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The powerful twisters, which weather forecasters say are unusual in cooler months, destroyed a candle factory and the fire and police stations in a small town in Kentucky, ripped through a nursing home in neighbouring Missouri, and killed at least six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said the collection of tornadoes was the most destructive in the state's history. He said about 40 workers had been rescued at the candle factory in the city of Mayfield, which had about 110 people inside when it was reduced to a pile of rubble. It would be a "miracle" to find anyone else alive under the debris, Beshear said. "The devastation is unlike anything I have seen in my life and I have trouble putting it into words," Beshear said at a press conference. "It's very likely going to be over 100 people lost here in Kentucky." Beshear said 189 National Guard personnel have been deployed to assist with the recovery. The rescue efforts will focus in large part on Mayfield, home to some 10,000 people in the southwestern corner of the state where it converges with Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas. Video and photos posted on social media showed brick buildings in downtown Mayfield flattened, with parked cars nearly buried under debris. The steeple on the historic Graves County courthouse was toppled and the nearby First United Methodist Church partially collapsed. Mayfield Fire Chief Jeremy Creason, whose own station was destroyed, said the candle factory was diminished to a "pile of bent metal and steel and machinery" and that responders had to at times "crawl over casualties to get to live victims." Paige Tingle said she drove four hours to the site in the hope of finding her 52-year-old mother, Jill Monroe, who was working at the factory and was last heard from at 9:30 pm. "We don't know how to feel, we are just trying to find her," she said. "It's a disaster here." The genesis of the tornado outbreak was a series of overnight thunderstorms, including a super cell storm that formed in northeast Arkansas. That storm moved from Arkansas and Missouri and into Tennessee and Kentucky. Unusually high temperatures and humidity created the environment for such an extreme weather event at this time of year, said Victor Gensini, a professor in geographic and atmospheric sciences at Northern Illinois University. "This is an historic, if not generational event," Gensini said. Saying the disaster was likely one of the largest tornado outbreaks in US history, President Joe Biden on Saturday approved an emergency declaration for Kentucky. He told reporters he would be asking the Environmental Protection Agency to examine what role climate change may have played in fuelling the storms, and he raised questions about the tornado warning systems. "What warning was there? And was it strong enough and was it heeded?" Biden said. 'LIKE A BIG BOMB' About 130 miles east of Mayfield in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Justin Shepherd said his coffee shop was spared the worst of the storm, which struck other businesses hard on the busy commercial strip just off the bypass to US Highway 31 West. "We've got some siding and roof damage here, but just across the road there's a brewery that half of it is gone. It's just totally gone, like a big bomb exploded or something." One person was killed and five seriously injured when a tornado tore through a nursing home with 90 beds in Monette, Arkansas, a small community near the border with Missouri, according to Craighead County Judge Marvin Day. "We were very blessed that more people weren't killed or injured in that. It could have been a whole lot worse," Day told Reuters. A few miles away in Leachville, Arkansas, a tornado destroyed a Dollar General Store, killing one person, and laid waste to much of the city's downtown, said Lt. Chuck Brown of the Mississippi County Sheriff's Office in Arkansas. "It really sounded like a train roaring through town." In Illinois, at least six workers were confirmed killed after an Amazon.com Inc warehouse collapsed in the town of Edwardsville, when the winds ripped off the roof and reduced a wall longer than a football field to rubble. Amazon truck driver Emily Epperson, 23, said she was anxiously waiting for information on the whereabouts of her workmate Austin McEwan late Saturday afternoon to relay to his girlfriend and parents. "We're so worried because we believe that, you know, he would have been found by now," she told Reuters. In Tennessee, the severe weather killed at least three people, said Dean Flener, spokesperson for the state's Emergency Management Agency. And two people, including a young child, were killed in their homes in Missouri, Governor Mike Parson said in a statement. The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Centre said it received 36 reports of tornadoes touching down in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The weather forecast was broadly clear for Saturday night, but temperatures were expected to drop and thousands of residents lack power and water after the storm. As of Saturday afternoon, nearly 99,000 customers in Kentucky and more than 71,000 in Tennessee were without power, according to PowerOutage.US, a website tracking power outages. Kentucky officials called on residents to stay off the roads and to donate blood, as responders rushed to rescue survivors and account for people in communities that had lost communications. "We've got Guardsmen who are out doing door knocks and checking up on folks because there's no other communication with some of these people," said Brigadier General Haldane Lamberton of the Kentucky National Guard.

Oil at more than $90 a barrel is concentrating minds in the shipping industry. Higher fuel costs and mounting pressure to curb emissions are leading modern merchant fleets to rediscover the ancient power of the sail. The world's first commercial ship powered partly by a giant kite sets off on a maiden voyage from Bremen to Venezuela on Tuesday, in an experiment which inventor Stephan Wrage hopes can wipe 20 percent, or $1,600, from the ship's daily fuel bill. "We aim to prove it pays to protect the environment," Wrage told Reuters. "Showing that ecology and economics are not contradictions motivates us all." The 10,000-tonne 'MS Beluga SkySails' -- which will use a computer-guided kite to harness powerful ocean winds far above the surface and support the engine -- combines modern technology with know-how that has been in use for millennia. But if Skysails is a relatively elaborate solution, another development shows the march of progress is not always linear: shipping companies seeking immediate answers to soaring fuel prices and the need to cut emissions are, simply, slowing down. The world's 50,000 merchant ships, which carry 90 percent of traded goods from oil, gas, coal, and grains to electronic goods, emit 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. That's about 5 percent of the world's total. Also, their fuel costs rose by as much as 70 percent last year. That dramatic increase has ship owners clambering onto a bandwagon to reduce speed as a way to save fuel and cut the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, said Hermann Klein, an executive at Germanischer Lloyd classification society. "The number of shipping lines reducing speed to cut fuel costs has been growing steadily," Klein, whose organisation runs safety surveys on more than 6,000 ships worldwide, told Reuters. "Slowing down by 10 percent can lead to a 25 percent reduction in fuel use. Just last week a big Japanese container liner gave notice of its intention to slow down," he added. Shipping was excluded from the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol to slow climate change, and many nations want the industry to be made accountable for its impact on the climate in the successor to Kyoto, which runs to 2012. GO-SLOW In Hamburg, the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company is not waiting for 2012. It reacted to rising fuel prices by cutting the throttle on its 140 container ships travelling the world's oceans, ordering its captains to slow down. The company in the second half of last year reduced the standard speed of its ships to 20 knots from from 23-1/2 knots, and said it saved a "substantial amount" of fuel. The calculation used in shipping is complex: longer voyages mean extra operating costs, charter costs, interest costs and other monetary losses. But Hapag-Lloyd said slowing down still paid off handsomely. "We've saved so much fuel that we added a ship to the route and still saved costs," said Klaus Heims, press spokesman at the world's fifth-largest