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The EU has said this nearly €1.1 billion allocation is the highest EU humanitarian budget for life-saving relief in man-made and natural disasters to date. The 28-nation bloc is the first humanitarian assistance partner of Bangladesh, with a number of projects currently on-going in various regions of the country. It provided €0.5 million aid to Bangladesh's flood-affected people this year in August, in addition to its project support. The EU said this new record budget comes as global humanitarian needs are increasing due to the growing number of refugees and displaced persons as a result of armed conflict, the increasing impact of natural disasters, climate change and economic crises. “Next year we'll have a record budget due to tragically high levels of needs,” Christos Stylianides, EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, said while announcing the budget in Brussels on Wednesday. “The EU will continue to play its role to address the needs of the most vulnerable and can be proud to remain among the leading global donors of humanitarian assistance in 2016”. The 2016 humanitarian budget will, among other things, address the external dimensions of the refugee crisis in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, the Western Balkans and Iraq. The funding will also help vulnerable and displaced people in Colombia, Myanmar and Afghanistan, which otherwise escape the attention of the international community.  As a particular priority, the European Commission is set to increase in 2016 its humanitarian funding for education in emergencies from one percent to four percent of the EU's overall humanitarian budget, meeting the target set by the UN. Other priorities include helping vulnerable communities prepare for and better cope with recurrent natural disasters, such as those of South East Asia, as well as improve aid delivery, the EU said in a statement.
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It is an innovative web-based computer model, showing the country's energy demand and supply and how they interact with the country’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.Styled ‘Bangladesh 2050 Energy Pathway’s Calculator’ (BD2050), this is the first-of-its-kind online software model that integrates energy generation and usage, and is tied to carbon emissions and the use of land in Bangladesh.It can help policymakers to choose which energy source should be used for less climate impacts.Available to the public, users can try and balance energy sources against energy demand between now and 2050 and see what impact that will have on the country.A team of researchers of Cardiff University led by British-origin Bangladeshi Dr Monjur Mourshed tailored the calculator for Bangladesh.The UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change, and Bangladesh’s Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources supported the endeavour. This is the 11th calculator the UK department launched and first for any least developed country.“Our calculator is being used in the UK, Japan, China and India,” Dr Mourshed said after the launch at a Dhaka hotel on Thursday.He added, “BD2050 is designed to enable the Bangladesh Government and the public to explore high-level energy, economy and emission pathway options and their impacts on land-use, electricity, energy security and food.”The calculator can be accessed by anyone, giving opportunity to all sectors of society to influence, debate and lobby with energy-informed discussion.“This is the power of this calculator. Governments know the impacts of any energy source choice that a general person may not know. But using this calculator they will be able to know what the government knows,” Dr Mourshed further said.British High Commissioner in Dhaka Robert Gibson launching the calculator explained why Bangladeshis needed to use it.He said access to energy services was a pre-condition for development and Bangladesh, despite its vulnerability to climate change, had been experiencing sustained economic growth for more than a decade. “But now it faces big choices on the kind of energy infrastructure that it should develop.”“And that is a growing challenge,” Gibson noted, adding that this calculator would help the researchers and decision makers today to “make the right energy investment for tomorrow”.Dr Saleemul Huq, Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development said at the launch “even though Bangladesh’s own emissions of greenhouse gases are presently low, nevertheless as a good global citizen it must find ways to develop on a low Carbon development pathway.“The Carbon Calculator developed with British assistance is an excellent tool to help Bangladesh plan such a low carbon development pathway.”
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Created with 24 million satellite images, along with 800 curated videos and interactive guides, the feature allows users to see a timelapse of any place on the planet, using inputs from the NASA, US Geological Survey's Landsat programme and the European Union's Copernicus programme. Climate change is causing more frequent and severe flooding, droughts, storms and heatwaves as average global temperatures rise to new records. Google Earth's timelapse tool shows the change in coastlines, sprawling expansion of cityscapes and agricultural lands, as well as simultaneous recession of glaciers, forests and rivers. One video shows rapid transition of forests near Bolivia into villages and farms, a major cause for deforestation in the Amazon rainforest; while another shows the recession of the Columbia Glacier in Alaska by 20 kilometers due to global warming. Scientists have warned that a rise in global emissions of greenhouse gases may lead to extreme weather conditions and higher risks from natural disasters.
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Both Trump's supporters and women and men who took part in the massive march against him in Washington on Saturday contemplated the vestiges of protest and ruminated about the convulsive first 48 hours under the Republican president. For Mary Forster, who joined her first political demonstration on Saturday, the weekend only reinforced her worries that the country was splitting further apart after a bitter election. "I feel like we're getting driven farther apart," said Forster, a 42-year-old environmental regulation specialist from Ithaca, New York. "There really is no middle any more. We seem to be losing the middle ground." She has voted both Democratic and Republican in the past but was motivated to march by concerns over the comments and policies of businessman-turned-politician Trump, many of which are seen by the left as harmful to women and minorities. Like Forster, millions of women, buttressed by male family members and friends, joined marches throughout US cities in a much larger-than-expected challenge to Trump. "There used to be more things that unified us and now I feel like we are more divided than we used to be," Forster said. It is a view widely held by Americans. A Pew Research Centre poll released on Thursday showed that 86 percent of Americans believed the country was more politically divided than it had been in the past, sharply higher than the 46 percent who held that view eight years ago, just before former President Barack Obama's inauguration. Democrats and Republicans concurred in their view of the division, a marked change from 2009 when more than half of Republicans thought the country was becoming more divided, compared to about four in ten Democrats. For many observers, the split is likely to be exacerbated by Trump, who stunned both parties with his Nov 8 victory and has made his mark in world politics with blunt, often offensive speech. "Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote?" Trump said on Twitter on Sunday morning. He added a conciliatory note: "Even if I don't always agree, I recognise the rights of people to express their views." Most of the dozens of protest participants interviewed by Reuters said they had voted for his Democratic rival, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The largest marches were in states that had voted for Clinton, like California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Trump's inaugural speech on Friday offered little in the way of unifying messages. He appealed directly to his supporters, painting a bleak picture of "American carnage" - a country filled with rusted factories and plagued by crime and vowed, "from this day forward it's going to be only America First." The grim vision of America the 70-year-old president often evokes is belied by statistics showing low levels of unemployment and crime nationally. But Trump won many votes in parts of the nation where manufacturing industry has been badly hit and people feel left behind in the recovery. 'Congress makes it worse' Republican domination in Washington suggests partisan divisions will only grow deeper, at least over the next two years until the next congressional elections. "There is no question that Trump has exacerbated the divisions that already existed in the United States, on important issues from national security to civil rights to climate change," said Wendy Schiller, a professor of political science at Brown University. "Dividing the country is a recipe for winning elections but it is not a recipe for successful government." With Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress they will have little to no need to reach across the aisle. Democrats also may prefer to simply rail against Republican proposals rather than compromise, to better rile up their base supporters for the mid-term elections, political observers said. "The ideology of congressmen in the Democratic Party is to the left of rank-and-file Democrats and the same is true on the Republican side, they are to the right," said Jeffrey Berry, a professor of political science at Tufts University outside Boston. "Congress makes it worse. It is not a moderating force." Trump supporters questioned the rationale of launching such large protests on his first full day in office, before he had much time to take policy actions. "They are not giving him any time. They are just presuming that he is going to do a bad job," said Kimberley Morgan, a 54-year-old laid-off teacher from Alabama. Morgan had supported Ben Carson in the Republican primaries but voted for Trump after the retired neurosurgeon dropped out. She resolved to wear her Trump baseball cap as she rode the subway into downtown Washington on Sunday morning with her family, a gesture she had decided against on Saturday due to the march. "People presume all these things about you because you voted for Trump. People presume that you are racist. We are not racist," said Morgan. "It's hard to listen to people when they are screaming at you."
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Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro criticized US President Barack Obama on Wednesday for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize as he steps up the US war effort in Afghanistan by deploying more troops. Castro said just two months ago that it was "a positive measure" for Obama to be awarded the prize by the Nobel Committee, a decision that stunned the White House when it was announced in October. Obama will frame the war in Afghanistan as part of a wider pursuit for peace when he accepts the prize in Oslo on Thursday, a US official said. But Castro, who has generally written positively about Obama, was more critical in a column published in state-run media. "Why did Obama accept the Nobel Peace Prize when he'd already decided to fight the Afghanistan war to the last? He wasn't obliged to commit a cynical act," Castro wrote. "The president of the United States doesn't say a word about the hundreds of thousands of people, including children and innocent elderly people, who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, adding that Washington's current policy is "the same as Bush's." Castro, 83, ran Cuba for almost 50 years after taking power in a 1959 revolution but was sidelined by illness and handed over the presidency to younger brother Raul Castro last year. The elder Castro has been seen only in occasional photos and videos since having surgery for an undisclosed intestinal ailment in July 2006. But he still has a behind-the-scenes role in government and keeps a high profile through his writings. Climate change has been a prominent theme in his columns, and in Wednesday's article he said rich countries should make the "maximum sacrifice" at U.N. climate talks that began this week in Copenhagen.
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Each year, an estimated 365 million to 1 billion birds die by smacking into reflective or transparent windows in deadly cases of mistaken identity, believing the glass to be unimpeded sky. “These birds are dying right in front of their eyes,” said Connie Sanchez, the bird-friendly buildings programme manager for the National Audubon Society, which for two decades has asked cities to dim their lights from about mid-March through May and again in the fall, under its Lights Out initiative. Since late last year, at least six cities have joined forces with the 35 other places where the society, local organisations, ornithology experts and some of the nation’s largest companies have been helping birds navigate in urban centres. The efforts are gaining ground in cities including Chicago, Houston and New York City, which are among the top 10 in the United States for light pollution. Cities from Dallas to Philadelphia take part. The timing of the lights-out campaign varies based on location. In Texas, whose coastal lands are the first that birds encounter after they cross the Gulf of Mexico, buildings will go dark in Dallas from mid-March through May. In Fort Worth, at least 11 of the city’s most prominent buildings will dim their lights from midnight to 6 am through May 31. In Jacksonville, Florida, where migration started in mid-March, building owners and managers are examining data from volunteers who walk the city, collecting carcasses and documenting where birds have fallen. Buildings in Philadelphia have also joined the nationwide effort, a step that experts hope will help to avoid a repeat of the deaths of more than 1,000 birds last October, an event reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer as one of the largest such avian fatalities in decades. Finding dead birds, and what killed them. Bird populations are already imperilled by climate change, habitat loss and cats. Turning lights out at night can mitigate one more risk to their lives, experts say. But before a city knows if a lights-out campaign will work, it first has to know how many birds it might help. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has used radar data to identify abnormal bird densities. In some cities, the approach is old-fashioned shoe leather. Three days a week, at about 7 am, volunteers hit the streets of Jacksonville, peering into shrubs or searching the bases of the city’s tallest buildings. In the week of March 14, they found two warblers and a dove. The tiny bodies were put into bags and handed over to the zoo for analysis. Then the business of forensics begins. As in any cause of death investigation, clues must be extracted from their surroundings. In the case of birds, the only certainties are flight, gravity and thin air. Moments after a fatal impact, birds plummet to sidewalks, drop onto high-rise ledges inaccessible to the public or sink into bushes on private land until discovered there inexplicably dead, throwing the possible answers to the who, what, when and where of their deaths into disarray. Sometimes, stunned by the impact, they keep flying before they fall, making the place of their original blow difficult to trace. Often, cleaning crews sweep up carcasses before the volunteers can document them. Mike Walker, a curator at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, who works with the volunteers, said cats will also get to the birds. “We don’t know if they caught the bird or just took advantage of this free meal that fell to the ground in front of them,” he said. Last October in Philadelphia, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 birds in one night flew into buildings in a radius of just over three blocks of Centre City, possibly because of a low ceiling of bad weather that interfered with migrating birds from Canada, Maine, New York and elsewhere toward Central and South America, The Inquirer reported. After the event, Audubon Mid-Atlantic, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club and two other local Audubon chapters formed a coalition to tackle the problem. The response has been “extremely robust” among the city’s iconic properties, said Kristine A Kiphorn, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association in Philadelphia. Comcast, One and Two Liberty Place and the Wells Fargo Centre are among the 30 buildings that have so far signed up to go dark this spring. “We feel it makes ethical, ecological and economic sense,” she said. FLIP A SWITCH, SAVE A LIFE Bird strikes against buildings have been recorded for decades in Philadelphia. The first recorded window kills date back to the 1890s, when City Hall was lit up, said Nate Rice, the ornithology collection manager at Drexel’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Rice said the academy’s database now has 823 specimens that have been identified as window strikes in Philadelphia. A handout photo shows birds that died after flying into buildings in Philadelphia in October, 2020. Buildings, landmarks and monuments are turning off lights to prevent fatal impacts as birds set off on spring migration. The New York Times “If we can generalise, say, ‘Let’s keep lights out or at a minimum during peak migration time,’ this can have an impact on wild bird populations,” he said. A handout photo shows birds that died after flying into buildings in Philadelphia in October, 2020. Buildings, landmarks and monuments are turning off lights to prevent fatal impacts as birds set off on spring migration. The New York Times Modern architecture has accelerated the problem as sky-piercing, reflective structures are illuminated at night. Birds use stellar navigation, and twinkling lights — especially on overcast nights — can confuse them, leading them to fly in circles instead of proceeding along their route. Others drop exhausted to the ground, at risk of predators, cars or smacking into glass when they take wing again. Some crash into buildings if they see a plant in the window or a tree reflected in the glass. Many buildings do more than flip a switch. Some use glass with patterns to help birds differentiate between open sky and a deadly, transparent wall. In Chicago, architects have angled exteriors. In Galveston, Texas, a pulse was added to safety bulbs on tall buildings. Fort Worth’s Frost Tower turns off its light and asks tenants to do so as well, using slides in the lobby to explain why. Every year in New York City, the twin beams of light in the tribute to 9/11 victims are turned off at peak times to help free birds that have been drawn to the lights. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology estimated that the memorial’s lights altered the migratory behaviour of more than 1.1 million birds over seven nights in September. And in St Louis, exterior lights at the Gateway Arch landmark are turned off at night to avoid disorienting birds during migration in the first two weeks of May, when warblers and other birds fly from Canada to Central and South America. With the help of volunteers who are canvassing for bird bodies, the local Audubon chapter is preparing to introduce a formal Lights Out programme for the city. “We wanted to see what areas of downtown are causing problems to birds,” said Jean Favara, vice president of conservation at the St. Louis Audubon Society. “I hope by 2024, we will have 30 to 34 buildings enrolled, and we can go from there.” ©2021 The New York Times Company
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Delta, which had weakened to a Category 2 storm, made landfall at roughly 6 pm Central time in Creole, Louisiana, sweeping in with 100 mph winds, according to the National Hurricane Center. The outer bands of the storm had arrived earlier Friday, lashing communities reaching from the Texas coast to as far east as Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where authorities said that nearly two dozen emergency calls included high-water rescues. Residents already weary from a long and punishing hurricane season restocked their pantries, boarded up their homes and either cleared out or hunkered down in advance of the storm. Delta is expected to cut a path similar to that of Laura, which wrought an estimated $8 billion to $12 billion in damage, upending lives in communities that were struggling to claw their way back. Across the southwestern part of the state, officials braced for even a slight rerun of Laura. “People are frustrated, people are emotional, people are fatigued,” said Nic Hunter, the mayor of Lake Charles, where power was finally fully restored this week and where thousands of homes remain uninhabitable. Hunter said he worried that residents would try to ride out Delta in compromised structures that could collapse completely, though he added that more people had evacuated this week than for Laura. Still, there was no escaping the bruised feelings. “We just went through a major catastrophe,” he said, “and in our wildest dreams, no one would have thought that six weeks later we would be going through the same thing.” Hurricane Delta was the 10th named storm to make landfall in the United States this year, breaking the previous record of nine storms in 1916, according to Phil Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University. At a news conference Friday afternoon, Gov John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said he was praying that Delta, the 25th named storm of the busy Atlantic hurricane season, would rush quickly through the state, and stay on a projected path that kept it to the east of Lake Charles, sparing it from the storm’s more destructive eastern flank. Even so, Edwards said, “We’re confident that there will be hurricane-force winds felt in and around Lake Charles and in other areas of southwest Louisiana that are very damaged. And so we know this is going to exacerbate what is already a bad situation.” Louisiana has been in the path of six major storms since June, and along with the wildfires in the West, they have brought fresh attention to the effects of climate change, which has likely contributed to the intensity of the storms and the persistence and size of the fires. Along a wide swath of the northern Gulf Coast, which was heavily battered by Laura in late August and Sally in September, life is still not back to normal. Those storms caused extensive property damage and several deaths. That dangerous right side of the storm, sometimes known as “the dirty side,” appeared likely to strafe a rural stretch of the Acadiana region, home to little towns that serve as repositories of the state’s Acadian and Creole cultures. A measure of anxiety was also palpable in Lafayette, population 126,000, the cultural and economic capital of the region. Lafayette Parish had been under voluntary evacuation since midweek, and as Delta churned ever closer, residents were divided on whether to stay or go. Across the street in a lot next to a city-owned community centre Thursday, half a dozen people filed into an ad hoc intake centre operated by local housing advocates. They signed up with case managers who promised them rides on the midmorning caravan to a megashelter in Alexandria, about an hour and a half north along the hurricane evacuation route. Betty Blaine, 57, stooped to coax her two mixed-breed terriers — Creek and Angel — to drink from a yellow water bowl. She and her boyfriend, Troy Daigle Jr, 56, waited for a squat paratransit bus to take them away. The pair lived together in Lake Charles in a senior living high rise called the Chateau Du Lac, which was shredded by Laura in late August. After decamping to a Marriott in New Orleans, Blaine and Daigle packed west to Acadia Parish, between Lafayette and their native Lake Charles, to stay in a friend’s camper. Unsafe there, they cast their lot with the critical transport caravan and the shelter in Alexandria. “With these hurricanes, you don’t know what they going to do,” Daigle said through a disposable surgical mask. By Friday afternoon, even with a downpour of rain, cars were still out on the road and forming a drive-thru line that wrapped around Kevin’s Seafood for fried catfish and shrimp. But most other gas stations, stores and restaurants had already shut down, and before long, as the sky grew darker, the traffic largely vanished from many streets. There were no hotel rooms left in the city, officials said, so people evacuating from other communities in the path of the storm needed to bunk with relatives or friends or travel farther. For those remaining in the city, officials urged them to stay at home. Edwards said that while Delta, which struck Mexico earlier in the week, had lost some of its strength, it was still forecast to bring a surge as high as 11 feet and rainfall of 10 inches or more. With Delta, much like Laura, state officials were forced to find emergency shelter for large numbers of displaced people while taking into account the risk of spreading the coronavirus. Edwards said there were more than 9,500 Louisianians in shelters as of Friday afternoon, most of them evacuees from the previous storm. But another 800 were being housed because of Delta, many of them in the megashelter in Alexandria. The shelter there, Edwards said, could typically accommodate thousands of people, but its capacity was reduced to 833 because of virus restrictions. After reaching capacity, evacuees were moved farther north to the cities of Bastrop and Shreveport. Still, many others chose to ride out Delta with a shrug — a response that might be interpreted as coolheadedness or insouciance. In Rayne, a small city on the Cajun prairie west of Lafayette, windows were boarded up and generators were full of fuel. A woman jogged along a two-lane highway through the heavy rainfall that had already begun. And the register was getting a workout at Queen City Discount Liquor and Tobacco. Marcus Carmouche, 30, set out Friday morning with the hope of finding a generator. He had no luck. Instead, he came to the store with his cousin, who gathered up armfuls of bags of chips. Carmouche said he would take it as it came. “It isn’t going to do nothing but tear out a few trees and knock power lines down,” he said, noting that the last storm, Hurricane Laura, had left his family without power for about a day. His plan, he said, was to stay home and play video games until the lights went out. “We’re just going to chill,” he said. © 2020 The New York Times Company
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US President Barack Obama heads to Copenhagen on Thursday to help secure a UN climate pact, staking his credibility on an as yet elusive deal that has ramifications for him at home and on the world stage. Obama is expected to arrive in the Danish capital on Friday morning, joining about 120 other world leaders to finish a complicated process of reaching a political agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming. The time is short and the stakes are high. With his top domestic priority of healthcare reform legislation percolating in Washington, the president plans to stay in Copenhagen less than a day. That may or may not be enough time to overcome persistent disagreements between developed and developing nations that have marred two weeks of talks, but Obama's presence and contribution could be a potential deal-maker. The United States has proposed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels. That corresponds to a 3 percent reduction from 1990 levels, the baseline used by the European Union and others. Obama is unlikely to propose a more aggressive emissions reduction target, which many countries have demanded. His goals are based on a bill that passed the House of Representatives but has yet to go through the Senate before it can become law. Still, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama hoped to help break a deadlock around outstanding issues surrounding developed countries' emissions targets and disagreements about financial support for poor countries dealing with climate change. "I think leaders representing developing and developed nations all over the world coming to Copenhagen gives ... an opportunity for some of those issues to be resolved and a breakthrough to happen," Gibbs said on Wednesday. "The president is ... hopeful that his presence can help that, and hopeful that, again, we leave Copenhagen with a strong operational agreement, even as we work toward something even stronger in the future." RISKS ON ALL SIDES Environmentalists say Obama could turn the talks around by pledging his strong support for the Senate climate bill, which has a more aggressive 20 percent emissions reduction target, and by putting his full efforts into the issue once healthcare reform is finished. He could also ease conflicts over funding by promising to ask Congress for more money in the U.S. budget for fiscal 2011 to help poor countries adapt to climate change. His visit is fraught with risks. If the president, a Democrat, puts a more aggressive offer on the table, he could face criticism from Republicans who charge the United States is going too far without getting enough in return from big developing economies such as India and China. If he is more cautious and the talks end up faltering, he would be connected to that failure and his efforts to pass domestic climate change legislation could suffer along with his credibility among other international leaders. "He's sort of damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, and (so) he might as well do the thing that's right," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, urging Obama to push the talks forward. "This is the kind of thing that, if you think about it, he ran for president to do. The kind of thing he got awarded his Nobel Prize because of the potential to do," Meyer said. Obama has been making phone calls to other world leaders this week to discuss the process before his arrival. There is some speculation Obama would also sign an updated pact with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to reduce nuclear arms stockpiles during his short European trip, but the White House played down the chances a deal on that issue would be reached in time.
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The seven-member group filmed a music video to its song 'Permission to Dance' in the world body's New York headquarters over the weekend, dancing through the General Assembly hall and out into the gardens. It was broadcast during an event on the Sustainable Development Goals. BTS - whose members declared they were all fully vaccinated against COVID-19 - also appeared in person at the event in the General Assembly, introduced by South Korean President Moon Jae-in. They are the UN's Special Presidential Envoys for Future Generations and Culture. They shared their thoughts and those of young people worldwide on the past two years and the future, expressing their frustration during the pandemic. "I was saddened to hear that entrance and graduation ceremonies had to be cancelled," said Jeon Jung-Kook, known as Jungkook. "These are moments in life you want to celebrate and missing out on them must have been upsetting. We were heartbroken when our long planned concert tours were cancelled." They praised the resilience of youth, saying they were not "COVID's lost generation." "I think it's a stretch to say they're lost just because paths they tread can't be seen by grown-up eyes," said BTS group leader Kim Nam-Joon, known as RM. Kim Seok-Jin, known as Jin, added: "Instead of the 'lost generation' a more appropriate name would be the 'welcome generation' because instead of fearing change, this generation says 'welcome' and keeps forging ahead."
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The first call to address loss and damage caused by climate change came in 1991, when small island nations first pushed to create a mechanism to compensate vulnerable countries for destruction caused by climate impacts such as rising sea levels and supercharged wildfires. Rich nations resisted acknowledging financial liability for their years of emissions that drove climate change as they rose to economic prosperity. The impasse continued through years of U.N. climate talks. But in a draft document released at COP26 in Glasgow on Friday, negotiators for the first time laid out a pathway for addressing the issue by establishing a dedicated agency. Yet the draft stops short of setting up a fund to compensate climate-linked losses and damage. Some climate-vulnerable countries acknowledged the modest progress. "There are some important hooks there that we can build on, but we still have a long way to go," said Simon Stiell, Grenada's minister for climate resilience and the environment, after a meeting on the issue. He called the draft proposal "the bare minimum" acceptable to vulnerable states. Currently, the draft Glasgow agreement under discussion commits to realising within two years what was described as the Santiago Network during the last U.N. climate summit in Madrid in 2019, to "catalyse technical assistance" for developing countries to address loss and damage. That would involve creating a separate secretariat under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the draft says, referencing financial and technical support for its operations. "That's the start of a breakthrough from the demands of vulnerable countries," said Yamide Dagnet, director of climate negotiations at World Resources Institute. The loss and damage facility would be separate from the $100 billion a year pledged by rich countries toward helping developing countries quit fossil fuels and adapt to a warmer world. But in the waning hours of negotiations in Glasgow, climate vulnerable countries and environmental campaigners said they will push for more. Beyond creation of a secretariat, they want a guarantee of a fund dedicated to help recover or rebuild when communities are destroyed by climate-driven floods, fires or drought. The costs could be significant. Economists estimate costs from climate-related weather damage could total around $400 billion per year by 2030. A study commissioned by development agency Christian Aid estimated climate damage could cost vulnerable countries a fifth of their gross domestic product by 2050. The United States and European Union have long resisted creating a fund for such payments, concerned about being on the hook for compensation and liability. On Friday, US Special Envoy on climate change John Kerry expressed support only for a secretariat's that offers technical support. EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans was noncommittal, saying countries must "find the solutions" to enable vulnerable nations to deal with loss and damage. Teresa Anderson, climate policy coordinator for the non-profit ActionAid International, said agreement on a funding mechanism should not yet be ruled out. A separate fund "seemed out of the question coming into the COP, but in the last two weeks the tone has changed and it feels more possible now than it ever has," she said. "The US remains the main blocker." This week, Scotland offered the first-ever commitment from the industrialised world for such a fund, committing a somewhat symbolic 2 million pounds ($2.7 million). The move impressed Saleemul Huq of Bangladesh, an advisor to the Climate Vulnerable Forum group of 48 countries. Calling Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon a "true leader," Huq lamented the lack of support elsewhere. "The US is giving us $0. Europe is giving us zero euros."
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The UN climate change chief urged governments on Monday to make real steps towards a new treaty to fight global warming or risk throwing negotiations into doubt. Negotiators are meeting in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin to try reach agreement on what should follow the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the key treaty on climate change, which expires in 2012. The fraught UN talks have been hobbled by lack of trust between rich and poor nations over climate funds, demand for more transparency over emissions cut pledges and anger over the size of cuts offered by rich nations. Delaying agreement would leave less time for the world to figure out how to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and would add to uncertainties weighing on companies unsure where climate policy and carbon markets are headed after 2012. "Now is the time to accelerate the search for common ground," Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told hundreds of delegates at the opening session of the Tianjin talks, which last until Saturday. The talks are the last major round before the year's main climate meeting in the Mexican resort of Cancun from Nov. 29. Negotiators from nearly 200 governments failed to agree last year on a new legally binding climate pact. A meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009 ended in bitter sniping between rich and developing countries, and produced a non-binding accord that left many key issues unsettled. Governments are struggling to overcome lingering distrust and turn a sprawling draft treaty dotted with caveats into a binding text, possibly by late 2011. "A concrete outcome in Cancun is crucially needed to restore the faith and ability of parties to take the process forward, to prevent multilateralism from being perceived as a never-ending road," she said in an opening speech at the meeting. DROUGHTS AND FLOODS Recent devastating floods in Pakistan and severe drought in Russia are the kind of severe weather that rising temperatures are likely to magnify if countries fail to make dramatic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, said Wendel Trio, the climate policy coordinator for Greenpeace. "Countries need to show a bit more trust in each other, and for that trust we will need developed countries to come up with some clear signs about them wanting to commit to the pledges they have made in Copenhagen," said Trio, who is at the Tianjin talks. Figueres told Reuters in a separate interview that she hoped the Tianjin talks could agree on important specifics of a future pact, including how to manage adaptation funds and green technology to help poorer countries, and a programme to support carbon-absorbing forests in Brazil, Indonesia and elsewhere. "I think there's a pretty good chance that the governments will agree on the creation of the fund," she said of a proposal to create a climate fund to help poorer nations green their economies. But it might take "a longer period" for governments to agree on the sources of the proposed fund, she added. Even if the negotiations make progress, the current pledges of governments to curb greenhouse gas emissions will not be enough to avoid pushing the world into dangerous global warming, roughly defined as a rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above average pre-industrial temperatures, said Figueres. "They're not enough to guarantee even a two-degree rise in temperature, and we know that a two-degree rise does not guarantee survival for the most vulnerable countries," she said in the interview. Governments should nonetheless focus on securing formal pledges of the emissions cuts already proposed, "fully realising it is a first, necessary but insufficient step", she said.
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“It’s been decaying, but now that spring has hit the city, things are growing back out of the destruction,” said Hegarty, who placed on a nearby ledge a painted papier-mâché sculpture of an albino pigeon holding a bright flower in its beak as a sign of hope. “Vanitas painting is about impermanence, which is something we’ve all been feeling pretty hard this past year.” Hegarty is one of 24 artists contributing site-specific projects responsive to this moment of loss and renewal in the exhibition “Re:Growth, a Celebration of Art, Riverside Park and the New York Spirit.” The exhibition, which was organised by curator Karin Bravin, populates the landscape from 64th to 151st Streets and runs through Sept. 13. It’s the largest art show in the park’s history, according to the Riverside Park Conservancy, which produced it. “I spent so much of the pandemic walking through the park and thought this would be the perfect time to see public art,” said Bravin, who proposed the idea to Daniel Garodnick, president and CEO of the conservancy, in the bleak days of November. “Fresh Start,” by Valerie Hegarty, in “Re:Growth, a Celebration of Art, Riverside Park and the New York Spirit" in New York, Jun 1, 2021. In the exhibition that sprawls across nearly 100 blocks of park, 24 contemporary artists address literal, metaphoric and poetic ideas of regrowth. Nina Westervelt/The New York Times “I thought ‘regrowth’ as a theme would be incredibly uplifting as we emerge from this tragic year and restart our lives,” Garodnick said. The show is being sponsored by 32 individuals and corporations. In 2020, the conservancy experienced a 62% increase in its small-donors category, yielding just over $600,000. (Other parks experienced similar pandemic surges in donations as well as usage. Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, for instance, has seen a 100% increase in the dollar value of contributions from individual donors over the last 15 months, according to Sue Donoghue, president of the Prospect Park Alliance.) “Fresh Start,” by Valerie Hegarty, in “Re:Growth, a Celebration of Art, Riverside Park and the New York Spirit" in New York, Jun 1, 2021. In the exhibition that sprawls across nearly 100 blocks of park, 24 contemporary artists address literal, metaphoric and poetic ideas of regrowth. Nina Westervelt/The New York Times As spring barrels toward full-on summer, and as New Yorkers start to feel more comfortable shedding masks as requirements lift for those who are vaccinated, the show may encourage long walks and lead visitors to explore new parts of the park. “It’s about the discovery, the journey, the looking for the work,” Bravin said. Signage at park entrances and at each installation includes a QR code that leads to a map and information about the exhibition as well as every work and artist. Some installations in the middle of grassy areas along the waterfront announce themselves from a distance. Near 82nd Street is a 15-foot-high curving sculpture of stacked Corten steel cylinders created by DeWitt Godfrey; it evokes the natural geometry of honeycomb or plant-spore patterns. At 91st Street, people can enter “Riverside Reading Room,” a small open house erected by Mary Mattingly and lined with shelves of fossil, rock, earth and plants such as aloe, dracaena and ponytail palm as a meditation on cycles of growth and climate change. Other installations may sneak up as you walk by. A garden of some 30 biomorphic shapes — crafted by Sui Park from hand-dyed zip ties in a vibrant palette including green, orange, yellow and pink — seems to sprout from the ground in a lush enclave just below 79th Street. On an outcropping of boulders near 75th Street, a blanket of green molded forms creeps over the expanse like ivy or moss. Each unit is the bottom end of a plastic Mountain Dew bottle, riveted together by Jean Shin. The installation takes on a dazzling florescent glow when hit by the sun. “Most single-use plastic is not recycled, and our consumer waste is invading the world,” said Shin, who wants to create an encounter that makes us question these everyday objects and our relationship to nature. “What’s the true cost of this convenience to our landscape and our bodies?” “Stuk,” by DeWitt Godfrey, in “Re:Growth, a Celebration of Art, Riverside Park and the New York Spirit" in New York, June 1, 2021. In the exhibition that sprawls across nearly 100 blocks of park, 24 contemporary artists address literal, metaphoric and poetic ideas of regrowth. Nina Westervelt/The New York Times On the pier jutting out at 70th Street over the Hudson River, Dahlia Elsayed has affixed 16 brightly patterned banners in couplets along a row of lampposts. Referencing design elements of traditional North African and Asian rugs, each pair also includes phrases lifted from the terminology used by pilots — such as “Picking up signals/with minimal resistance” and “Chart towards/the charms” — that can be read as a poem as you’re walking out on this runway. “Stuk,” by DeWitt Godfrey, in “Re:Growth, a Celebration of Art, Riverside Park and the New York Spirit" in New York, June 1, 2021. In the exhibition that sprawls across nearly 100 blocks of park, 24 contemporary artists address literal, metaphoric and poetic ideas of regrowth. Nina Westervelt/The New York Times “I had been thinking about flying carpets and being able to leave in this magical way as I was holed up and staring at four walls, like everyone else,” Elsayed said. “These flags are inviting you on a journey out.” The privately funded conservancy, celebrating its 35th anniversary of restoring and improving the park, spent much of last year focusing its efforts above 125th Street, adjacent to Harlem. “Our north-park initiative is bringing more resources to the areas of the park that traditionally had seen less investment from the city,” said Garodnick, noting a $2.3 million allocation from the city last year for north-park infrastructure upgrades. He hopes the exhibition will draw people uptown. Along the river at 125th and 149th Streets, as well as at 64th and 79th Streets, signage guides visitors to a free augmented-reality app, which enables them to experience, through their iPhones, Shuli Sadé’s wild organic orbs that appear to float over the water and landscape. Near 148th Street by the river, two concrete figures by Joshua Goode are suggestive of neolithic votive statues, except their heads have the distinctive cartoon silhouettes of Bart and Lisa Simpson. At the corner of a fence enclosing a ball field at 145th Street, Glen Wilson has mounted two 8-by-10-foot photographs of young Black female mail carriers, one taken in his neighbourhood in Venice Beach, California, and the other in Harlem. After printing the images on industrial flexible plastic and cutting them into strips, Wilson wove the monumental photographs into the fabric of the chain-link so it appears the women are looking toward each other at an intersection of the fence. “It’s this bicoastal, cross-country glance back at one another and the celebration of labour and the folks who essentially carry the weight and trust of the neighbourhood,” said Wilson, who is interested in Riverside Park as a democratised space. “The park represents the best of civic pride. We all know we have a piece of it, and we all know we belong there.”     © 2021 New York Times News Service
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New scientific modelling shows that a regional nuclear conflict between countries such as India and Pakistan could spark devastating climate changes worldwide, a team of researchers said on Monday. "We are at a perilous crossroads," said Owen Toon of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. "The current combination of nuclear proliferation, political instability and urban demographics form perhaps the greatest danger to the stability of society since the dawn of humanity." Toon was one of the scientists who warned in the 1980s of a "nuclear winter" should the United States and Soviet Union engage in a nuclear conflict. The demise of the Soviet Union has reduced such a threat, but using supercomputing analysis not available two decades ago, the team calculated a devastating impact from the exchange of 100 nuclear weapons -- an amount they said represented the potential of India and Pakistan. "Regional scale nuclear conflicts can inflict casualties comparable to those predicted for a strategic attack between the United States and the USSR," Toon told the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. "The smoke produced can endanger the entire population of Earth through climate changes and ozone loss." The study's authors warned of the spread of nuclear technologies to many nations and the risks to ever more concentrated urban centres with large fuel stockpiles that would feed massive fires. "Owing to the confluence today of nuclear proliferation, migration into megacities and the centralization of economies within these cities, human society is extremely vulnerable," said Richard Turco of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. The scientists said that smoke from a regional conflict would spread across the entire world within weeks and even produce a cooling effect as the sun's rays are partially blocked. "This is not a solution to global warming because you have to look at the devastating climate changes," said Alan Robock of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers, who has studied the impact of climatic change from regional nuclear war. "The main point here is that while most people think that we are on a path of reduced probability of war with the build down of the superpowers and we are on a trend toward a peaceful century, we actually have the opposite situation going on." "We have a trend where the build up of nuclear weapons in many countries of the world creates the situation where there are 20, 30, 40 nuclear states, all dangerous as the Soviet Union used to be," Robock said.
