The farmers’ revolt in India fought against Modi’s three laws, which will now be repealed. But it continues to struggle against the transfer of policy making from democratic, multilateral, and national projects to corporations in the name of ‘public-private partnerships’ and ‘trustees of society’. This is one victory. It has lifted the confidence of the people. But there are other battles ahead.

As the last private plane takes off from the Glasgow airport and the dust settles, the detritus of COP26 remains. There was a notable silence around the distorted global food system, despite the fact that it is responsible for producing between 21-37% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers are being delivered into the hands of Ag Tech and Big Tech firms, who – rather than committing to avert the climate catastrophe – prioritise accumulating the greatest profit for themselves.

Nothing useful seemed to emerge from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at COP26 this week. The leaders of the developed countries showed zero commitment to reversing the climate crisis, leaving young people with a ‘sense of betrayal’, said Fridays for Future’s Mitzi Jonelle Tan. On 7 November, the jury of the People’s Tribunal found the UNFCCC guilty on six charges regarding its failure to address the climate crisis; the Tribunal mandated measures of redress for the peoples of the world, including ‘that the UNFCCC be disbanded in its current form and reconstituted from the ground up’.

It is perhaps fitting that US President Joe Biden arrived in Glasgow for COP26 on the climate catastrophe with 85 cars in tow. Tragically, the COP26 process has been swept into the matrix of dangerous geopolitical tensions, driven largely by the US in its quest to prevent China’s scientific and technological advancement. The debate driven by the West has been to malign developing countries and blame them for the climate catastrophe rather than focus on the necessary energy transition. Given the improbability of a serious discussion about climate finance taking place, it is likely that COP26 will be a failure.

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – with other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council – began to bomb Yemen. That war has continued, with the Saudis and the Emiratis backed fully by the Western countries, who have sold them billions of dollars of weapons to use against the impoverished Yemeni people. Saudi Arabia, the richest Arab country, has now been at war for the past six and a half years without much gain against Yemen, the poorest Arab country.