container shipping line. "Why didn't we do this before?" Climate change was an additional motivating factor. "It had the added effect of cutting carbon dioxide emissions immediately," Heims said. "Before, ships would speed up to 25 knots from the standard 23-1/2 to make up if time was lost in crowded ports. We calculated that 5 knots slower saves up to 50 percent in fuel." Slowing down has not involved a decrease in capacity for the company. For container ships carrying mainly consumer goods from Hamburg to ports in the Far East, the round-trip at 20 knots now takes 63 days instead of 56, but to make up for this it added a vessel to the route to bring the total to nine. Hapag-Lloyd board member Adolf Adrion told a news conference in London on Jan. 10 speeds are now being cut further, to 16 knots from 20, for journeys across the Atlantic: "It makes sense environmentally and economically," he said. The world's largest container shipping operator, Danish group A.P. Moller-Maersk, is also going slower to cut emissions -- although Eivind Kolding, chief executive of the group's container arm, told the January event this would mean a delay to clients of 1-1/2 days. He added he believed that was a price customers were willing to pay for the sake of the environment. "We reduce speeds where it makes sense," said Thomas Grondorf, Moller-Maersk spokesman in Copenhagen. "It entails careful planning and is only appropriate on certain routes." FERRIES TOO Not only are giant ocean-going vessels slowing down, the trend is also catching on among ferry services. Norway's Color Line ferry between Oslo and Baltic destinations said in early January it would add 30 minutes to the 20-hour trip from Oslo to Kiel: "It's good for the environment and it's good for us economically," said Color Line spokesman Helge Otto Mathisen in Oslo. Color Line CEO Manfred Jansen has said the company will save 1.4 million litres of fuel per year by sailing slower. But if fuel prices keep rising, innovations like the kite powered 'Beluga SkySails' could also pay off. German-based Beluga Shipping has already ordered two more vessels and Wrage's company has a total of five orders in hand. If the maiden voyage is a success, inventor and chief executive Wrage hopes to double the size of its kites to 320 square metres, and expand them again to 600 square metres in 2009. The company hopes to fit 1,500 ships by 2015. At Germanischer Lloyd, Klein said the classification body has urged ship owners to explore other simple ways to save fuel, including using weather forecasts to pick optimum routes for vessel performance, regularly cleaning their vessels' hull and propeller to remove sediments that cause resistance, and using fuel additives to improve combustion efficiency. "'Ship efficiency' is of paramount importance considering a fuel bill for a big container ship over a 25-year lifespan adds up to nearly $900 million," he said. He also saw scope for designers to create slower speed engines with better fuel effiency rather than just having ship owners operate fast-propulsion engines at reduced speeds.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, keen to show off her skills as a mediator two months before a German election, achieved her primary goal at the meeting in Hamburg, convincing her fellow leaders to support a single communique with pledges on trade, finance, energy and Africa. But the divide between Trump, elected on a pledge to put "America First", and the 19 other members of the club, including countries as diverse as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, was stark. Last month Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of a landmark international climate accord clinched two years ago in Paris. Greenpeace activists with the giant statue depicting US President Donald Trump stage a protest at the front of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. Reuters "In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent – all against the United States of America," Merkel told reporters at the end of the meeting. Greenpeace activists with the giant statue depicting US President Donald Trump stage a protest at the front of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. Reuters "And the fact that negotiations on trade were extraordinarily difficult is due to specific positions that the United States has taken." The summit, marred by violent protests that left the streets of Hamburg littered with burning cars and broken shop windows, brought together a volatile mix of leaders at a time of major change in the global geo-political landscape. Trump's shift to a more unilateral, transactional diplomacy has left a void in global leadership, unsettling traditional allies in Europe and opening the door to rising powers like China to assume a bigger role. Tensions between Washington and Beijing dominated the run-up to the meeting, with the Trump administration ratcheting up pressure on President Xi Jinping to rein in North Korea and threatening punitive trade measures on steel. Trump-Putin Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in Hamburg, a hotly anticipated encounter after the former real estate mogul promised a rapprochement with Moscow during his campaign, only to be thwarted by accusations of Russian meddling in the vote and investigations into the Russia ties of Trump associates. Putin said at the conclusion of the summit on Saturday that Trump had quizzed him on the alleged meddling in a meeting that lasted over two hours but seemed to have been satisfied with the Kremlin leader's denials of interference. Russia's President Vladimir Putin talks to US President Donald Trump during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. Reuters Trump had accused Russia of destabilising behaviour in Ukraine and Syria before the summit. But in Hamburg he struck a conciliatory tone, describing it as an honour to meet Putin and signalling, through Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, that he preferred to focus on future ties and not dwell on the past. Russia's President Vladimir Putin talks to US President Donald Trump during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. Reuters "It was an extraordinarily important meeting," Tillerson said, describing a "very clear positive chemistry" between Trump and the former KGB agent. Trump satisfied with poll meddling denials: Putin In the final communique, the 19 other leaders took note of the US decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and declared it "irreversible". For its part, the United States injected a contentious line saying that it would "endeavour to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently." French President Emmanuel Macron led a push to soften the US language. "There is a clear consensus absent the United States," said Thomas Bernes, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. "But that is a problem. Without the largest economy in the world how far can you go?" Jennifer Morgan, executive director at Greenpeace, said the G19 had "held the line" against Trump's "backward decision" to withdraw from Paris. On trade, another sticking point, the leaders agreed they would "fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognise the role of legitimate trade defence instruments in this regard." The leaders also pledged to work together to foster economic development in Africa, a priority project for Merkel. Violent protests Merkel chose to host the summit in Hamburg, the port city where she was born, to send a signal about Germany's openness to the world, including its tolerance of peaceful protests. It was held only a few hundred metres from one of Germany's most potent symbols of left-wing resistance, a former theatre called the "Rote Flora" which was taken over by anti-capitalist squatters nearly three decades ago. A protester throws a bottle towards riot police during demonstrations at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 8, 2017. Over the three days of the summit, radicals looted shops, torched cars and lorries. More than 200 police were injured and some 143 people have been arrested and 122 taken into custody. A protester throws a bottle towards riot police during demonstrations at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 8, 2017. Some of the worst damage was done as Merkel hosted other leaders at for a concert and lavish dinner at the Elbphilharmonie, a modernist glass concert hall overlooking the Elbe River. Merkel met police and security force after the summit to thank them, and condemned the "unbridled brutality" of some of the protesters, but she was forced to answer tough questions about hosting the summit in Hamburg during her closing press conference.