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Satellite images show that a large hunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf has started to collapse in a fast-warming region of the continent, scientists said on Tuesday. The area of collapse measured about 160 square miles (415 square km) of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, according to satellite imagery from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center. The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad sheet of permanent floating ice that spans about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km) and is located on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of South America. "Block after block of ice is just tumbling and crumbling into the ocean," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a telephone interview. "The shelf is not just cracking off and a piece goes drifting away, but totally shattering. These kinds of events, we don't see them very often. But we want to understand them better because these are the things that lead to a complete loss of the ice shelf," Scambos added. Scambos said a large part of the ice shelf is now supported by only a thin strip of ice. This last "ice buttress" could collapse and about half the total ice shelf area could be lost in the next few years, Scambos added. British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan said in a statement: "This shelf is hanging by a thread." "One corner of it that's exposed to the ocean is shattering in a pattern that we've seen in a few places over the past 10 or 15 years. In every case, we've eventually concluded that it's a result of climate warming," Scambos added. Satellite images showing the collapse began on Feb. 28, as a large iceberg measuring 25.5 by 1.5 miles (41 km by 2.4 km) fell away from the ice shelf's southwestern front leading to a runaway disintegration of the shelf interior, Scambos said. A plane also was sent over the area to get photographs of the shelf as it was disintegrating, he added. Scambos said this ice shelf has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a breakup. In the past half century, the Antarctic Peninsula has witnessed a warming as fast as anywhere on the planet, according to scientists. "The warming that's going on in the peninsula is pretty clearly tied to greenhouse gas increases and the change that they have in the atmospheric circulation around the Antarctic," Scambos said. With Antarctica's summer melt season coming to an end, the he said he does not expect the ice shelf to disintegrate further immediately, but come January scientists will be watching to see if it continues to fall apart.
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Mayor Luigi Brugnaro closed access to the submerged St. Mark's Square and issued an international appeal for funds, warning that the damage caused by this week's floods could rise to one billion euros. Local authorities said the high tide peaked at 154 cm, slightly below expectations and significantly lower than the 187 cm level reached on Tuesday, which was the second highest tide ever recorded in Venice. But it was still enough to leave 70% of the city under water, fraying the nerves of locals who faced yet another large-scale clean-up operation. "We have been in this emergency for days and we just can't put up with it any more," said Venetian resident Nava Naccara. The government declared a state of emergency for Venice on Thursday, allocating 20 million euros ($22 million) to address the immediate damage, but Brugnaro predicted the costs would be vastly higher and launched a fund to help pay for repairs. "Venice was destroyed the other day. We are talking about damage totaling a billion euros," he said in a video. Sirens wailed across the city from the early morning hours, warning of the impending high tide. Sea water swiftly filled the crypt beneath St Mark's Basilica, built more than a thousand years ago. Venice, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is spread over 118 islands and once presided over a powerful maritime empire. The city is filled with Gothic architectural masterpieces which house paintings by some of Italy's most important artists. Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said initial checks suggested the damage to St. Mark's was not irreparable, but warned that more than 50 churches across the city had been flooded this week. "Visiting here you see that the disaster is much bigger than you think when you watch the images on television," he said. CLIMATE CHANGE After Friday's high waters, forecasters predicted tides of up to 110-120 cm during the weekend. In normal conditions, tides of 80-90cm are generally seen as high but manageable. The mayor has blamed climate change for the ever-increasing flood waters that the city has had to deal with in recent years, with the mean sea level estimated to be more than 20 cm higher than it was a century ago, and set to raise much further. Groups of volunteers and students arrived in the city centre to help businesses mop up, while schools remained closed, as they have been most of the week. "When you hear the name Venice, it is always like sunsets and everything pretty but it is a bit crazy now that we are here," said British tourist Chelsea Smart. "I knew it was going to flood ... but I didn't expect it to be this high." At the city's internationally renowned bookshop Acqua Alta -- the Italian for high water -- staff were trying to dry out thousands of water-damaged books and prints, usually kept in boats, bath tubs and plastic bins. "The only thing we were able to do was to raise the books as much as possible but unfortunately even that wasn't enough ... about half of the bookshop was completely flooded," said Oriana, who works in the store. Some shops stayed open throughout the high tide, welcoming in hardy customers wading through the waters in boots up to their thighs. Other stores remained shuttered, with some owners saying they had no idea when they could resume trade. "Our electrics are burnt out," said Nicola Gastaldon, who runs a city-centre bar. "This is an old bar and all the woodwork inside is from the 1920s and earlier which we will have to scrub down with fresh water and then clean up again." A flood barrier designed to protect Venice from high tides is not expected to start working until the end of 2021, with the project plagued by the sort of problems that have come to characterise major Italian infrastructure programmes -- corruption, cost overruns and prolonged delays.
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The painting of a group of therianthropes, or humans with animal characteristics, appearing to hunt animals was found in a limestone cave in 2017 and dated to nearly 44,000 years ago. Experts are now racing against time to find ways to preserve the priceless Pleistocene artwork. "The impact is very severe and will destroy the paintings," Basran Burhan, an archaeologist from Australia's Griffith University, told Reuters after inspecting the painting at Maros. Warming temperatures and the increasing severity of El Nino events has helped speed up salt crystallisation in the cave, effectively "exfoliating" the painting, according to a study by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists published in Scientific Reports last month. Prolonged drought combined with heavy monsoonal rainfall has created "highly favourable" conditions that have intensified the salt crystallisation, the study said. "The pigment that makes up the image on the cave wall is peeling off," said archaeologist Rustan Labe, pointing at images on his laptop showing the scale of exfoliation between October 2018 and March 2019. The picture documentation showed 1.36898 square centimetres had peeled off within those six months. Labe, who works at the Ministry of Education and Culture's Cultural Heritage Conservation Centre, said archaeologists will work in small teams to monitor the growth of salt crystals and other tiny organisms on the cave wall. "We will prevent and tackle the factors that might be a threat, and address the matter immediately," Rustan said.
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Climate change and rising sea levels pose one of the biggest threats to security in the Pacific and may also spark a global conflict over energy reserves under melting Arctic ice, according to Australia's military. A confidential security review by Australia's Defense Force, completed in 2007 but obtained in summary by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, said environmental stress had increased the risk of conflicts in the Pacific over resources and food. But the biggest threat of global conflict currently lay beneath the Arctic as melting icecaps gave rise to an international race for undersea oil and gas deposits, it said. "Environmental stress, caused by both climate change and a range of other factors, will act as a threat multiplier in fragile states around the world, increasing the chances of state failure," said the summary, published in the Herald on Wednesday. "The Arctic is melting, potentially making the extraction of undersea energy deposits commercially viable. Conflict is a remote possibility if these disputes are not resolved peacefully," the assessment said. The "Climate Change, The Environment, Resources And Conflict" summary report was obtained under Freedom of Information laws which allow Australians to access official documents provided it does not hurt national or government security. The military refused to release the full report because it could harm Australia's defense capability and international relations, the Herald said. Australia is a close US ally and the report said climate change would likely "increase demands for the Australian Defense Force to be deployed on additional stabilization, post-conflict reconstruction and disaster relief operations in the future." Australian soldiers are already deployed alongside US and European counterparts in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as in East Timor and Solomon Islands in the Pacific. The defense analysis said rising sea levels would affect nations and islands with low-lying coastlines, and may lead to increase in refugees from vulnerable Pacific islands. It could also lead to more illegal immigration and fishing, bringing disputes over access to scarce food resources. That could mean an increasing presence north of Australia by the country's navy, the report said.
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Several women prevented Philip Hammond from speaking for a few minutes by using loudspeakers to shout slogans during an annual banquet in London's landmark Mansion House building on Thursday evening. Footage posted online by broadcaster ITV showed foreign office minister Mark Field grappling with one of the women and holding her by the back of her neck as he marched her out of the room. He subsequently apologised but a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday Field had been suspended from his responsibilities whilst an investigation takes place. "The prime minister has seen the footage and she found it very concerning," she added. Field told ITV his response was due to fears over security. "In the current climate, I felt the need to act decisively to close down the threat to the safety of those present," he said in a statement. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Watch as Tory MP for Cities of London & Westminster @MarkFieldUK grabs a Greenpeace protester who interrupted a Philip Hammond speech in London tonight https://t.co/wZTzEC8lKF pic.twitter.com/tJuwCZ1P0X— ITV News (@itvnews) June 20, 2019   Watch as Tory MP for Cities of London & Westminster @MarkFieldUK grabs a Greenpeace protester who interrupted a Philip Hammond speech in London tonight https://t.co/wZTzEC8lKF pic.twitter.com/tJuwCZ1P0X The main opposition Labour Party's spokeswoman for women and equalities Dawn Butler said Field should be immediately suspended or sacked. "This is horrific," she wrote on Twitter. Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said it had organised the protest in the heart of the capital's banking district, accusing the finance industry of funding climate change and the finance ministry of trying to water down government action to mitigate it. It criticised Field's response to the demonstrator. "I don't see any justification for the kind of violent behaviour that we saw from him last night. It's an extremely shocking and concerning state of affairs," said Rebecca Newsom, Head of Politics at Greenpeace UK. The City of London Corporation is looking again at its procedures after Thursday night's incident. “We are investigating last night’s breach of security at Mansion House and will be reviewing arrangements for future events," said a spokesman.
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But as the push to reopen the country’s economy intensifies, so do feelings of dread at the idea of returning to the office, said Anderson, a self-described introvert and anthropology professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. “Just walking from the parking lot to my office I feel like I could be sick,” he said. “It’s that bad.” In wanting to work alone, Anderson is not alone. People other than introverts view a return to the office with sadness and anxiety, and not just because they still risk getting infected. A Gallup poll found a majority of US adults working from home would prefer to continue doing so “as much as possible” after the pandemic. These fans of online work worry that they — and the country itself — will lose important benefits discovered during this unprecedented experiment in mass remote work. People who have never liked schmoozing with colleagues have found new heights of productivity away from meetings and office chitchat. People worried about climate change are eager to reduce their carbon footprints by avoiding commutes by car. And while many parents are desperate for schools and day care centres to reopen, some working parents are appreciating more time with their children. Before the pandemic, Christine Reilley had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to catch an early bus to Manhattan where she works as senior director of strategy and innovation for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. “I’m better rested. I can devote more time to my work,” she said. “Just saving the time and money of commuting, I really like this personally.” Impossible for Some and ‘Overrated’ for Others It did not take long for naysayers to declare that working from home was “overrated.” And yes, it is an option mostly for white-collar office workers. Telecommuting is rarely possible for people in manufacturing or service jobs, and for the health workers, emergency responders, grocery store clerks and delivery people who have been deemed essential personnel. And the more than 30 million Americans who have lost their jobs since March may be impatient about complaints from people still drawing paychecks. Nor can the other downsides be denied. Trying to meet on Zoom from a kitchen table with bored children and annoyed spouses complaining in the background is hardly good for productivity. Women say that video calls make it harder for them to get in a word during meetings dominated by men. This crisis has also increased the burdens on working mothers. Telecommuting was already a growing trend that left out many low-wage workers and was viewed warily by employers who worried that people were slacking off at home. Researchers warned that problem solving and creativity suffer when workers are isolated from one another. Isolated work can lead to loneliness and boredom. Remote workers have also reported they have had to work even longer hours. OK, So What Are the Benefits? For remote work to be successful, employers need to provide the right equipment and other support, said Laurel Farrer, chief executive of Distribute Consulting, a business consulting firm. And the employees must be able to get work done without supervision. If set up properly, experts and advocates say, remote work has many benefits: — Less time on the road. Commuting by car has been linked to increased stress, more pollution and respiratory problems. The average American who drives to work spends 54 hours per year stuck in traffic, according to an analysis by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. — Greater productivity. One well-known study from 2014 led by Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom examined remote workers at a Chinese travel agency and found that they were 13% more efficient than their office-based peers. — A cleaner environment (maybe). According to estimates from Global Workplace Analytics, a research and consulting firm, if everyone in the United States worked remotely half the time, it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle travel by more than 51 million metric tons a year. Graphics showing the reduction in air pollution and pictures of clearer skies over cities like Los Angeles have been among the silver linings of the pandemic. Of course, when people return to work, the roads may fill up again, especially if people fear getting the virus on public transit. And even if more people start working remotely, they might use their cars more for errands closer to home, said Bill Eisele, a senior research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Office commuters make up only about 18% of all traffic, he said. — Money saved. Global Workplace Analytics estimated that people could save, on average, $2,000 to $6,500 every year by not spending on things like gasoline and day care. Companies could spend less on real estate. The US Patent and Trademark Office estimated it saved more than $38 million in 2015 by not using as much office space, according to a Harvard Business School working paper from November. — More job satisfaction. A 2005 study found that job satisfaction increased with each additional hour people spent working remotely. But it stopped increasing beyond 15 hours worked remotely. Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, predicted that workers will be looking for the “happy medium,” splitting time between remote work and showing up at the office. The hope is that the pandemic will have shown managers that workers can be trusted to do their jobs without constant supervision. “Any kind of flexibility is something that people are really, really ripe for, just some control over where and when they work,” she said. Happy Tales From the Home Office Many people who had never considered this kind of working life have now had a taste of it, and they love it. Jacquie Benetua-Rolens, communications and engagement coordinator at Santa Cruz Community Health Centers in Santa Cruz, California, has a 2-year-old son who has become a daily part of Zoom meetings with colleagues, waving at them in his pajamas. “There is this softened, unfiltered, more honest version of ourselves that I’m enjoying getting to know,” Benetua-Rolens said. “There is room to be forgiving and understanding with each other and ourselves. And it’s because we’ve all had to juggle.” Benetua-Rolens said she often thinks of her small cubicle back at the office, which she decorated with plants and pictures of her two children. “I used to love it,” she said. “But I don’t miss it at all. I don’t want to go back to that even though my house is filthy.” Jessica Keup, a 37-year-old single mother and a computer programmer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, moved to her parents’ home in rural Tennessee with her 3-year-old son in mid-March, after her company told employees to work from home. Since then, she has been coding from the deck while her son plays with the goats, chickens and peacocks that roost on the vast property. Keup said the solitude has made her more focused and more productive. Her work is not interrupted by chatty colleagues who want to say hi or need help fixing a computer glitch. “The people who are in the office who are extroverts stand out and talk a lot and can take the oxygen out of the room,” she said. At least one poll from early in the pandemic suggests a strong preference for remote work. Gallup found that almost 60% of Americans working from home would prefer to work remotely “as much as possible” after restrictions are lifted, with 40% saying they preferred to return to the workplace. The online survey of 2,276 randomly selected adults was conducted from March 14 through April 2. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. When the time comes to return to the office, Keup said she plans to ask if she can work two to four weeks a year from Tennessee. “It’s beautiful. It’s resting and restorative,” she said. “And I’ll miss that.” c.2020 The New York Times Company
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Instead, the two leaders sought to keep the many disputes between the two countries from escalating into a broader conflict. If they can translate their words into a kind of détente, it would count as a diplomatic success. “It seems clear to me we need to establish some common-sense guardrails,” Biden told Xi in opening remarks, speaking over what amounted to the equivalent of a Zoom call from the Roosevelt Room at the White House and the East Hall in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Xi, for his part, called Biden “my old friend” and used a nautical metaphor, comparing the two countries to ships that must together navigate the ocean’s wind and waves without colliding. Bubbling under the surface, though, was acrimony that could prove difficult to resolve. At the end of 3 1/2 hours of talks, the two did not even cobble together the sort of joint statement that has typically punctuated summits between the United States and China over the decades. Xi’s last meeting with a US president, Donald Trump in 2019, also ended with no joint statement, marking the deterioration in ties. Nor did the meeting end with any agreement to have groups of officials from both sides hold further talks on strategic nuclear issues and conflicts in cyberspace — the way Biden did in his summit in June with another quarrelsome geopolitical rival, President Vladimir Putin of Russia. “We were not expecting a breakthrough,” a senior administration official told reporters shortly after the talks with Xi ended. “There were none.” Instead, the two sides issued their own statements, each emphasising the points of long-standing contention. They amounted to catalogs of mutual grievances that offered little room for compromise. Biden raised concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, and about China’s “unfair trade and economic policies” harming American workers, the White House statement said. Xi, according to China’s own readout, said that US support for Taiwan was “playing with fire,” and explicitly warned that the world risked slipping back into the superpower confrontations of a half-century ago. “Engaging in ideological demarcation, camp division, group confrontation, will inevitably bring disaster to the world,” Xi said, a clear reference to a pillar of the new administration’s strategy for challenging China by teaming up with like-minded nations that fear China or oppose its authoritarian model. “The consequence of the Cold War are not far away.” With that reference, Xi plunged directly into the debate now underway in Washington about whether the two powers are descending into something akin to the Cold War, or whether the deep economic, trade and technological links between China and the US make any comparison to the old US-Soviet Union relationship impossible. The tone of the meeting was a reminder that China, perhaps inevitably, remains what Biden and his top advisers have cast as the greatest geopolitical challenge to the United States in its history. They have rejected the Cold War comparisons as overly simplistic, and as Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, put it, “We have the choice not to do that.” “China is going to be a factor in the international system for the foreseeable future — it’s not going anywhere,” Sullivan said last week during a speech to the Lowy Institute in Australia. “And the United States is not going anywhere, and we’re not going anywhere in the Indo-Pacific either. And so we’re going to have to learn how to deal with that reality.” Although the two leaders have spoken by telephone twice this year, the conference was intended to replicate the more thorough discussion of issues in previous summits between the United States and China — something that has not been possible because pandemic and political preoccupations have kept Xi from traveling since January 2020. White House had hoped to hold the meeting in person, possibly at the Group of 20 meeting in Rome last month, but concluded that it was better to meet remotely than to let tensions fester into next year. Xi is sure to be preoccupied then with the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February and a Communist Party congress in November that is expected to extend his rule. Biden has repeatedly suggested that it should be possible for the United States to engage in vigorous competition with China and to confront it over certain issues, without risking clashes — whether in the disputed waters off China’s coast or in the murky shadows of cyberspace. He also wanted to hold the meeting after he had begun to shore up American competitiveness at home. Just hours before meeting Xi, he signed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which his aides cited as an example of refocusing on international competitiveness. He also recently signed other legislation that bans some key Chinese technology players, like telecommunications giant Huawei, from operating inside the United States. What is perceived as a move to strengthen the economy in one capital can seem aggressive in the other. “Both leaders are dissatisfied with the state of the relationship and the behaviour of the other country,” said Danny Russel, a former assistant secretary of state who participated in talks with Xi during the Obama administration. “Both are also mindful of the risk of an incident between our militaries that could quickly spin out of control.” No one meeting could have resolved the enormous divisions that have grown between the two countries. The trade war that Trump started remains unresolved, with China still more than $180 billion short of a pledge to purchase $380 billion in American products before a deadline of Dec 31. Problems have also emerged or gotten worse, including a Pentagon assessment that China is rapidly expanding its strategic nuclear arsenal, and may be abandoning its decadeslong strategy of maintaining a “minimum deterrent.” Administration officials declined to discuss what was said about the nuclear buildup, beyond a vague statement that Biden “underscored the importance of managing strategic risks.” Other topics that analysts thought would come up did not, according to the senior administration official. They included disputes over granting visas for diplomats, journalists and others, as well as a possible invitation to attend the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. Many also expected an effort to create a forum for discussing disputes. The two sides did agree to talks among lower-level officials. That, and the leaders’ tone in their published statements, raised hopes that tensions could ease at least a bit. “All the right things were said by both sides to stabilize a relationship marked by mutual mistrust,” said Rorry Daniels, a security specialist with the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in Washington. “The question moving forward is how each side will adjust policy to meet this change of direction.” After Biden’s last telephone call with the Chinese leader in September, the tone of the relationship, at least, improved considerably. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterpart, Wang Yi, met on the sidelines of the G-20 gathering and spoke by phone again last weekend. Biden’s envoy on climate change, John Kerry, and Xi’s, Xie Zhenhua, reached a surprise agreement on the issue at the talks this month in Glasgow, Scotland. Xi, according to the Chinese description of the talks, suggested that cooperation on issues like climate change was conditional on stability across the spectrum of the relationship — a stance at odds with Biden’s view. “China and the United States are entering a period of détente, but we don’t know how long it will be and to what extent,” said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international studies at Renmin University in Beijing. “We have a lot of uncertainties now.” Even as the two leaders met virtually, another meeting was taking place in Beijing, commemorating the American pilots known as the Flying Tigers who aided China during its war against Japan in 1941 and 1942. “The story of the Flying Tigers undergirds the profound friendship forged by the lives and blood of the Chinese and American people,” Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the United States, said during the event. Acknowledging the tensions in the relationship, he added that the two countries “should inherit the friendly friendship tempered by war.” © 2021 The New York Times Company
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Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore urged governments on Friday to advance by two years a new treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions instead of waiting until the Kyoto pact expires in 2012. Government ministers are meeting at a UN conference in Bali, Indonesia, to try to launch talks on a successor to the Kyoto pact to be concluded by 2009, which would allow three years for ratification before the existing pact expires. "I hope they will move the effective date of the new treaty forward by two years so that we don't wait until 2012 to have a much tougher treaty in place," former US Vice-President Gore said on arriving in Oslo where he will collect the Nobel prize on Monday. Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were jointly awarded the 2007 peace prize for their work to raise awareness and further the science of climate change. Gore said the need for an early treaty would be part of his message to governments both when he received his prize in Norway and later at the UN climate conference in Bali. The 1997 Kyoto protocol, the main UN climate pact binding 36 nations to cut emissions, was rejected by the United States, which argued that it would be too expensive and wrongly omitted developing nations from the cuts. "The United States should be the natural leader in this challenge, and many of us are working very hard to bring about a change in the policies of the United States of America," Gore said at Oslo airport. He said there were signs of a change in attitude in the United States, with more than 700 cities and many states adopting Kyoto provisions, and a call last week by 150 US business leaders for binding carbon emissions cuts. "So we are making a lot of progress," Gore said before boarding the public rail link to central Oslo with other travellers. He said taking the train would be faster and better than other forms of transport, and represented the kind of choice that people could make for the environment. Gore was lampooned in 2006 for riding in a limousine to a showing at the Cannes film festival of his Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth", which calls for urgent action to fight climate change.
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Oil and natural gas prices have soared to multi-year highs recently, sending power prices surging to record levels as widespread energy shortages engulf Asia and Europe. "Record coal and gas prices as well as rolling blackouts are prompting the power sector and energy-intensive industries to turn to oil to keep the lights on and operations humming," the IEA said in its monthly oil report. "Higher energy prices are also adding to inflationary pressures that, along with power outages, could lead to lower industrial activity and a slowdown in the economic recovery." As a result, global oil demand next year is now projected to recover to pre-pandemic levels, the Paris-based agency added. It made upward revisions to its demand forecasts for this year and 2022, increasing them by 170,000 bpd and 210,000 bpd respectively. An upsurge in demand in the past quarter led to the biggest draw on oil products stocks in eight years, it said, while storage levels in OECD countries were at their lowest since early 2015. Meanwhile, the IEA estimated that producer group OPEC+ is set to pump 700,000 bpd below the estimated demand for its crude in the fourth quarter of this year, meaning demand will outpace supply at least until the end of 2021. Spare production capacity from the group is set to shrink rapidly, it warned, from 9 million bpd in the first quarter of this year to only 4 million bpd in the second quarter of 2022. That output capacity is concentrated in a small handful of Middle East states, it said, and its decline underscores the need to increase investment to meet future demand. "A surge in spending on clean energy transitions provides the way forward, but this needs to happen quickly or global energy markets will face a bumpy road ahead," the report said Releasing its flaghsip annual energy outlook ahead of a key climate conference in Britain next month, the IEA on Wednesday said that the economic recovery from the pandemic was "unsustainable" and revolved too much on fossil fuels. Investment in renewable energy needs to triple by the end of the decade if the world hopes to effectively fight climate change, it said on Wednesday.
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ANKARA Tue Jul 17, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Turks elect a new parliament on Sunday in what has been billed as one of the most important polls of their recent history following a clash between the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and the nation's secular elite. The pro-business, centre-right AK Party is widely predicted to win the election but with a reduced majority and well short of the two thirds of seats required to change the constitution. This scenario has helped propel Turkish financial markets to record highs this month. Investors applaud the AK Party's free market policies, but fear a large majority could reignite tensions with the secularists, including Turkey's powerful army. The European Union, which began membership talks with Turkey in 2005, is also closely watching the election, hoping a new government can revive the country's stalled reform process. Some analysts say investors are complacent about the risks. "These elections cannot solve the institutional deadlock ... Turkey's problems have just been postponed," said Wolfango Piccoli of Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was forced to call the polls months early after the secular elite -- the army, top judges and opposition parties -- derailed his bid to have parliament elect Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as the country's next president. The new parliament must now elect Turkey's next president. Secularists fear ex-Islamists Erdogan and Gul want to erode Turkey's separation of state and religion, a claim the men deny. A majority of two thirds or more would enable the AK Party to tweak Turkey's secular constitution and also to push through its presidential candidate without heeding opposition concerns. In an attempt to assuage secularist fears and reach out to Turkey's urban middle class, Erdogan has discarded many of the more Islamist-minded members of his parliamentary party and has fielded more women and centrist candidates in this election. Erdogan has also signaled he may be ready to compromise over the presidency, a traditional bastion of the secularists. Opinion polls show the AK Party could win about 40 percent of the vote, up from 34 percent in the 2002 election. But it is likely to end up with fewer seats because more parties are now expected to clear the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament. POLARISATION The main opposition, centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP), the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a sizeable number of independents, mostly pro-Kurdish candidates, are also tipped to win seats in the 550-member parliament. "It will be a parliament of polarities," said Ayse Ayata, a professor at Ankara's Middle East Technical University. "It would be better in some ways to have a coalition government as that could help reduce the polarization." Some 42.5 million Turks will be able to vote, out of a total population of 74 million. Four million young people will cast their ballots in a national election for the first time. As well as clashes between the AK Party ex-Islamists and the arch-secularists of the CHP, analysts expect fiery exchanges between Kurdish deputies seeking more rights for their community and the MHP ultra-nationalists who view such demands as a direct threat to Turkish national security and identity. "The new parliament will be a real test of whether Turks and Kurds can reach a consensus (on how to resolve the Kurdish issue)," said Mehmet Ali Birand, a veteran TV commentator. Turkish security forces have been battling Kurdish separatist rebels in the impoverished southeast region since 1984 in a conflict that has cost more than 30,000 lives. Tellingly, in the present nationalist climate, the terrorism issue has dominated election rallies. But politicians have barely alluded to Turkey's bid to join the EU, reflecting a growing public disenchantment here with the EU project.
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After nearly two weeks of talks, the almost 200 countries represented at the summit remain at odds over a range of issues from how rich nations should compensate poor ones for damage caused by climate-driven disasters to how often nations should be required to update their emissions pledges. "There is still a lot more work to be done," Alok Sharma, Britain's president of the COP26 summit, told reporters on Thursday about the state of negotiations. The COP26 conference set out with a core aim: to keep alive the 2015 Paris Agreement's aspirational target to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But under countries' current pledges to cut emissions this decade, researchers say the world would hit levels of global warming far beyond that limit, unleashing catastrophic sea level rises, floods and droughts. While there’s little hope that new promises will appear in the final day of talks to bridge that gap, negotiators are attempting to impose new requirements that could force countries to hike their pledges in future, hopefully fast enough to keep the 1.5C goal within reach. A draft of the COP26 deal circulated earlier this week, for example, would force countries to upgrade their climate targets in 2022, something climate-vulnerable nations hope they can strengthen into forced annual reviews to ensure the globe remains on track. 'CONSTANT PROCESS' "Glasgow must be the moment when ambition-raising becomes a constant process at every COP, and this year’s COP decision must mandate annual ambition-raising platforms until 2025 to ensure that," said Mohamed Nasheed, parliamentary speaker and former president of the Maldives and ambassador for the Climate Vulnerable Forum group of 48 countries. "Action is needed this very decade. 2030 feels like a cliff’s edge and we are running towards it," said Nicolas Galarza, Colombia's vice-minister for the environment. A senior United States official said the world's biggest economy supported strengthening targets to meet the Paris goals but could not support a requirement in the COP26 deal for yearly reviews of pledges. At the moment, countries are required to revisit their pledges every five years. Negotiators are also fighting over language on phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels in the COP26 conclusions, which Arab countries - many of them large fossil fuel producers - have warned against. European Union climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said on Thursday that removing that language "would be an extremely, extremely bad signal". Questions of finance continue to loom over the talks, with developing countries pushing for tougher rules to ensure that rich countries, whose historical emissions are largely responsible for heating up the planet, offer more cash to help the poorest nations adapt to climate impacts. Ministers are also attempting to finish the contentious rules that will put the Paris agreement into practice, requiring agreement on years-old disputes over carbon markets and transparency. A final deal will require the unanimous consent of the nearly 200 countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement. On Thursday night, diplomats hunkered down to thrash out the technical terms of the Paris rulebook, while in other negotiating rooms their government ministers debated over other political sticking points.
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At a meeting in Copenhagen on Jun 8, Myanmar's Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye told a group of diplomats, analysts and members of a commission chaired by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that eight of its recommendations - including one that asks authorities to take steps to amend the 1982 law - were problematic in the current political climate and could not be immediately fulfilled, the people present said. "He made it very clear that citizenship reform was a non-starter," said one of the people at the meeting. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Myanmar had requested the talks be confidential. Win Myat Aye and government spokesman Zaw Htay did not answer calls seeking comment. Amending the law, which largely restricts citizenship to members of what it terms "national races" - the 135 ethnic groups deemed by the state to be indigenous - was a key recommendation of the Annan commission. Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic group and refers to them as "Bengalis", a term they reject as it implies they are interlopers from Bangladesh, despite a long history in the country. The Annan commission was created by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016 to find long-term solutions to deep-seated ethnic and religious divisions in Rakhine. A day after the panel issued its report in August 2017, Rohingya insurgents launched attacks on security forces, provoking a military crackdown the UN has called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". The admission by Win Myat Aye, who is overseeing plans for reconstruction in violence-ravaged Rakhine state, casts further doubt on plans to repatriate the roughly 700,000 Rohingya currently sheltering in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh. Many Rohingya refugee leaders say they won't return without guarantees of citizenship. However, Myanmar's National Security Adviser Thaung Tun, who was also at the meeting in Denmark, told Reuters authorities were implementing the Annan commission's recommendations "to the fullest extent possible and as expeditiously as we can". "Over 80 recommendations have been carried out in less than 10 months," he said in an email. Referring to the recommendations that had not been implemented, he said they were "also being looked into". Annan's spokesman referred questions to the Myanmar government. Refugees have reported killings, burnings, looting and rape by members of the Myanmar security forces and Buddhist vigilantes in Rakhine. Myanmar has rejected accusations of ethnic cleansing, and dismissed most accounts of atrocities. "PATH TO CITIZENSHIP" In January, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a deal to repatriate the refugees within two years, but disagreements have held up the implementation of the plan. Many Rohingya refugees say they will not return unless the 1982 law is changed. People who identified themselves as Rohingya were excluded from Myanmar's last nationwide census in 2014 and many had their identity documents taken or nullified, blocking them from voting in a landmark 2015 election. Suu Kyi, who before coming to power said the government should have the "courage" to review the law, is now urging Rohingya to accept the National Verification Card, a residency document that falls short of full citizenship. However, many Rohingya refuse to accept the document, which they say classifies life-long residents as new immigrants and does not allow them to travel freely. The military, with whom Suu Kyi shares power, flatly rejects Rohingya calls for citizenship. In a speech in March, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said Rohingya "do not have any characteristics or culture in common with the ethnicities of Myanmar" and that the current conflict had been "fuelled because the Bengalis demanded citizenship". DIPLOMATIC DIFFICULTIES At the Copenhagen meeting, diplomats were about to break for lunch when Win Myat Aye said Myanmar had begun implementing only 80 of the 88 recommendations made by the commission, due to political and practical differences with the remaining eight, one of those present said. According to a second person present, Annan responded: "You said you're having difficulties with eight – which are those? Let's get back to this after the break." Win Myat Aye then listed the recommendations he said Myanmar was struggling to implement. They included commitments to create an independent body to review complaints about citizenship verification, empower community leaders and civil society, and establish a mechanism for feedback on government performance. "In diplo-speak when you say that something is difficult it tends to be a rejection," the second source said. "That is how I understood this."
