the full issue → tinyurl.com/ObserverAutu...

Re the so-called 'cheap energy' strategy: "'green levies' and network charges account for just 6% and 20% of the rise in bills since before the energy crisis [in 2022], respectively, against 53% due to wholesale prices driven by gas"

via @carbonbrief.org

www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-wh...

The union representing the musicians from Jimmy Kimmel’s band releases a statement calling the FCC’s pressure on Disney “state censorship.”

Welcome to Rip-Off Britain.

A country remade by privatisation.

Our latest project — Who Owns Britain? — explores how a radical experiment transformed our society and shapes your life.

🧵

New op-ed by Patricia Miranda & @jonsward.bsky.social: Backing #SDRs reform is one way for Britain and the EU to demonstrate commitment to building stronger and fairer global financial system and limiting the possibility of global financial chaos #SDRsPlaybook

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt....

So powerfully put - and terrifyingly accurate. We no longer hear the truth, because the truth is deeply inconvenient & because it poses a direct challenge to vested interests - and as a result, our lurch towards climate catastrophe accelerates

This characterization of the IMF’s climate work as ‘woke’ and ‘far left’ is just plain wrong

The IMF’s fragmented approach to climate is embedded in its wider austerity-based advice - firmly rooted in Reaganomics. This has persistently failed to deliver economic stability

(Screenshot via NY Post)

The merchants of doubt are back But this time, it's the U.S. government pushing doubt

“It would be reasonable to ask yourself how you can have a meaningful discussion of any topic in science if you’re ignoring nearly all of the scientific literature on that topic.” 🔥

open.substack.com/pub/theclima...

NEW: UK taxpayers are losing £22 billion every year from losses at the Bank of England - the same as the entire Home Office annual budget. This is the result of a flawed implementation of the BoE's quantitative easing programme. We propose two steps to fix this leak. (1/4)

Physics‐Based Indicators for the Onset of an AMOC Collapse Under Climate Change Multiple AMOC collapses are simulated in the CESM under transient climate change scenarios A physics-based indicator derived from surface buoyancy fluxes is proposed for the onset of an AMOC coll...

“When the AMOC collapses, the Northwestern European climate changes drastically and this will likely induce severe societal impacts.”

Rapid climate action is needed to avoid the increasing risk of a climate transition that is by disaster rather than by design.

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups

My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up.

NYT just covered it. 1/n

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

AI ‘Slop’ Websites Are Publishing Climate Science Denial At the start of June, MSN, the world’s fourth-largest news aggregator, posted an article from a new climate-focused publication, Climate Cosmos, entitled: “Why Top Experts Are Rethinking Climate Alarm...

AI ‘Slop’ Websites Are Publishing Climate Science Denial

- MSN hosted AI-generated conten citing non-existent climate experts and institutions.

- “AI has brought the cost of #disinformation down to nothing. It has automated bullshit”

By @joeygrostern.bsky.social
www.desmog.com/2025/08/27/a...

legit thought this was @theonion.com

1/3.⏰TOMORROW! ⏰: Join us for an important webinar unpacking what the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) Advisory Opinion (#ICJAO) on #ClimateChange means for #ClimateJustice. ⚖️

🗓️August 14th

⏰ 8am GMT | Register here: zoom.us/webinar/regi...

⏰ 1pm GMT | Register here: zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza Israel controls the flow of food. It calculated how much Gaza needs – but data shows how this is being withheld The mathematics of famine are simple in Gaza. Palestinians cannot leave, war has ended farming and Israel has banned fishing, so practically every calorie its population eats must be brought in from outside. Israel knows how much food is needed. It has been calibrating hunger in Gaza for decades, initially calculating shipments to exert pressure while avoiding starvation. Continue reading...

The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza

Motherfucking wind farms…

Fair Climate Finance Requires Debt Reform Mohamed Adow argues that a global financial system that entrenches inequality is a key obstacle to crisis responses.

Climate justice won’t happen without debt justice

Mohamed Adow lays it out:
🌍 Cancel the debt
📜 Reform the debt system via a UN convention
💸 Grants, not loans
🌐 Global tax reform

Brilliant piece via @powershiftafrica.bsky.social
🔗 www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/g...

🌎⚖️ Historic day for #ClimateJustice

The International Court of Justice affirmed in its Advisory Opinion that #ClimateAction isn’t a policy choice: it’s a legal duty under international law.
States must cut emissions, adapt, cooperate, uphold #HumanRights, & remedy harm.

No more excuses.

🧵⬇️

Israel blocking aid from Gaza is creating ‘chaos and death’, say humanitarian groups Letter signed by agencies including Doctors Without Borders condemns Israeli military attacks on Palestinians More than 100 aid agencies issued a dire warning that “mass starvation” was spreading across Gaza and urged Israel to let humanitarian aid into the besieged strip to alleviate the growing man-made hunger crisis. A letter signed by 109 agencies including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International and Amnesty International says the Israeli government is blocking humanitarian organisations from effectively distributing life-saving aid. Continue reading...

Israel blocking aid from Gaza is creating ‘chaos and death’, say humanitarian groups

🔥 ⚖️ 🌐HAPPENING NOW: Historic #ClimateJustice Ruling being delivered by the 🇺🇳 🧑‍⚖️ International Court of Justice.
🚨This ruling could signal a new dawn for climate law & accountability
📝 🧵 Live thread below with context, summary & analysis 👇
#ClimateJusticeAO #AOLetsGo

Alex de Waal has worked on humanitarian causes across the globe for over 40 years.

“There is no case, over those four decades, of such minutely engineered, closely monitored, precisely designed mass starvation of a population as is happening in Gaza today.”

'there are opportunities for follow-up that must be seized upon to advance the agenda of international financial architecture reform in the coming years. Notable among these is the call on the #IMF to design a #SDRs playbook'

@eurodadnews.bsky.social colleagues reflect on #FfD4 & 'systemic issues'👇

Jumbotron affair meme with text "Big Oil" on man and "Legacy Media" on woman.

I couldn't help myself (h/t @lucyvonsturmer.bsky.social!)

Newspapers need to be leading with the headline "Senior Reform party figure claims climate change is a hoax", alongside wildfire and flood imagery.

“I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost, you know, who uses the word. I started using the word. The groceries.” 🤡

- 12/8/24

apnews.com/article/beef...