OPEC will back the fight against global warming and affirm its commitment to stable oil prices when its heads of state meeting ends on Sunday, but only Saudi Arabia has so far pledged cash for climate change research. Saudi King Abdullah said on Saturday the world's top oil exporter would give $300 million for environmental research, but other leaders have yet to make similar promises. "We are not committing anything. We don't know what the proposal is," Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil said. "As far as I am aware, nobody else has committed anything either." OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said this week OPEC would be willing to play its part in developing carbon capture and storage technology to help reduce emissions. According to a draft final communique read over the telephone by an OPEC delegate, the group will say it "shares the international community's concern that climate change is a long-term challenge" and seek "stability of global energy markets" but will make no mention of any environmental fund. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he expected the summit to affirm commitment to "stable and competitive" oil prices. He warned that crude oil prices, already close to $100 per barrel, could double on global markets if the United States attacks his ally Iran over its disputed nuclear programme. "If the United States is crazy enough to attack Iran or commit aggression against Venezuela ... oil would not be $100 but $200," Chavez told heads of state including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Saudi capital Riyadh. Fears the United States or its ally Israel could attack Iran, which Washington says is covertly seeking to develop atomic weapons, have helped drive world oil prices to record levels. Tehran denies the charge. NO OIL SUPPLY DECISIONS Soaring prices have prompted calls by consumer nations for the exporter group to provide the market with more crude, but OPEC oil ministers said this week any decision on raising output will be left to a meeting in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 5. Iran and Venezuela are seen as price hawks, while Riyadh has traditionally accommodated Western calls to curb prices. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa told the conference on Sunday he favoured pricing oil in a currency stronger than the dollar. The U.S. currency's drop in the value against other major currencies has helped fuel oil's rally to $98.62 last week but has also reduced the purchasing power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. On Friday, Saudi Arabia steered the group towards rebuffing an attempt by Iran and Venezuela to highlight concern over dollar weakness in the summit communique. Analysts say Saudi King Abdullah, a close U.S. ally and, as OPEC's "swing producer", veteran guarantor of crude to the United States, is keen to keep populists Chavez and Ahmadinejad from grabbing the summit limelight with anti-U.S. rhetoric. The octogenarian leader sat stony-faced throughout Chavez's 25-minute speech on Saturday, and was heard joking to the Venezuelan president afterwards: "You went on a bit!" Addressing leaders assembled in an opulent hall with massive crystal chandeliers and toilet accessories fitted in gold leaf, self-styled socialist revolutionary Chavez said OPEC "must stand up and act as a vanguard against poverty in the world. "OPEC should be a more active geopolitical agent and demand more respect for our countries ... and ask powerful nations to stop threatening OPEC," he said. Ahmadinejad said he would give his views at the summit's close. Saudi Arabia this month proposed setting up a consortium to provide Iran with enriched uranium for peaceful purposes in an effort to diffuse the tension between Washington and Tehran. Iran said it will not halt its own enrichment programme. Worried by a resurgent Iran with potential nuclear capability, Gulf Arab countries, including OPEC producers Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have said they will start a nuclear energy programme of their own.

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. But weather forecasters, many of whom see climate change as a natural, cyclical phenomenon, are split over whether they have a responsibility to educate their viewers on the link between human activity and the change in the Earth's climates. Only 19 percent of US meteorologists saw human influences as the sole driver of climate change in a 2011 survey. And some, like the Weather Channel's founder John Coleman are vocal in their opposition. "It is the greatest scam in history," wrote Coleman, one of the first meteorologists to publicly express doubts about climate change, on his blog in 2007. "I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; it is a SCAM." The climate change controversy has split the American Meteorological Society, whose members are Americans' prime source of news about weather and climate In its last official view issued in 2007, the AMS acknowledged that global warming is occurring and that human activities exacerbate it, especially the burning of fossil fuels and the release of the climate-warming gas, carbon dioxide. Research since 2007 has only solidified climate science findings, said AMS Executive Director Keith Seitter. AMS members who disagree, he said, are in a minority, though an often outspoken one. "There are some extremely vocal people who are arguing on that issue, but I think the science has continued to become more clear, not less so," Seitter said by telephone from Boston. The controversy has held up the society's updated view on climate change but Seitter said expects the new AMS statement to hew closely to its position in 2007 and include updated scientific findings. An online grassroots campaign called "Forecast the Facts" said the society needs to go beyond a strong statement on climate change and require that its members "report the current scientific consensus on climate change." "As it stands right now, it is considered within the realm of acceptable discourse for media outlets, corporations and politicians to deny climate change and to stand in the way of much needed action," Daniel Souweine, who heads the campaign, said in an email. Forecast the Facts is supported by the non-profit environmental groups League of Conservation Voters and 350.org, and has gotten 14,000 signatures for its petition to the AMS, Souweine said. They will be hard-pressed to convince forecasters like Bob Breck, a weatherman at Fox Channel 8 in New Orleans who is vocal in his skepticism over climate change. "AMS has long been dominated by people in academia, which is ok, they're the PhDs ... except those of us who I consider operational meteorologists, we were basically ignored," Breck said by telephone. "I believe in global warming cycles and we have been in a warming cycle. What I don't believe is that the driver of this current warming cycle is carbon dioxide." Most weathermen and women have degrees in meteorology - the study of how Earth's atmosphere behaves in the short term - but few have studied climate science, which examines the wider system where weather occurs. THE DIVIDE But meteorologists advise Americans every day, and that makes them powerful shapers of public opinion. Most don't mention global warming in their weathercasts, but many also blog, and that is often where the skepticism surfaces. Most US meteorologists -- 82 percent in a 2011 survey -- are convinced that climate is changing, but many say it's changing because of natural causes, or human and natural causes combined. That contrasts with about 95 percent of climate scientists who are convinced that climate change is occurring and that human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, are a key driver of it. This tallies with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which reported with 90 percent certainty in 2007 on the causes and effects of climate change. To Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, that split shows that efforts like Forecast the Facts are misguided. "It presumes that AMS is part of the problem, and I actually think the AMS is doing really, really solid work to help their weathercaster members expand the way they currently define their day job to include climate education as part of their role," Maibach said. Maibach, who tracks meteorologists' attitudes on climate change, said skeptics in the group believe their concerns are being ignored. "They feel their views and their concerns about the science are not being taken seriously," Maibach said. "It's pretty easy to understand how one gets to a place of anger when they feel dismissed and disrespected."