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Global warming is expected to turn the planet a bit greener by spurring plant growth but crops and forests may wilt beyond mid-century if temperatures keep rising, according to a draft UN report. Scientists have long disputed about how far higher temperatures might help or hamper plants -- and farmers -- overall. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, as they grow and release it when they rot. "Global agricultural production potential is likely to increase with increases in global average temperature up to about 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit), but above this it is very likely to decrease," the draft said. Plants in tropical and dry regions from Africa to Asia are set to suffer from even a small rise in temperatures, threatening more hunger linked to other threats such as desertification, drought and floods. But some plants in temperate regions, such as parts of Europe or North and South America, could grow more in a slightly warmer world, according to the draft. A 79-page technical summary, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, will be released in Brussels on April 6 after a final review as part of a report based on the work of 2,500 scientists to guide governments in combating warming. The first part of the report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), projected as a "best estimate" that temperatures, stoked by human emissions led by burning fossil fuels, would rise 1.8-4.0 Celsius (3.2-7.2 F) this century. Plants now absorb more carbon than they release, "but this is likely to peak before mid-century and then tend toward a net carbon source before 2100" without accounting for other effects such as deforestation, it said. "In temperate regions, moderate warming benefits cereal crops and pasture yields, but even slight warming decreases yields in seasonally dry and tropical regions," it said. "Further warming has increasingly negative impacts in all regions," it said. In South America, for instance, rice yields are expected to fall by the 2020s while soybean yields could rise in temperate zones. The report warns warming could worsen water and food shortages in some regions, especially in developing nations least able to cope. And rising sea levels could threaten coasts. There are also risks that projected changes in extreme climate events could have "significant consequences on food and forestry production, and food insecurity," it said. "Growth will probably increase a little bit," said Anders Portin, senior vice president of the Finnish Forestry Industry Federation. But he said climate change was harmful overall. He said southerly insect pests could invade Nordic pine forests, recent storms in Sweden have been the most destructive on record and heavy trucks are often unable to travel in winter on normally frozen forest tracks because the ground is boggy.
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A public inquiry into expansion proposals for London's Stansted Airport begins on Wednesday when operator BAA will seek to overturn a local authority rejection of an increase in flights. Last November Uttlesford District Council rejected BAA's planning application to remove a cap of 25 million passengers using the airport's existing runway each year, because of environmental concerns. BAA, owned by Spain's Ferrovial, wants to increase the number of passengers using the airport, a major hub for low-cost airline Ryanair, to 35 million by 2014 and to increase the number of flights to 264,000 a year. A government-appointed planning inspector will hear BAA's appeal against Uttlesford Council's decision, which was based on concerns about noise pollution, air quality and climate change. The public inquiry is due to run until October 5. "No-one should be in any doubt that we remain very confident of the case we have made and that this will be fully recognised at the public inquiry," Terry Morgan, managing director BAA Stansted, said last year. Campaign groups, led by the Stop Stansted Expansion, say the proposals would have a devastating effect on the local environment as well as contributing to global warming. "Aviation is already the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK," said Mary Edwards, Friends of the Earth's East of England Regional Campaigner. BAA also wants to build a second runway at the busy airport in Essex, northeast of London, but says that proposal is unrelated to the existing expansion plans. The government has backed moves for the second runway at the airport by 2013 as part of a 30-year strategy to cope with soaring demand for air travel, particularly in England's crowded south-east. BAA is due to submit a separate planning application this year.
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US President Barack Obama will frame the war in Afghanistan as part of a wider pursuit for peace when he accepts the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Thursday, a US official said. Obama, who departed on Air Force One on a flight to Norway on Wednesday night, has the tricky task of reconciling the peace prize with being a wartime president who only last week ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in a dramatic escalation of the US war effort. This "interesting coincidence of history" is not lost on the president, said a senior administration official who gave Reuters a preview of what Obama will say when he becomes the fourth US president to receive the award. "He is well aware there is an interesting context that he will be receiving this award roughly a week after announcing the deployment of 30,000 troops," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as Obama was still working on the estimated 20-25 minute speech. "His approach to speeches in general is to take head-on whatever the issues are that contextualize the speech. He is not going to shy away from addressing something that is a charged topic," the official said. When the Nobel Committee first announced in October that Obama had won the prize, stunning the White House, some US commentators saw it as a political liability for a president responsible for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Nobel Committee's decision drew both praise and skepticism, and some polls show a majority of Americans think the prize is undeserved and premature. Critics say he has achieved few tangible gains in his nearly 11 months in office. Efforts to revive stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and engage diplomatically with Iran over its disputed nuclear program have gone nowhere, and climate change legislation is stuck in the U.S. Congress. 'CONSTRUCTIVE AMERICAN LEADERSHIP' But supporters credit Obama with improving the United States' global image and highlight his decision to make climate change a top priority, and his commitment to reduce the size of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. Obama acknowledged in October that while winning a prize dedicated to peace, he was still commander-in-chief of a country in two wars. The administration official said the award had neither influenced Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, nor the timing of his announcement. "He sees the peace prize as having a long history of recognizing the accomplishments of people who have worked to extend peace in various ways," the official said. "Right now, he has a range of foreign policy and national security initiatives, all of which are designed toward achieving greater peace and security in the world. That would include our efforts in Afghanistan, our efforts against extremism," he said. For many Americans, however, the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony will be a distraction from a much bigger domestic story -- 15 million people out of work and double-digit unemployment that has eroded Obama's popularity and could hurt his Democratic Party's prospects in congressional elections next year. Obama held a jobs forum last week in which he solicited job creation ideas from union and business leaders, among others, and on Monday announced modest steps to spur job creation. In awarding Obama the peace prize, the Nobel Committee cited "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" and his push for nuclear disarmament. "He believes that part of the reason he won this award was not simply about him, it's the fact that there's a hunger around the world for constructive American leadership and this is an affirmation of that," the official said when asked whether Obama would strike a note of humility. Obama would also say that "in order to achieve our goals the United States has a responsibility to take action on the most pressing challenges that we face, but all nations have a responsibility as well," the official said. Two leading human rights groups, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, on Wednesday criticized Obama's pragmatic approach to foreign policy, saying too often it was at the expense of human rights promotion, especially in countries such as China, the United States' biggest creditor.
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Sánchez lives in Rincón, a seaside town in northwestern Puerto Rico famous for surfing and sunsets that has become a hot spot for wealthy investors looking for tax breaks. The visitors, like so many before them, were interested in buying his one-story home, which is a two-minute walk from the beach. It is not for sale, but that has not stopped the unsolicited offers from coming. “They don’t ask you for a price,” he said. “They just hand you a check and tell you to fill it out with whatever you think the house is worth.” These are boom times for investors flocking to idyllic towns all over Puerto Rico, some of them seeking to take advantage of tax incentives intended to attract new people and outside money to the cash-strapped island, which is working its way out of bankruptcy. The tax breaks’ appeal accelerated after the coronavirus pandemic prompted many companies to shift to remote work, inspiring Americans who live on the mainland to move to more temperate climes. But the influx of the affluent new settlers, who must acquire residency and buy property in Puerto Rico within two years of moving in order to keep the tax breaks, has pushed up home prices and displaced residents who can no longer afford to live in their hometowns. Hurricane Maria, which heavily damaged thousands of homes in 2017, had already prompted many residents to leave the island. The real estate boom, which began in San Juan, the capital, has extended across the island, as investors have started to move away from the metropolitan area and into smaller towns like Rincón. There are new arrivals beyond those seeking tax breaks who are also snapping up properties and driving up rents and home prices. But it is the finance and tech investors who have formally applied for tax-break status who have drawn the most attention. Many of them are cryptocurrency traders, who now hold weekly happy hours at a seaside bar in Rincón. A new barbecue food truck that opened in August accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Shiba Inu, Solana and Litecoin for its mainland-style chicken. The creeping gentrification troubles many Puerto Ricans, who have become increasingly more forceful in questioning how an economy reliant on tax breaks for the wealthy can work for local residents increasingly unable to afford property. “It feels like Hurricane Maria placed a ‘For Sale’ sign on the island,” said Gloria Cuevas Viera, a Rincón resident who is helping to lead the fight against gentrification. Many investors buy residential properties and then resell them at higher prices or turn them into short-term vacation rentals, turning entire neighborhoods into Airbnb corridors and creating a shortage of inventory for local residents. Forty-three percent of Puerto Ricans live under the federal poverty level. Israel Matos, 45, will have to move out of his Rincón home by March because the property owner sold it last year. Matos had an option to buy the house but it expired. The owner, who is from Hermosa Beach, California, decided to sell to someone else. Matos has lived in the home with his wife and two daughters for two years, and said he cannot find a single listing in Rincón that matches his budget. The beach in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 12, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) “The pressure as a father is incredibly difficult,” said Matos, a sound engineer for a television station. “I never thought I would be in the situation of having a hard time looking for a roof to live under with my daughters. And it’s all because I don’t have $100,000 in the bank.” The beach in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 12, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) Recently, dozens of demonstrators gathered in Old San Juan to protest the tax breaks. They congregated in front of a former children’s museum that Bitcoin billionaire Brock Pierce has turned into a “crypto clubhouse.” Protesters graffitied the building with “Brock Pierce is a colonizer” and “Gringo go home.” The tax breaks fall under a law known as Act 60, a version of which was initially enacted by the Puerto Rico government under another name in 2012, as the island faced a looming economic collapse. The incentive drew more interest after 2017, when Hurricane Maria decimated the island. In 2019, the tax breaks were repackaged to attract finance, tech and other investors. People who move to the island can benefit from a reduction of income taxes on long-term capital gains, dividends, interest and revenues from their services. In Silicon Valley, a billboard advertises Puerto Rico as “a tech hub in sync with your vision.” As of October, Puerto Rico had received 1,349 applications in 2021 — a record — from people looking to become resident investors. Of those, 982 had been approved. In all, more than 4,286 applications have been approved since 2012, with more than 35% of them approved in the past three years. Under the law, an investor can qualify for the tax breaks if he or she has not been a resident of Puerto Rico for at least 10 years prior. The investor must also buy a home to benefit from a 4% corporate tax rate and zero capital gains tax. The more than 3 million Puerto Ricans already living on the island do not qualify for the tax breaks. “This is creating inequality in terms of taxpayer responsibility,” said Heriberto Martínez Otero, the executive director of the Ways and Means Committee in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives. Renters forced out by soaring housing prices along the coast may move to cheaper neighboring towns but may have to spend more on gas and tolls to commute, said Martínez Otero, who also teaches economics at the University of Puerto Rico. Owners who sell their homes, of course, have benefited from a rise in property prices, and Gov. Pedro R. Pierluisi has applauded the fact that many investors are buying luxury homes — a collapse in the luxury real estate market was a key motivation for passing the tax law, he said in January. “What was intended was an influx of people with capital to give life to the real estate market,” he said. Large numbers of people leaving the island had also been a concern for policymakers. Hammered by both the economic crisis and Hurricane Maria, the island’s population declined 11.8% from 2010 to 2020, according to the census. “But the fact that there are people buying residential properties that do not meet the reality of consumption patterns in Puerto Rico joins the rest of the problems on the island that hinders affordable housing,” Martínez Otero said. An oceanside gathering spot in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 13, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) Sánchez, the Rincón homeowner who pretended to be a landscaper, helps coordinate the town’s federal Section 8 program, which provides affordable housing to low-income families. The program offers families monthly $450 vouchers to pay for housing, but he is struggling to find homes at that price. An oceanside gathering spot in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 13, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) “I’m worried that native Puerto Ricans won’t be able to live or invest here and will end up displaced,” he said. “I thought the prices were only going up in the downtown area, but the properties in the more rural sectors in the mountains are getting expensive.” In Rincón, Ingrid Badillo Carrero, a real estate broker, said home prices have soared in the past four years. In 2017, a two-bedroom condo would list at an average of $290,000. Now, the same unit could be listed at about $420,000. The average annual income in Rincón is about $19,900. “I’ve had locals tell me I’m selling our country,” said Badillo, who regularly deals with investor clients seeking the tax breaks. Many are able to pay in cash, which is more attractive to sellers than selling to Puerto Ricans, who may only have the means to pay through a mortgage. In May, Elizabeth Stevenson moved to Puerto Rico with her husband, Tyler McNatt, from Austin, Texas. They were looking for a way out of going to the office every day and began exploring cryptocurrency investments as a way to generate income. Stevenson, an Act 60 beneficiary, is working as a consultant for a California movie producer now based in Puerto Rico, while also buying and selling cryptocurrency. “It’s really exciting that there’s so much to learn, and there’s so much money to be made,” said Stevenson, who signed a one-year lease for an apartment about a 15-minute walk from the beach. She is part of several crypto groups for ex-mainlanders that regularly host events in Rincón. Daniel Torgerson, a crypto investor who moved to Puerto Rico in June, convenes a weekly happy hour at the Aqua Marina Beach Club in Rincón. In early January, around 20 people met around the bar and pool, speaking under string lights and competing with the sounds of the nocturnal coquí frogs. “How’s everyone feeling in the market this week?” Torgerson asked the crowd. “Any new projects you’re excited about?” “Solar bitcoin mining!” someone responded. The new residents are bringing their children along. Myriam Pérez Cruz, the principal at Manuel González Melo K-8 School in Rincón, said the school has had to add more coursework for students learning Spanish as their second language. In the 2016-17 school year, a student survey identified three native English speakers who needed Spanish-language assistance, Pérez said. For the 2021-22 school year, that number rose to 17 students. Matos, the Rincón resident who must move out of his home by March, recently drove around looking for promising “For Rent” signs. Afterward, he went to the beach, sat cross-legged on the sand, and tried to relax. But soon after parking his car, he felt uneasy. “There were probably 50 people on that beach, and I only saw what looked like five Puerto Ricans there,” Matos said. “Rincón has changed a lot.” © 2022 The New York Times Company
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Scientists are outfitting elephant seals and self-propelled water gliders with monitoring equipment to unlock the oceans' secrets and boost understanding of the impacts of climate change. Oceans regulate the world's climate by soaking up heat and shifting it around the globe. They also absorb huge amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, acting as a brake on the pace of climate change. But scientists say they need to ramp up a global monitoring network, with the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica playing a key role. The Southern Ocean is a major "sink" of mankind's carbon emissions and an engine of the world's climate. "To understand the rate of climate change, we need to understand these ocean processes, like how fast it can sequester heat and carbon," said oceanographer Susan Wijffels, a group leader for Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System, or IMOS. "So what the ocean does affects how fast the system can move and the regional patterns of climate change," she told Reuters on Friday by telephone from a climate conference in Hobart, Tasmania. Scientists also need to better understand natural ocean cycles that affect weather on land to improve long-term forecasts for crops and water management for cities. IMOS groups researchers across Australian universities and research bodies and also links scientists in the United States, Asia and Europe. A recent funding boost means the team can outfit about 100 elephant seals to collect data from the depths around Antarctica. A small device with an antenna is attached to the heads of the seals to measure temperature, salinity and pressure as the animals dive for food. BLIND SPOT Self-propelled gliders about 2 meters (six feet) long will also be deployed in the seas around Australia to a depth of up to 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) to take measurements. Fitted with wings and a rudder, the gliders can stay at sea for months and can be controlled remotely. A key focus is the area of sea ice around Antarctica where existing self-propelled measurement devices, called Argos, can't easily function because they need to surface regularly to send data to satellites. Argos are cylinders that rise and fall to depths of up to 2 km (one mile). Thousands have been deployed globally. New types of Argos are being developed that can "sense" breaks in the sea ice to send their data. "The oceans under the ice are actually a blind spot in the global and national observing systems," Wijffels said. "We're starting to suspect the ocean is carrying heat into the sea ice zone," she added, and this could be playing a role in destabilizing the vast iceshelves of Greenland and Antarctica. Scientists say Greenland has enough ice to raise sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet) if it all melted. Rising amounts of carbon dioxide are also making oceans more acidic, affecting sea creatures' ability to make shells and there are fears increased acidity could curb the ocean's ability to mop up carbon. The programme also aims to boost monitoring of major currents around Australia that shift heat around the planet, including through the Lombok Strait near Bali in Indonesia, via deep-ocean moorings. Such measurements were more common in the North Atlantic but the Southern Hemisphere remained a major gap, Wijffels said.
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- Finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam has said millennium development goals will not be reached if donor countries fail to keep their ODA pledges. "Millennium development goals will remain mostly unrealised in many countries unless official development
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No one knows if former US Vice President Al Gore will return to politics, but he's definitely headed for Hollywood's red carpet, thanks to his climate change documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth.' 'Truth,' a big-screen adaptation of Gore's slide-show lecture calling for urgent action to curb man-made greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, was nominated for an Oscar on Tuesday as a best documentary feature. The nomination technically goes to the film's director, Davis Guggenheim, and its producers, Lawrence Bender ('Pulp Fiction') and Laurie David, the environmentalist wife of 'Seinfeld' co-creator Larry David. But Gore is the star and narrator of the film, which also profiles his long efforts to raise environmental awareness. The book version of 'An Inconvenient Truth' was published last year as a follow-up to his 1992 bestseller 'Earth in the Balance.' "An Academy Award nomination means more people are going to see Al Gore's message, and more people are going to wake up and help solve this problem," Guggenheim told Reuters. "Even people who are doubters are seeing this movie. You can only deny the truth for so long." Gore, who according to Guggenheim plans to attend the Oscars ceremony on February 25, said in a statement: "This film proves that movies really can make a difference." 'Truth' has grossed $24 million in US ticket sales alone to become the nation's third-highest-grossing documentary -- excluding concert films and Imax movies -- behind 'Fahrenheit 9/11' and 'March of the Penguins.' The film has taken in nearly $18 million more overseas. The nomination came hours before Gore's onetime political rival, President Bush, long skeptical about human-induced climate change, was expected to address global warming in his annual State of the Union speech. Bush, who defeated Gore in the contested presidential election of 2000, said before the film opened in May that he doubted he would see Gore's film. Oscar recognition would raise Gore's profile as his fellow Democrats line up to run for their party's nomination for president, although the former vice president under Bill Clinton said as recently as last week that he has no plans to run again in 2008. Also nominated for best documentary were 'Deliver Us from Evil,' about sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest; 'Jesus Camp,' about a religious camp; and two films about the war in Iraq -- My Country, My Country' and 'Iraq in Fragments.'
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Green Bay, Wisconsin, Nov 2 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)— President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney went back on the attack on Thursday, breaking a storm-induced campaign truce to hit the road and pound home their closing messages in the final stretch of a tight battle for the White House. With five days left until Tuesday's election, Obama received an endorsement from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, resurrected his 2008 "change" slogan and said he was the only candidate who had actually fought for it. Romney criticized Obama as a lover of big government who would expand the federal bureaucracy. National polls show the race deadlocked, and Obama and Romney will spend the final days in eight swing states that will decide who wins the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House. Obama made Wisconsin the first stop on a four-state swing on Thursday that also took him to rallies in Nevada and Colorado before going to Ohio for the night. Romney had a full day of campaigning across Virginia. "You may be frustrated at the pace of change, but you know what I believe, you know where I stand," Obama told a crowd of 2,600 people on an airport tarmac in Wisconsin, a state that is a vital piece of his electoral strategy. "I know what change looks like because I've fought for it." At a rally in Doswell, Virginia, Romney criticized Obama's comment that he would like to consolidate government agencies that deal with business issues in a new department under a secretary of business. "I don't think adding a new chair to his Cabinet will help add millions of jobs on Main Street," Romney said. Jobs will again be the focus of fierce debate on Friday when the government releases the unemployment figures for October. Any big change from the 7.8 percent number in September could potentially sway voters. Obama and Romney had put campaigning on hold for several days as the historic storm Sandy pounded the eastern seaboard, leaving a trail of destruction and forcing Obama to turn his attention to storm relief. That pause produced some unexpected political benefits for Obama, who won warm praise from Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Romney supporter, and he spent days directing federal relief efforts in a show of presidential leadership that largely sidelined Romney. New York's Bloomberg - a Republican-turned-independent who did not back a candidate in 2008 - endorsed Obama and cited the Democrat's record on climate change, an issue that has gained more attention since the storm. Bloomberg said Obama had taken significant steps to reduce carbon consumption, while Romney had backtracked on earlier positions he took as governor of Massachusetts to battle climate change. Obama said he was "honoured" by the backing of Bloomberg, who flirted with White House runs in the past. On their first day back on the trail, both Obama and Romney returned to political attacks but struck a slightly more positive tone than usual in trying to woo undecided voters and push their own supporters to vote. In Doswell, Romney proclaimed his faith in the future and said, "The American people have what it takes to come out of these tough times." In Wisconsin, Obama drew distinctions with Romney but dropped his usual reference to "Romnesia" - the term he uses to describe what he calls Romney's tendency to shift positions. SWING-STATE ADVANTAGE FOR OBAMA Obama has a somewhat easier path to 270 electoral votes than Romney, fuelled primarily by a small but steady lead in the vital battleground of Ohio - a crucial piece of any winning scenario for either candidate - and slight leads in Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada. Barring any surprises elsewhere, Obama can win a second term by capturing the Midwestern bastions of Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, and his schedule was aimed at shoring up his safety net there. Obama plans to visit Ohio on each of the last four days of the campaign, and plans two more trips to Wisconsin and Iowa. He will conclude his campaign on Monday night with rock singer Bruce Springsteen in Iowa, where a 2008 caucus win launched his run to the presidency. So far, Obama has planned just one visit each in the final days to Florida and Virginia, where most polls give Romney a slight lead. Romney will hit Wisconsin and Ohio on Friday, and New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado on Saturday. Romney plans to finish up his campaign on Monday night in New Hampshire, the state where he launched his bid last year. Romney's campaign has aired ads in recent days in the Democratic-leaning states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, hoping to put them in play after polls showed the races tightening but Obama still ahead. The campaign said Romney would visit Pennsylvania on Sunday, marking his first campaign visit since the nominating convention to one of his new target states. A win in Pennsylvania would be a crippling blow to Obama, but most public polls still show Obama leading there. Romney aides said the moves into those three new states were a sign of their growing momentum, although Obama aides described them as a desperate ploy to find new paths to 270 electoral votes. A Reuters/Ipsos national online poll on Thursday showed the race remained effectively deadlocked, with Obama at 47 percent to Romney's 46 percent. Most national polls showed roughly similar results. Most swing-state polls have found Obama clinging to slender leads in five of the eight most heavily contested states - Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. In most polls, Romney has a slight lead in Florida, while Virginia and Colorado were effectively tied. A Reuters/Ipsos online poll on Thursday showed Obama with a 5-point lead in Virginia, and 2-point leads among likely voters in both Ohio and Florida. Romney led by 1 point in Colorado in the Reuters/Ipsos polls.
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That changed on Tuesday, when Shahana Hanif, a former City Council employee, won her election in a Brooklyn district that covers Park Slope, Kensington and parts of central Brooklyn. Hanif, who is Bangladeshi American, was the first Muslim woman elected to the Council in its history, despite the fact that the city is home to an estimated 769,000 Muslims. She was one of two history-making South Asian candidates to win as well; the other, Shekar Krishnan, won a seat representing Jackson Heights and Elmhurst in Queens. (A third, Felicia Singh, another South Asian candidate, lost to her Republican opponent in a closely watched Queens race.) In a statement on Tuesday night, Hanif said that she was “humbled and proud” to be the first Muslim woman on the Council — and the first woman of any faith to represent District 39. She cited volunteers and endorsements from the community and progressive groups, including the left-leaning Working Families Party. “Together we are building an anti-racist, feminist city,” she said. “We deserve a city that protects its most vulnerable, a city that has equitable education, a city invested in climate solutions that are local and driven by communities, a city where our immigrant neighbours feel at home and heard and safe. This work requires all of us to keep showing up even though the election is over.” The City Council will also have its first out gay Black women serve as members next year: Kristin Richardson Jordan scored an overwhelming victory in a Harlem district, as did Crystal Hudson in a Brooklyn district that encompasses parts of Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Bedford-Stuyvesant. A number of other LGBTQ candidates clinched victories, including Tiffany Cabán in Queens. Chi Ossé in Brooklyn and Erik Bottcher in Manhattan had run in uncontested races. Lynn Schulman was expected to win a seat in Queens. The candidates are part of a larger shift in New York’s City Council, which is poised to be nearly as diverse next year as the city it represents. More than two dozen women are positioned to take a majority of the Council’s seats, for the first time ever.
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"Like a regimen of medicine, the dosage can be upped when the effects fall short of what's required," Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel told Reuters on Tuesday. Russel made clear he was speaking about the possibility of fresh sanctions by the UN Security Council, by the United States on its own, or by a group of like-minded states from the European Union and Southeast Asia, along with the United States. North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch the following month, triggering expanded UN sanctions aimed at starving it of funds for its atomic weapons program. Some experts expect North Korea to conduct a fifth nuclear test in the near future, possibly before a ruling party congress in early May, following an embarrassing failure of a test of an intermediate-range missile last week. Estimates of North Korean workers abroad vary widely but a study by the South's state-run Korea Institute for National Unification put the number as high as 150,000, primarily in China and Russia, sending back as much as $900 million annually. North Koreans are known to work abroad in restaurants and on construction sites, and also as doctors. The effectiveness of current, or any new, sanctions depends heavily on them being fully implemented by China, North Korea's neighbor, the closest thing it has to an ally and by far its largest trading partner, US officials and analysts say. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said all sides should refrain from doing or saying anything to worsen tensions, and remain calm and exercise restraint to get the talks process back on track. "I don't want to answer a hypothetical question," she told a news briefing on Wednesday, when asked if China would support new, tougher sanctions in the event of another nuclear test. If the North were to test a fifth nuclear device, the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan could also take unspecified "defense-related measures," Russel said. "As the threat grows, then our defensive capabilities need to adjust as well," he said, stressing that there was also a diplomatic route that the North could take by reviving long-dormant negotiations on curbing its nuclear program. MORE WEIGHT ON SANCTIONS South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee downplayed the prospect that an upcoming visit to New York by North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong to attend a UN climate conference would create an opening for engagement. "At a time when the North is talking of more provocation, I think it's time to put more weight on sanctions rather than dialogue," Jeong told a briefing in Seoul on Wednesday. Russel laid out what he called the possible "universe" of how the US government and others might respond to a fifth test and he acknowledged that sanctions have failed to deter North Korea, which tested its first nuclear device in October 2006. He stressed that no decisions had yet been made and said he could not preview a response to an event that has yet to occur. US General Vincent Brooks, whom President Barack Obama has nominated to lead American forces in South Korea, said on Tuesday that China was frustrated over North Korea's behavior, including its nuclear advances, but was unwilling to apply pressure that could threaten the viability of Kim Jong Un's government. Brooks also said Kim appeared more "risk-tolerant, arrogant and impulsive" than his father, Kim Jong Il. He was more aggressive in ignoring international concerns while advancing the North's nuclear program, the general said. Russel said it would take time to judge how well the latest sanctions were being enforced, but Beijing had "exhausted traditional options of encouraging and cajoling and persuading the North Koreans and they have clearly shifted to the application of pressure." "There is an argument to be made that serious and sustained pressure on North Korea has never before been undertaken," he said. "The degree to which the North Korean economy depends on China and access to China is such that this stated resolve on the part of China, I think, constitutes something of a new ball game." However, Frank Jannuzi, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer for East Asia and the Pacific, voiced skepticism that China had had a change of heart and was now willing to apply much more significant pressure on the North. "The Chinese are the one country that still has economic leverage but they are reluctant to put it to full use because they don’t think it’ll work and they are worried about the costs," he said, citing long-standing Chinese fears that severe sanctions could trigger "conflict, or refugees, or turmoil."
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In his second trip to Europe as president and shortly before leaving for a potentially fractious G20 meeting in Germany, Trump appeared to want to soothe US allies after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense enshrined in Article Five of the NATO treaty. As a presidential candidate, Trump called NATO obsolete, but he has since changed his position on the alliance's relevance. The president also had tough words for Russia on Thursday, though he did not fully endorse allegations, backed by US intelligence agencies, that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election that he won. Trump meets President Vladimir Putin for the first time face-to-face on Friday in Hamburg, the site of the G20 summit. "We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran, and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and the defense of civilization itself," he said. The Kremlin said Russia was not guilty of any destabilizing activity. The brief visit to Warsaw, to take part in a regional summit, was billed by the White House as an effort to patch up relations with European allies after a tense NATO summit in May. Trump was received by enthusiastic crowds on a central Warsaw square, some 15,000 people according to police estimates, many arriving on busses organized by ruling party members of parliament from around Poland. Trump reiterated his previous criticism of low defense spending levels by many European nations and praised Poland for meeting the alliance's target of spending two percent of economic output on defense. "To those who would criticize our tough stance, I would point out that the United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defense commitment," he said to applause. "Words are easy, but actions are what matters...Europe must do more." Article five of NATO's 1949 founding charter states that an attack on any member is an attack on all, and allies must render assistance, military if need be. The stopover was a major diplomatic coup for Poland's conservative government, which has faced mounting criticism from Brussels over its democratic record and a refusal to accept migrants fleeing war in the Middle East. The administration agrees with Trump on issues such as migration, climate change and coal mining and wants EU institutions to give back some of their powers to national governments. QUESTION OF SURVIVAL "We've discussed our mutual commitment to safeguarding the values at the heart of our alliance: freedom, sovereignty and the rule of law," Trump said in a joint press conference after meeting Polish President Andrzej Duda. In what was likely veiled criticism of the European Union, Trump condemned "the steady creep of government bureaucracy" and cited the importance of national sovereignty. In his speech at a central square that commemorates the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the president painted the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration and excessive government powers as an existential one. "The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive...Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?" he asked. European and other G20 partners have a view of Western values that does not align with Trump's. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has allowed scores of Syrian refugees into her country, drawing both criticism and praise, and has made fighting global warming a top priority at the summit. Trump's has decided to pull the United States out of the Paris accord on climate change. While agreeing that they need to put money into collective defense, European leaders took umbrage at Trump's tone and message in Brussels on his first trip there as president. Duda for his part said he believed Trump took Poland's security seriously. In Warsaw, Trump was also meeting other central European leaders as well as heads of state from the Balkans and Baltic states, gathered for a so-called Three Seas summit of countries on the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas.
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"In response to EU sanctions against our companies, Roskosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners on space launches from Kourou, and is withdrawing its technical staff... from French Guiana," Rogozin said in a post on his Telegram channel. The European Union played down Russia's pullout, saying it would not affect the quality of service of its satellite networks Galileo and Copernicus. Galileo is Europe's global navigation satellite system which provides positioning and timing information used in mobile phones, cars, railways and aviation. Copernicus delivers earth observation data, documenting climate change, for example. "We will take all necessary decisions in time to work on the development of the second generation of these two sovereign spacial infrastructures," EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, responsible for space issues in the bloc's executive Commission, said on Twitter. "We are also prepared to act determinedly together with the member states to protect these critical infrastructures in case of an attack, and to continue the development of Ariane 6 and VegaC to guarantee the strategic autonomy with regard to carrier rockets."
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To do so, they had to bow to US and Chinese demands to drop some of the pledges that have become hallmarks of the Group of 20 industrialized nations, which represents two-thirds of the global population. But they left with a communique committing for the first time to reform the dysfunctional World Trade Organization (WTO), the body supposed to regulate global trade disputes. “A number of words that we used to have always in G7 and G20 summit communiques became kind of taboos,” a European official said on Saturday in the midst of the negotiations. “We have American taboos and Chinese taboos.” First among those taboos is “protectionism”. The US administration has become sensitive to criticisms after President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs not only on $250 billion of Chinese goods but also on steel and aluminum imports that hit several of his G20 partners. As a result, for the first time since G20 leaders held their inaugural meeting in Washington in 2008, their communique did not contained a pledge to fight protectionism. China, meanwhile, steadfastly opposed the inclusion of the usual calls for “fair trade practices,” delegates said. Beijing rejects criticisms from the United States, Europe and Japan for dumping, industrial subsidies, abuse of intellectual property rights and technology transfers, amongst other practices. Even the word “multilateralism” itself has fallen out of favor in a group designed to foster international cooperation. Central to getting the United States to sign up to a phrase recognizing the importance of “multilateral trading system” was acknowledging that the system was falling short of its objectives, delegates said. The United States is unhappy with what it says is the WTO’s failure to hold Beijing to account for not opening up its economy as envisioned when China joined the body in 2001. To force reform at the WTO, Trump’s team has blocked new appointments to the world’s top trade court, which is rapidly running out of judges, meaning it will be unable to issue binding rulings in trade disputes. He has even threatened to withdraw the United States from the global body. “There was an attempt from a lot of the other countries ... to get the United States to commit to certain language with regard to the multilateral system,” said one senior U.S. official. “We commit to multilateralism where it works ... Is it achieving its intended objectives? In a lot of areas it’s falling short,” said the US official, who asked not to be identified because of the confidential nature of the talks. The final statement said the group supports the “necessary reform of the WTO to improve its functioning”, allowing US officials to claim a victory. While there were no details of the proposed reform, many delegates hailed a breakthrough in committing Washington to global solutions. “For the first time China and the United States agreed to engage on the WTO,” said one delegate closely involved in drafting the communique. “Given Trump’s earlier threats, to end up with the G20 saying it would work together on WTO reform is interesting.” European Union officials said that a key step in clinching a deal was getting China and major emerging economies to commit to language on trade early this week. “The idea was to bring the Chinese into the discussion almost immediately,” said a second European official. “After APEC, we knew it would be important for the Chinese to feel there was no ganging up on them.” At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in mid-November, leaders failed to agree on a joint communique for the first time in the group’s 30-year history. After APEC, Washington and Beijing traded accusations of blame but, with global markets increasingly roiled by trade tensions, both sides appeared more ready for compromise in Buenos Aires. After the G20 talks ended, Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed over dinner on Saturday to a ceasefire in their trade conflict, calling off higher U.S. tariffs that were to go into effect on Jan. 1. “The spirit wasn’t adversarial,” said the delegate closely involved in the G20 drafting, adding that perhaps because of the fallout after APEC, officials at least tried to work things out. Delegates worked until 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, the final day of the summit, watering down language on migration and refugees in the face of resistance from the United States and others, European and Argentine officials said. And they still had not tackled one of the thorniest issues: climate change. “That was what they discussed (Saturday) morning till noon,” an Argentine government spokeswoman said, just hours before the communique was made public. In the end, members agreed to disagree. The United States reaffirmed its commitment to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord - as it had at the previous G20 summit in Germany last year - while other members said they would fully implement it. Veteran negotiators were phlegmatic about the difficulties in agreeing on a text. “There is always at least one overnighter in sessions like these,” said the delegate closely involved in the drafting, adding “sometimes it was tough to find the right word to stick to the middle ground.”