Kim, who is Korean American, was already disturbed by what he saw as widespread racism in classical music. He believed Asian string players were marginalised and treated “like cattle,” as he put it recently. “Like a herd of mechanical robots.” And he felt his white colleagues in San Francisco, who make up 83% of the orchestra, did not share his urgency about building a culture more welcoming to Asian, Black and Latino players. Feeling isolated and angry, Kim, 40, began to question his career. In March he resigned as the sole musician of colour on an orchestra committee focused on equity and inclusion. And after the ensemble resumed live performances in May, he took time off, feeling on several occasions too distraught to play. “I felt invisible, even though I was speaking very loudly,” Kim said. “I lost my passion for music.” By some measures, artists with roots in China, Japan, South Korea and other countries are well represented in classical music. They win top prizes at competitions and make up a substantial share of orchestras and conservatories. Stars like Chinese American cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the Japanese American violinist Midori and the Chinese pianist Lang Lang are among the most sought-after performers in the world. Yet the success of some Asian artists obscures the fact that many face routine racism and discrimination, according to interviews with more than 40 orchestra players, soloists, opera singers, composers, students, teachers and administrators. Asian artists encounter stereotypes that their music-making is soulless and mechanical. They are portrayed as exotic and treated as outsiders in a world with its main lineage from Europe. They are accused of besmirching cultural traditions that aren’t theirs and have become targets of online harassment and racial slurs. While artists of Asian descent may be represented in classical music, many say they do not feel seen. “You’re not always allowed to be the kind of artist you want to be,” said Nina Shekhar, 26, an Indian American composer who said her music is often wrongly characterized as having Indian attributes. “It feels very invalidating.” The number of Asian soloists and orchestra musicians has swelled in recent decades, even as Black and Latino artists remain severely underrepresented. But in other parts of the industry, including opera, composition, conducting, arts administration and the boards of leading cultural institutions, Asians are scarce. A lack of role models has exacerbated the problem, artists say, making success in these fields seem elusive. “At times, you feel like an endangered species,” said Xian Zhang, the music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Zhang is one of a small number of Asian female conductors leading major ensembles. Zhang, who is Chinese American, said she has at times had difficulty persuading male musicians to take her seriously, including during appearances as a guest conductor in Europe. “They don’t quite know how to react seeing an Asian woman on the podium telling them what to do,” she said. The recent rise in reports of anti-Asian hate has aroused calls for change. Musicians have formed advocacy groups and have called on cultural organisations to add Asian leaders and to more prominently feature Asian artists and composers. But classical music has long been resistant to evolution. Deep-seated stereotypes about Asians continue to surface. In June, eminent violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman was widely denounced after he invoked racist stereotypes about Asians during a Juilliard master class. He later apologised. Even some of the industry’s most successful artists say a climate of casual racism has affected their careers. Sumi Jo, 58, a renowned coloratura soprano from South Korea, described having several roles rescinded because stage directors thought she was not white enough. “If you’re Asian and you want to be successful,” she said, “you must work 100 times harder, that’s for sure.” Battling Stereotypes Artists of Asian descent have long been the subject of racist tropes and slurs, dating back to at least the 1960s and ’70s, when musicians immigrated to the United States from Japan, Korea and other parts of East Asia to study and perform. A 1967 report in Time magazine, titled “Invasion From the Orient,” reflected the thinking of the era. “The stringed instruments were physically ideal for the Orientals: Their nimble fingers, so proficient in delicate calligraphy and other crafts, adapted easily to the demands of the fingerboard,” the article said. Over time, Asian artists gained a foothold in orchestras and on the concert circuit. By 2014, the last year for which data is available, musicians of Asian descent made up about 9% of large ensembles, according to the League of American Orchestras; in the United States, Asians represent about 6% of the population. In renowned groups like the New York Philharmonic, the number is even higher: Asians now account for a third of that orchestra. (In Europe, it’s often a different story: In the London Symphony Orchestra, for example, three of 82 players, or less than 4%, have Asian roots, while Asians make up more than 18% of London’s population.) Yet racist portrayals of Asian artists have persisted. Some have been told by conductors that they look like computer engineers, not classical musicians. Others have been described by audition committees as too weak and youthful to be taken seriously. Still others have been told their names are too foreign to pronounce or remember. “You get written off as an automaton,” said Akiko Tarumoto, the assistant concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Tarumoto, 44, who is Japanese American, said that musicians of Asian descent in the Philharmonic are sometimes mistaken for each other, and in other ensembles she had heard fellow musicians refer to new hires simply as “Chinese girls.” Celebrated soloists have tried to turn the stereotypes on their head. Lang Lang has said that his embrace of an exuberantly expressive style may have been in part a reaction to perceptions that Asians are cold and reserved. Yuja Wang, another Chinese pianist, has tried, with mixed success, to satirise the stereotype of Asians as robots, which scholars attribute partly to misconceptions about the Suzuki method of teaching music. (It originated in Japan in the 1950s and was criticised in the West for producing homogeneous musicians, but remains in wide use, including among non-Asian students.) In 2019, Wang joined a comedy duo for a contentious concert at Carnegie Hall that was filled with crude jokes about her sexual appeal and Chinese heritage. Wang, 34, said in an interview that early in her career she faced stereotypes that she was technically adept but emotionally shallow. “I didn’t like how they just categorised us and pigeonholed us,” she said. While she said she has rarely experienced overt racism, Wang said she has at times felt like an outsider in the industry, including when others mispronounce her name or do not appear to take her seriously. Other prominent soloists have been reluctant to speak publicly about race. Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Midori and the star pianist Mitsuko Uchida declined to comment for this article. Zubin Mehta, 85, an Indian-born conductor who is a towering figure in the field, said he had never experienced racism and did not believe the industry discriminated against Asians. He said he had “complete sympathy” for those who felt they were mistreated, but that he was not aware of serious problems. Ray Chen, a Taiwanese Australian violinist who has built a wide following on social media, said that audience members have expressed surprise that he can play Mendelssohn and other composers, saying that music is not in his blood. While he believes there is less discrimination now, he said he struggled to get opportunities in Europe earlier in his career — in part, he felt, because of his Asian heritage. “People get offended that you’re not adhering to the rules, the culture,” said Chen, 32. “This is something that’s so wrong with the classical music industry: the fear of something new.” Female artists of Asian descent say they face additional obstacles, including stereotypes that they are exotic and obedient. Soyeon Kate Lee, 42, a Korean American pianist, said a conductor once described her in front of other orchestra leaders as “cheap and good” and suggested she perform a lap dance. Xenophobic suggestions that Asians are taking away orchestra jobs or spots at conservatories are also common. Yuka Kadota, a violinist for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, said Asian musicians are seen as “some sort of invasive species, like carp or murder hornets.” Kadota, 43, who is Japanese American, said she felt “self-conscious and slightly apologetic” during a recent performance of a Brahms string quintet, because four of the five players were women of Asian descent. “I don’t want people to think we’re taking over,” she said. A Dearth of Asian Artists Even as people of Asian descent make strides in orchestras, they remain underrepresented in many parts of the music industry, including conducting, composition and opera. “I try to accept rejections as part of my reality,” said the conductor Mei-Ann Chen, the music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta and the incoming leader of Recreation — Grosses Orchester Graz in Austria. Chen, 48, who is from Taiwan, said donors had canceled meetings and presenters had withdrawn performance opportunities after learning she was Asian. “I had to have a thick skin to come this far,” she said. Arts organisations have in recent years vowed to feature works by a wider range of composers. But artists of Asian descent say that, aside from concerts to celebrate holidays such as the Lunar New Year, they have largely been left out. Works by Asian composers comprise about 2% of pieces planned by American orchestras in the 2021-22 season, according to an analysis of 88 orchestras by the Institute for Composer Diversity at the State University of New York at Fredonia. The dearth of Asian artists is particularly striking in opera, which has long struggled with a lack of racial diversity. At the Metropolitan Opera, the largest performing arts organisation in the United States, 14 of 233 singers announced for principal roles next season, or about 6%, are of Asian descent. Four appear in the same production: an abridged holiday version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” (Asians make up about 14% of New York City’s population.) There are now a large number of Asians in important conservatory vocal programs; the Manhattan School of Music said that 47% of the students currently in its vocal arts department are of Asian descent. But they are not anywhere close to that well represented on opera stages. Nicholas Phan, 42, a tenor of Chinese and Greek descent, said Asians tend to be seen as technically precise yet artistically vacuous. A teacher of Phan’s once told him he should adopt a non-Chinese surname so that competition judges and casting directors would not view him as “just another dumb Asian singer.” When Asians win spots in opera productions, they are often typecast in roles such as Cio-Cio San in “Madama Butterfly” or the titular princess in “Turandot.” Those classics have been criticized for racist portrayals of Asians — though the prominent soprano He Hui, who is Chinese, said she loved singing Butterfly, one of her signature parts. Nina Yoshida Nelsen, a mezzo-soprano, said that of more than 180 performances she had given in the past decade, only nine were in roles that are not considered stereotypically Asian. “My success has been predicated on my tokenisation,” said Nelsen, 41, who is half Japanese. She wrote a Facebook post in March calling on others to “stop seeing my colour and the shape of my eyes as something different — something to ‘typecast.’” Within a week, Nelsen said, she had three offers, none of them for stereotypical roles. Pushing for Change “It’s time for us to speak up and not be afraid,” said Sou-Chun Su, 53, a Taiwan-born violinist in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1990. It was difficult, he said, to get leaders of the orchestra interested in concerns raised by Asian players until six people of Asian descent were shot and killed in Atlanta in March, which prompted widespread outcry. “It shouldn’t have taken something like that,” Su said. (In a statement, the orchestra said it was working to build a more inclusive culture, though it acknowledged “we have much more to do.”) Hyeyung Yoon, a former member of the Chiara String Quartet, last year founded Asian Musical Voices of America, an alliance of artists, because she felt performers of Asian descent had no forum to discuss issues of racism and identity. The group hosts monthly meetings on Zoom. Yoon said cultural institutions often exclude Asians from discussions about bringing more diversity to classical music because they are assumed to be adequately represented. “The Asian experience is hardly present,” she said. Some artists have taken to social media to challenge their employers. Miran Kim, a violinist of South Korean descent in the Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra, recently wrote on Twitter about her “exhaustion and frustration” playing works with racist caricatures, such as “Madama Butterfly.” She also criticised the Met for selling a Butterfly-themed sleep mask described as evoking “exotic elegance” and mimicking “the alluring eyes of an Indian princess or Japanese Geisha girl.” (The mask was removed from the online store and the Met apologised.) “We’re not included,” Kim, 31, said in an interview, referring to the lack of Asians in leadership positions. “We’re not part of the conversation.” There have been some signs of progress. San Francisco Opera will next month welcome Eun Sun Kim, a South Korean conductor, as its music director, the first woman to hold such a post at a major American opera company. Yet significant challenges remain. David Kim, the violist at the San Francisco Symphony who is questioning his career, said he has grown tired of clashing with colleagues over issues like the tone of public statements on racism. He also feels the orchestra does not do enough to feature composers of colour. Kim, who has played in the ensemble since 2009, said he is grappling with a sense of loss after realising that his work as a classical musician no longer aligns with his values. “I’m not proud of being a part of an industry that is so self-unaware, that’s so entitled and has so little regard for social justice,” he said. He says he believes change will not come until classical music — “racism disguised as art,” he called it — reckons with its legacy of intolerance. “On the surface, Asians are accepted in these realms of orchestras, ensembles and as soloists,” Kim said. “But are we really accepted?” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Honey production has been hurt by a long-term drought in Chile that has withered the bees' food sources such as flowers and crops. While drought is not uncommon in Chile, the current megadrought has persisted since 2010 and climate change is at least partly to blame, scientists say. The beekeepers want government reform to improve honey prices or to provide subsidies to honey producers. They have asked to meet with President Sebastian Pinera. The beekeepers set around 60 beehives, which contained an estimated 10,000 bees, on the avenue in front of the palace. One of the beekeepers, Jose Iturra, told local reporters that the drought in the Colina commune north of Santiago was killing the local bee population. "Bees are dying," Iturra said. "There would be no life if the bees die. That's what we wanted to highlight with this demonstration." A representative for the Ministry of Agriculture in the Santiago region said the agency was also concerned about the effect the drought was having on the bees. The government has been providing aid for months to 20 communities experiencing severe water shortages, Omar Guzman, the regional agricultural secretary, told reporters. Some passers-by were alarmed by the risk the bees posed to the public. "It's dangerous for the people who are allergic (to bees) because they can cause death," one local said. Seven national police officers, called Carabiniers, were stung trying to arrest the beekeepers and move the beehives out of the street, police officials said, and were taken to the hospital. Droughts and rising temperatures from climate change have affected bee populations worldwide. A 2020 study published in the journal Science found that populations fell by around 50% in North America and 17% in Europe in one generation.

Eight provincial English cities pledged on Thursday to take extra steps to combat climate change, echoing the actions of several counterparts in the United States. Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester promised to meet or exceed the goal of cutting carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050 to be set out next week in the Climate Change Bill. They also pledged to "show leadership" by getting the public and private sector actively involved and to build climate impact into all decision-making processes including procurement, transport, housing, waste, water and land use. Environmental campaigners welcomed the declaration, signed in Nottingham after a two day meeting, and urged the government to raise the 60 percent target in the Climate Change Bill to 80 percent. "The best city leaders now realise that the success of their city depends on them becoming low carbon economies, said Paul de Zylva, head of Friends of the Earth England. "The government must now strengthen its proposed climate law to help England's cities make this shift and turn today's welcome pledge into more than just warm words," he added. London has also set out its own plans to cut the city's climate-warming carbon emissions by 60 percent within 20 years. Mayor Ken Livingstone has also made the city a driving force in the C40 grouping of mayors of major cities worldwide who are setting their own cutting-edge climate action programmes covering building, emission and energy efficiency standards.