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This spate of wild weather is consistent with climate change, scientists say, and the world can expect even more extreme weather and higher risks from natural disasters as global emissions of greenhouse gases continue. "We are seeing the emergence of some signals that would have had almost no chance of happening without human-induced climate change," said Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at Swiss university ETH Zurich. For decades, scientists have warned of such events – but have been wary of saying that a particular storm or heat wave was a direct result of climate change. That's now changing. Advances in a relatively new field known as "event attribution science" have enabled researchers to assess how big a role climate change might have played in a specific case. In determining that link, scientists assess simulations of how weather systems might behave if humans had never started pumping carbon dioxide into the air, and compare that with what is happening today. They also factor in weather observations made over the last century or more. "What seemed like an established truth that you cannot attribute a particular extreme weather event to climate change is less and less true," Seneviratne told Reuters. FEELING THE HEAT The clearest examples are found in the growing frequency and intensity of heat waves worldwide. Scientists needed only days to identify climate change as the key culprit in this year's record temperatures in Siberia, with extreme heat drying out forests and peat across the Russian tundra, leading to massive wildfires. Climate change links have also been found in the simultaneous summer heat waves that hit Europe, Japan and North America in 2018. Studies found that the chances of these events happening together would have been near zero without the industrial-era rise in planet-warming carbon emissions. "When it comes to heat waves, we see that climate change is an absolute game-changer," said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford who has helped to pioneer the field of attribution science. As a heat wave hit the US West Coast last month, Earth saw a new record high temperature of 54.4 Celsius (130 Fahrenheit) in Death Valley, which sits below sea level in California's Mojave Desert. Weeks later, the region was still broiling, with the mercury soaring Sunday to a new record of 49C for nearby Los Angeles County. "It's not so much that climate change is destabilising historical weather patterns," said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California. "In many cases, it's amplifying them." Hotter temperatures in turn sap the air of humidity and dry out forest and brush on land, creating perfect conditions for wildfires. In California, "the fires that we're seeing are larger, and faster moving, and more intense than those you could have expected historically," Swain said. But attribution science has not explained everything. For example, researchers do not yet fully understand Europe's heat waves. "In Western Europe, the increase in heat waves is much stronger than the models predict, and we have no clue why," said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, an attribution science expert at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. WIND, RAIN AND FLOODS As average global temperatures have risen by about 1C since pre-industrial times, changes in the atmosphere and oceans are also leading to more intense storms. Hurricanes overall are getting stronger and spinning slower, as they pick up energy from the heat in the oceans. Researchers at the University of Bristol in the west of England published a study last month that found that climate change could make extreme hurricane rainfall in the Caribbean five times more likely, without rapid cuts in emissions. In the United States, warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico boosted Hurricane Laura to a category 4 storm in the last hours before it slammed into Louisiana with 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds. Governor John Bel Edwards described it as the most powerful hurricane to strike the state, surpassing even Katrina in 2005. Tropical cyclones spinning out from the Indian Ocean are showing similar patterns. The region has long been considered a hot spot for cyclones, with some of the deadliest storms in recent history churning through the Bay of Bengal before slamming into India or Bangladesh. Exceptionally high surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean, associated with climate change, helped Cyclone Amphan grow into a Category 5 storm in a record 18 hours before it tore into the Indian state of West Bengal in May, scientists say. The following month, Cyclone Nisarga, initially forecast to be the first to batter Mumbai since 1948, made landfall 100 km (65 miles) south of the city, with winds gusting up to 120 kph (75 mph). "Both of the cyclones were unprecedented," said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. "If we go back to what led to these kinds of extreme events, what we see is that very warm ocean temperatures have played a major role." Those warm ocean temperatures are also likely contributing to extreme rainfall and flooding in China, which this summer suffered its most punishing flood season in three decades. "The extreme rainfall events are going to become more extreme. That is something we feel pretty confident about," said Shang-Ping Xie, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. Africa is feeling this now, following torrential rains and severe flooding. Tens of thousands have been left homeless by flooding from the Nile in Sudan. And in Senegal, more rain fell on a single day on Saturday than the country would usually see during three months of the rainy season, the government said. "There's a large and growing body of evidence that is telling us that human-caused climate change is affecting extreme events," said James Kossin, a climate scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "It's very rare that this is happening in a helpful way."
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The first Black woman and Asian-American on a major US presidential ticket, Harris summarised her life story as emblematic of the American dream on the third day of the Democratic National Convention. "Donald Trump's failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods," Harris said. Former US President Barack Obama told the convention Trump's failures as his successor had led to 170,000 people dead from the coronavirus, millions of lost jobs and America's reputation badly diminished in the world. The evening featured a crush of women headliners, moderators and speakers, with Harris pressing the case against Trump, speaking directly to millions of women, young Americans and voters of colour, constituencies Democrats need if Biden is to defeat the Republican Trump. “The constant chaos leaves us adrift, the incompetence makes us feel afraid, the callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot. And here’s the thing: we can do better and deserve so much more,” she said. "Right now, we have a president who turns our tragedies into political weapons. Joe will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose," she said, speaking from an austere hotel ballroom in Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. BIDEN AHEAD IN POLLS Biden leads Trump in opinion polls ahead of the Nov 3 election, bolstered by a big lead among women voters. Throughout the convention, Democrats have appealed directly to those women voters, highlighting Biden's co-sponsorship of the landmark Violence Against Woman Act of 1994 and his proposals to bolster childcare and protect family healthcare provisions. Obama, whose vice president was Biden from 2009-2017, said he had hoped that Trump would take the job seriously, come to feel the weight of the office, and discover a reverence for American democracy. "Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe," Obama said in unusually blunt criticism from an ex-president. "Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before," Obama said. The choice of a running mate has added significance for Biden, 77, who would be the oldest person to become president if he is elected. His age has led to speculation he will serve only one term, making Harris a potential top contender for the nomination in 2024. Biden named Harris, 55, as his running mate last week to face incumbents Trump, 74, and Vice President Mike Pence, 61. Former first lady and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Trump, told the convention she constantly hears from voters who regret backing Trump or not voting at all. "This can’t be another woulda coulda shoulda election." Clinton said. "No matter what, vote. Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.” Clinton, who won the popular vote against Trump but lost in the Electoral College, said Biden needs to win overwhelmingly, warning he could win the popular vote but still lose the White House. "Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose,” Clinton said. “Take it from me. So we need numbers overwhelming so Trump can’t sneak or steal his way to victory." Democrats have been alarmed by Trump's frequent criticism of mail-in voting, and by cost-cutting changes at the US Postal Service instituted by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump supporter, that could delay mail during the election crunch. DeJoy said recently he would delay those changes until after the election. Democrats also broadcast videos highlighting Trump's crackdown on immigration, opposition to gun restrictions and his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord. 'DISRESPECT' FOR FACTS, FOR WOMEN Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the US House of Representatives, told the convention she had seen firsthand Trump's "disrespect for facts, for working families, and for women in particular – disrespect written into his policies toward our health and our rights, not just his conduct. But we know what he doesn’t: that when women succeed, America succeeds.” US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive who ran against Biden in the 2020 primary, spoke to the convention from a childcare centre in Massachusetts and cited Biden's proposal to make childcare more affordable as a vital part of his agenda to help working Americans. "It’s time to recognise that childcare is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation — it’s infrastructure for families," she said. "Joe and Kamala will make high-quality childcare affordable for every family, make preschool universal, and raise the wages for every childcare worker." In her speech later, Harris will have an opportunity to outline her background as a child of immigrants from India and Jamaica who as a district attorney, state attorney general, US senator from California and now vice-presidential candidate shattered gender and racial barriers. She gained prominence in the Senate for her exacting interrogations of Trump nominees, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney General Bill Barr. The Republican National Convention, also largely virtual, takes place next week.
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WASHINGTON, Nov 11, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Global institutional investors holding more than $6 trillion in assets pushed policymakers Tuesday to quickly hash out a binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean technology. More than 130 big investors, including London Pensions Fund Authority, want countries to agree to reduce the climate- warming emissions by 50 percent to 80 percent by 2050. Those numbers are in line with global warming policy favored by US President-elect Barack Obama, who supports an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by mid-century. The investors also want policymakers to set long and medium term emission reduction targets for developed countries and to provide for an expanded and more liquid global carbon market. Already big US investors, such as the California Public Employees' Retirement System, with $185.6 billion of assets under management, have been calling for legislation to promote new and existing clean technologies. They have also called on the US Securities and Exchange Commission to force publicly traded companies to disclose climate-related risks along with other factors that affect their business. "As institutional investors, we are concerned with the risks presented by climate change to the global economy and to our diversified portfolios," said Mike Taylor, chief executive of London Pensions Fund Authority. "We are ... urging world leaders to implement strong and effective policies to support us in allocating capital toward low carbon investments." The group of global investors want countries to sign on to a new binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol climate pact, which set binding targets for industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union is aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and increase the share of wind, solar, hydro, wave power and biofuels in their energy mix by the same date. The United States is alone among major industrialized countries in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, but is participating in discussions to craft a follow-up global agreement. "It is time to put an agreement in place where the United States is involved," said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups working on climate change issues. The global group of investors is hoping its voice is heard ahead of a December climate change convention in Poland.
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G8 leaders believe the world economy still faces "significant risks" and may need further help, according to summit draft documents that also reflect failure to agree climate change goals for 2050. Discord over environmental measures was underlined by withdrawal from the meeting of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who returned to Beijing because of unrest in northwestern China in which 156 people have been killed. Documents seen by Reuters ahead of a G8 summit cautioned that "significant risks remain to economic and financial stability", while "exit strategies" from pro-growth packages should be unwound only "once recovery is assured". "Before there is talk of additional stimulus, I would urge all leaders to focus first on making sure the stimulus that has been announced actually gets delivered," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said before the summit began. Leaders met in L'Aquila, a mountain town wrecked by April's earthquake and a fitting backdrop to talks on a global economy struggling to overcome the worst recession in living memory. The Group of Eight -- United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia -- will kick off with debate on the economic crisis, after what one analyst called a "reality check" in recent weeks on the prospects for rapid recovery. G8 leaders badly underestimated the economic problems facing them when they met in Japan last year and will now focus on what must be done to prevent another meltdown. "Although there have been signs of stability in the economy and the sentiment has improved, the real economy has not recovered yet with job and wage conditions still stagnant," said Takao Hattori, senior strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities. But few big initiatives are expected as the G20, a broader forum that also includes the main emerging economies, is tasked with formulating a regulatory response to the crisis and meets in September in Pittsburgh after an April summit in London. DOLLAR DEBATE PLAYED DOWN Not mentioning China's push for a sensitive debate about a long-term alternative to the dollar as global reserve currency, the draft talked only of global "imbalances". G8 diplomats had said this might be the only oblique reference to currency. "Stable and sustainable long-term growth will require a smooth unwinding of the existing imbalances in current accounts," read the draft prepared for the G8 talks. China complains that dollar domination has exacerbated the global crisis and worries that the bill for U.S. recovery poses an inflation risk for China's dollar assets, an estimated 70 percent of its official currency reserves. Analysts said the decision not to refer to this directly could remove a destabilizing factor on currency markets. U.S. President Barack Obama was expected to make his mark on his first G8 summit by chairing Thursday's meeting in L'Aquila of the 17-nation Major Economies Forum, whose members account for about 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But MEF ministers, summoned at the last minute on Tuesday to prepare for the summit, failed to close the gap between U.S. and Europe on the one hand and emerging powers like China and India on the other hand. Berlusconi spoke of meeting Chinese "resistance" and the G8 appeared to have failed to persuade China and India to agree to a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. A draft MEF document dropped any reference to this and aimed instead for agreement on the need to limit the average increase in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Cindy Baxter from Greenpeace said G8 leaders were "watering down climate ambitions" as deep emission cuts are a prerequisite for limiting temperature rises, but appeared to get no mention. Developing nations, present in large numbers at the expanded G8 summit with more than 30 world leaders invited including nine African nations, argue that they need to be able to consume more energy in order to end poverty among their populations. A packed first day is due to wrap up with talks on an array of international issues, including Iran's post-election violence and nuclear programme. However, these are unlikely to lead to any immediate action, such as a tightening of sanctions. One area where a breakthrough is possible is trade. A draft communique suggested the G8 and "G5" developing nations would agree to conclude the stalled Doha round of trade talks in 2010. Launched in 2001 to help poor nations prosper through trade, the talks have stumbled on proposed tariff and subsidy cuts. Leaders will also discuss a U.S. proposal that rich nations commit $15 billion over several years for agricultural development in poor countries to ensure food supplies.
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A portion of the revenue from any U.S. system capping carbon emissions must go toward softening the impact of higher energy prices on consumers, a White House official said on Wednesday. Joseph Aldy, special assistant to the president for energy and the environment, said building a clean energy economy will not be easy. "There will be those who are going to be vulnerable as we make this transition and ... we need to actually target the allowance value and revenues to those households, communities, and businesses," Aldy said at an Energy Information Administration forum. President Barack Obama's budget proposal called on Congress to pass a cap-and-trade bill that would auction 100 percent of carbon permits, essentially forcing companies to pay quickly for their emissions. But a White House spokesman on Wednesday said Obama is "flexible" on the amount of permits sold to industry. Obama's proposal would use most of the revenue generated from the sell of carbon permits for tax breaks, offsetting costs for consumers. Some industrial state lawmakers have raised concerns that a cap-and-trade system will burden big polluters such as coal-burning power plants with substantial additional costs. Aldy said the White House was reaching out to moderate U.S. Senators to seek support for climate change legislation in the chamber, where passage will likely be difficult. Separately, Aldy and other Democratic congressional aides on EIA panel also expressed support for development of a cap-and-trade system over placing a tax on carbon emissions. "Tax bills pass every year," said Greg Dotson, the chief environment and energy counsel for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I think the question is whether that is durable over time." Dotson said a cap-and-trade system would provide more certainty for businesses and for other countries trying to gauge U.S. commitment to addressing climate change. Andrea Spring, a Republican aide for the Energy and Commerce committee, disagreed with Dotson's assertion. Raising concerns about climate change legislation in general, Spring said a carbon tax was a more transparent option. "At least with a carbon tax you're kind of admitting what you're doing: you're raising energy prices," Spring said. "With a cap-and-trade program, you're doing the same thing."
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Sweden described the Copenhagen climate change summit as a "disaster" and a "great failure" on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting of European Union environment ministers to discuss how to rescue the process. The European Union went to Copenhagen with the hope of achieving a broad commitment to at least a 20-percent cut in carbon emissions below 1990 levels within 10 years, but that and other firm goals failed to emerge in the final accord. "Ministers are going to meet today to discuss, of course, how to proceed after this disaster we really had in Copenhagen," Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren told reporters as he and other ministers gathered for the meeting in Brussels. Carlgren will chair the talks as Sweden currently holds the EU presidency. "I expect us to discuss both how to continue ... but also elaborate on possibilities for alternate ways to work now, because it was a really great failure and we have to learn from that." The two-week, U.N.-led conference ended on Saturday with a non-legally binding agreement to limit global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, but did not lay out how to achieve that. Despite months of preparation and strenuous international diplomacy, the talks boiled down to an inability of the world's two largest emitters, the United States and China, to agree on headline fixed targets. The 27 member states of the EU had gone into the talks with a unified position and with a plan for financing emissions cuts in the developing world, with a commitment to spend around 7 billion euros (6.2 billion pounds) over the next three years to aid poorer countries. But those aims were largely sidelined as the talks failed to produce the breakthrough agreement many had hoped for. "Europe never lost its aim, never, never came to splits or different positions, but of course this was mainly about other countries really (being) unwilling, and especially the United States and China," said Carlgren. Britain on Monday blamed China and a handful of other countries of holding the world to ransom by blocking a legally binding treaty at Copenhagen, stepping up a blame game that has gathered momentum since the talks ended. Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the summit as "at best flawed and at worst chaotic" and demanded an urgent reform of the process to try to reach a legal treaty when talks are expected to resume in Germany next June. But Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard, who quit as president of the Copenhagen talks midway through after being criticised by African countries for favouring wealthier nations in negotiations, said it was no time to get depressed about the process of tackling climate change. "What we need to do is to secure the step that we took and turn it into a result," she told reporters as she arrived for the Brussels meeting on Tuesday. Asked whether Copenhagen had been a failure, she replied: "It would have been a failure if we had achieved nothing. But we achieved something. A first step. It was the first time we held a process where all the countries were present, including the big emitters."
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An enhanced version of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol is set to be part of the fight against global warming until 2020, according to a draft text by Denmark which is hosting talks on a new climate agreement. "Parties to the Kyoto Protocol ... decide that further commitments for developed countries should take the form of quantified (greenhouse gas) emission limitation and reduction objectives," according to the text, intended as the possible basis for an agreement at the Copenhagen talks, which Reuters obtained on Wednesday. The Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997, obliges all industrialized nations except the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions until 2012. In Copenhagen, 190 nations are puzzling over how to work out a wider deal involving all countries in combating global warming until 2020. Many rich nations favor a single United Nations pact to succeed Kyoto. But poor nations, which say the rich want to "Kill Kyoto," prefer two tracks -- Kyoto with deep emissions cuts for the rich and a new, less binding accord for the poor. The four-page text, dated November 30, suggests that the Kyoto Protocol may survive the December 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen, alongside a new pact that would spell out obligations by developing nations and the United States, the only industrialized nation outside Kyoto. The text said that international emissions trading and other mechanisms under Kyoto, including a scheme for promoting green technologies in developing nations, should be "enhanced." 2020 BLANK Denmark says it is consulting many countries with a variety of texts but not making formal "proposals" yet before a summit of 110 world leaders on December 17-18 at the end of the talks. The document leaves blank a list of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by developed nations by 2020 as part of the fight against global warming that may cause more extinctions of species, rising sea levels, wildfires and desertification. Another document, also dated November 30, outlines actions by all nations to fight climate change including a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The document is little changed from one dated November 27 reported by Reuters last week. Many developing nations oppose a goal of halving emissions, saying that rich nations must first do far more to cut their emissions by 2020. "Denmark has not published any proposals. Whether we will do so depends on the coming days' negotiations," Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Danish TV2 News on Wednesday in response to publication of the November 27 document on a website. An extension of Kyoto would have to be without Washington. "We're not going to become part of the Kyoto Protocol," U.S. Climate Envoy Todd Stern said on Wednesday in Copenhagen. Former President George W. Bush said Kyoto was a straitjacket that unfairly omitted greenhouse gas curbs for developing nations led by China. President Barack Obama has no plans to rejoin even though he wants to step up U.S. actions to fight global warming.
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NEW DELHI, Sun Jan 20, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for greater cooperation with India on combating terrorism as he began a visit to New Delhi on Sunday. Brown wants India to become a member of an international body that counters terrorist financing -- the Financial Action Task Force -- and also wants to help it to acquire sophisticated equipment to detect people carrying weapons or explosives at ports and airports. "There's got to be greater cooperation between the major countries and Britain in the fight against terrorism," he told the BBC in an interview on Sunday. "I want not just China and Pakistan but also India to play their part in cooperating with us so we can root out those who are seeking to use terrorist finance," he said. "That means India should join what's called the Financial Action Task Force -- it's not yet a member -- so it can play its part in working to deal with terrorist structures," Brown said. He also called for a hearts and minds campaign to combat "extremist ideologies". Brown arrived in India from China where he focused on expanding trade and investment and on cooperation against climate change. In India he will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meet business leaders and give a speech on Monday on reforming international institutions. Brown arrived armed with promises of hundreds of millions of dollars of development aid to combat poverty in India, where 400 million people live on less than $1 a day despite the country's rapid economic growth. Britain said that over the next three years it will give India 825 million pounds ($1.6 billion) in development aid, with more than half spent on health and education. The money will help provide 300,000 more teachers and enable four million more children to go to school by 2011, the British government said. In a sign of the growing economic ties between Britain and India and India's increasing financial clout, Tata Steel Ltd last year bought Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus for 6.2 billion pounds. Ford Motor Co this month chose a sister company, Tata Motors Ltd, as the front-runner to buy famous British vehicle makers Jaguar and Land Rover. Brown is also expected to discuss trade and his ideas for an international early warning system to prevent a recurrence of the U.S. sub-prime lending shock which has led to a global credit crunch and claimed a high-profile casualty in Britain in mortgage lender Northern Rock. Brown called on Saturday for a new drive to reach a global trade agreement. Years of talks on a new trade liberalization pact have made slow progress. (1 pound=$1.945)
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U.N. nuclear watchdog governors on Tuesday approved a deal allowing extra inspections of India's atomic industry, a condition of a U.S.-led deal allowing New Delhi to import nuclear technology after a 33-year freeze. Passage of an "Additional Protocol" somewhat expanding the International Atomic Energy Agency's monitoring rights in India came a month after New Delhi signed a basic nuclear safeguards accord opening its civilian nuclear plants to U.N. inspections. The 31-page protocol would broadly give IAEA inspectors more information on India's nuclear-related exports, imports and source material, diplomats familiar with the issue said. But some members of the 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors joined the consensus vote only with reluctance, they said. Sceptics felt that while heightened U.N. safeguards were a net gain for a country outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), they could have been stronger had there been more time for negotiations, they added. "Switzerland, Ireland, Cuba and South Africa protested that the agreement was handed to the board only two days ago, too late to thoroughly assess whether it will really contribute to disarmament," one diplomat in the closed-door meeting said. "It doesn't because there are no provisions to ensure India cannot divert into its military nuclear sector nuclear materials and know-how it obtains abroad for the civilian sector." The protocol, entitled "Nuclear Verification -- The Conclusion of Safeguards Agreements and Additional Protocols" -- would give inspectors wider access to India's programme but not as much as in countries that have signed the NPT. "The agency will not mechanistically or systematically seek to verify information obtained. Verification activities in question are not linked to quantitative yardsticks like inventories of nuclear materials," the pact's preamble said. "The frequency and intensity of (IAEA checks) shall be kept to the minimum consistent" with the aim of improving safeguards. SUPPLIERS LIFT NUCLEAR BAN ON INDIA IAEA oversight was stipulated when the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group agreed in September to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India, imposed after its first nuclear test in 1974 and for its refusal to join the NPT. India, Pakistan and Israel are the only countries never to have never signed the NPT. Washington pushed through the NSG "waiver" because this was indispensable to implementing its own 2005 nuclear cooperation pact to supply India with nuclear technology. U.S. officials said the deal, a major plank in former U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy, would forge a strategic partnership with India, help it meet soaring energy demand, reduce fossil fuel emissions linked to climate change, and open up a nuclear market worth billions of dollars. Disarmament advocates complained that it undercut the NPT, meant to prevent the spread and production of nuclear weapons. They fear Indian access to foreign nuclear materials could allow it to divert more of its limited indigenous supplies to its bomb programme and drive historical foe Pakistan into another arms race. After its first nuclear test in 1974, India conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998, prompting rival Pakistan to follow suit within weeks. IAEA safeguards require India to open up 14 of 22 reactors to inspections by 2014. New Delhi must still specify which reactors will come under inspection, an Indian government official said last month. India's Additional Protocol lists some 100 nuclear-use materials and hardware to come under monitoring including entire reactors and heavy-water plants, reactor-core graphite, coolant and vacuum pumps, parts for fuel-producing centrifuges, spectrometers, uranium metal products and laser systems.
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-- The pace of global warming continues unabated, scientists said on Thursday, despite images of Europe crippled by a deep freeze and parts of the United States blasted by blizzards. The bitter cold, with more intense winter weather forecast for March in parts of the United States, have led some to question if global warming has stalled. Understanding the overall trend is crucial for estimating consumption of energy supplies, such as demand for winter heating oil in the US northeast, and impacts on agricultural production. "It's not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven't warmed in the past 50 years," veteran Australian climate scientist Neville Nicholls told an online climate science media briefing. "January, according to satellite (data), was the hottest January we've ever seen," said Nicholls of Monash University's School of Geography and Environmental Science in Melbourne. "Last November was the hottest November we've ever seen, November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen," he said of the satellite data record since 1979. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in December that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850, and that 2009 would likely be the fifth warmest year on record. WMO data show that eight out of the 10 hottest years on record have all been since 2000. Britain's official forecaster, the UK Met Office, said severe winter freezes like the one this year, one of the coldest winters in the country for nearly 30 years, could become increasingly rare because of the overall warming trend. MORE EXTREMES Scientists say global warming is not uniform in all areas and that climate models predict there will likely be greater extremes of cold and heat, floods and droughts. "Global warming is a trend superimposed upon natural variability, variability that still exists despite global warming," said Kevin Walsh, associate professor of meteorology at the University of Melbourne. "It would be much more surprising if the global average temperature just kept on going up, year after year, without some years of slightly cooler temperatures," he said in a written reply to questions for the briefing. The scientists also defended the U.N. climate panel after it came under attack for including an error about the estimated thaw of Himalayan glaciers in a major 2007 report. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produces reports based on the work of thousands of scientists that are the main guides for policymakers on tackling global warming. The discovery of the error has been seized upon by climate sceptics. The 2007 report wrongly said Himalayan glaciers could all melt by 2035, an apparent typographical error that stemmed from using "grey literature" outside peer-reviewed scientific journals. Nicholls said grey literature could play a key role in the climate debate and that not all valuable data or reports were published formally in journals. Such examples included reports on extreme weather events by government meteorological agencies. "The IPCC does not exclude the use of that sort of grey literature because it would be stupid to talk about extremes, for instance, and not include that sort of grey literature," he said. The scientists said more stringent checks were needed for the next IPCC reports but that the inclusion of one or two wrong predictions didn't undermine the whole peer-reviewed IPCC process because scientific study was always evolving.
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Australia and China have agreed to hold annual ministerial talks on climate change and to work together to clean up carbon pollution from coal-fired power stations, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Friday. The Mandarin-speaking Rudd made the announcement in Beijing on Friday after talks a day earlier with China's Premier Wen Jiabao, saying both countries needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming. Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and China is the world's biggest generator of coal-fired electricity. Rudd said that meant both countries had a joint interest in finding ways to clean up carbon emissions from coal-fired power. "We in Australia, must collaborate absolutely closely with China on the climate change challenge," Rudd, who has previously offered to act as a bridge between China and the West on climate change, told reporters in Beijing. "What we want to do is work with China to produce a better outcome globally on climate change, which is critical for the planet, critical long-term in terms of the impact on climate change on our country as well." Rudd has made climate change one of his key priorities since his centre-left Labor government won power last November. His first act after being sworn in as prime minister was to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The former conservative government led by John Howard refused to ratify the U.N. pact, which sets binding greenhouse gas curbs for developed nations. Howard joined U.S. President George W. Bush in rejected the pact because major polluters China and India were not obliged to tackle their rapidly growing emissions under Kyoto's first phase that ends in 2012. China is the world's second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide and some studies suggest it might already have overtaken the United States last year. Under the deal announced on Friday, Australia would provide A$20 million ($18.6 million) to a joint Australia-China clean coal project, to help fund research projects on clean coal technology. Rudd and Australia's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong visited the Gaobeidian coal-fired power station in Beijing on Friday, where Australia is spending A$4 million on a carbon capture and storage project. Rudd said the plant was expected to be running by August this year, and if successful, would store around 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. He said China and Australia have agreed to hold annual ministerial talks on climate change, with the first meeting to be hosted in Australia in the second half of 2008.
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US and Chinese officials hope to launch the summit on a positive note by showcasing at least one area of cooperation – the global fight against climate change – when they announce a deal to build on a landmark emissions agreement struck last year. But that achievement is all but certain to be overshadowed by major points of disagreement that underscore a growing rivalry between the world’s two biggest economic powers. Xi’s state visit will formally begin at 9 a.m. EDT/1300 GMT on Friday with a welcome ceremony on the White House South Lawn, including a 21-gun salute, followed by Oval Office talks, a joint news conference and a black-tie state dinner. Despite such ceremonial honors, the Chinese Communist leader - coming to Washington on the heels of Pope Francis – can expect nothing like the wall-to-wall US news coverage given the popular pontiff who drew adoring crowds wherever he went. In diplomatic terms as well, no major policy breakthroughs are expected on the big issues that divide the two countries. But the summit will yield a significant announcement by Xi of a commitment by China, the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases, to begin a national “cap-and-trade” program in 2017 to limit emissions, US officials said. It is an effort to build momentum toward a global climate change pact in Paris later this year, something Obama sees as part of his legacy. However, the announcement is expected to be one of the summit’s few tangible policy achievements. High on the agenda is cyber security, a growing source of strain after high-profile cyber attacks on U.S. business and government databases blamed on Chinese hackers. Washington is considering sanctions against Chinese companies and individuals. Visiting Seattle on the first leg of his trip, Xi denied involvement by the Chinese government and pledged to work with the United States to fight cyber crime. While Obama's aides say no formal agreement is likely, Chinese officials have suggested the possibility of a basic deal against cyber warfare. Obama is also expected to press Xi to follow through on economic reforms and refrain from discrimination against US companies operating in China. Some analysts believe Obama has more leverage due to China's slowing economic growth, which has destabilized global markets. At the same time, the Obama administration is still at a loss about how to curb China's assertiveness in the South China Sea, where Beijing has continued to reclaim land for potential military use despite conflicting claims with its neighbors. The two leaders held a private dinner on Thursday after Xi's arrival to begin grappling with their differences. Calls for Obama to take a harder line with China have echoed from Congress to the 2016 Republican presidential campaign. But his approach will be tempered because the world's two biggest economies are inextricably bound together. For his part, Xi, with nationalistic sentiment rising at home, can ill afford the appearance of making concessions.
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Poor nations battered by record food prices last year need international help to raise agricultural output given conditions are still ripe for another food crisis, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's chief said. In an interview ahead of a global summit on food security in Rome next week, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said more aid was needed to curb the rising number of hungry people in the world, which topped 1 billion for the first time this year. "There is a lack of priority in fighting hunger and poverty at the highest political level, not only in developed countries but in developing countries," Diouf told Reuters on Monday. "The fundamentals that led to the crisis in 2007-2008 are almost all still there, except for oil prices," he added, citing climate change shocks like droughts in Africa, strong population growth in developing countries and use of bio-fuels. Prices of food staples like cereals doubled in many parts of the world in 2007-2008, sparking protests and rioting. Rich nations responded by raising output by 13 percent, but developing countries were only able to manage a 2.7 percent increase, Diouf said. Excluding China, India and Brazil, the rise in output was an anaemic 0.7 percent. "No wonder that in those countries prices have remained very high," said Diouf, noting that food prices had barely eased from their peaks of last year in many developing nations. Rich nations needed to raise the share of aid earmarked for agriculture to 17 percent, from 5 percent at present, to provide farmers in poor nations with irrigation, fertilizers, disease-resistant seeds, storage for their crops and roads to take them to market, Diouf said. "We are now in the paradoxical situation where in developed countries 2 to 4 percent of the population feed the whole population, while in developing countries 60 to 80 percent of the population is not able to do so," Diouf said. The November 16-18 summit in Rome will discuss ways to curb rising global hunger not only by boosting funding but by improving coordination between government, multilateral agencies and non-governmental organizations. Central to the plan is reform of the UN Committee on Food Security, which groups 124 nations, to give it a monitoring role to ensure aid money is channeled to agriculture, Diouf said. The Senegalese politician hailed "encouraging" progress at a July summit in Italy, when the Group of Eight industrial nations backed a proposal from US President Barack Obama to earmark $20 billion in farm aid for poor nations over three years. He declined to comment on reports from diplomatic sources who told Reuters only $3 billion of this would be fresh money. Obama, who starts a 10-day Asian tour on Thursday, is not expected at the Rome summit. Other G8 leaders, such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy, have also signaled they will not attend. "We've invited them and we hope they will come," said Diouf. "I'm realistic enough to know that heads of state have their own calendar and other responsibilities at international level."
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China urged President Barack Obama to increase a U.S. offer to cut carbon emissions but its top climate envoy indicated willingness on Wednesday to compromise at a U.N. conference in Copenhagen. Xie Zhenhua said that China wanted to play a constructive role at the December 7-18 climate talks, where a successful outcome largely depends on agreement between the United States and China which together emit 40 percent of global greenhouse gases. "I do hope that President Obama can bring a concrete contribution to Copenhagen," Xie told Reuters. When asked whether that meant something additional to what Obama has already proposed, a 3 percent cut on 1990 levels by 2020, Xie said: "Yes." Xie also said that China could accept a target to halve global emissions by 2050 if developed nations stepped up their emissions cutting targets by 2020 and agreed to financial help for the developing world to fight climate change. "We do not deny the importance of a long-term target but I think a mid-term target is more important. We need to solve the immediate problem." "If the demands of developing countries can be satisfied I think we can discuss an emissions target," to halve global emissions by 2050. The deputy chairman of the powerful economic planning superministry, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told Reuters he wanted rich countries to cut their emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. "It is our hope that the emissions cuts of developed countries can fall into the range of 25-40 percent (below 1990 levels." Earlier this year, at some previous rounds of U.N. talks, China had insisted on a cut of "at least 40 percent." Xie said that he preferred a final, legally binding agreement at the meeting in Copenhagen, but if that were not possible a deadline to wrap up a full treaty by June "would be very good." He rejected a U.N. proposal for fast-track funding of $10 billion a year from 2010-2012 as "not enough."