GOLD COAST, Thu Oct 30, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The world still has the funds and ability to fight climate change and nations should not use the financial crisis to delay policies on tackling global warming, a top carbon expert said on Thursday. James Cameron, vice-chairman of London-based Climate Change Capital, said the mobilisation of trillions of dollars over recent months had demonstrated the strength and scale of cooperation in tackling a global crisis. "We run the risk that governments will choose to focus on the near-term crisis and allow themselves the delusion that there is more time available to deal with a crisis coming slowly from afar," he told a major carbon conference in Australia. "So I accept that there is a danger that climate change could slip in the priority list for governments," he told delegates. "But we have learned that we are able to cooperate across borders to deal with the financial crisis, and beyond political boundaries, so we can mobilize capital very fast and that we do so in ways that support the continuation of our market systems." He said if governments combined that same capacity to cooperate with a matching urgency in tackling climate change, then the world could deal with both crises at the same time. There are concerns the financial crisis has already called on large reserves of public capital and that countries would be reluctant to make near-term climate change commitments that would cost their economies or threaten jobs. But Cameron, a senior member of one of the world's leading investors in clean-energy projects, said such a short-term focus was unwise. "If you are making investments that are designed to deliver public good in dealing with a crisis that will undeniably cost our economies substantial amounts over decades to come, it trivialises the issue to do a near-term cost-benefit analysis." "We are not, despite the recent drastic fall in the value of stock markets, without the capital to invest in solutions to this problem," he added. Climate Change Capital has more than $1.6 billion in funds under management and focuses on companies and institutions affected by the policy and capital market responses to climate change, the firm says on its website.

About 130 governments meet in Spain next week to agree a stark guide to the mounting risks of climate change that the United Nations says will leave no option but tougher action to fix the problem. The UN climate panel, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore, will meet in Valencia from Nov. 12-17 to condense 3,000 pages of already published science into a 20-page summary for policy makers. A draft blames human activities for rising temperatures and says deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, are needed to avert ever more heatwaves, melting glaciers and rising seas. "There is no reason to question the science any longer," said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme, who said states should act "in the collective interest of humanity". "Valencia will add further momentum in the mind of the public around the world that governments ... have no option but to move forward" with tougher policies, he told Reuters on Friday by telephone from Lisbon. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comprises both government officials and scientists who will edit and agree a text that draws on work by 2,500 experts to give the most authoritative UN overview of global warming since 2001. He said the world's environment ministers should approve a two-year timetable to work out a successor to the UN's Kyoto Protocol, the main UN plan to curb warming until 2012, when they meet on the Indonesian island of Bali next month. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend the final day of the IPCC talks in Valencia. PEOPLE TO BLAME Kyoto obliges 36 industrial nations to cut emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. A new deal would aim to involve outsiders led by the United States and China, the world's top two emitters which have no Kyoto goals. The draft summary, obtained by Reuters, says global warming is already under way and will be negative overall. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level," it starts. It says there is still time to slow warming, and even the toughest targets for curbing emissions would cost less than 0.12 percent per year of world gross domestic product until 2030. Environmentalists expressed concern that some governments may seek to water down the IPCC conclusions to stall action. "We must allow scientists to present the unvarnished truth," said Hans Verolme of the WWF conservation group. Some experts say the IPCC has been conservative in estimates of carbon dioxide emissions or rising sea levels, while a 2007 summer thaw of Arctic sea broke records. "Some trends are at the upper part of the IPCC projections," said Eystein Jansen of Norway's Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research and an IPCC author.

Hospitals in the Indonesian capital were overwhelmed on Tuesday with hundreds of flood victims suffering from water-borne diseases after the city's worst flooding in five years. Some 200,000 people have suffered from flood-related illnesses and there are fears that disease could spread with hundreds of people still displaced from their homes and thousands living in homes with no clean water or plumbing. "Some hospitals in charge of taking care of flood victims were overloaded. They asked the health ministry to send more medical personnel," Suprawoto, spokesman of the National Coordinating Agency for Disaster Management, told Reuters. "There are 757 in patients, most of them are suffering from diarrhoea, skin diseases, dengue, leptospirosis and severe respiratory problems." The patients are in some 20 hospitals in the city. As hospitals struggled to cope, authorities were busy clearing the streets of garbage while survivors cleared their homes of debris and mud left behind by the receding waters which in some neighborhoods had been up to several meters deep. Light showers fell in the city after relatively dry weather the past two days. Indonesia's rainy season has several weeks to run and could bring fresh downpours. At the peak of the flooding -- caused by more than a week of rains in Jakarta and surrounding areas, which eased off last Friday -- officials reported over 400,000 people were displaced. The number is now down to around 2,300 in Jakarta, a city of 9 million people. Another five million people live in the sprawling suburban districts around the capital. "Displaced people are now only in three areas. People from South, West and Central Jakarta have returned to their homes. However, communal kitchens are still running," said Suprawoto. The Indonesian Red Cross has warned of the danger rotting dead animals posed for spreading disease after the floods that have killed 94 people. Officials and green groups have blamed excessive construction in Jakarta's water catchment areas for making the floods worse, while a deputy environment minister told Reuters last week that climate change contributed to the problem. Above low-lying seaside Jakarta are foothills that have lost much of their vegetative cover to construction of weekend homes and golf courses, making it harder for the ground to retain water from the deluges common in the rainy season. Some economists and government officials have warned of an inflationary spike from the flooding, which also hit some retail and manufacturing operations. A national planning agency official pegged the losses from the floods at up to 8 trillion rupiah ($885 million), almost double an earlier estimate, the Jakarta Post reported.