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Many storm shelters were already occupied by quarantined migrant workers who had returned home as the COVID-19 pandemic shut their workplaces, leaving local people a choice between facing the cyclone at home or braving the virus in shelters. From Arctic heat and wildfires to Texas cold-weather power outages and Amazon deforestation, threats around the world that may seem unrelated are increasingly compounding each other, United Nations researchers said in a report released Wednesday. The underlying causes of the rising risks - from climate change to lack of cooperation among governments and ignoring the value of nature in economic decision-making - are common across many of them, researchers said. For instance, putting a price on timber but not on the services forests provide when left standing to absorb carbon and regulate rainfall helps drive everything from climate change to species extinctions, droughts and pandemics, the report noted. Reworking how economic benefits are measured could help reduce a wide swathe of disaster risks, said Jack O'Connor, a senior scientist at the United Nations University's Institute for Environment and Human Security. "The disaster is the tip of the iceberg and there’s a whole mass of things behind it. And the base of the iceberg is the same thing shared across all the events," O'Connor, a lead author of the report, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Many everyday individual choices, like eating a chicken sandwich for lunch, have direct links to threats ranging from forest and species loss to climate change, researchers noted. A major driver of Amazon deforestation in Brazil is expansion of soybean fields - and 77% of the soy grown goes to feed animals, especially chickens, the report noted. With meat-eating on the rise around the world, particularly in Europe and China, the researchers wrote that even when not directly produced in the Amazon, "through the interconnections of global supply chains, meat consumption is the root cause of the destruction of the Amazon". O'Connor, an Australian ecologist, said researchers hoped that looking at fast-surging disasters as something other than unconnected crises would drive stronger action on them. "They’re happening more frequently, all over the world, and when you see them in the news every day you can get a little overwhelmed," he said. "We're saying, 'This is not just a fire in Brazil. It's connected to you and to other disasters.'" BUSY GOVERNMENTS Recognising the linkages between risks - and their common drivers - remains a challenge for most individuals and governments, said Mami Mizutori, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. As the pace of threats picks up, many governments are too busy responding to current crises to work on avoiding future ones, and those that try often focus on just the most serious local risk, whether it is a flood, pandemic or fire, she said. Budgets and expertise are also limited, she added, handicapping efforts to deepen understanding of interconnected risks and join up efforts to reduce them. Without acknowledging that biodiversity loss threatens to ignite future pandemics, "no matter how much you make your hospital system resilient or develop better vaccines or get better prepared, you won't prevent" health crises, she said. "Avoiding biodiversity losses is not only about making sure that animal doesn't go extinct. It really directly relates to our lives and livelihoods," she said in a phone interview. While effectively reducing risks depends on recognising and tackling the root causes of disasters, that is proving hard in practice, researchers admitted. Stronger international cooperation, for instance, could supercharge responses to pandemics, climate change or nature loss. But the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how crises often spur competition among governments, researchers said. Still, there are signs of progress. The World Health Organization last week launched a new global hub to boost collection and sharing of pandemic and epidemic intelligence. G20 countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, meanwhile, plan to set a minimum global corporate tax rate of 15%, to limit tax avoidance and provide more government revenue to address growing challenges. FACE COMPLEXITY Helping government leaders - and others - understand that the growing drum-beat of disasters in the headlines is not about individual crises but a symptom of wider structural problems is crucial to reducing those threats, the report noted. "The way we understand and perceive risks influences our ability to respond to them," it said. "Since the risks associated with these disastrous events are interconnected, thinking in fragmented, isolated and insular ways is no longer tenable." Berlin-based O'Connor said Germany's catastrophic floods in July would likely spur efforts there to improve flood prevention infrastructure and early warning systems. But "if we don't look at why there was such an extreme event in the first place, it won't matter how well we prepare", as climate change drives wilder weather, he warned. "Politicians tend to shy away from tackling these very complex issues. But we’re getting to the stage where we can’t afford to do that anymore," he added.
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As bushfires and drought fed in part by climate change ravage Australia's southeast, heavy rains are bringing rare flooding to the country's desert interior. The usually dry Todd River passing through the outback capital of Alice Springs was awash with floodwater on Friday, closing roads to motorists and tourists. "Central Australia, the desert, it's just lush green grass and there's water everywhere, and the river's flowing. It's strange, it's very weird," Alice Springs council spokesman Trevor Packham told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "I've been here 24 years and I've never seen it like this." Alice Spings, close to Ayers Rock, plays host each year to the "Henley-On-Todd Dry River Boat Regatta", a light-hearted race in which teams race on foot along the sandy river bed in cardboard boats. The race aims to mimic England's famous Henley-on-Thames rowing regatta, but in the unlikely surroundings of Australia's red-dust interior. But this year heavy rain and storms have moved south into the desert along with cloud from a monsoon trough in the tropics. "Around 40 kilometres out of Alice Springs near the Tropic of Capricorn it is a metre over the road there and I've been told some tourists are stranded," Packham said. Television images showed children playing in shallows where rainfalls usually come years apart. The national weather bureau said this month that Australia appeared to be suffering from an accelerated climate change brought about by global warming. While the country's heavily populated southeast experiences its worst drought for a generation, the tropics and remote northwest are receiving unseasonally heavy rains accounting for more than Australia's yearly total average. The weather bureau in its annual climate statement said that, while average temperatures were rising, there were signs the seasonal El Nino weather phenomenon which brings severe drought to Indonesia and Australia's east was finally weakening. El Nino, which means "little boy" in Spanish and was first noticed by anchovy fishermen in South America, is caused by abnormally high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.
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Dhaka, Aug 30 (bdnews24.com)—Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed stressed regional and global cooperation at an international symposium on climate change and food security, which concluded Saturday with the signing of the Dhaka Symposium Declaration. Calling climate change a global issue, the chief adviser called for cooperative measures among neighbouring countries to reduce the impact of natural disasters and help adapt to foreseeable changes. "We must take comprehensive and integrated steps to combat the adverse effects of global warming on food security." Iceland's visiting president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, as guest speaker, also highlighted the global perspective, calling for international dialogue on the security implications of climate change. Dhaka University, Ohio State University, the World Meteorological Organisation, UNESCAP, and the Food and Agriculture Oragnisation jointly organised the six-day 'International Symposium on Climate Change and Food Security in South Asia'. "Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change given its geography. As a low lying mega-delta with three large river systems accompanied by heavy rainfall, floods have become an annual calamity," said the chief adviser in his closing address at the talks. He urged the world community, particularly high greenhouse gas emitters, to come forward in tackling the effects of climate change so that the worst affected countries could cope with the impact and maintain food security. "The greatest challenge Bangladesh faces is lifting some 50 million people out of poverty with adequate food, shelter, drinking water and health care," he said. Fakhruddin also mentioned the consecutive floods and last year's Cyclone Sidr that threatened the agricultural base of the country's economy and availability of food and nutrition for the people. "This ... challenge is made all the more difficult for Bangladesh because global warming has already started to affect food production, helping to raise food deficits over the last two decades," the chief adviser added. "The melting of the Himalayan glaciers and huge sediments carried by the rivers coupled with restricted drainage further worsen the situation," he said. Iceland's visiting president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson said that every state should be a constructive partner in a global dialogue on the security implications of climate change. He also suggested extensive initiatives beyond South Asia involving the countries that depend on the Himalaya region for their water, as experts predict that glaciers of the region were likely to disappear over the next 40-70 years. Grimsson said his country was also witnessing the alarming effects of climate change as the largest glaciers in Europe were located in Iceland. But, he added, his country could also serve as an inspiration of how to tackle and prevent adverse climate change through a comprehensive transformation of energy systems. "We have transformed the Icelandic economy from being predominantly dependent on fossil fuel into a world leader in the production and consumption of clean energy," he said. Grimsson pointed out: "If four pillars of modern society – scientific communities, governments, business sectors and civic associations can unite and combine their resources we can build the foundations for enormous success." "We therefore need a similar call to action, a visionary collaboration between brilliant minds accompanied by an invitation to all concerned citizens to become involved, to be heard and counted," he said. The key recommendations of the Dhaka Symposium Declaration include: establishing a Climate Change and Food Security Network in South Asia, strengthening existing regional and policy instruments and identifying multi-disciplinary approaches and innovative financial measures to effect adaption options. The closing ceremony, held at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel on Saturday, was chaired by Dhaka University vice chancellor SMA Faiz. FAO's Asia and the Pacific regional representative Changchui He, FAO country representative Ad Spijkers, commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman, and the chief adviser's special assistant in charge of environment and forests Raja Devashish Roy also spoke on the occasion.
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Frates Seeligson recalls when his ranch last saw rain: September of last year. That was around the time he took on an extra 200 cows to help a farmer whose fields were ravaged by Hurricane Ike. Talk about a perfect storm. The worst drought on record in this parched part of south-central Texas means his withered land can hardly support his own dwindling herds. Meanwhile, the worsening recession means that low-priced hamburger meat is replacing high-priced steak on American shopping lists, driving down beef prices. "These cows aren't in good shape," Seeligson said recently as he scattered protein cubes or pellets for some of the cattle in his herd at the crack of dawn on a mist-shrouded morning. The feed is meant to be supplemental but the grazing is so poor that it is now his herd's main source of nutrition. "Look at this black cow; you can see its hip bones," Seeligson said as the cattle crowded around his pick-up truck looking for their feed. Some of the calves have distended bellies and many of the cows look downright scrawny, with the outlines of ribs and backbones showing clearly through their hides. It is a sight that will break the heart of the hardest Texas cattleman. Seeligson's woes are felt by cattle ranchers across the country as the recession bites, with the U.S. cattle herd at its lowest level in 50 years and the calf herd at a 57-year bottom. Operators of feedlots that fatten up cattle for steaks with grains and other nutrients are also suffering. But the situation is particularly dire on the ranch lands around San Antonio and the Texas capital Austin. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, drought conditions there are now listed as "exceptional" -- its harshest rating -- highlighted on the map with a dark blood-red color. It is the only part of the country that currently has such a rating, making it even more severe than California, where a drought emergency has been declared. Seeligson's two ranches just to the east of San Antonio are both in this red zone. The National Weather Service says the area has just been through its driest 18-month period from September of 2007 to February 2009, and the short-term outlook is bleak. Texas Governor Rick Perry asked for disaster relief assistance on Friday for drought-stricken farmers across the state. "The forecast for the next three months is for below average rainfall for that area," said Victor Murphy, the Climate Service Program Manager at the Fort Worth, Texas-based Southern Region Headquarters of the National Weather Service. SHRINKING HERDS Seeligson's herd is normally about 1,300 head on his two ranches but right now it's about 1,000 -- and even that is too many given the poor state of his land. Under normal conditions his operation is strictly grazing with no confined feeding and is a cow/calf farm aimed at producing animals that should eventually be used for further production or be taken to the feedlots for fattening. Feeding his herd with supplements is getting too expensive and so he is caught in the classic drought and cattle vice: he will have to sell cattle but given the poor conditions and low beef price, no one in the area wants to buy any. "No one wants to buy cattle for calf production. So instead of selling them as productive cows I'll have to sell them to the meat market. The only buyers right now are the killers who make them into hamburger meat," he says. "McDonald's is doing good right now." Pointing to one cow that he reckons weighs around 900 pounds (408 kg), he says he would get $400 for it instead of the $600 he would normally expect. Other farmers in the area are also scaling back as they cut their losses, with local auctions in Texas reporting record low numbers of cattle on offer. Todd Weiner, who farms southeast of Austin, said his herd was down to 10 cows from around 60 because he couldn't even find hay in the area. WET AND DRY The weather in much of Texas has been fluctuating wildly between wet and dry spells over the past five years. Increasing frequency of extreme weather events is regarded by some scientists as a sign of human-induced climate change caused by fossil fuel emissions. But Murphy at the National Weather Service said it was "too short a time period to draw such assumptions." Regardless of the causes, it is making farming difficult in central and south Texas and raising questions about the long-term sustainability of ranching in the area as fast-growing cities compete for scarce water supplies. Seeligson says that over the past eight years he has seen two years of "incredible flooding" and three periods of drought -- enough to make any farmer's head spin. Given this backdrop, and the expansion of nearby San Antonio, which is one of America's fastest-growing cities and now its seventh largest, does he think cattle ranching is a long-term and viable option here? "There is a reason our forbearers started ranching here ... That was because the land was good, the rainfall was predictable. And now you have San Antonio and Austin and other cities growing into the area," said Seeligson, a fourth-generation rancher. "I pump water for my business and there will be a time where the question will be, is that water going toward someone brushing their teeth in San Antonio, or is it going to toward water for my livestock," he said. For now though, he just wishes it would rain.
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The world's third-largest emitter and last major economy to submit plans ahead of the Paris summit did not, however, commit to any absolute cuts in carbon emissions. Of the top two polluters, China has promised its emissions will peak by around 2030, and the United States is already cutting, but India says its economy is too small and its people too poor to agree to absolute cuts in greenhouse gases now. Instead, it said it aimed to cut carbon intensity - the amount of carbon per rupee of economic output - by between 33 and 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, and to grow to 40 percent the share of power generated from non-fossil fuels. The United Nations said 146 nations, accounting for almost 87 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions, have issued plans in the run-up to Paris. They include all members of the Group of 20 except Saudi Arabia, which fears for its oil exports. Experts say the pledges mark progress in climate action but - even if fully implemented - would not be enough to prevent the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial times. Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate chief, hailed the wide participation as a sign that Paris could be a "turning point" towards 2C, the level accepted by governments as the threshold beyond which the Earth would face dangerous changes including more droughts, extinctions, floods and rising seas. This offered opportunities for investments in "resilient, low-emission, sustainable development", she said. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said New Delhi's plan balances the need for a low-carbon future with the need to lift millions out of poverty and industrialise quickly. "Although the developed world has polluted the world and we are suffering, India will be part of the solution," he told journalists after submitting the pledges to the United Nations. "We want to walk on a cleaner energy path." India said it needs $2.5 trillion by 2030 to achieve its plan, but Javadekar did not say if its pledges were contingent on greater funding from the richer world. Coal to dominate India, often acting as the voice of the developing world, plays an important role in global climate talks. "India now has positioned itself as a global leader in clean energy," said Rhea Suh at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council. New Delhi stressed in its submission that coal would continue to dominate future power generation. Environmentalists fear India's emissions will jump as the use of cars, air travel and air conditioning grows among its 1.2 billion people. "The scale of expansion of another 170 to 200 gigawatts of power from coal is baffling. This will set back India’s development prospects," said Pujarini Sen of Greenpeace India. India's target for carbon intensity falls well short of China, which pledged at the end of June to reduce its carbon intensity by 60-65 percent by 2030. Preliminary estimates indicate India would need to spend around $206 billion between 2015 and 2030 to adapt to the effects of climate change, the submission said.
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In an election set to focus on wage growth and cost-of-living pressures, opposition leader Anthony Albanese on Monday failed to answer reporters' questions about unemployment numbers and interest rates as the campaign for the May 21 election kicked off. "We've got a massive economic opportunity coming out of this (coronavirus) pandemic. You can't risk it with a Labour Party and a Labour leader that can't manage money and has no economic plan," Morrison told reporters from the marginal Labour-held seat of Parramatta in western Sydney. Polls out on Monday showed Albanese-led, centre-left Labour were ahead of Morrison's conservative Liberal-National Party coalition, even as they showed the prime minister extending his lead as the country's preferred leader. Albanese, in damage control mode after his economic data gaffe, apologised for the errors. Quoting one of pop star Taylor Swift's biggest hits, he said he will "Shake it off" after reporters bombarded him with questions on whether the slip would cost Labor the election. "My approach is, I fessed up, I took responsibility, that is what I will do," Albanese said. "From time to time, if ever I make a mistake, I will own it and I will accept responsibility." Morrison said "despite fires, floods, a pandemic, a global recession, economic coercion from China and now a war in Europe," his government had driven the unemployment rate down to 13-year lows of 4%, from 5.7% when Labour left office in 2013. On Monday, Albanese initially said he thought the current rate was around 5.4%. "We've got the runs on the board," Morrison said in a reference to cricket, one of Australia's most popular sport, "and proven plans to deliver ... Boosting jobs creation to the levels we saw even before the pandemic is key to our plan for a stronger economy." The new jobs would be created "right across the economy," Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Channel Seven. Australia's unemployment rate looks certain to fall into the 3% range for the first time since the early 1970s, several months ahead of central bank forecasts, with some economists predicting it could dip below the budget forecast of 3.75%. Wage growth was also forecast to accelerate, but not by enough to outpace inflation, leaving real incomes set to shrink this year. To pacify disgruntled voters, the budget in March increased a tax break for 10 million low- and middle-income earners and offered one-off cash payments for pensioners and a temporary cut in fuel taxes.
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WASHINGTON, Dec 20, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US President Barack Obama on Saturday defended an international climate accord reached in Copenhagen as an "important breakthrough" but stressed that it was only a step toward curbing global carbon emissions. "For the first time in history, all of the world's major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action on the threat of climate change," Obama said in a statement after returning from the Danish capital overnight. United Nations climate talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement that fell well short of the conference's original goals after prolonged negotiations failed to paper over differences between rich nations and the developing world. Obama, who brokered an accord at the last moment with China, India, Brazil and South Africa to avoid coming home empty handed, acknowledged that talks had been tough. "After extremely difficult and complex negotiations, this important breakthrough laid the foundation for international action in the years to come," he said, speaking from a snow-bound White House as a winter storm blanketed Washington. "Going forward, we are going to have to build on momentum that we established in Copenhagen to ensure that international action to significantly reduce emissions is sustained and sufficient over time," Obama said. Critics complain the explicit deal struck in Copenhagen to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius provided no details of how this goal would be reached, and that the emission cuts that were promised would be insufficient to get there. Obama has staked significant political capital in pressing for climate change in Copenhagen while simultaneously pushing for healthcare reform back home, and he must contend with an increasingly climate-sceptical American public. A Washington Post-ABC News opinion poll published on Friday found 45 percent of those surveyed approved of his handling of global warming, down from 54 percent in June and 61 percent in April. Obama's broader approval ratings have also dipped as Americans contend with double-digit unemployment as the economy recovers from its worst recession in 70 years, and he sought on Saturday to link job creation with his climate policies. "At home, that means continuing our efforts to build a clean energy economy that has the potential to create millions of new jobs and new industries," he said. "If America leads in developing clean energy, we will lead in growing our economy and putting our people back to work."
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Durban, Dec 10 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)- South Africa struggled on Saturday to find a compromise deal that could save UN climate talks from collapse. Ministerial negotiations in the South African port city of Durban were put off until Saturday afternoon but with many delegates due to head home there was a strong chance real decisions would be put off until next year. That would be a major setback for host South Africa and raise the prospect that the Kyoto Protocol, the only global pact that enforces carbon cuts, could expire at the end of next year with no successor treaty in place. South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane late on Friday drafted fresh proposals after an initial draft was angrily rejected by the poor states most at risk from the devastating effects of global warming. However, those changes have failed to secure a consensus. Developing states and the European Union said the latest document contained no reference to how the fight against climate change would be paid for and set no date by when cuts to emissions must be decided. The text also deferred decisions on cutting emissions from international aviation and shipping to next year. "The political coalition is there to get an ambitious result, but we are almost literally working against the clock," said Britain's climate secretary Chris Huhne. "We can go on and we will go on as long as it takes, but there is a risk that a number of other delegations will, for one reason or another, will have to peel away," he said. "We're working very hard within those time constraints to get a successful outcome ... We are in the hands of the (South African) presidency as to the next steps." The European Union has tried to rally support for its plan to set a date of 2015 at the latest for a new climate deal that would impose binding cuts on the world's biggest emitters of heat-trapping gases. Any deal could then come into force up to five years later. WORST CASE But Washington says it will only pledge binding cuts if all major polluters make comparable commitments. China and India say it would be unfair to demand they make the same level of cuts as the developed world, which caused most of the pollution responsible for global warming. "Ministers are meeting to decide if they can agree on the big picture document and the Kyoto protocol text. If they can't agree it is possible there won't be an agreement," said Samantha Smith, leader of global climate and energy initiative at WWF International. One diplomatic source told Reuters: "The worst scenario is there will be no agreement on the core issues and it will go to next year." Delegates in Durban have also been discussing a raft of other measures, whose fate would be unclear if the talks ended inconclusively. They include measures to protect forests and another to bring to life the Green Climate Fund, designed to help poor nations tackle global warming. UN reports released in the last month show time is running out to restrict global warming to safe limits, generally accepted as within a 2 degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures. A warming planet has already intensified droughts and floods, increased crop failures and sea levels could rise to levels that would submerge several small island nations. Many of their delegates are frustrated that South Africa has failed to do enough to broker a deal that better protects the poor countries it pledged to help and failing to show the leadership needed to push through settlements. "They have let agreements slip through their fingers. If we do reach any outcome that advances the process, it will not be because of South Africa's leadership. It will be despite South Africa," said one envoy.
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Inspired by teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old student Aman Sharma launched a petition on Change.org in May after noticing that every successive year was getting hotter, drier, thirstier and more polluted, he said. "I started this campaign to put pressure on the government because if we keep silent right now then it's going to affect our survival in the future," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Friday as his petition gathered more than 170,000 signatures. His other demands to the environment ministry include increasing the country's green cover and meeting pledges made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to try to limit a rise in global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change did not respond to repeated requests for comment. With backing from several film personalities including actress Nathalie Kelley from US TV soap "Dynasty" as well as some Bollywood names, Sharma said his next aim was to draw Hollywood environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio's attention. On Wednesday, DiCaprio posted a photo on Instagram of women in the southern city of Chennai drawing pots of water from a near empty well, capturing the daily struggle of thousands. Chennai has been in the global spotlight since its four main reservoirs dried up earlier this month, largely because of poor monsoons in 2018, forcing residents to ration the use of water. The city was one of 21 cities predicted to run out of ground water by 2020, government think-tank NITI Aayog said in a report published last year. It warned that India faced the worst long-term water crisis in its history, with 600 million people - nearly half of India's population - at risk of facing acute shortage. In the north, a heatwave has killed at least 36 people this year, with New Delhi recording its highest-ever temperature of 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit). Jitendra Sharma, a popular Mumbai-based Instagram influencer, started a similar petition this week which had nearly 300,000 signatures by Friday. He said he was hopeful that the government would announce a climate emergency. "It is the need of the hour," he said, citing other countries taking similar action. In May Britain's parliament declared a symbolic climate change "emergency" in a nod to an increasing vocal activist movement particularly among young people in Europe. While there is no single definition of climate emergency, environmentalist Chandra Bhushan said it was the act of placing climate change at the centre of policy and planning decisions. "It means the Indian government will have to recognise we are in crisis, will have to set up an action plan," said Bhushan of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. "We are in trouble. Even if the Indian government does not recognise climate emergency now, it is a matter of time that they will have to."
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Days after Facebook's vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, touted the company's efforts to combat climate misinformation in a blog as the Glasgow summit began, conservative media network Newsmax ran an ad on Facebook that called man-made global warming a "hoax." The ad, which had multiple versions, garnered more than 200,000 views. In another, conservative commentator Candace Owens said, "apparently we're just supposed to trust our new authoritarian government" on climate science, while a US libertarian think-tank ran an ad on how "modern doomsayers" had been wrongly predicting climate crises for decades. Newsmax, Owens and the Daily Wire, which paid for the ad from Owens's page, did not respond to requests for comment. Facebook, which recently changed its name to Meta, does not have a specific policy on climate misinformation in ads or unpaid posts. Alphabet's Google said last month it would no longer allow ads that contradict scientific consensus on climate change on YouTube and its other services, though it would allow content that discusses false claims. Facebook generally does not remove misinformation in posts unless it determines they pose imminent real-world harm, as it did for falsehoods around COVID-19. The company says it demotes posts ranked as false by its third-party fact-checkers (of which Reuters is one) and prohibits ads with these debunked claims. It says advertisers that repeatedly post false information may face restrictions on their ability to advertise on Facebook. It exempts politicians' ads from fact-checks. Asked about ads pushing climate misinformation, a company spokesperson said in a statement: "While ads like these run across many platforms, Facebook offers an extra layer of transparency by requiring them to be available to the public in our Ad Library for up to seven years after publication." UK-based think-tank InfluenceMap, which identified misleading Facebook ads run from several media outlets and think-tanks around COP26, also found fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups spent $574,000 on political and social issue Facebook ads during the summit, resulting in more than 22 million impressions and including content that promoted their environmental efforts in what InfluenceMap described as "greenwashing https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/slowly-european-regulators-turn-up-heat-greenwashing-2021-11-04. " One ad paid for by the American Petroleum Institute panned over a natural landscape as it touted its efforts to tackle climate change, while BP America ran an ad detailing its support for climate-friendly policies in neon green writing. "Our social media posts represent a small fraction compared to the robust investments our companies make every day," the API said in a statement, saying the natural gas and oil industry was committed to lowering emissions. BP said in a statement that it was "actively advocating for policies that support net zero, including carbon pricing, through a range of transparent channels, including social media advertising." Facebook has started adding informational labels to posts about climate change to direct users to its Climate Science Center, a new hub with facts and quizzes which it says is visited by more than 100,000 people a day. Asked in an interview aired this week at the Reuters Responsible Business USA 2021 https://reutersevents.com/events/rbs-usa event where he thought Facebook still fell short on climate issues, Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer said, "Obviously, there's been concern about people sharing misinformation about climate on Facebook." "I'm not going to say we have it right at any moment in time," he said. "We continually reevaluate what the state of the world is and what is our role, which starts with trying to allow people free expression, and then intervening when there are harms happening that we can prevent." He did not directly answer why Facebook had not banned all climate misinformation ads but said it "didn't want people to profit over misinformation." EMPLOYEES QUESTION POLICY The company's approaches to climate misinformation and skepticism have caused employee debate. Discussions on its internal message board show staff sparring over how it should handle climate misinformation and flagging instances of it on the platform, such as in a January post where an employee said they found "prominent results of apparent misinformation" when they searched for climate change in its video 'Watch' section. The documents were among a cache of disclosures made to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress by whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who left in May. Reuters was among a group of news organizations able to view the documents. In the comments on an April post highlighting Facebook's commitment to reducing its own environmental impact, including by reaching net zero emissions for its global operations last year, one staff member asked if the company could start classifying and removing climate misinformation and hoaxes from its platforms. Two external researchers working with Facebook on its climate change efforts told Reuters they would like to see the company approach climate misinformation with the same proactiveness it has for COVID-19, which Facebook cracked down on during the pandemic. "It does need to be addressed with the same level of urgency," said John Cook, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University who is advising Facebook on its climate misinformation work. "It is arguably more dangerous."
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Climate activist Greta Thunberg was approaching Lisbon aboard a catamaran on Tuesday after crossing the Atlantic from New York, Reuters Television footage showed, before her appearance at a summit in Madrid to demand urgent action on global warming. The boat, La Vagabonde, carried the Swedish campaigner, who refuses to travel by plane, across the ocean so she could attend the COP25 climate summit in Madrid. She will spend the day holding meetings with Portuguese climate activists and resting before her departure for Madrid. "Heading into Lisbon!" she posted on Twitter along with photographs aboard the vessel. Portugal’s environment minister Matos Fernandes thanked Greta for her activism in a letter last Thursday, having already departed for COP25. The country’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said it was a ‘great pleasure’ to have her in Lisbon but did not feel it was his place to personally greet the activist. Thunberg missed last Friday’s climate strike as heavy winds delayed her arrival to Lisbon but she is due to join thousands of activists marching in Madrid on Friday afternoon on the fringes of the COP25. The conference kicked off on Monday with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warning that the planet had reached a "point of no return". Top priorities include establishing a common time frame for countries to implement their national climate commitment plans, and resolving the issue of international carbon markets, the only aspect of the Paris rule book which delegates failed to agree on at last year’s COP24 in Poland.
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Koichi Mizushima, a Japan Foreign Ministry spokesman while briefing journalists on Saturday, said the minister’s visit was aimed at ‘renewing cooperation’ with Bangladesh, a country which has been ‘traditionally very friendly towards Japan’.Kishida is the first foreign minister to visit Dhaka after the controversial Jan 5 parliamentary election, which the opposition BNP and its allies boycotted.The spokesman said they found this visit ‘a suitable timing for strengthening bilateral relationship’ as a new government was formed.“It (relationship) should be comprehensive partnership,” he said, quoting his minister who spoke for such cooperation during the bilateral talks he held with AH Mahmood Ali, his Bangladeshi counterpart, in the morning.The minister, who arrived here last night, would also meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina before leaving Dhaka for Myanmar around 9pm Saturday.Japan had issued several statements in the run-up to the Jan 5 elections when Bangladesh witnessed widespread violence. Its envoy in Dhaka Shiro Shadoshima was worried as the unrest was causing panic among its investors.But in the press briefing, the spokesperson evaded a direct answer to the question on whether the current political standoff between the two major parties over polls-time administration would stand in the way of strengthening the two countries’ partnership.He said the visiting foreign minister appreciated that BNP was participating in the ongoing local government elections and that he expected ‘democracy will be further promoted in the country’.The spokesperson said the relationship between the two countries would be on all fronts, “not only at the political level”.He mostly stressed on economic relations and people-to-people contact, saying Japanese investment is growing fast in Bangladesh.In the last seven years the number of Japanese companies operating in Bangladesh has nearly tripled --from 61 in 2007 to 176 in 2013.Japan, which established diplomatic ties with Bangladesh in February 1972, is the largest bilateral development partner of the country.Its assistance comes regularly as grant, aid, technical assistance and soft loan. The total grants and aid reached $11 billion last year.Aid packageCurrently the two countries are negotiating on the 35th package of its ‘soft loan’.The spokesperson said Japan had already promised a loan of 120 billion Yen ($1.18 billion) for five projects, mostly in the energy and city development sectors.“But we did not specify the projects yet,” he said.Japan considers Bangladesh ‘a moderate Islamic country that has huge economic potential and is located at a point of strategic importance connecting Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East’, he said.He spoke about maintaining ‘investment friendly’ environment, which he said was improving ‘to some extent’.Replying to a question, the spokesperson said the issue of holding fresh elections that Japan’s ally, the US was calling for, ‘has not come up’ during the bilateral talks.He said his minister also conveyed Prime Minister Sinzo Abe’s invitation to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to visit Japan ‘at a mutually convenient time’. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry in a media release said Minister Mahmood Ali also invited Japanese Premier to Dhaka which his counterpart ‘agreed to convey and facilitate’.Ali said, “The people of Bangladesh eagerly looking forward to Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Bangladesh.”Bangladesh’s Premier visited Japan in 2010 while the last visit of any Japanese Premier was in 2000.The two foreign ministers exchanged views on a whole range of issues of bilateral, regional and international interest.Bangladesh expressed its interest in concluding an ‘Economic Partnership Agreement’ considering the ‘growing synergies’ between the economies of the two countries.Visa exemptionsThe two ministers agreed to initiate ‘working level consultations’ to reach an understanding on regular Foreign Office Consultations, visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders as well as Economic Partnership Agreement. The two sides also exchanged views on possibilities of Japan financing some key mega-infrastructure projects in Bangladesh.Bangladesh side stressed that Japan could ‘effectively contribute in promoting regional connectivity and integration, including BCIM Economic Corridor’.The two Foreign Ministers agreed that both Bangladesh and Japan could work together for mutual benefit under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).The Japanese Foreign Minister commended Bangladesh’s achievements in disaster management, and said that Japan had much to learn from Bangladesh’s experience.He invited Bangladesh to participate at the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to be held in Sendai in March next year.Japan also ‘positively responded’ to the idea of setting up a ‘Peace-building Centre’ in Bangladesh and offered to initiate bilateral consultations at the working level in this regard, Bangladesh foreign ministry also said.
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France dug its heels in on Thursday against setting a binding target for renewable energy sources in the European Union, setting up a potential summit clash with its closest ally Germany next week. A French official said Paris continued to oppose making the goal of obtaining 20 percent of the EU's energy needs by 2020 from renewable sources such as solar and wind power mandatory. However, diplomats said Germany was insisting on a binding target to underpin the EU's drive for world leadership in the fight against climate change and had maintained that objective in a draft communique for the March 8-9 EU summit. "We are not in favour of fixing binding targets in renewable energy," said the French official after EU ambassadors argued over the draft statement on Wednesday. "It is up to each member state, in all flexibility and subsidiarity, to set its own objective. Our position has not changed," he said. Subsidiarity is the principle that decisions should be taken at the lowest effective level of government. Significantly, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will chair the meeting under Germany's EU presidency, omitted any mention of a mandatory target for renewables in a speech to parliament in Berlin previewing the summit. British officials signalled on Wednesday that Prime Minister Tony Blair had dropped Britain's resistance to a binding target after Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso convinced him it would give the EU's green leadership greater credibility. Some EU diplomats said they expect French President Jacques Chirac to yield at the summit in exchange for some recognition that France's nuclear power programme helps cut carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming. But about 10 other countries, including several ex-communist central European new member states racing to catch up economically with the wealthy west, are also against accepting a binding renewables target. One possible compromise, diplomats said, might be to make the 20 percent target binding on the EU as a whole but not on individual member states, leaving burden-sharing to be negotiated later. Nuclear energy is highly sensitive in the EU due to strong public opposition in countries such as Germany and Austria.
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The 4.6 sq km island, part of the Sundarbans delta on the Bay of Bengal, has nearly halved in size over the past two decades, according to village elders. The tiny island is home to 4,800 people, down from 7,000 a decade ago. "If a tsunami or a big cyclone hits this island we will be finished," said Sanjib Sagar, village leader on the island 150 km south of the Indian city of Kolkata. Villagers work in a paddy field on Ghoramara Island, India, Aug 19, 2018. Ghoramara Island, part of the Sundarbans delta on the Bay of Bengal, has nearly halved in size over the past two decades, according to village elders. REUTERS The Sundarbans, shared by India and Bangladesh, include the world's largest mangrove forest as well as rare or endangered tigers, dolphins, birds and reptiles. Villagers work in a paddy field on Ghoramara Island, India, Aug 19, 2018. Ghoramara Island, part of the Sundarbans delta on the Bay of Bengal, has nearly halved in size over the past two decades, according to village elders. REUTERS Ghoramara is among many islands in the delta affected by rising sea levels and soil erosion experts say is caused by climate change. Residents say the flood waters are getting worse, threatening their homes and livelihoods. "If government gives rehabilitation I will leave," said Sheikh Aftab Uddin, sitting outside his new mud house with his wife, after his previous home was destroyed by flood waters. Half of the villagers are ready to move if the government provided free land in a safer area, Sagar said, but there has been no response to their request for compensation or to move people off the island. Two people in the office of Javed Ahmed Khan, the minister in charge of disaster management in the state government of West Bengal, declined to comment on whether it had any plans to relocate inhabitants. Sheikh Aftab Uddin, 66, and his wife Mamta Bibi, 50, pose for a picture outside their new mud house after their previous house was washed away due to high tides on Ghoramara Island, India, Aug 19, 2018. REUTERS Floods have churned the island's shoreline into mud fringed with broken coconut palms. Fishermen cast their nets to try to take advantage of the rising waters. Sheikh Aftab Uddin, 66, and his wife Mamta Bibi, 50, pose for a picture outside their new mud house after their previous house was washed away due to high tides on Ghoramara Island, India, Aug 19, 2018. REUTERS As well as damaging homes, floods destroy valuable betel leaf crops that many islanders have depended on for a living. "Every year, high-tide salt water enters my farm and destroys my cultivation, so I have to face a big loss," said Mihir Kumar Mondal, a betel leaf farmer. Climate change experts say the entire island population will have to be relocated one day. "There has to be some planning for those people, in terms of relocating them to other areas. Frankly speaking, this has to be in the plan of the government," said Suruchi Bhadwal, a researcher on climate change at the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute.