One of America's most renowned science museums dives into politics again this week with a new exhibition on climate change that curators say is an effort to separate fact from fear. Three years after tackling the divisive issue of evolution in an exhibition on Charles Darwin, the American Museum of Natural History in New York is mounting a show called "Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future." A U.N. climate panel, comprising hundreds of scientists and policymakers, found last year with 90 percent certainty that climate change is spurred by human activities, specifically the burning of fossil fuels that release climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But some people remain skeptical that human activity is responsible. Among them is Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who cast doubt on the cause of global warming during a debate this month. Curator Edmond Mathez said that when he proposed the exhibition a few years ago, he was frustrated that public awareness did not match the alarm felt by scientists. "The news media was presenting climate change as a controversial issue, which is complete nonsense, it's not (controversial)," Mathez told Reuters on Tuesday at a preview of the exhibition that opens on Saturday and runs in New York through August 2009. 'WE DID IT CORRECTLY' "I'm sure there are some people that will condemn it out of hand," he said of the exhibition. "What's important to me as a scientist is my colleagues will walk through here and say we did it correctly, that we present the issue objectively." He said scientists are inclined to be skeptical, so it is remarkable that so many agree on the causes of climate change. "There's always a group of people that are simply not going to believe it, and it's not clear to me that many of those actually know very much about the science." Mathez said comments by Palin questioning the cause of climate change "border on irresponsible." Museum President Ellen Futter said the museum has a history of tackling issues "at the nexus of science and society." "Although scientists ... still can't predict with precision exactly which impacts will take place where, how frequently and to what degree, there is now overwhelming scientific consensus, 90 percent of scientists agree, that there is an urgent need to address the problem," Futter said. The show examines causes and effects of climate change as well as possible ways to slow it down, such as boosting the use of nuclear, wind and solar power. Exhibits include interactive displays for visitors to pledge to make changes in their behavior, such as buying low-energy light bulbs, recycling waste or bicycling to work. The exhibition is set to travel to Spain, Denmark, Mexico and Abu Dhabi.

BEIJING, Fri Nov 7, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said rich nations must abandon their 'unsustainable lifestyle' to fight global warming and give more help to poor nations bearing the brunt of worsening droughts and rising sea levels. Wen made the demand on Friday, opening a conference to promote his government's call for developed nations to fund a massive expansion in greenhouse gas-cutting technology to China and other developing countries. China is now widely believed to be the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases from industry, power plants and vehicles that are lifting global temperatures. But Wen threw the focus back on the role of rich nations. "Developed countries shoulder the duty and responsibility to tackle climate change and should alter their unsustainable lifestyle," Wen told the meeting, according to Xinhua news agency. He urged wealthy economies to do more to help developing countries, including his own, despite the global economic downturn. Chinese officials have said wealthy nations should divert as much as 1 percent of their economic worth to paying for the clean technology drive and helping the Third World overcome damage from rising temperatures bringing more heatwaves and droughts, more powerful storms and rising sea levels. This would mean a total $284 billion a year if all members of the Organisation for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) paid up based on the size of their economies in 2007. More than 190 nations have agreed to seek a new U.N. treaty to try to cut greenhouse gases from human activity and slow rising temperatures bringing more heatwaves and droughts, more powerful storms and rising sea levels. And China wants the technology aid to feature in that treaty, which negotiators hope to seal in Copenhagen late next year. HOW TO PAY FOR IT? But the top United Nations official for climate change said global financial turmoil will make citizens of rich nations reluctant to divert taxes to fighting global warming. His remarks cast doubt on the Chinese proposal to tie contributions to rich nations' GDPs. "It is undeniable that the financial crisis will have an impact on the climate change negotiations," said Yvo de Boer, who heads the UN Climate Change Secretariat. "If we go to citizens under the current circumstances ... and say 'I'm increasing your tax burden in order to pay for climate policy', that might not go down very well," he told Reuters. The solution, he said, was to directly target the polluters as a source of revenue to help developing countries. Speaking ahead of the Beijing conference, de Boer nonetheless warned the rich world that under a roadmap for a climate deal to replace the current Kyoto Protocol, they must create revenues to help developing nations. The plan agreed in Bali last year committed poor countries to curbing emissions if rich governments helped with technology so they did not have to sacrifice economic growth. "I just don't see how you can expect delivery on one part of the deal, namely the measurable action, if you don't deliver on the other part of the deal, the measurable money and technology."

COPENHAGEN, Dec 6, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - World concern about climate change has fallen in the past two years, according to an opinion poll on Sunday, the eve of 190-nation talks in Copenhagen meant to agree a UN deal to fight global warming. The Nielsen/Oxford University survey showed that 37 percent of more than 27,000 Internet users in 54 countries said they were "very concerned" about climate change, down from 41 percent in a similar poll two years ago. "Global concern for climate change cools off," the Nielsen Co. said of the poll, taken in October. It linked the decline to the world economic slowdown. In the United States, the number two emitter after China and the only industrialised nation outside the UN's existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, the number of those very concerned fell to 25 percent from 34. President Barack Obama wants to cut US greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, and plans to join more than 100 world leaders in Copenhagen at the end of the Dec. 7-18 meeting to try to reach a new UN deal. China, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, was among few nations surveyed where the number of people very concerned rose, to 36 from 30 percent. The survey indicated the highest levels of concern were in Latin America and Asian-Pacific countries, topped by the Philippines on 78 percent which was struck by Typhoon Ketsana in September. The poll did not cover most of Africa. Those least concerned by global warming, blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, were mainly in eastern Europe. Estonia was bottom with just 10 percent saying they were very concerned. Jonathan Banks, Business Insights Director Europe of the Nielsen Co., said that worries about climate change may now be picking up with the focus on Copenhagen. "Economic woes temporarily knocked the climate change issue off the top line agenda, but as the recession is now beginning to recede, we expect the Copenhagen summit to push this important issue to the front again," he said. Worldwide, air and water pollution followed by climate change were the top three environmental concerns for the world population, the survey found.

She said this while addressing a discussion titled "Leaders Dialogue: High Level Political Forum-From Vision to Action" in the UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday."The world leaders must recognise the two issues and provide visionary leadership and sincere commitment for achieving common goals for the sustenance of our world," said the Prime Minister."Our decisions must be aimed at ensuring the welfare of each and every human being and encompass all living species to have a sustainable world - a world that we would like to leave to our children and to the future generations," she added.She said Bangladesh is obliged to stress on the three pillars of sustainable development -- economic, social and environmental -- with adaptation and mitigation programmes."Sustainable development is imperative for Bangladesh for its national survival, particularly due to climate change," she said.Bangladesh is in the forefront of climate discourse due to its vulnerability to climate change as a frontline state."A major challenge of climate change for Bangladesh is global warming and an increase of one degree Celsius in temperature would result in a meter rise in sea- level submerging a fifth of its land mass and creating turmoil over 30 million "climate migrants" in a country already densely populated," she said.Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh is active in the Open Working Group for Sustainable Development due to the deep concerns which prompted it to submit a set of nationally agreed targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda to the UN.The Prime Minister said the Forum, established with the mandate of Rio plus 20 to build on the strengths, experiences, resources and inclusive participation modalities of the Commission on Sustainable Development, should recognize the special needs of the LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDS in realizing sustainable development goals.Most countries in these groups are lagging behind in attaining the various Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), she said."Our experience has been that expectations as well as commitments are important for sustainable development."She said Bangladesh due to efficient use of its resources, local leadership, indigenous capabilities and innovations has made notable success in some MDGs.Equally, delivery of the pledge of the developed nations to provide 0.7 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) as Official Development Assistance (ODA) and 0.2 percent of GNP as ODA for the LDCs as well as the transfer of technologies to the LDCs, and the other deprived groups, are important for development, said Hasina.The Prime Minister said how fast-paced advancements in science and technology is allowing dramatic socioeconomic progress to take place within states."They are also drawing states closer and making our world small, with its accompanying challenges," she said."The abundance of natural and technological resources is at our disposal today, however, they offer the Forum the opportunity to make right choices in the face of the new challenges of our time," she said.