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- At the rim of the Arctic Circle in Canada, gold mining firm Agnico-Eagle is learning how tough it is to operate in a remote region with temptingly large, but frustratingly inaccessible, reserves of oil, gas and minerals. Commentators rarely mention nightmarish logistics, polar bears and steel-snapping cold when they confidently predict that as the Arctic warms up, melting sea ice and shorter winters will open up the expanse to exploration. But the rosy words obscure the reality of working in an icy wasteland that stretches across Russia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada. And rather than making life easier, the warming of the Arctic and the thawing of its permafrost could make operating here even more complicated. A closer look at the far northern Canadian territory of Nunavut, one of the most promising areas for exploration, reveals challenges so huge that the Arctic may well turn out to be a niche market where big firms with a serious tolerance for risk and adversity develop a handful of major deposits. For all the talk of a bonanza there is just one mine working in Nunavut today - Agnico-Eagle's Meadowbank operation, which has cost a total of $1.5 billion so far. The gold mine, literally in the middle of nowhere, is surrounded by dikes that keep a series of shallow lakes at bay. Temperatures plunge to minus 50 degrees centigrade (minus 58 Fahrenheit) in winter, bringing with it the risk of almost instant frostbite and mechanical failures. Most workers have to be flown in, as long as the often foul weather cooperates. The only land access is a gravel road the company built to Baker Lake, a small town 70 miles to the south. The road - which was supposed to cost $275,000 a km to build - came in at $550,000 per km. It's no surprise that Agnico-Eagle chief executive Sean Boyd concedes such projects are not for the faint of heart. "With assets up here in the north, you need big tonnage operations, you can't have a small footprint given the cost structure," he said. SHORT SHIPPING SEASON There is virtually no infrastructure in Nunavut, a 810,000 square mile (2 million square km) expanse of rock and ice twice the size of western Europe. Dotted across the territory is a largely unskilled aboriginal Inuit population of just 33,000. Heavy equipment, spare-parts and diesel fuel all arrive during a short summer shipping window, first by barge and then along that costly road. "It's hard to believe we are in the geographic center of Canada, because simple things like parts for an emergency breakdown have to be flown in," said Agnico-Eagle's President Ebe Scherkus. "What the last 16 months has taught us is there's long-term planning and then there's very long-term planning on a site like this." In March, a fire destroyed the kitchen and forced the firm to evacuate over 300 employees and operate the mine with a skeleton crew. A new multimillion dollar kitchen will arrive later this summer. Such travails help explain why Nunavut was for so long an insignificant player, although there are other problems too. The harsh climate closes down many exploration sites from October to March. Polar bears prowl and snowstorms slash visibility. There is little or no sunlight for three months a year in the far north and low winter temperatures mean metal starts to snap, oil thickens and helicopters stop flying. Even in the summer months, the weather can be a challenge for pilots. A First Air Boeing B-737 jet crashed near the Nunavut settlement of Resolute Bay on Aug 20, killing 12 people. Eyewitnesses said the area had been foggy at the time. And if that was not enough, companies will need to work out how to access their sites in warming weather, and how to cope with the gradual thawing of the permafrost, the frozen layer of soil that sits about two meters under the surface. "We know how to build on permafrost, we know how to build on non-permafrost. What we don't know how to do is build on permafrost that will thaw," said University of Ottawa professor Antoni Lewkowicz, a leading permafrost expert. SOFTENING PERMAFROST In parts of the Canadian and U.S. Arctic, buildings are already starting to collapse and roads crumble as the frozen ground warms up. Yet for all the challenges, high commodity prices are persuading companies to look again at deposits which were once too expensive to exploit and there is something of an exploration boom. Companies spent C$30 million ($30.6 million) on exploration in Nunavut in 1999, a figure that is set to hit C$325 million this year. Nunavut has significant advantages over its Arctic rivals such as Russia, Alaska and Norway -- land tenure is secure, the politics are stable, the territory is vast and has a nicely varied geology. "It is what we like to call in exploration elephant country," said Brooke Clements, president of junior mining firm Peregrine Diamonds. "There's still the potential to find really big world class deposits." Yet geological mapping is grossly inadequate and prospecting from scratch so costly that it's hard know what riches Nunavut may still be hiding. Peregrine found a promising series of diamond-bearing kimberlite rock formations near Iqaluit after three summers of collecting up to 30 soil samples a day by helicopter, at the cost of C$1,000 per sample. The federal government, keen to kick-start development, has launched a project to examine 20 relatively small areas deemed to have potential, and then release the data. "We find a haystack and industry finds the needle," said Linda Richard, the project coordinator. That said, most of the major deposits now under consideration have been known about for decades. Along with Peregrine and its joint venture partner BHP Billiton, Xstrata, ArcelorMittal, Areva, Newmont and China's MMG are variously pursuing gold, diamonds, iron ore, lead, zinc and uranium in Nunavut. STAGGERING SUMS NEEDED TO START PRODUCTION Still, the amount spent on exploration is tiny compared to the staggering sums needed to start production. Newmont has spent $2 billion so far on its Hope Bay gold deposits in western Nunavut and there is no guarantee a mine will ever be built. Baffinland, owned 70 percent by ArcelorMittal, is proposing to invest C$4.1 billion on a 149 km railway and two ports - not to mention a special fleet of huge ships - to exploit the huge Mary River iron ore deposit on Baffin Island​. This is slated to produce 21 million tons of ore a year for 21 years. The message is clear: Nunavut is not the place for small fry. "It is inherently the case that operating in the North ... is more expensive and so it's generally the larger organizations that can take on those green field developments," said Baffinland president Tom Paddon. Baffinland's proposed railway is in an area of relatively cold permafrost, but that could change. "They certainly have to be taking climate change into consideration ... It's not a terribly warm place but the potential is that it could become a great deal warmer in the next century," said Lewkowicz. "There's a real economic question, as well as a science and engineering question, associated with building on permafrost that if not going to thaw, is at least going to warm." One solution is to drive piles deep into the frozen layers to support roads, buildings and railways. The other is to install a series of costly thermosiphons, giant special coolers that help keep the ground firm. "The economics of a mine up here are a lot different than the economics of a mine somewhere else down south," said Bernie MacIsaac, head of Nunavut operations for the federal Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development ministry. SUMMER SWAMPS The warming climate will also hit drilling firms, which produce samples that determine if a mine is built. Permafrost is covered in a layer of soil that can quickly turn to swamp in summer, making it hard to operate tracked vehicles or move around without using helicopters. "The warmer it gets, the tougher it gets ... For every dollar you spend on drilling you spend two on helicopters," said Francis McGuire of Canada-based Major Drilling, one of the world's largest drilling firms. "We like things for us to be fairly cold because we want things to freeze ... We want a bit of snow, particularly on ice, because a bit of snow will insulate the ice, but we don't want a lot of snow because then we can't move." Although snowfall could increase as temperatures rise, Nunavut is currently so dry and cold that the average snow cover is only around 2 feet (0.6 meter) in winter, when frozen lakes and rivers can be turned into ice roads for the heavy trucks that supply the mines. One such road, stretching 370 miles to the Diavik and Ekati diamond mines in the Northwest Territories and then to the abandoned Jericho diamond mine in western Nunavut, costs around C$35 million a year and operates for around eight to 10 weeks. A warming Arctic could shrink the season and drive up costs. Indeed, one reason given for Jericho's closure in 2008 was the unusually short life of the ice road in 2006, which meant some equipment had to be flown in. The University of California predicts that by 2050, increasing temperatures mean Canada could lose nearly 155,000 square miles (400,000 square km) of land accessible by winter road, an area slightly larger than Germany. "With the ice melting and thinning and forming fewer months throughout the year, that could cause serious, serious nightmares for exploration in the North," said Benoit Beauchamp, who heads the Arctic Institute of North America at the University of Calgary. And global warming will not necessarily help shipping. At the top of the world lies a permanent ice cap which is continually trying to force chunks of rock-hard permanent ice down into shipping channels. A large ice plug currently blocks the way but if it were to melt there would be nothing to stop icebergs from moving south and tearing holes into ships. A more immediate threat is the almost total lack of infrastructure in Nunavut, which has no major ports and only one public road of any length. The departure lounge at Iqaluit's tiny airport is basically a large room and when three flights leave at the same time, as they do most afternoons, the result is mildly chaotic. Other crucial services are also lacking. Some survivors from the recent crash in Resolute Bay had to be flown to a hospital in the federal capital Ottawa, some 2,100 miles to the south. WANTED: PORTS, ROADS AND AIRPORTS "It's ludicrous when you really look at the lack of resources or infrastructure that we have," grumbled Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak. She wants more help from the federal government, which in turn cites financial constraints as well as the lack of a formal land use plan for Nunavut. After 17 years of negotiations, a draft might be ready later this year. Things move slowly in the North. Companies gripe about a complex regulatory regime that means it can take years to get approval for projects. The Inuit, torn between the urgent need for jobs and a desire to protect the environment and wildlife they rely on for food, have an effective veto over most development. Firms wanting to open a mine often have to strike special agreements with the Inuit, typically to cover compensation for environmental disturbances and offer guarantees of employment. "The upfront capital costs of working in Nunavut for a mining company are very, very high," said Chris Hanks of Newmont. "Are those agreements going to make or break projects? Probably not. But do they figure into the bigger range of economics that do make or break projects? Yes." Nunavut would not start making real money from royalties until it struck oil. That day seems decades away, even though the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic as a whole contains 22 percent of the world's undiscovered, technically recoverable resources of oil and gas. The one area of Nunavut known to contain energy reserves is in and around the ice-clogged waters of Ellef Rignes island - a slab of rock in the far north with the worst weather in Canada. "It's a terrible place to get to ... It's a bad location; it's just a really difficult place to work," said Keith Dewing, who leads a team of government scientists studying where the most promising energy reserves might be. "Our level of understanding up there is just not all that great in so many areas ... If someone came to you and said 'Hey, is there a resource there?,' it's embarrassing but you have to say 'You know what? I'm really not sure.'" Even if oil were discovered in large quantities, it might never be extracted. A spill the size of the Gulf of Mexico disaster would be far tougher to handle, given the lack of infrastructure, the weather and the impact on wildlife which the Inuit rely on. The Nunavut government, which is keen to develop the economy to help ease serious social problems among the Inuit, seems almost bemused by commentators linking climate change to a surge in mining activity. "Most of the word that's out there is from (people) who have never visited Canada, (they) say that 'The ice is melting, the ice is gone'. Nothing is going to happen for many years yet ... I've got to say we're quite happy with what's happening now," said Peter Taptuna, minister for economic development.
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Gates and a group of developing and developed countries will agree to double their research and development budgets to boost clean energy deployment and work collaboratively, according to GreenWire, an energy and climate trade publication, citing government and business officials familiar with the agreement. Access to clean energy technology will play a key role in a global agreement to combat climate change. More than 190 countries will negotiate a new pact in Paris from Nov 30 to Dec 11. Gates will join Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande to announce Initiative Cleantech at a side event on the opening day of the two-week climate summit, according to a summit agenda released by the French government Friday. For India, the world's third largest greenhouse gas emitter, access to clean energy technology is at the core of its national strategy to combat climate change. India has argued that developed countries need to help poorer countries gain access to renewable energy or zero emission technologies by helping reduce incremental costs and removing barriers such as intellectual property rights. On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, Gates attended a bilateral meeting focused on climate change between Hollande and Modi. "With people like him (Gates) getting involved, there is a real possibility of there being private-sector partnerships on the technology side," a Modi spokesman said after the Sep 29 meeting. Gates has pledged $2 billion of his personal wealth over the next five years to "bend the curve" on climate change, he said this summer. In a blog post in July, Gates said more breakthrough technologies are needed to combat climate change and that current technologies can only reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a “beyond astronomical” cost. He said accelerating government funding for clean energy research and development is crucial to attracting private investment to the field.
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Prime Minister Tony Blair warned on Friday of a generation-long struggle against militant Islam and said British troops must be prepared to fight wars as well as keep the peace. Blair's speech, given on the Navy assault ship HMS Albion, was clearly intended as a rallying cry to a nation worried about the growing British military death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was also responding to a military that has grown increasingly vocal in its complaints about overstretched forces, inadequate equipment and a lack of funding and support. Blair, who will step down this year after a decade in power, strongly defended Britain's intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. In militant Islam, the West faced an opponent similar to "revolutionary communism in its early and most militant phase", he said. Retreating in the face of this threat would be a catastrophe because it would strengthen global terrorism, he said. It would also be futile as it would only postpone a confrontation. "The battle will be long. It has taken a generation for this global movement, for the enemy, to grow. It will in all probability take a generation to defeat," he said. It would be easy for Britain to slip quietly into the role of a leader in the fight against climate change and global poverty while leaving fighting wars to others, Blair said. In this scenario, Britain's armed forces could be relegated to peace-keeping and the country's influence reduced, he said. But world problems could not be dealt with in isolation and their solution sometimes involved force, Blair said. "So my choice would be for our armed forces to be those that are prepared to engage in this difficult, tough, challenging campaign, for our armed forces to be warfighters as well as peacekeepers," Blair told an invited audience at the Devonport naval base in Plymouth, southwest England. If Britain made that choice it would have to make new commitments, he said. "It will mean increased expenditure on equipment, personnel and the conditions of our armed forces, not in the short run but for the long term." The public had to be prepared for long campaigns and the military had to be prepared to take casualties, he said. Blair has said he will step down this year in part because of public anger over his unswerving support for President George W. Bush's military intervention in Iraq. Britain has around 7,100 troops in southern Iraq and nearly 6,000 fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bush said this week he would send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq to try to restore order to Baghdad, but Britain has no plans to follow suit. The commander of British forces in southern Iraq said last month that British troops had suffered a generation of under-funding and neglect. News reports say almost half the Royal Navy's ships are to be "mothballed" to save money. Blair said Britain planned a "massive" shipbuilding programme, likely to be worth around 14 billion pounds ($27 billion) over the next 10 to 15 years.
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Children will increasingly bear the brunt of global warming, a report said on Friday, while another said the climate would continue to heat up in coming decades regardless of efforts to curb emissions of carbon gases. A third report, coming as scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finalize their analysis of what climate change will do to the planet this century, said business was already feeling its effects. The Save the Children charity said up to 175 million children would be affected every year over the next decade by climate-related disasters like droughts, floods and storms. This, it said, was 50 million a year more than in the 10 years to 2005. Being society's vulnerable members, children would be hurt disproportionately, and millions more would be killed, forced from their homes or hit by hunger and disease. "Children are already bearing the brunt of climate change and there will be millions more children caught up in climate-related natural disasters every year," said Jasmine Whitbread, head of Save the Children UK. Scientists predict global average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century, mainly due to burning fossil fuels for power and transport. Business is already starting to feel adverse effects, according to another study on Friday by catastrophe risk modeling firm Risk Management Solutions. It said financial losses from weather-related catastrophes had risen on average by two percent a year since the 1970s, and pointed to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "Wealthy developed countries have much greater means than poorer countries to deal with the increased costs of weather-related catastrophes and to adapt to the changing climate hazards," said RMS research officer Robert Muir-Wood. "However, even the wealthiest countries will find it a challenge to adapt quickly and effectively to the increased hazards posed by climate change," he added. Britain's Environment Agency said in another report on Friday that because of the time delay in the warming effects of carbon gases in the atmosphere, temperatures would continue to rise for the next 40 years regardless of emissions curbs. As a result, the country would have to pour resources into coping with events like flooding and torrential rain storms. "Our present efforts to reduce emissions will prevent destabilization of the climate during the second half of the century," Environment Agency chief Barbara Young said. "But for now we need to adapt to changes that are for all practical purposes unavoidable and committed," she added. "This means increased risk of flooding, coastal tide surges, water shortages and potential loss of biodiversity."
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NASA said at the weekend that last month was the warmest April in statistics dating back to the 19th century, the seventh month in a row to break temperature records. The meeting of government experts on Monday is the first since 195 nations reached a deal in Paris in December to limit climate change by shifting from fossil fuels to green energies by 2100. It will begin to work out the details of the plan. "The Paris Agreement represents the foundations ... Now we have to raise the walls, the roof of a common home," French Environment Minister Segolene Royal told a news conference. The agreement sets targets for shifting the world to green energies by 2100 but it is vague in certain points, for instance, about how governments will report and monitor their national plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Many government delegates at the start of the May 16-26 U.N. talks, in Bonn, Germany, expressed concern about rising temperatures and extremes events such as damage to tropical coral reefs, wildfires in Canada or drought in India. "We have no other option but to accelerate" action to limit warming, Christiana Figueres, the U.N. climate chief, told a news conference when asked about the NASA data. She said record temperatures were partly caused by a natural warming effect of an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, magnified by the build-up of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. She said national promises for curbing greenhouse gases put the world on track for a rise in temperatures of between 2.5 and 3 degrees Celsius (4.5 to 5.4 Fahrenheit), well above an agreed ceiling in the Paris text of "well below" 2C (3.6F) with a target of 1.5C (2.7F). "Certainly we are not yet on the path" for the Paris temperature targets, she said. Last month, the Paris Agreement was signed by 175 governments at a New York ceremony, the most ever for an opening day of a U.N. deal, and including top emitters China and the United States. The agreement will enter into force once 55 nations representing 55 percent of world emissions have formally ratified. Royal said she would submit a bill on Tuesday to the French National Assembly seeking ratification.
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Finding ways of safely burying carbon dioxide could be the only way of keeping greenhouse gas emissions below dangerous levels, the International Energy Agency's chief economist said on Thursday. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seen by industry and some lawmakers as a possible silver bullet in the fight against climate change as it could curb growing emissions from coal plants. But it has never been tested on a commercial scale and it is strongly opposed by some environmentalists, who argue it is unsafe, will not be ready in time and could divert investment away from truly green sources of power. IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said CCS was the technological breakthrough the world was looking for in the fight against global warming, and any economic and technological challenges could be overcome with government support. The EU says any warming of the climate by more than 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels will bring more damaging heat waves, storms, coastal flooding and water shortages. The bloc has adopted ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth by 2020 from 1990 levels. However, a United Nations panel of scientists says that target will be hard to achieve and that its best guess for temperature rises this century is between 1.8 and 4 degrees Celsius. "What we need is a key technology, which is carbon capture and storage," Birol told a briefing with Brussels think-tank the Lisbon Council. "This is a key technology that can take us to the 2 degrees if it is pushed appropriately, at the appropriate time and appropriate conditions," he said. Carbon capture has become a contentious issue in recent weeks, with EU lawmakers debating new CCS legislation in the European Parliament. Greenpeace issued a report earlier this month describing the technology as a "false hope", but some other green groups including WWF see it as a vital stop-gap. Birol added: "At the G8 meeting next month in Hokkaido in Japan, this will be our message: If you are serious on the climate change issue, your support, and the support of carbon capture and storage, will be your litmus test." He also said the promotion of CCS would be a key part of the IEA's annual report in November, which would include a recommendation that the UN-led Kyoto scheme starts rewarding CCS in its clean development mechanism. Companies preparing CCS projects include StatoilHydro, E.ON, RWE, Scottish & Southern Energy, Scottish Power, owned by Iberdrola, and a joint venture between BP and Rio Tinto called Hydrogen Energy.
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That level of warming, measured against preindustrial levels, is likely to increase the frequency of deadly heat waves and threaten coastal cities with rising sea levels, the country-by-country analysis concluded. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said it shows that “the world is on a catastrophic pathway.” Perhaps most starkly, the new report displayed the large gap between what the scientific consensus urges world leaders to do and what those leaders have been willing to do so far. Emissions of planet-warming gases are poised to grow by 16 percent during this decade compared with 2010 levels, even as the latest scientific research indicates that they need to decrease by at least a quarter by 2030 to avert the worst impacts of global warming. Guterres is likely to drive home the sense of urgency next week when the world’s presidents and prime ministers gather for the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly. It will continue to loom over the meeting of the 20 largest economies, known as the Group of 20, at their gathering in Rome in late October, and then be the focus of the United Nations-led international climate talks in November in Scotland. Talks don’t always yield results, though, as was made clear at a virtual meeting that President Joe Biden hosted Friday, designed to nudge countries to make more ambitious pledges. Several key countries with high emissions, notably China, sent mid-level envoys. “Now, science is shouting from the rooftops that it’s time to level up actions in an order of magnitude sufficient to the challenge,” Christiana Figueres, a former head of the UN climate agency, said in a statement. “All other geopolitical issues will fade into irrelevance if we fail to rise to the existential challenge that climate change presents.” Altogether, nearly 200 countries have made voluntary pledges to reduce or slow down emissions of planet-warming gases under the Paris Agreement, reached in 2015 with the aim of averting the worst climate impacts. Some countries have since strengthened their pledges, including some of the world’s biggest emitters, such as the United States, Britain and the European Union. But still missing are new pledges from 70 countries, including China, which currently produces the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as Saudi Arabia and India, both large economies with a significant climate footprint. Brazil, Mexico and Russia submitted new pledges that have weaker emissions targets than their previous ones. All those pledges, taken together, are far short of what’s needed to limit global temperature rise to levels that would avert the worst impacts of warming, the report confirms. The Paris Agreement set a target of limiting average temperature rise compared with pre-industrial levels to well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century. Since then, because of advances in research, the scientific consensus is that the rise needs to be limited to 1.5 C; beyond that threshold, there is a far greater likelihood of devastating consequences, including widespread crop failures and collapse of the polar ice sheets. So far, global temperatures have risen about 1 C since the late 19th century. For its part, the United States, which has produced the largest share of global emissions since the beginning of the industrial age, has pledged to cut its emissions by 50 percent to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade, a target that is shy of the commitments of the EU and Britain. But it is already proving to be difficult, especially politically, and it remains to be seen whether Biden will be able to persuade members of Congress to support major climate legislation before he goes to the international climate talks in November. At Friday's White House meeting, known as the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, Biden implored the leaders of nine countries and the European Commission to act faster and more aggressively to slash greenhouse gases. He also announced that the United States and Europe have pledged to help reduce methane emissions 30 percent globally by 2030 and asked other nations to join that effort. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. “I need to tell you the consequences of inaction,” Biden said. Pointing to recent extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods and wildfires around the country, flooding across Germany and Belgium, fires raging in Australia and Russia, and a record temperature in the Arctic Circle, Biden told leaders, “We don’t have a lot of time.” A recent analysis by Climate Action Tracker found that no major emitters have a climate pledge in keeping with the target of 1.5 C. Several countries, including Britain and the EU, are close. The United States is not. “Governments are letting vested interests call the climate shots, rather than serving the global community,” Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, said in a statement. The timing of the synthesis report, as it’s called, is as important as its content. The next round of international climate talks are barely six weeks away, and there is still uncertainty about who can attend considering travel restrictions to limit the spread of the coronavirus. It is unclear if some of the world’s biggest economies, including China and India, will announce new climate pledges by then. A separate analysis released this week, by the Washington-based World Resources Institute, found that actions by the world’s 20 largest economies are key to slowing down global climate change. The 20 economies contribute 75 percent of global emissions. On Monday, Guterres is scheduled to host another meeting, also aimed at encouraging all countries to ratchet up their climate pledges before or at the talks in Glasgow, Scotland, known as the 26th meeting of the Conference of Parties, or COP26. He will also encourage rich countries to keep their promise to help poorer countries deal with the impacts of climate change. “There is a high risk of failure of COP26,” Guterres said Friday. “It is clear that everyone must assume their responsibilities.” ©The New York Times Company
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China will hold down per-capita volumes of greenhouse gases causing global warming and is studying how to spell out domestic emissions goals, officials said on Thursday, seeking to stress cooperation on the issue. China unveiled its national plan for coping with global warming last week. But it also said rich countries were mainly to blame for greenhouse pollution to date since they industrialised, without any restrictions, by burning oil, gas and coal that release carbon dioxide. Officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology sought to put a friendlier face on the message, vowing their country's per-capita emissions would not follow the same steep rise as the West's and holding out the possibility of clearer goals. "We're exploring a new path of development. We won't let per-capita emissions reach a high level and then go down," minister Wan Gang told a news conference in Beijing. China has vowed to cut the energy used to generate each unit of economic activity by 20 percent of 2005 levels by 2010, but it has not spelled out quantified targets for greenhouse gas pollution that is warming the planet. Wan said the government was working to turn the energy-saving targets into goals for carbon dioxide emissions. "The specific techniques and methods for converting this (energy target) into carbon dioxide emissions are being studied," he said. China plans an international conference to forge cooperation on this and other technical challenges, Vice Minister Liu Yanhua said. "I feel there will be broad international cooperation," he told Reuters after the briefing. "No matter what the viewpoints, they can all be explored." The levels could be specified in emissions per person or per GDP unit, Liu said. "They'll all be there," he said. The emphasis on cooperation came after last week's unveiling of the climate change plan by Ma Kai, chief of economy policy, who bluntly warned that restricting poor countries' growth would unleash problems worse than climate change itself. Ma came across as "confrontational", said Shi Yinhong, an international security expert at the People's University of China. "It's not a question of the content of the message but how it's delivered, and appearing too hardline doesn't serve China's interests," Shi said. "A milder approach means China doesn't have to stand out as the target of so much international criticism." Wan, recently appointed the country's first minister in 35 years who is not a Communist Party member, said he welcomed aspects of the agreement reached last week among Group of Eight powers to "substantially" cut greenhouse gas emissions. "For developing countries, now the biggest challenge is how to apply advanced technology in the course of development, and mobilise society and methods to reduce carbon dioxide," he said. Developing countries do not have to commit to emissions goals under the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol climate change pact, which ends in 2012. Pressure is building on rich nations, such as the United States, and big emerging powers to sign up to targets and begin talks on a long-term climate deal at a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December. The G8 nations agreed to push for a launch at the Indonesia talks and to work out a broader world pact by the end of 2009 to succeed the protocol, which obliges 35 rich nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The International Energy Agency has said China could emerge as the top emitter of carbon dioxide as early as this year. But China has said average per-capita emissions from fossil fuels in 2004 were 3.65 tonnes of carbon dioxide, about a third of the average for rich economies.
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“For better or worse,” he wrote, “more Americans respond to evocations of toughness in the face of a threat.” The label caught on — and “climate hawk” has since become a badge worn proudly by a nucleus of politically savvy climate-action advocates. And now, days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading climate hawks sense that the moment is ripe to connect the war to their cause. “America is lining Putin’s pockets by buying billions of dollars of Russian oil,” said Sen Ed Markey and an architect of the Green New Deal. “The United States doesn’t need Russian oil any more than we need Russian caviar.” Adding to the feeling of urgency: As the war began, a United Nations climate panel issued a landmark report detailing the catastrophic effects of global warming, which include floods, deadly heat waves and extreme water scarcity that could affect millions. “This whole crisis points out the need for us to wean ourselves and the rest of the world off fossil fuels,” said Tom Steyer, a billionaire former presidential candidate and major Democratic donor. The climate hawks are in temporary alignment with foreign policy hawks, who also worry about importing oil and gas from unstable and undemocratic parts of the world — but for different reasons. The two groups agree on cutting off Putin’s energy lifeline, but that’s about it. And it’s not clear which way the Biden administration, with gasoline prices surging past $4 a gallon, will go. There are various ideas floating around Capitol Hill for cutting off imports of Russian energy, all of which got a boost Monday when lawmakers agreed on a legislative framework to do so. What happens next is where the agreement starts to break down. To vastly oversimplify, Capitol Hill divides into two basic camps on how to replace the Russian oil. On one side is a bipartisan group led by two senators from fossil fuel-producing states: Joe Manchin III and Lisa Murkowski, who have recruited Republicans and many moderate Democrats to their bill implementing the Russian cutoff. On the other side are the climate hawks: Markey, Sen Martin Heinrich and many progressive Democrats in the House. Last week, Markey and Heinrich unveiled their alternate proposal for banning Russian energy imports: the SPIGOT (Severing Putin’s Immense Gains from Oil Transfers) Act. Unlike Manchin and Murkowski’s legislation, their bill requires the US to replace Russian imports with renewable energy over time. Some quirkier ideas have emerged. Bill McKibben, an activist close to the administration, is calling on President Joe Biden to use the Defence Production Act to ramp up the manufacture of heat pumps — highly energy-efficient, all-in-one heating and cooling units — and ship them to Europe. “We could peacefully punch Putin in the kidneys,” McKibben wrote in his Substack newsletter. WHITE HOUSES’S DILEMMA The president has stacked his administration with climate hawks, and has put forward ambitious policies to rein in carbon emissions and move the country toward renewable, clean energy. But Ukraine’s crisis is testing that. White House officials say that over the long run, the world needs to move past fossil fuels. But, with oil prices already touching $130 a barrel, they don’t want to further roil the markets. So, administration officials are scouring the world to replace Russia’s oil output. There are no easy choices: Iran (which is under economic sanctions), Venezuela (also under sanctions) and Saudi Arabia (which is angry with the US for various reasons) have been floated as possibilities. But as he worries about gas prices, Biden also has to worry about the left. Progressives criticised him last week for saying little about climate change in his State of the Union address. The bulk of his climate agenda was blocked when Manchin and Sen Kyrsten Sinema, torpedoed the Build Back Better Act, Democrats’ social policy bill. Democrats fear that could leave young voters who turned out for Biden in 2020 demoralized in 2022. REPUBLICANS’ SQUEEZE PLAY Even as Republicans urge the president to stop importing Russian energy, they’re redoubling their political messaging blaming him for high gasoline prices. And they’re demanding for him to “unleash” energy production in the United States. Republicans’ arguments are hollow, experts tell us. The surge in global economic activity as the coronavirus pandemic ebbs is the main factor driving up gasoline prices, not Biden’s energy policies. Domestic production of crude oil actually increased in 2021. The limits Biden has placed on drilling on federal lands don’t affect current production. And, as White House officials have pointed out, the industry is sitting on thousands of unused drilling permits. Allies of the administration note, too, that even though Russia may be a minor supplier for the US, it exports around 5 million barrels of crude oil a day. Because oil prices are set globally, taking all of that off the market would send prices soaring. “People think presidents have more control over the price of oil than they actually do,” said Samantha Gross, an energy analyst at the Brookings Institution. THE POPULISTS PLUG IN Politically, high oil prices are a nightmare. They make it difficult for Democrats to promote their stewardship of the economy. Climate hawks propose a way out of this jam: Democrats should brand themselves as the party of future, not the past, they say. That means unapologetically embracing new technologies like electric vehicles while portraying oil as yesterday’s energy solution. “Instead of ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ voters should hear: ‘Plug in, baby, plug in,’ ” Markey said. Tom Matzzie, a former Washington campaign director for MoveOn.org, who now runs a company that builds solar farms, suggested Biden go after the oil companies. “They’re trying to take advantage of the situation in Ukraine and pretend they have a solution when they don’t,” Matzzie said of the companies that are calling on Biden to repeal a moratorium on drilling on federal land. Others worry that high oil prices will push Americans into embracing fossil fuels at the very moment they should be shifting away from them as fast as possible. Facing the prospect of disastrous midterm elections, Democrats could follow suit. “Mixing up the difference between a short- and a long-term response would be an absolute failure for us intellectually,” Steyer said. “And a horrible decision for us as a country.” © 2022 The New York Times Company
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Late students will not be admitted. Talk to your neighbour during class, and you will be admonished. Do it again, and you will be asked to leave. “I was taken aback at first,” recalled Fadoua El Ouni, who took Kais Saied’s constitutional law course her first year at Carthage University. “Like, are all university courses going to be like this?” They were not. Saied was semilegendary on campus for mesmerising classrooms with his deep, ringing voice, his speech so starched and archaic that when El Ouni first heard him converse in everyday Tunisian dialect, it was, she said, an “out-of-body experience.” Since Saied suspended parliament and fired his own prime minister last month amid mass protests over unchecked poverty, corruption and the coronavirus, Tunisians have puzzled over the contradictions: — How a political novice whose severe bearing and formal style earned him the nickname “RoboCop” became so beloved among the young that Facebook fan pages sprang up crediting him with sage utterances he had never uttered. — How a law professor who preached strict adherence to the constitution and practiced such personal rigor that he almost never missed a day of work stretched the law to justify seizing power. Most of all, they have argued over whether his power grab makes him a populist hero or an dangerous demagogue, whether he will save the last standing democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring or destroy it. Those who know him see evidence of both: an uncompromising ideologue unwilling to listen to others, yet one who lives modestly, shows compassion for the poor and insists that his goal is simply to wrench power from corrupt elites. “His supporters see in him the last, best hope to achieve the goals of the revolution that were never realized,” said Monica Marks, a Middle East politics professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. “But we know clean people who genuinely want to achieve good aims can sometimes turn into people who chop off heads.” By all accounts, Saied, a longtime law professor, is not the type to order up a pet tiger or serve guests frozen yogurt flown in from St. Tropez, as did the family of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s former dictator. Saied's personal habits run more toward coffee shops with plastic chairs and the middle-class neighbourhood where he has lived with his wife and three children, even after his election to the presidency in 2019. It is not personal ambition that drives him, he has said, but a sense of responsibility and religious duty to return power to the youth and the poor who ignited Tunisia’s 2011 revolution. In obedience to their will, he has said, he aims to guarantee education, health care and decent lives and to purge Tunisia of corruption. “I am running against my own will,” Saied told an interviewer during his presidential campaign. “God says, ‘Warfare is obligatory for you, though it is hateful to you.’ Responsibility is a hateful thing. It is like a soldier standing on the front. He does not want to kill, but has been ordained to battle.” Saied’s office did not respond to a request for an interview. A devout Muslim, Saied has described his presidency as “ibtilaa,” an Arabic word meaning a test assigned by God that cannot be refused. “He’s saying he’s doing it because he has to do it, because people want him to do it,” said Mohamed-Dhia Hammami, a Syracuse University-based Tunisian political researcher. “The idea in Islam is that everyone goes through some sort of ibtilaa. In his case, it’s being the president.” All of which may sound like grandiloquent cover for demagoguery. But even his critics say his convictions are sincere, rooted in faith and genuine concern for the poor. Saied, born to a family of mixed class in Tunis (his mother had aristocratic connections, his father’s background was modest), entered the national stage in 2011, after the first revolutionary protests had died down and Ben Ali had fled the country. When protesters from marginalized regions mounted mass sit-ins in Tunis to demand more sweeping changes, Saied was one of the few establishment figures to show up in solidarity. Videos of his visits were soon all over Facebook. As a new constitution was drafted, Saied, though serving on an advisory committee, was not granted one of the pens. The exclusion clearly grated. Tunisian television often featured his commentary, which was consistent: The new constitution over-favoured Parliament. Voters would be stuck choosing among electoral lists promoted by political parties who cared only about power. Tunisians would feel more invested in their democracy if they elected representatives they knew personally. His prescription was a ground-up, top-down political system, in which power would flow up from hundreds of directly elected local councils and down from a strong president. If the idea seemed divorced from reality, he was unmoved. One activist who got to know the professor during the democratic transition recalled that although he was modest and generous, arguing with him was useless. (Most people interviewed requested anonymity to speak about the president, given the highly charged political climate.) For many Tunisians, however, he was must-watch TV. It was like “he was dictating the absolute truth about what the constitution should be,” said Amna Guellali, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Like a prophet’s voice. Something that goes beyond human.” Enamoured of his austere authority, a quality that grew only more appealing as corruption scandals dominated the news and the economy worsened, Tunisians soon set up Facebook pages urging him to run for president. Until 2019, he refused. The story of his run is by now famous in Tunisia: the slogan “The people want,” echoing the chants of the 2011 revolution; the campaign volunteers who showed up without his even asking; the campaign financing limited, he insisted, to what he had in his wallet; the aura of incorruptibility, despite scattered reports of foreign funding; the lopsided runoff victory. “Sovereignty belongs to the people,” he told an interviewer at the time. “Everything must start from them.” He later said he changed his mind about the presidency after a poor man approached him in tears, imploring him to run — a moment he compared to a religious vision. It would not be the last such interaction. Videos frequently circulate online of Saied embracing impoverished protesters at the presidential palace or stopping to greet ordinary Tunisians in the street. “That’s what people don’t find in other politicians,” said Imen Neffati, a Tunisia researcher at Oxford University. “He stands out, because the majority of them don’t really care.” Critics dismissed him as just a law professor who, they were quick to point out, never finished his doctorate. Others decried his social views: He supports the death penalty, opposes equal inheritance for men and women, and has criticized open homosexuality. Those who “seek to spread homosexuality,” he has said, are part of a foreign plot. One characteristic all agree on is his firmness. A European ambassador and informal adviser said he insists he will never negotiate with corrupt politicians or parties which, for him, rules out the party that dominates Parliament, Ennahda, as well as most of Tunisia’s business and political elite. Diplomats say every meeting at the presidential palace is a lecture, not a dialogue. Advisers say he listens to few, among them his wife. Since July 25, Saied's security forces have placed dozens of judges, politicians and business owners under travel bans and others under house arrest without due process, raising concern, even among supporters, that he is veering toward autocracy. On Tuesday, his office announced that the 30-day period he had originally set for his “exceptional measures” would be extended — for how long, it did not say. He is widely expected to try to change Tunisia’s electoral system and amend its constitution to enlarge presidential powers. Although he had promised to appoint a new prime minister by Tuesday, Tarek Kahlaoui, a Tunisian political analyst, said he had been told by presidential advisers that Saied envisioned the position as more of a “manager” than a true head of government. In justifying his power grab, Saied cited Article 80 of the constitution, which grants the president broad emergency powers in case of imminent danger to the country. But constitutional experts said his move violated the provision, in part because it requires Parliament to remain in session. For all his legal precision, several people who know him said, Saied often operates on emotion and instinct. “He feels that he’s been chosen by the people,” Kahlaoui said. “People went into the streets, and it was time for him to act.” So he did. ©2021 The New York Times Company
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Trade wars, migration, energy supplies, climate change and the eradication of poverty underpin the basic themes of the 193-member General Assembly agenda. But the actions of the Trump administration, which has sometimes expressed disdain for international institutions like the United Nations, have created a common denominator. “All of the major topics that I think people will be talking about in the corridors are related to: What is US policy?” said Jeffrey D Feltman, a veteran US diplomat and former UN undersecretary-general for political affairs. Some leaders are not coming, notably Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia, as well as Benjamin Netanyahu, the embattled prime minister of Israel. Also not expected is President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, regarded by the Trump administration and about 50 other governments as an illegitimate leader. But one prominent figure, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, will attend. The Ukrainian leader plans to meet with President Donald Trump amid growing concerns that Trump had pressured him over US domestic political issues. Some of the biggest moments and confrontations could happen early in the week. Here is what to expect: LIKE-MINDED LEADERS: BOLSONARO, TRUMP, EL-SISSI, ERDOGAN Trump, whose penchant for bombast, scaremongering and diplomatic bombshells are well known, will be surrounded by like-minded company on Tuesday when the speeches begin. Trump will be preceded by President Jair M Bolsonaro of Brazil, sometimes called the mini-Trump, a polarising figure at home who, like Trump, dismisses fears about climate change and ridicules critics on Twitter. After Trump comes President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, the former general who has come to symbolise the repression of the Arab Spring revolutions — although his appearance was thrown into doubt this past weekend as protests erupted at home. Then comes President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, an autocrat who has bullied critics and whose government is a leading jailer of journalists. US AND SAUDI ARABIA WILL PRESS THEIR CASE AGAINST IRAN Until recently, speculation abounded that Trump would make history by meeting with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. But the Sept 14 attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, which US and Saudi officials blame on Iran, has made such a meeting unlikely at best. US officials are expected to present what they have described as evidence that Iran carried out the attack with drones and cruise missiles. Iran has denied the accusation. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are supported by Iran in their fight against a Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing their country for more than four years, have claimed responsibility. Rouhani speaks on Wednesday, and he will almost certainly assert that Trump ignited the cycle of conflict by withdrawing last year from the 2015 nuclear agreement with major powers and reimposing onerous sanctions that are crippling its economy. The United States is trying to build a coalition to deter Iran, even if it is unclear what form such deterrence would take. The General Assembly gives the administration an opportunity to “continue to slow walk a military response in favor of more coalition-building and political and economic pressure,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AT A CLIMATE CHANGE MEETING, WASHINGTON WILL BE ABSENT The climate crisis is at the top of the General Assembly’s agenda. About 60 heads of state plan to speak at the Climate Action Summit on Monday, and officials aim to announce initiatives that include net-zero carbon emissions in buildings. The United States has no such plans — Trump announced in 2017 that he was withdrawing the country from the Paris Agreement on climate change. But some state governors who have formed the US Climate Alliance said they would attend the summit and meet with other delegations. US AND CHINA WILL TALK Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was expected to meet with his Chinese counterparts on the sidelines, suggesting that the administration was seeking to create a more productive atmosphere for resumed trade negotiations after weeks of acrimony. The two governments recently paused their escalating tariff battle. But some administration officials are pushing for Trump to address other issues considered sensitive by China, including the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the repression of Tibetans and the detentions of more than 1 million Muslims, mostly ethnic Uighurs. One official said Trump should at least criticise China for trying to intimidate Uighur-American activists. Trump has never spoken strongly about human rights, and he has openly expressed admiration for Xi and other authoritarian leaders. But lawmakers in both parties of Congress are pressuring Trump to act. Bills on the Uighurs, Tibet and Hong Kong are aimed at compelling Trump and the administration to take harder stands. LEADERS OF JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA ARE NOT ON SPEAKING TERMS A protracted feud between Japan and South Korea, rooted in the legacy of Japan’s wartime occupation, has led to downgraded trade relations and the end of an intelligence-sharing agreement. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea are not expected to meet with each other. Whether Trump can induce them into a three-way conversation remains unclear. And an objective shared by all three — North Korea’s nuclear disarmament — may see little or no progress. While Moon is expected to urge Trump to renew his push for diplomacy with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, no senior North Korean official plans to attend the General Assembly. EUROPE WILL BE PRESSURED TO PENALISE VENEZUELA’S GOVERNMENT Foreign ministers from 18 nations in the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, planned to meet on Monday to discuss what can be done regarding Maduro, who has presided over the biggest economic collapse in Venezuela’s history and a regional crisis caused by the exodus of millions of his people. The push will focus on convincing the European Union to expand economic sanctions against Maduro’s loyalists, including freezing assets they have in Europe. The Europeans may also be pressed to penalise smugglers of Venezuelan gold into Europe. Maduro, who claimed victory in disputed elections last fall, has retained power despite nine months of demands to resign by a stubborn opposition movement led by the president of Venezuela’s Parliament, Juan Guaidó. Negotiations between the Venezuelan rivals collapsed last week. FRICTIONS VEX AMERICA AND TURKEY Trump and Erdogan are expected to meet on the sidelines, but the outcome is unclear at best. A range of difficult issues has pit their governments against each other. The Trump administration is considering sanctions to punish Turkey, a fellow NATO member, for buying a Russian S-400 missile defense system instead of US-made Patriots. And Erdogan has expressed growing anger at the United States over their joint operations in the northern part of war-ravaged Syria that borders Turkey. He says the Americans have failed to establish a safe zone large enough to keep Kurdish fighters out of Turkey, which regards them as terrorist insurgents. On Saturday, Erdogan warned that his forces would take “unilateral actions” along the border if the United States did not act by the end of the month. LAST, BUT NOT LEAST — AFGHANISTAN Someone has to speak last in the list of national delegations addressing the General Assembly. This year, that place falls to Afghanistan, just a few weeks after the collapse of talks between the Taliban and the United States that were aimed at ending the 18-year-old war. With national elections slated for next Saturday, President Ashraf Ghani was not expected to attend. Instead, Afghanistan’s delegation will be led by Hamdullah Mohib, Ashraf’s national security adviser. Mohib infuriated the Trump administration in March, when he predicted the peace talks would not end in peace. ©2019 The New York Times Company
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Standing in the line of those hoping for a better deal from US President-elect Barack Obama than they got from outgoing President George W Bush is a body representing the entire world: the United Nations. Despite public protestations of neutrality in the November 4 presidential election, there has been thinly disguised glee at UN headquarters that Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain. Some foresee Obama's inauguration on January 20 as the end of a long dark night under the eight-year Bush administration. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said he looks forward to "an era of renewed partnership and a new multilateralism" with Obama -- even though he also says he has managed to improve ties with Bush since taking over at the beginning of 2007. The United Nations fell foul early on of Bush administration hawks who considered the world body hostile to America's interests. The failure of the Security Council explicitly to endorse the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, and a statement by Ban's predecessor Kofi Annan that the invasion was illegal, strengthened that view. In 2005, Bush named as his UN ambassador the sharp-tongued conservative John Bolton, a man who more than a decade before had said that if the UN skyscraper in Manhattan lost 10 of its 38 floors, "it wouldn't make a bit of difference." Because the US Senate never confirmed him, Bolton had to step down the following year, but not before, critics say, he antagonized friends and foes alike -- even if they admitted he was a hard worker who was always on top of his brief. Among other things, Bolton appointed a former Bush deputy campaign manager, Mark Wallace, to pursue allegations of UN mismanagement, especially that the UN Development Program had channeled hard currency to the North Korean leadership. Later inquiries cleared UNDP of major wrongdoing. Although Bolton's successor, Zalmay Khalilzad, has sought to mend fences with other countries, senior UN officials are now hoping for much closer cooperation with an administration they believe will be far more aligned with UN goals. To the United Nations, the United States is crucial as the world's most powerful country, the host of its headquarters and the largest contributor to UN funds, paying 22 percent, albeit while often in arrears of up to $2 billion. So Obama's statements such as a comment in a 2007 "Foreign Affairs" magazine article that America needs to "rededicate itself to the (UN) organization and its mission" are music to UN ears. 'SAME SCRIPT' "The signals are that (Obama) will want to consult closely with allies and build a consensual approach as best he can," said one senior European diplomat. "The platform for change, and a lot of it is change away from Bush, is something which I think will get a very ready response in the world, which he will want to tap into." Dozens of US foreign policy leaders, including Democratic and Republican former cabinet members, took out a full-page New York Times advertisement on November 20 to urge the incoming administration to strengthen ties with the United Nations. "President-elect Obama has the opportunity to engage with the world and renew American leadership at the United Nations," said Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, a UN advocacy group and charity. Ban, who once by chance spent half an hour sitting next to Obama on a Washington-New York air shuttle and also spoke with him by telephone after the election, has said he is "very much encouraged" by the president-elect. Senior UN officials have gone further. "Here's a person who looks at the world the same way we do," said one, adding that Ban and Obama were "talking from the same script." Ban's aides have been excited by Obama's views on combating climate change, a subject that tops the U.N. chief's agenda. Obama's promise to "fast track investments in a new green energy business sector" echoes what Ban has been saying. The issue will return to prominence next year as nations seek to agree a new climate treaty by December in Copenhagen to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Bush rejected Kyoto and its emission targets, citing the need to safeguard U.S. industry. U.S. relations with the United Nations were an issue that barely figured in the election campaign and many Americans are ambivalent about a body they helped found but which has often seemed to fall short of the hopes placed in it. While opinion polls show the US public broadly in favor of UN goals, a community of angry bloggers sees a corrupt organization dominated by foreign dictatorships that sucks in American money and spits out anti-American venom. Several websites exist to "watch" the UN and pounce on misdeeds. With perhaps half an eye in that direction, Obama has said the United Nations "requires far-reaching reform" and that its "management practices remain weak." UN officials are unfazed by such comments and say that Ban is as keen to overhaul the bureaucracy as the critics are.
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President Nicolas Sarkozy defended Muammar Gaddafi's visit to France on Wednesday, saying the Libyan leader was not considered a dictator in the Arab world. Gaddafi's first visit to France in 34 years has been accompanied by the signing of several business deals, and human rights groups and the opposition Socialists have accused Sarkozy of putting commercial deals before human rights. Sarkozy made a point of inviting Gaddafi after Libya in July released six foreign medics accused of infecting Libyan children with HIV. Paris helped broker the deal. "Gaddafi is not perceived as a dictator in the Arab world," Sarkozy told Le Nouvel Observateur magazine. "He is the longest serving head of state in the region, and in the Arab world, that counts," Sarkozy said. "I share the conviction that France has to talk with everyone while standing firm on the values it holds." Gaddafi took power in 1969 after leading a military coup. Libya's ties with Western states have warmed since it scrapped programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction in 2003 and agreed compensation for families of victims of bombings of U.S. and French airliners. But rights group Amnesty International said Libya's return as an international partner had to bring real cooperation on human rights as well as trade issues. "President Nicolas Sarkozy cannot satisfy himself with the conclusion of commercial agreements without obtaining concrete measures for a real improvement in human rights in Libya at the same time," the group said in a statement. CONTRACTS CONTROVERSY In France, the value of the deals signed this week has also sparked controversy. Sarkozy's office said on Monday the two countries had signed contracts worth some 10 billion euros ($14.7 billion). But several firms and industry sources played have down the scale, saying the deals appeared to be the finalisation of deals already reached or estimates of contracts being negotiated. "This visit is turning into a tragicomic farce," Socialist Arnaud Montebourg told parliament. "It ridicules France, weakens France's voice, tarnishes the universality of its message." Gaddafi told French business leaders on Wednesday improved political ties between Tripoli and Paris would help firms. "Gaddafi said French firms were appreciated in Libya," Yves-Thibault de Silguy, the chairman of French construction group Vinci, quoted Gaddafi as telling business leaders during a meeting in Paris's Ritz Hotel. "He said that in the past, many firms had suffered from political decisions taken by certain countries and that today, the political climate had largely changed. He thought his was of a nature to help the development of French firms in Libya."
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Merkel has led Germany for 16 years, steering Europe's biggest economy through a global financial crisis, the euro zone debt crisis, a migrant crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, but she is not running for a fifth term. "Every week has challenges. Look at the events we face - rising coronavirus cases, terrible floods. You can't say there aren't issues to be sorted out," Merkel said at her final annual summer news conference, which yielded little hard news. "There are demands made of me while I am in office and I will continue in that way until my last day," said the conservative chancellor, known for her sober approach. The 67-year old trained physicist who grew up in Communist East Germany said she had not reflected much on what she would do when she steps down. "There is little time and space to think about the time after," she said when asked about her plans. In the last few weeks, she has undertaken something of a farewell tour, paying visits to the United States and Britain. CLIMATE CHANGE However, in a self-assured appearance in which she smiled and made a few ironic comments, Merkel hinted she may still have a role to play in the European Union's climate protection plans, entitled "Fit for 55". Saying tough negotiations on this could start while a new German government was being formed, she said: "We want to make sure we have a good handover," adding she might make a start. Dubbed the "climate chancellor" in 2007 for championing the issue with Group of Eight leaders and for pushing through a switch to renewable energy in Germany, Merkel acknowledged the pace of change had been too slow. "I think I have spent a great deal of energy on climate protection," Merkel said. "Still, I am sufficiently equipped with a scientific mind to see that the objective circumstances show we cannot continue at this pace, but that we must move faster." As Germany's first female chancellor, Merkel has been at pains not to cast herself as a strong feminist. Asked about the characteristics of women in politics, she struck a typically self-deprecating note. "There tends to be a longing among women for efficiency," she said, adding that there were also exceptions. She said other women had done more for equality than she had, but that she had achieved something. Merkel, a Lutheran woman in a male-dominated, traditionally Catholic party, was caught off guard when asked where she would be on election night, and stumbled in saying she hadn't thought about it but would be in touch with her party. She betrayed no emotion about her impending departure, merely noting: "You usually only notice what you miss once you no longer have it."
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Host Angela Merkel greeted Obama in the idyllic Alpine village of Kruen under blue skies, surrounded by locals in traditional dress, drinking beer and eating white sausage and pretzels. The German chancellor was hoping to secure commitments from her G7 guests to tackle global warming ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Paris in December. The German agenda also foresees discussions on global health issues, from Ebola to antibiotics and tropical diseases. But the crises in Ukraine and Greece seemed likely to overshadow the discussions at Schloss Elmau, a luxury Alpine hotel near the Austrian border. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, speaking before the start of the summit, voiced exasperation with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who has dismissed the latest aid-for-reform proposal from international creditors as "absurd". Athens is running out of cash and will default on its debt, a move that could end up pushing it out of the euro zone, if it fails to reach a deal with its European partners and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the coming weeks. Juncker reaffirmed that a so-called "Grexit" was not an option being considered, but said this did not mean he could "pull a rabbit out of a hat" to prevent it. Russian aggression Obama said leaders would discuss the global economy, trade partnerships and "standing up to Russian aggression in Ukraine", as well as threats from violent extremism and climate change. Both he and Merkel highlighted the importance of the German-American relationship, damaged in recent years by revelations of US spying in Germany, including the bugging of the chancellor's mobile phone. "My message to the German people is simple: We are grateful for your friendship, for your leadership," said Obama, using the traditional Bavarian greeting "Gruess Gott" with a crowd gathered in the village square in Kruen. "We stand together as inseparable allies in Europe and around the world." Merkel alluded to "differences" but described the United States as "our friend" and an "essential partner". British Prime Minister David Cameron and European Council President Donald Tusk both said they hoped the G7 would present a united front on sanctions toward Russia. EU leaders agreed in March that sanctions imposed over Russia's intervention in Ukraine would stay until the Minsk ceasefire agreement was fully implemented, effectively extending them to the end of the year, but a formal decision has yet to be taken. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is known to be sceptical about sanctions and left-wing politicians in Germany have also called for them to be removed. "If anyone wants to start a discussion about changing the sanctions regime, it could only be about strengthening it," said Tusk. European monitors have blamed a recent upsurge in violence in eastern Ukraine on Russian-backed separatists. Russian President Vladimir Putin was frozen out of what used to be the G8 after Moscow's annexation of Crimea last year. Protests Leaders and reporters were shuttled to the summit site by helicopter on Sunday morning as hundreds of protesters blocked the main road to Schloss Elmau. On Saturday, thousands of anti-G7 protesters marched in the nearby town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. There were sporadic clashes with police and several marchers were taken to hospital with injuries, but the violence was minor compared to some previous summits. Germany deployed 17,000 police around the former Winter Olympic games venue at the foot of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Another 2,000 were on stand-by across the border in Austria. In addition to climate and health issues, the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and European Union were due to discuss Islamist militant threats from groups such as Islamic State and Boko Haram. The leaders of Nigeria, Tunisia and Iraq were to join them later as part of an "outreach" group of non-G7 countries. Merkel was likely to have her work cut out for her on the climate talks. She won plaudits in 2007 when she hosted a G8 meeting on the Baltic coast and convinced Obama's predecessor George W Bush to join other leaders in pledging to fight global warming. This time, she and Hollande, who will host the climate summit at the end of the year and is keen to generate some momentum for that in Bavaria, were facing resistance from Japan and Canada.
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BRUSSELS, Thu Oct 23, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - European parliament leaders will bring forward a vote on steps to combat climate change to try and gain influence in a power struggle with member states, parliament sources said on Thursday. The parliament, which has so far taken a strong line on protecting the environment, wants to regain influence on EU plans to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by a fifth by 2020. Some EU leaders fear ambitious climate plans will add to the cost burden for industries already struggling with falling orders and looming recession. Thursday's move was a reaction to last week's decision by European leaders to take all crucial decisions on the climate package at a summit on December 11 and 12. "The European Parliament vote on December 3 and 4 will lead to a formal European Parliament position, which will carry more weight just ahead of the summit," said one parliament source. Italy and a group of East European states led by Poland are fighting hard for concessions for industry and power generators which will be hardest hit by higher charges on carbon emissions, under the proposed climate measures. Parliamentarians said that by agreeing to take all decisions at the December summit, leaders last week had reduced the influence of parliament, which should have equal weight in all decisions but has yet to adopt a formal, common position. It will achieve that position by taking a full parliament vote on December 3 and 4, pre-empting the EU leaders meeting, instead of voting after the summit as previously planned.
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President Barack Obama's $3.55 trillion budget, released on Thursday, retains his plan to cut climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions by auctioning off 100 percent of emission permits to industries. That is at odds with some in Congress, including members of Obama's own Democratic Party, who are pushing for 50 percent or more of those emissions to be given away in the early stages of the plan to ease the transition to a lower-carbon economy. Opponents fear that charging companies for the carbon they emit would put unnecessary pressure on an already struggling economy. Selling all the emission permits is projected to bring $646 billion in revenue over the first years of the program, and White House budget director Peter Orszag said that would not change when more details about the administration's budget request are released next week. "We're not going to provide the full details of what will be released on Monday, but I will say that you should anticipate no changes in our climate proposal," Orszag told reporters, when asked if the 100 percent figure would hold. During last year's presidential campaign, Obama said he wanted all emissions permits to be sold, rather than given away, but has signaled there may be flexibility on that point. Under the Obama plan, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions -- which come from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, cars and other industrial and natural sources -- would be capped. Companies that emit more than the limit would have to buy emissions credits from companies that emit less. Even as Obama's budget request was released on Thursday, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stressed the whole point of this kind of cap-and-trade system was to push companies to lower emissions. GIVING IT AWAY "Giving away allowances is effectively the same thing as selling them and giving the proceeds from the auction away," the CBO's David Elmendorf told the Senate Finance Committee. Total revenue from auctioning emissions could amount to some $1.2 trillion over 10 years, Elmendorf said. That rise in costs for emitting companies will show up in higher prices. In Obama's budget, some revenues from the cap-and-trade plan are meant to be rebated to consumers to offset this price rise. "The price increase will have to occur somewhere in order to induce the change in behavior," Elmendorf said. "You can move around where it happens, but you can't get away from it altogether." A cap-and-trade bill is moving through Congress, sponsored by Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. Waxman wants the committee to pass the bill by the end of May, but a senior Republican suggested on Thursday that the bill could be set aside for a few months while the same committee works on healthcare reform. A delay could give Democrats more time to build support for the climate change legislation, Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said in a Reuters interview. Some Democrats on the panel, notably Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, expect that most of the emission permits that industry would need under a cap-and-trade plan will initially be given away, not auctioned -- and that this would go on for the first 10 or 15 years of the program. Obama has said he would prefer to limit carbon emissions through legislation but also has the option of using regulation to achieve the same thing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said last month that greenhouse emissions were a danger to human health and therefore can be regulated as a pollutant.
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Scientists have long been trying to establish how quickly rising global temperatures caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas are eating away at the region's icebound landscapes, sometimes referred to as Earth's third pole. The new analysis, spanning 40 years of satellite observations across India, China, Nepal and Bhutan, showed glaciers have been losing the equivalent of more than a vertical foot-and-a-half of ice each year since 2000. That represents double the rate between 1975 and 2000. "This is the clearest picture yet of how fast Himalayan glaciers are melting over this time interval, and why," lead author Joshua Maurer, a PhD candidate at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in a statement. Although melting ice caps at Earth's north and south poles are already destabilising the climate system, the retreat of Himalayan ice has more direct consequences for some 800 million people who depend on meltwater to sustain their rivers. Seasonal flows of runoff appear to be increasing for the time being as glaciers degrade. But scientists fear what is likely to happen as time goes on: a gradual dwindling of water supplies to densely-populated floodplains in India, Pakistan and China, potentially stoking local and international tensions. The new findings -- which drew on declassified images from U.S. spy satellites -- were published as governments met for talks in Bonn aimed at pushing forward efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Global carbon emissions hit a record high last year. Climate models suggest that existing pledges made by governments to try to bend the emissions curve downwards still fall far short of the rapid transformational economic change needed to prevent climate impacts worsening by many orders of magnitude. Although the Himalaya study, published in Science Advances, did not attempt to ascertain precisely how much ice had melted, Maurer said the glaciers may have lost as much as a quarter of their mass over the last 40 years. Joseph Shea, a glacial geographer at the University of Northern British Columbia, who was not involved in the study, said the findings demonstrated that even glaciers in the world's highest mountains were being affected by higher temperatures. "In the long term, this will lead to changes in the timing and magnitude of streamflow in a heavily populated region," Shea said.
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“The smoke was so thick, you couldn’t see anything — but you could hear the blades of the helicopter,” said Crouch, who was among dozens of Labour Day vacationers trapped by a fast-moving wildfire in the forests south of Yosemite National Park on Saturday. “That thump-thump-thump of the helicopter out in the distance,” Crouch said. In a scene that played out multiple times over the weekend and into Tuesday afternoon, the California National Guard airlifted hundreds of civilians, their exits trapped by a dense ring of fire. Before the helicopter’s arrival, Crouch had waded into a lake up to his neck to escape the smoke and whipping embers, shivering in the cool water. “It was go underwater, come up, take a breath,” he recalled. Two pilots who led the rescue, both military veterans, said it was the most harrowing flying they have done in their careers. Crew members became nauseated from the smoke. They flew up a valley in strong winds, surpassing ridgelines illuminated by fire. They contemplated turning back. “Every piece of vegetation as far as you could see around that lake was on fire,” Chief Warrant Officer Joseph Rosamond, the pilot of a Blackhawk helicopter, said in a briefing. “I’ve been flying for 25 years,” he said, removing a cloth mask to speak. “We get occasionally shot at overseas during missions. It’s definitely by far the toughest flying that I’ve ever done,” he said of the rescue missions in California. The scramble to deploy the Blackhawk and a tandem-rotor Chinook helicopter is testament to the speed and ferocity of the recent fires in California. In the Sierra, the fires blocked the roads of Labour Day revellers like Crouch. In Santa Cruz County, fire tore through a forested community even before evacuation orders were issued. More than 2.2 million acres of parched lands have burned this year, a record for the state, and fire season is far from over — California is entering what is traditionally the most dangerous months of fire weather. As of noon Tuesday, 362 people and at least 16 dogs had been evacuated by air from burning forests of cedar and ponderosa pine. The Creek Fire, which ignited Friday evening, had burned 143,929 acres — five times the size of San Francisco — and was still raging out of control. It is one of more than 20 wildfires in California. Rescued passengers Tuesday morning were seen on video streaming across the tarmac with backpacks and hiking shoes, the rotors of a Chinook still whirring. The California National Guard is routinely called to help with search-and-rescue operations for lost hikers and people adrift at sea. But Lt Col Jonathan M Shiroma, a spokesman for the California Military Department, said the Guard had never taken part in such a large-scale rescue from a wildfire. Lt Col Daniel Anderson, a forestry fire pilot who also flies for the National Guard, said helicopter rescues during wildfires were often deemed too dangerous to carry out. In previous years “there were isolated, stranded large groups but because of smoke and the fire they couldn’t get in,” said Anderson, who has rescued multiple injured firefighters with hoists. “It’s so hard to see where the mountains are and to know where the obstacles and the hazards are,” he said of flying through a wildfire. “It raises the hair on the back of your neck.” “I’ve never heard of anything like this,” he said of the rescues of the past few days. Gov Gavin Newsom on Tuesday described the effort to rescue about 200 people from the Mammoth Pool Reservoir in the Sierra as lifesaving. He said the weekend’s extraordinary heat made for one of the most challenging times in California’s history. By Tuesday, Pacific Gas and Electric began the largest safety power shut-off of the year in 22 counties across Northern and Central California. The blackouts are meant to lower the possibility of new fires being ignited by electrical equipment. Newsom warned that high winds forecast for Tuesday night and Wednesday, from Northern California to the south, could worsen the fires and force more evacuations. “We’re resilient,” he said. “We’ll get through this. This is not a permanent state.” While California’s climate has always made the state prone to fires, the link between human-caused climate change and larger fires is inextricable, said Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “This climate change connection is straightforward: Warmer temperatures dry out fuels,” he said. “In areas with abundant and very dry fuels, all you need is a spark.” Fire and extreme weather were also battering other parts of the West, as hot temperatures, strong winds and dry conditions gave way to devastation. Fire ripped through Malden, Washington, a town of about 200 people in the eastern part of the state, leaving about 80% of the town destroyed. In Oregon, officials in Marion County, south of Portland, implored some residents to “please leave now” as fires that have burned through more than 27,000 acres approached more densely populated areas. For those who became trapped by the wildfires in California, the weekend began as an ordinary retreat into the Sierra National Forest, a vast expanse in the Sierra Nevada northeast of Fresno. Sal Gonzalez, 38, a high school athletics equipment manager from Madera, California, has an annual tradition of meeting up with wrestling teammates from college each Labour Day weekend. This year, they piled into his Toyota Tacoma loaded with dry food, cooking gear and fishing poles, and a 16-foot pontoon boat in tow. They arrived to a crowded campsite near the Mammoth Pool Reservoir on Saturday, where vacationers were swimming in the lake and carousing on Jet Skis. It was crowded, Gonzalez recalled. “Everyone is going about their day like nothing is abnormal.” The first sign of fire did not come until the afternoon, when ash began falling on their tent. When they saw flames in the mountains, they threw their supplies in the boat and sped away. Back in the parking area, Gonzalez pressed an alarm again and again to find his car, but heard nothing. His truck had been torched. They had no way out. Crouch had been camping in the Sierra with his wife, daughters and grandson when they first heard word of a potential fire late Saturday morning. By midafternoon, he said, flames had surrounded the lake. With the roads blocked, he raced toward the water. He spent about 30 minutes gulping for air amid the smoke. His 3-year-old grandson floated on the lid of an ice chest. “We were stuck,” said Crouch, who spent the next several hours taking cover in his car and on the beach. He later met up with Gonzalez’s group, and offered to store belongings for them in his car. “We thought we were going to be there for several days,” Crouch said. “We had no knowledge of any kind of rescue.” After dark, from somewhere in the smoky, orange sky, they heard a roaring hum, and later saw a bright spotlight. The two helicopters were descending upon them. “People started cheering,” Crouch said. Dozens of people rushed toward the helicopters. Under the roar of the blades, guardsmen, dressed in camouflage and wearing night-vision goggles, signalled silently for people to climb aboard. Women, children and those with injuries from the fire went first. The helicopters made three round trips. The third and final helicopter rescue arrived around 2 am on Sunday. The remaining passengers climbed on board. A father gripped his tearful children. Crouch, whose family had left on an earlier flight, boarded alone. Gonzalez looked out the back of the helicopter and could see fires dancing on the ground. When they landed at the airport in Fresno, passengers burst into applause. “Everybody wanted to be off the helicopter,” Gonzalez recalled, “and be on soil.” c.2020 The New York Times Company
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Australia raised hopes of global action to fight climate change on Monday by agreeing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, isolating the United States at UN-led talks in Bali as the only rich nation not in the pact. Australia's decision won a standing ovation at the opening of tough two-week negotiations on the Indonesian resort isle. The talks aim to pull together rich and poor countries around a common agenda to agree a broader successor to Kyoto by 2009. "I think I can speak for all present here by expressing a sigh of relief," conference host and Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told the opening session of Australia's steps to ratify the Protocol. New Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took the oath of office on Monday. His first official duty was signing documents to ratify Kyoto, ending his country's long-held opposition to the climate agreement that runs until 2012. About 190 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to include the United States and developing countries to fight climate change to avert droughts, heatwaves and rising seas that will hit the poor hardest. "The world is watching closely," Witoelar told delegates at the Dec. 3-14 meeting. "Climate change is unequivocal and accelerating," he said. "It is becoming increasingly evident that the most severe impacts of climate change will be felt by poor nations." A new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. TOP EMITTER The United States, as the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, has been feeling the heat from developing nations demanding the rich make stronger commitments to curb emissions. Australia, the world's top coal exporter and among the world's highest per-capita greenhouse gas polluters, has been criticised for years for refusing the ratify Kyoto. "It was an emotional and spontaneous reaction to a very significant decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Secretariat, said of the ovation. The United States was unfazed. "We respect Australia's decision," Harlan Watson, head of the U.S. delegation, told reporters. "We're not here to be a roadblock. We're committed to a successful conclusion here." The United States has backed voluntary targets to fight climate change, but was viewing a new deal with an open mind, Watson said, who didn't rule out legally binding commitments. De Boer told delegates rich nations had to agree to axe emissions from burning fossil fuels to encourage poor countries to start braking their own rising emissions. "Bold action in the north can fuel clean growth in the south," he said, urging a sharing of clean energy technologies such as solar or wind power. "I fervently hope you will make a breakthrough here in Bali by adopting a negotiating agenda." Others urged caution. "At the opening ceremonies for the climate talks in Bali, there was lots of good will and optimism, but there is clearly a challenging road ahead," said Angela Anderson, at the Washington-based National Environmental Trust. And governments' opening remarks hinted at tough talks ahead. China insisted rich countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020, while Japan said China's active participation in a new climate deal was "essential". Climate change talks have been bogged down by arguments over who curbs their fossil fuel use and carbon emissions most, and how to share that burden between rich and poor nations. China and India, among the world's top emitters and comprising more than a third of humanity, say it's unfair that they agree to targets when rich countries contributed most to the problem, and as they try to lift millions out of poverty.
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The case against Chen was among the most visible of the China Initiative, an effort started in 2018 under the Trump administration. China has made aggressive efforts to steal American technology through methods including the recruiting of overseas scientists as “nontraditional collectors.” But many of the prosecutions of researchers that resulted, like the case against Chen, did not allege espionage or theft of intellectual property, but something narrower and highly technical: failing to disclose Chinese affiliations in grant proposals to US funding agencies. The prosecutions have come under criticism for singling out scientists based on their ethnicity, and for overreach, blurring the line between disclosure violations and more serious crimes such as espionage. Critics in academia say the prosecutions have instilled a pervasive atmosphere of fear among scientists of Chinese descent. Chen was arrested Jan 14, 2021, during President Donald Trump’s last full week in office, and charged with omitting affiliations with Chinese government institutions in grant applications to the US Department of Energy in 2017. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges. In recent weeks, however, officials at the Department of Energy have told prosecutors that Chen had no obligation to declare the seven affiliations, calling into question the basis of the charges, according to people familiar with the matter. The move for dismissal comes as the Justice Department is reviewing the China Initiative, considering steps such as retiring the name and reclassifying the pending cases. Government officials under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have warned that China’s push for global power poses significant national security and economic threats to the US. The officials who started the China Initiative were concerned that Beijing could steal research and other intellectual property using nontraditional collectors of intelligence, such as professors groomed to voluntarily share sensitive information in the name of academic cooperation. The program has resulted in numerous pleas and convictions, such as those of a Monsanto employee who was intercepted leaving the country with a proprietary algorithm and a Coca-Cola chemist convicted of stealing a valuable formula. Last month, after less than three hours of deliberation, a jury in Boston found a Harvard chemist, Charles Leiber, guilty of six felonies, including making false statements and failing to declare income earned in China. But other cases against academics have unravelled. The first case to reach the trial stage, against Anming Hu, a professor of engineering at the University of Tennessee, ended in acquittal in September after a judge ruled that the government had not provided sufficient evidence of intentional fraud. The Justice Department has also dismissed seven cases against researchers in recent months. The case against Chen, a naturalised US citizen since 2000, is the most prominent of the cases to be dismissed to date, involving an elite scientist who had robust support from his university. Chen, who has been on paid leave from MIT since his arrest, thanked friends and colleagues Thursday for supporting him through “this terrible year” and offered sharp criticism of the China Initiative. “While I am relieved that my ordeal is over, I am mindful that this terribly misguided China Initiative continues to bring unwarranted fear to the academic community and other scientists still face charges,” he said in a brief statement released by his lawyer. Rachael Rollins, who was sworn in this month as the new US attorney in Boston, said the decision to withdraw the case had been made after prosecutors obtained new information indicating that the Chinese affiliations at the centre of the case were not of material importance to the funding agency. “We understand that our charging decisions deeply impact people’s lives,” Rollins said. “As United States attorney, I will always encourage the prosecutors in our office to engage in this type of rigorous and continued review at every stage of a proceeding. Today’s dismissal is a result of that process and is in the interests of justice.” When Chen was arrested just over a year ago, the tone from the prosecutor’s office was strikingly different. At a news conference that morning, the US attorney at the time, Andrew E Lelling, said that “the allegations of the complaint imply that this was not just about greed, but about loyalty to China.” Joseph R Bonavolonta, the FBI special agent in charge in Boston, said Chen had “knowingly and willingly defrauded at least $19 million in federal grants.” The charges that were filed several days later were more limited in scope. They included two counts of wire fraud, for failing to disclose seven affiliations to the Department of Energy while applying for a $2.7 million grant to study heat conduction in polymer structures and in a subsequent progress report. The affiliations included serving as a “fourth overseas expert consultant” to the Chinese government, a “review expert” for the National Natural Science Foundation of China and an adviser to the Chinese Scholarship Council, among others. He was also charged with failing to declare a Chinese bank account containing more than $10,000 and with making false statements to government officials in his grant disclosures. In recent conversations, officials at the Department of Energy told prosecutors that the affiliations Chen had failed to declare would not have prevented the agency from extending the grant money, according to two people familiar with the matter. In a statement Thursday morning, Chen’s lawyer, Robert Fisher, credited witnesses who “came forward and told the government how badly they misunderstood the details surrounding scientific and academic collaboration,” saying that “without them this case would likely still be ongoing.” Fisher, a partner at Nixon Peabody, said the scientist had “never lied to the government or anyone else.” “Today is a great day,” he said. “The government finally acknowledged what we have said all along: Professor Gang Chen is an innocent man. Our defence was never based on any legal technicalities. Our defence was this: Gang did not commit any of the offenses he was charged with. Full stop.” Biden administration officials are expected to announce changes to the China Initiative in the coming weeks. “Consistent with the attorney general’s direction, the department is reviewing our approach to countering threats posed by the PRC government,” Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. The name China Initiative may be dropped, and the cases may no longer be packaged as a distinct group but reabsorbed into the caseload of the department’s National Security Division, according to current and former Justice Department officials. After initial discussion of offering amnesty in the pending grant fraud cases, officials are leaning toward resolving the cases individually, the officials said. Among those urging the Justice Department to back away from prosecutions based on grant disclosures is Lelling himself, one of the architects of the initiative, who is now in private practice in Boston. In a post on LinkedIn last month, he wrote that he believed the China Initiative had been intended to combat espionage but had “drifted and, in some significant ways, lost its focus.” “You don’t want people to be scared of collaboration,” he said in an interview. “There’s no question, on the academic side, the China Initiative has created a climate of fear among researchers. That is one reason why DOJ should step back a bit.” He added, however, that prosecutions of academics had done some good, prompting research scientists to be far more transparent about their Chinese funding. “If you were looking for general deterrence, it has been achieved in spades — we have terrified the entire research community,” he said. “What is deterrence? You don’t speed because you’re afraid of getting a ticket. Deterrence is about fear.” MIT President Rafael Reif said he was eager for Chen to return to his duties at the university and that the burden the case had put on him and his family had been “beyond imagining.” “It is difficult to reconcile and accept the pain and anguish that such good people, people we are proud and fortunate to know, have endured over the last two years,” Reif said in a statement. “This case has also caused ongoing distress throughout our community, particularly for Gang’s friends, students and colleagues, and for those across MIT and elsewhere who are of Chinese descent.” © 2022 The New York Times Company
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Indonesia plans to make ministers from around the world use bicycles to get about at the UN talks on climate change in Bali to help offset the event's carbon emissions, an environment ministry official said on Friday. Delegates from nearly 190 countries will gather on the resort island on Monday to launch a concentrated effort to hammer out a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, a pact to curb global warming that expires in 2012. To help offset an estimated 47,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide expected to be emitted during the 12-day event, the government will clear the conference site of cars and lay on about 200 bikes instead to help people move around the area, Agus Purnomo said. "We want people to leave their cars at the main gate and switch to bicycles," Purnomo, the meeting's executive chairman, told a news conference. "To prevent people from melting in the sun, we will ask everyone to wear light clothes and short sleeves." Purnomo said the estimated emissions figure included carbon dioxide emitted by flights to and from the island and by the use of electricity to power air conditioners. More than 10,000 people including official delegates, activists and journalists are expected to show up at hundreds of sessions sprawled across the island's Nusa Dua area.
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Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called an election Saturday for August 21, with the poll to be fought over policies on economic management, climate and border protection. Australia's first female prime minister was appointed three weeks ago by the ruling Labor party as the government faced electoral defeat and has resurrected voter support to put Labor narrowly ahead in opinion polls. Conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott needs to win only nine seats to form government with four independents or 13 seats to take office outright. "Today I seek a mandate from the Australian people to move Australia forward," Gillard told a news conference. "Moving forward means moving forward with budget surpluses and a stronger economy," said Gillard, who toppled leader Kevin Rudd in a party coup on June 24. Australia's robust economy, which dodged recession in 2009 and emerged strong from the global financial crisis, will be key to the 2010 election. And Gillard has said she would seek re-election on a platform of creating jobs. But while the government has said it will return a budget surplus by 2013, opinion polls show voters view the opposition as better economic managers, despite Labor steering the economy through the global financial crisis and avoiding recession. The opposition has also vowed to return to a budget surplus and keep a cap on government spending. "Racing for the center," said the headline of a story in The Australian newspaper comparing Gillard and Abbott. Yet, voters will be given stark choices: * Gillard plans to introduce a 30 percent mining tax, raising A$10.5 billion ($9.12 billion) from 2012, and Abbott has vowed to dump it. * Gillard believes a carbon price to fight climate change is inevitable, with a emissions trading scheme possibly brought in after 2012-13, Abbott does not. * Gillard has proposed a possible East Timor regional asylum processing center to stop boatpeople arriving in Australia, Abbott plans to reopen Pacific island detention camps. "We are ready to govern," opposition leader Abbott said in a speech Saturday which focused on jobs. He said conservative parties would abandon a policy of tough labor laws, conceding it lost them power in 2007. "Trust will only be restored by demonstrating, over time, that the coalition again has the steady hands in which people's job security and pay and conditions can once more safely rest." ELECTION ABOUT LEADERSHIP David Briggs of pollster Galaxy Research said the focus of the election will be leadership, in particular the performance of new Prime Minister Gillard. "It is about Julia Gillard and it is the election for Labor to lose," Briggs told Reuters. Newspaper's editorial did not endorse either Labor or the Liberal-National opposition, but the Sydney Morning Herald called Gillard the "hollow woman" who in three weeks as leader has given little indication of where she would take Australia. "Voters deserve to pass judgment not just on her as prime minister, but on the tumultuous events that saw her grab the job...," said the Herald. While voters will be given policy choices, they will also face two contrasting personalities in Abbott and Gillard. Abbott is a pugnacious and socially conservative Catholic, who once trained for the priesthood, and is opposed to same sex marriages and abortions. Gillard in contrast does not believe in God, is unmarried but has a long-time partner, and is childless. But both Gillard and Abbott are skilled, intelligent politicians, whose campaign skills may prove the key to who wins the election. "I think it will be a tight election. I think it will go down to the wire," said Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen.
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President Barack Obama, who opposes limits on federal funding of stem cell research, will sign an executive order about stem cells on Monday, an administration official said on Friday. The official could not confirm the details of what Obama would sign, but advisers had previously said he favored lifting the eight-year limitation on funding of human embryonic stem cell research imposed by his predecessor, President George W Bush. The issue is controversial because some people believe the destruction of any human embryo is wrong. The official also said Obama would make an announcement about a broader initiative to restore scientific integrity to government processes. Other government officials, who asked not to be named, have said Obama could take several different routes to lifting the Bush limits on stem cell research. These include an executive order, a simple statement of policy, or some kind of joint action with Congress. Obama has made clear since before he ran for president that he supports federal spending on human embryonic stem cell research. Stem cells are the body's master cells, the source of all cells and tissue, like brain, blood, heart, bones and muscles. Embryonic stem cells come from days-old embryos and many scientists consider them the most powerful because they can transform into any type of cell in the body. Doctors hope to harness the transformational qualities of stem cells to treat a variety of diseases, including brain cells for Parkinson's disease, pancreatic cells for diabetes and nerve cells for spinal-cord injuries. Scientists have complained that the eight years of limitations placed by Bush have held up research, while opponents of human embryonic stem cell research say scientists can be working with other types of stem cells that do not come from embryos. DICKEY AMENDMENT US legislation called the Dickey Amendment forbids the use of federal funds for the creation or destruction of human embryos for research. In 1998, soon after human embryonic stem cells were discovered, the Health and Human Services Department determined that the Dickey Amendment did not apply to researchers working with human stem cells, so long as they did not get the cells themselves from embryos. But in August 2001, Bush declared otherwise and limited the use of federal funds to human embryonic stem cell lines, or batches, that existed as of that moment. He vetoed congressional attempts to override this decision. Several members of Congress who oppose abortion rights have supported broader federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, and the issue crosses the political divide. Even many abortion opponents say they support the use of stem cells from embryos created in fertility clinics -- embryos that would otherwise be discarded. Critics of the Bush administration accused it of inserting ideology into the scientific process -- from the stem cell issue to climate change and even contraception. The Obama administration has been working to overturn these policies. On Friday, the Health and Human Services Department moved to rescind a controversial rule, made final just before Obama took office, that would allow healthcare workers to invoke their consciences in refusing to provide health services or information to patients.
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CANBERRA Oct 12, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Australia's government stepped up pressure on a divided opposition over climate policy on Monday, saying it would only negotiate changes to controversial carbon trade laws if the amendments did not hurt the budget. The government has been struggling to get the laws through the Senate to create only the second domestic emissions trading platform in the world after the European Union's scheme. Rejection by the Australian Senate in November's next sitting could give the government an excuse to call an early election. Emissions trading puts a price on every tonne of planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted by industries and sets an increasingly tougher cap on those emissions over time, forcing companies to pay more to pollute or to cut emissions by becoming more efficient. Australia's scheme will be tougher than the European emissions trading programme because it covers 75 percent of the nation's carbon emissions, versus 40 percent in Europe. The outcome is being closely watched in the United States, where lawmakers are crafting emissions trading laws as well. Australia's government has made major revisions to its laws, which the Senate has already rejected once. The government is seven seats short of a majority in the Senate and support from the opposition is crucial. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said on Monday proposals released by the opposition had a A$3.2 billion ($2.9 billion) costing error. "What we are saying to the opposition is that you need to put forward amendments that are fiscally responsible to deal with this legislation responsibly," Wong told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, however, said the proposals were put together by independent economic consultants, and did not represent his party's policy. "DINOSAURS" The government aims to have carbon trading start in July 2011, but wants laws for the scheme passed ahead of December U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen meant to hammer out the framework of a tougher global climate deal. The opposition wants to wait for the outcome of Copenhagen. Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter, has committed to cut carbon emissions by 5 percent by 2020, or up to 25 percent if there is a strong international agreement on a broader climate pact in Copenhagen. Turnbull wants his party to negotiate amendments so the package can pass to avoid a snap election, which opinion polls show the government would win with an increased majority. The opposition, which is deeply divided over the carbon-trade laws, will hold a special meeting on Sunday to consider possible amendments in what is shaping up as a major test of Turnbull's leadership. A new opinion poll on Monday found voters evenly split on whether the laws should pass before or after the Copenhagen talks, in a finding which could encourage rebel opposition lawmakers to harden their stand against the scheme. Treasurer Wayne Swan said the government was serious about negotiating changes, but the opposition remained in chaos. "It's hard to figure out what the opposition is doing because essentially they are populated by climate change dinosaurs," Swan told reporters. ($1 = A$1.11)
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This year will be among the seven warmest on record, with extreme events including a precipitous thaw of Arctic sea ice, UN data showed on Thursday on the sidelines of a UN climate conference. The study also said that 1998-2007 was the hottest decade since reliable records began around 1850, in further evidence of what the UN Climate Panel calls "unequivocal" warming in recent decades. "What we see is confirmation of this warming trend," Michel Jarraud, head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said during UN climate talks where 190 nations are deadlocked over how to step up action to slow climate change. "This year was in the top seven," he said. The WMO says 1998 was the warmest year followed by 2005, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2006. Jarraud said it was not yet possible to rank 2007 exactly. The data are based on two sources -- the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 2007 is fifth warmest while data from England's University of East Anglia places it seventh. Among extremes, Jarraud noted that the Arctic ice shrank at the end of the northern summer to the smallest since satellite records began in the 1970s, opening the fabled Northwest Passage for a first time and eclipsing a 2005 low by 23 percent. Signs of extreme weather this year include a cyclone in Bangladesh that killed 3,000 people in November, droughts in Australia and China, and floods in Bolivia. England had its wettest summer since records began in 1766. DISASTERS "Natural disasters are a major obstacle to development as they keep happening with increasing frequency," Jarraud said. He said people could not prevent cyclones, for instance, but could mute damage with better forecasting and preparation. The Bali talks, due to end on Friday, are seeking to agree a "roadmap" to launch two years of talks on a new treaty to bind all nations, including the United States and developing nations, more tightly into combating warming. The U.N. climate panel blames human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, for rising temperatures. Jarraud also said that surface temperatures in the northern hemisphere were likely to be the second warmest on record in 2007 while temperatures in the southern hemisphere ranked ninth on record. World temperatures are about 0.74 Celsius (1.2 F) higher than a century ago. "The difference between an Ice Age and an interglacial period like now is 6 Celsius (11 F)," Jarraud said. "We are adding to an already warm period."
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The study by the World Health Organisation and International Labour Organisation, the first assessment of its kind, found that work-related diseases and injuries were responsible for the deaths of 1.9 million people in 2016. "It's shocking to see so many people literally being killed by their jobs," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, saying he hoped the report would be a "wake-up call". The study considers 19 occupational risk factors including long working hours but also workplace exposure to air pollution, asthmagens, carcinogens and noise. It showed that a disproportionate number of work-related deaths occurred in workers in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, in males, and in those over 54 years of age. The study builds on earlier WHO findings that long working hours were killing approximately 745,000 people a year through strokes and heart disease. The broader report, published on Friday, found that another big workplace killer was exposure to air pollution such as gases and fumes, as well as tiny particles associated with industrial emissions. Air pollution was responsible for 450,000 deaths in 2016, the report found. Injuries killed 360,000 people. On the positive side, the number of work-related deaths relative to population fell by 14% between 2000 and 2016, the report found, adding that this may reflect improvements in workplace health and safety. However, it also said that the work-related burden of disease was probably "substantially larger" than estimated. Frank Pega, WHO technical officer, said that other deaths including those from rising heat associated with climate change were not currently included, and nor were communicable diseases such as COVID-19.
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NAIROBI, November12 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - No breakthrough will happen next week in talks to extend the Kyoto pact on global warming, but a softening of stances will produce an agreement on next steps to take, senior negotiators have told Reuters. Some 189 countries are debating a united response to the threat of climate change at a 2-week conference in Nairobi. The Kyoto Protocol has already taken a very small first step to curbing man's contribution to climate change, capping greenhouse gas emissions by some industrialised nations. Scientists say much tougher caps are needed to avert catastrophic weather changes. Developing countries have now come to accept that the developed world has to take time to work out the scope of the emissions cuts it can afford with available technologies. "They have themselves proposed that this be a first step in the work map," said Michael Zammit Cutajar, head of the UN group set up to plot Kyoto's future post-2012. "I don't think there will be a date on it. It will be a series of steps, on the overall understanding that the deal will be done in time for the parties to ratify before the end of 2012." The EU's chief negotiator, Outi Berghall from the current EU president Finland, also saw agreement on next steps: "We want to establish a work programme and how to proceed. In my understanding it should be possible here because, even in Group 77 (the developing countries), it's understood that we need some analytical work." The European Union has accepted cuts to be implemented by 2012, when Kyoto's provisions expire. Poorer nations had feared any delay in negotiations might pile pressure on them to make binding emissions cuts themselves. They argue that they cannot take action on climate change until they pull themselves out of poverty. But not all developing countries are in the same position, said Berghall: "Some of the countries we classify as developing countries have higher GDP per capita than some in the EU, while some are very poor indeed." Asked about South Korea, for example, she said: "We would like them to have a greater role ... even binding commitments. Of course that would be very welcome if they would take it." Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern last month injected fresh urgency in the climate change debate, saying failure to act could trigger severe floods and harsh droughts, uproot as many as 200 million people, and cause economic upheaval on the scale of the Depression of the 1930s.
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Speaking at a pre-election town hall event on RTL television on Sunday, Merkel called on German carmakers, all of which have been caught using workarounds to cheat nitrogen emissions tests, to work to re-establish public trust in diesel. "We need diesel if we are to achieve our climate protection goals," she said. Diesel cars emit less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide but emit more of the nitrogen dioxide that can cause breathing problems in high concentrations. She told one car owner that the more modest compensation received by German car owners compared with their US counterparts was the result of very different legal systems in the two countries. Nonetheless, Germany's carmakers needed to compensate owners whose cars were less valuable as a result of the scandal as best as possible, she said, otherwise "the German car industry, which is admired the world over, could suffer substantial harm". The future of the auto sector, Germany's biggest exporter and provider of 800,000 jobs, has become a hot election issue as politicians blame executives and each other for the sector's battered reputation after Volkswagen's admission almost two years ago that it had cheated US emissions tests.
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Aug 29 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Following are highlights of a draft 21-page UN report summing up global warming research by 2,500 scientists this year. The report, obtained by Reuters and giving an overview of 3,000 pages of previously published documents by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will be issued in November in Spain after review by governments. SCIENCE -- "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level. -- Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases. More than 89 percent of observed changes are consistent with a warming world. -- Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (from human activities) greenhouse gas concentrations. -- Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years. IMPACTS -- Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century. --- Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would increase for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilised. -- It is very unlikely that there will be large abrupt changes due to changes in (the system of major ocean currents) or ice sheets over the 21st century. The probability of large abrupt climate changes beyond 2100 cannot be assessed with confidence. SOLUTIONS -- There is high agreement and much evidence...that there is substantial economic potential for the mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades that could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels. -- Many impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed by mitigation, but adaptation is also necessary even at the lowest stabilisation levels assessed in this report. -- Global emissions must peak and then decline to meet any of the assessed stabilisation levels. Mitigation efforts over the next two to three decades will have a large impact on opportunities to achieve lower stabilisation levels and resulting long-term equilibrium temperature changes. -- There is high agreement and much evidence that the range of stabilisation levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available and those that are expected to be commercialised in coming decades."
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PUNTA ARENAS, Chile, Wed Jan 7, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A yellow robot submarine will dive under an ice shelf in Antarctica to seek clues to world ocean level rises in one of the most inaccessible places on earth. The 7-meter (22 ft) submarine, to be launched from a US research vessel, will probe the underside of the ice at the end of the Pine Island glacier, which is moving faster than any other in Antarctica and already brings more water to the oceans than Europe's Rhine River. Scientists have long observed vast icebergs breaking off Antarctica's ice shelves -- extensions of glaciers floating on the sea -- but have been unable to get beneath them to see how deep currents may be driving the melt from below. They are now stepping up monitoring of Antarctica, aware that any slight quickening of a thaw could swamp low-lying Pacific islands or incur huge costs in building defenses for coastal cities from Beijing to New York. The rate of flow of the Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica has quickened to 3.7 km (2.3 miles) a year from 2.4 km in the mid-1990s. "It's taken everyone by surprise," Adrian Jenkins, leader of the "Autosub" mission at the British Antarctic Survey, told Reuters just before leaving this week after preparations in Chile. The submarine cost several million dollars to develop. "If you just make measurements at the ice front all you have is a black box," Jenkins said. "What we are doing is observing what is going on within the box." Antarctica holds more than 90 percent of the world's fresh water and would raise ocean levels by 57 meters (190 ft) if it were all to melt, which would take thousands of years. The U.N. Climate Panel projected last year that world sea levels would rise between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) by the year 2100, driven by global warming caused mainly by human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. "Pine Island glacier and the glacier alongside, the Thwaites, are moving faster than any other glaciers in Antarctica," said Stan Jacobs, the chief scientist on the ice breaker, of Columbia University in the United States. "They are also accelerating," he said aboard the U.S. Nathaniel B. Palmer vessel in Punta Arenas at the southern tip of Chile just before the 54-day voyage. THINNING SHELF Pine Island, Thwaites and the nearby Crosson glacier add 0.25 mm a year to global sea levels -- 2.5 cms over a century even if unchanged. The Autosub, driven by 5,000 batteries of the kind used to power torches, has a top speed of 3.4 knots, a range of 400 kms (250 miles) and can dive to 1,600 metres. The Pine Island ice shelf is about 400 meters thick at its seaward edge on the Amundsen Sea. Other projects the research vessel will carry out include tethering devices to the seabed to monitor ocean temperature, salinity and currents for two years. At Pine Island, the thinning of the shelf seems to be linked to a shift in deep ocean currents that are bringing warmer water from the depths and melting the ice. No one knows why. On the Antarctic peninsula further north, several ice shelves have disintegrated in recent years apparently because of a 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) warming of air temperatures in the past 50 years that may be linked to global warming. In much of Antarctica, temperatures are little changed. Whatever the causes, glaciers may slide off the land more quickly if ice shelves vanish, adding water to the ocean and nudging up sea levels. "You have to start worrying whether the system is speeding up, moving ice more rapidly into the ocean than it was even 50 years ago," Jacobs said. Shifts in winds might be causing currents to suck warmer water from deeper parts of the ocean. The submarine, which takes sonar readings and measurements of the saltiness of the water under the ice -- glacier ice is made of fresh water -- is the successor to one lost near the start of a similar mission in 2005 beneath an ice shelf in east Antarctica. "People are surprised to hear that it's powered by 5,000 'D' sized alkaline torch batteries," said Steve McPhail of the British National Oceanography Center in Southampton who engineered the Autosub. "This is the most economical way of powering a submarine like this," he said. The submarine is due to make a half-dozen missions under the ice -- its route has to be programed in advance but it can maneuver around hazards. He said the submarine is yellow because it makes it easy to spot when it surfaces, and its color has "absolutely nothing" to do with the Beatles song "Yellow Submarine."
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WASHINGTON, 18 Jun (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Clearing forests in the Amazon helps mosquitoes thrive and can send malaria rates soaring, US researchers reported on Wednesday. They found a 48 percent increase in malaria cases in one county in Brazil after 4.2 percent of its tree cover was cleared. Their findings, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, shows links between cutting down trees, a rise in the number of mosquitoes and infections of humans. "It appears that deforestation is one of the initial ecological factors that can trigger a malaria epidemic," said Sarah Olson of the University of Wisconsin, who worked on the study. Experts are already worried that the destruction of Brazil's Amazon forests can help drive climate change. Big fires, set by farmers to clear land for agriculture, are the main cause of deforestation. One team estimated earlier this month that 19,000 square km (7,300 square miles) of forest had been lost every year in Brazil from 1998 to 2007. The new study shows the immediate health consequences, the researchers said. "Conservation policy and public health policy are one and the same," Jonathan Patz, the professor who oversaw the work, said in a telephone interview. "How we manage our landscapes and, in this case, tropical rain forest has implications for public health." Malaria, caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, kills about 860,000 people a year globally, according to the World Health Organization. Brazil has about 500,000 cases a year of malaria, most carried by Anopheles darling mosquito. Patz's team has been tracking mosquito populations and how they change as forests are cut down in Brazil and Peru. They took satellite data showing changes in tree cover in one county of Brazil's Amazon region and linked it with health records showing diagnosed cases of malaria. DETAILED INFORMATION The malaria data was exceptionally detailed -- some of the teams used Global Positioning Satellite data to show precisely where patients lived. They documented more than 15,000 malaria cases in 2006 The conclusions were clear. "We show that a 4.2 percent change in deforestation from August 1997 through August 2001 is associated with a 48 percent increase of malaria incidence," the researchers wrote. Forests in Brazil are cleared by large-scale loggers and subsistence farmers alike. "Human-altered landscapes provide a milieu of suitable larval habitats for Anopheles darling mosquitoes, including road ditches, dams, mining pits, culverts, vehicle ruts, and areas of poor clearing," the researchers wrote. Another possible factor is that many of the farmers have started fish farms in the region. Patz said it was not possible to see those in the satellite images, but they could be providing breeding areas for mosquitoes. "Our findings are likely generalizable to many parts of Amazonia, and build on our past entomological studies in the Peruvian Amazon," Patz added. "This environmental epidemiology study further shows that rain forest conservation policy should be a key component to any malaria control effort in the region."
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Now Alamin - whose father died of cancer a couple years back - works on a shipbreaking crew and his mother cooks for the workers. Together they earn just enough to feed and house themselves and Alamin's two younger siblings, now 3 and 5. "Once we were solvent. My husband earned from our cultivable land and my son was reading in a local primary school," said Amina Begum, Alamin's mother. But after losing their property to the river and their savings to failed cancer treatments, work is all Alamin can now expect, she lamented. As more extreme weather drives worsening flooding, erosion and storms in low-lying Bangladesh, thousands of families like hers are moving to the slums of Dhaka. For many of their children - who are battling climate change impacts alongside their parents - the move means the end of education, and the start of a lifetime of hard work. In an August report, UNICEF, the UN children's agency, said children in the South Asian nations of Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India now face "extremely high" risks from climate change impacts. Globally about a billion children in 33 countries face that level of threat, it added. “For the first time, we have clear evidence of the impact of climate change on millions of children in South Asia," said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF's regional director for South Asia, in the report. Droughts, floods and river erosion across the region have left millions of children homeless, hungry, lacking healthcare and safe water - and in many cases out of school, UNICEF officials said. "Climate change has created an alarming crisis for South Asian children," Laryea-Adjei noted. 1.7 MILLION WORKING CHILDREN In Bangladesh, a fertile delta nation of close to 700 rivers, a difficult combination of more flood-driven erosion and little land for resettlement is driving many once-rural families into urban slums. Children, who make up about 40% of the population of the country of more than 160 million, are paying a particularly high price in the move, researchers say. Most Bangladeshi children not attending primary school live in urban slums, or in hard-to-reach or disaster-prone areas, according to UNICEF. About 1.7 million children in the country are labourers, one in four of them 11 years old or younger, the agency's research shows. Girls, who often work as domestic labourers, rarely even show up in the statistics, UNICEF noted. In slums around Dhaka, children are evident working in tanneries, shipyards, tailoring, or repairing automobiles. Others labour at vegetable markets or carrying luggage in bus, train and boat terminals. Many say they once lived in the countryside, before being forced to the city. A sweating Alauddin, 10, has worked at a vegetable market in Dhaka for a few months now, carrying out tasks such as cleaning and shifting potatoes in metal bowls he can scarcely budge. He said he used to study at Debraipatch Primary School, near the northeast city of Jamalpur, until a powerful flood last year wrecked the school and his family's home and land. They moved to a Dhaka slum, where his father now pulls a rickshaw and his mother works part-time as a cleaner at a private school. Alauddin's work contributes 100 taka ($1.15) a day to the family finances, money the family can't do without, his father said. “My children will never go back to school," he admitted. "We are struggling with rent and our daily livelihood. How would we bear (my son's) educational expenses?" Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury, Bangladesh's deputy state minister of education, said in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation that floods last year inundated more than 500 educational institutions in 10 districts across the country. While a few were entirely washed away, most have since dried out - but only a few have been repaired sufficiently to be available for classes, he said. The new flood-related closures come on the heels of long pandemic-related shutdowns, and mean even children who do not have to work are still out of classrooms in many places. Bangladesh's Annual Primary School Census for 2021 showed 10.24 million students attending 65,000 government primary schools - but noted the drop-out rate in 2021 was over 17%, with more than 2 million children leaving classes. Global warming impacts were a top driver of that flight from classrooms, educational officials said. Alamgir Mohammad Mansurul Alam, director general of the Directorate of Primary Education, called the drop-out rate "alarming" and noted "one of the big reasons is climate change". "Last year we observed that more than 500 schools were damaged by flooding. The students could not go school for a long time," he said in an interview. What became evident, he said, is that "a large number of them never come back to school and are involved in different work to support their family.” More than 14,000 private primary schools in Bangladesh also were at least temporarily shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Iqbal Bahar Chowdhury, chairman of the country's private primary school association. Altogether 37 million children in Bangladesh have seen their education disrupted by school closures since the start of the pandemic in 2020, according to an October report by UNICEF and UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. BIG BURDENS, SMALL SHOULDERS Rupa, 9, is among the children now in work instead of school. After her family's home in Khulna Shyamnagar was destroyed by a cyclone last year, her family came to join an aunt living in a slum near Dhaka. Rupa's mother eventually abandoned her blind husband, who could not work, leaving her daughter behind with him. The girl now earns 100 taka ($1.15) a day helping unload watermelons at the wharf. "I realise it's really hard for a little girl to work with adult workers but I'm helpless. I also have a year-old baby and family to maintain," said her aunt, who works as a cook. Syeda Munira Sultana, national project coordinator for the International Labour Organization in Bangladesh, said she had met many girls like Rupa, forced into work by extreme weather or other climate change impacts. "I was surprised to see many girls younger than 10 years old working in a factory near Keraniganj, where women's dresses are produced," she said. "I talked to them and they said most of them came from climate-vulnerable areas like Barisal, Khulna and Satkhira - and all of them are dropouts from school," she added. Children forced to work can face both physical and mental harm as well as losing their chance at an education, which can restrict their future opportunities and lead to inter-generational cycles of poverty and child labour, said Tuomo Poutiainen, director of the ILO's Bangladesh office. "Children are paying a high price for climate change," added Sheldon Yett, UNICEF's representative in Bangladesh.
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WASHINGTON, Apr 11(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Six months after introducing a sweeping climate change bill that flopped in the Senate, Democrat John Kerry is preparing to offer a compromise measure that seeks to reel in reluctant senators. Kerry, collaborating with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman, might introduce a new bill promoting clean energy early next week, just days before the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, environmental sources said. Despite Kerry's consistently upbeat assessment of legislative prospects this year, the new bill also faces plenty of hurdles. On Friday, a new problem potentially arose when US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement. President Barack Obama said he would move quickly to name a replacement. That will trigger a Senate confirmation debate that could eat up time -- like the healthcare debate did over the past year -- that otherwise could be spent on the complicated, far-reaching energy and environment bill. Reacting to the news of Stevens' retirement, Kerry insisted there was time to pass major legislation "and still confirm a new justice." "Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman will unveil their proposal later this month," Kerry spokeswoman Whitney Smith said, adding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was "committed to making this Congress the one that finally passes comprehensive energy and climate legislation." Last week, Obama's top negotiator to international climate talks, Todd Stern, told Reuters that action in Congress was critical for US leverage and credibility in UN negotiations toward a global pact controlling carbon pollution. The United States is second only to China in emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Other high-priority initiatives that will tie up the Senate in coming months are the federal budget for next year and an array of spending bills, including one for the war in Afghanistan. Controversial banking industry reforms and additional job-creation steps Democrats want to enact this election year also are stacked up on the runway. Most senators and environmentalists backing attempts to reduce U.S. smokestack emissions associated with global warming think that if a bill is to be passed before November congressional elections, the Senate must do so by July, before the election campaigns heat up. SEVENTEEN PERCENT SOLUTION Aides to Kerry, Graham and Lieberman toiled over legislative details of their climate bill during a two-week recess that ends on Monday. Its centerpiece will be a 2020 deadline for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels. Oil and coal, cheap and dirty energy sources, gradually would be replaced with more expensive, but cleaner alternative fuels. The 17 percent lines up with the House of Representatives' target and commitments made by Obama in global talks. In a move to lure more votes, the compromise Senate bill is expected to have new incentives for domestic oil and natural gas production and expanding nuclear power. Electric utilities would be the first sector to have pollution controls imposed -- starting in 2012 -- through a "cap and trade" system to bring down carbon emissions with required permits that would be traded in a regulated market. Factories would join the pollution-reduction system in 2016, industry and environmental sources have been told. A third sector, transportation, would see a tax levied on refined oil products, a Senate source told Reuters last week, with the expectation it would be passed on to consumers when they buy gasoline and other fuel products. Writing the bill has been a long, tough slog for Kerry. It seems that just about every time he finds a way to gain some support from one corner, concerns pop up from another. Asked about the difficulty, the Senate source would only say, "We are working to address and reconcile all of the concerns raised by particular members about particular provisions." For example, Senator Robert Casey told Reuters in late March he would try to kill an oil industry proposal letting states, rather than Washington, regulate shale gas drilling methods. The Pennsylvania Democrat cited groundwater contamination concerns. Kerry is being hit with an array of other competing concerns: Industry wants the federal legislation to pre-empt state climate control efforts and US Environmental Protection Agency regulation, an idea many state officials oppose. A dizzying number of other concerns were still being addressed too, according to government and private-sector sources. They include how oil industry tax revenues would be used, how pollution permits would be allocated to utilities and the shape of a border tax to protect steelmakers and other energy-intensive industries from unfair foreign competition.
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