Hoping for a greener solution to its problem, Big Cabal in 2019 bought solar panels for its two-story office building. But the leap to solar didn’t go according to plan — and the reasons illuminate the big challenges Africa faces from climate change. The region is rich in fossil fuels and is eager to use them to fix its notoriously unreliable power grids. But to slow global warming, nations must burn less oil and gas, not more. Meantime, Africa is heating up much faster than the rest of the world. For starters, Big Cabal found that the solar panels cost about three times more than the generator in maintenance costs. And, even though the company’s finance manager, Sophia Abu, scouted for the most powerful units the company could afford, they still weren’t quite enough to run the air conditioners. So while Big Cabal’s staff, who write technology and culture news, sweltered in the summer heat, the AC units hummed cheerfully and pushed out warm air. “We’ve had to buy more batteries, and more panels,” Abu said, as well as special air conditioners that work with solar inverters, devices that can accommodate battery storage. Now, the diesel generator is back, screaming behind the office. The company switches between power from the local utility, the generator and the solar panels. That juggling act gets to the heart of a big question facing African nations: Who gets to keep using fossil fuels, and for how long, during the transition to clean energy? “When they say cut in Africa, what do they want to cut?” asked Titus Gwemende, Zimbabwe-based climate director at the Open Society Foundation, a grants organization. “There’s nothing to cut here. African countries are the ones on the receiving end of this problem. It’s the bigger emitters that should have the responsibility to cut,” he said. “We should be sensitive to history.” A swift transition is crucial in the global fight against climate change. But not only would that be particularly costly in poorer nations, many African countries have an abundance of natural gas or other fossil fuels, and they argue forcefully that the rest of the world doesn’t have a right to tell them not to use it. Proven crude oil reserves on the African continent total more than 100 billion barrels spanning 11 countries, with Libya and Nigeria among the 10 biggest producers globally. The region is rich in gas, too: Combined, Nigeria, Algeria and Mozambique hold about 6 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves. As world leaders meet at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, some African leaders and activists are, for the first time, vocally opposing a speedier pivot to renewables for their countries. Instead, they are pressing for a slower transition, one that would embrace a continued reliance on fossil fuels — particularly natural gas, which burns more cleanly than coal or oil, but which still pumps planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Their calls come at an awkward time. This year alone, scientists and researchers have issued numerous reports showing the damage that the widespread burning of fossil fuels has caused to the climate over the decades. The scientific findings highlight the urgency of switching to cleaner energy if the world is to prevent global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times, a target set by the Paris accord, the agreement among nations to slow climate change. Beyond that temperature threshold, scientists say, the risk of calamities like deadly heat waves, water shortages and ecosystem collapse grows sharply. But in order to hit that target and avert the worst climate catastrophes, analysts here say, African nations should be supported financially by wealthier ones as they seek alternative pathways to reducing emissions. When the time comes, Gwemende said, developed countries should also transfer technical knowledge on renewables to Africa. Pulling Away the Ladder Insisting that African countries transition more swiftly to renewables, some analysts say, is akin to developed nations using a ladder to climb a wall, then pulling it up before developing countries can do the same. Under growing pressure to act, development banks and richer countries alike have been rolling back their support for fossil fuel projects like coal-burning power plants. In 2017, the World Bank cut funding for projects like these and began to invest more in renewable energy projects. And in Glasgow, rich countries like Britain, the United States, Canada and Denmark have pledged to stop spending on fossil fuel projects abroad by 2022, barring some exemptions. So far, at least one gas project in Mozambique, a gas-rich country in southern Africa, will not be going ahead according to the Africa Energy Chamber, an advisory firm. Oil giant BP has said it will roll back its oil and gas production, including on the continent. African leaders are voicing their displeasure. In several seminars at the Glasgow climate conference, as well as in opinion pieces in recent months, they’ve taken sharp jabs at these cutbacks. “Efforts to restrict fossil fuel investments in Africa are even harder to stomach because many of the wealthy countries behind them — including Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States — include natural gas in their own multidecade plans to transition to clean energy,” Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s vice president, wrote in Foreign Affairs in the run-up to the talks, known as COP26. Nigeria depends largely on gas for electricity, and on crude for revenue. “Climate action shouldn’t mean strangling all fossil fuel projects but rather facilitating the flow of capital to the countries that need it most,” Osinbajo wrote. Sub-Saharan Africa contributes about 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, among the lowest of the world’s regions. Yet African countries are particularly hard hit by the consequences of climate change. The region is warming faster than the global average and experiencing bigger increases in sea-level rise. Parts of East Africa haven’t seen rain in years and are battling droughts. The Sahel region of West Africa has recorded a sharp rise in conflicts between farmers and herders caused by vegetation loss. And in southern Madagascar, families are boiling cactus leaves for food in what the United Nations is calling one of the world’s first famines induced by climate change. Yet, at the same time, the development stakes are particularly high for the continent, which is home to some 1.2 billion people, half of whom don’t have access to electricity — a group equivalent to the entire population of the European Union. The problems in electrification are wide-ranging and vary from country to country: Absence of power-generating capacity, absence of technical expertise, and widespread corruption. There are plans, under the African Union, to rely largely on renewables by 2050 but only a handful of countries like South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and Morocco have high renewable capacities presently. More Time, More Money In the Lagos office, a ding announces a power cut. But the lights quickly blink on again, as the solar system takes over. Big Cabal’s employees have settled into a routine with their complex mix of electricity sources. But it required much time and money. It’s that time and money that African leaders say the continent needs more of, in order to make a transition to renewable power. Renewable technologies are expensive in almost all regions, but, on top of those costs, African countries also face the expenses of industrializing, providing better health care and building food and education systems. However, getting world leaders to agree to keep funding oil and gas projects could prove difficult. In Glasgow, Britain and other rich countries have pledged to fund Africa with billions of dollars to increase warning systems, protect vulnerable communities in the Sahel, and, for coal-reliant South Africa, to help speed the transition to clean energy. But some are not enthusiastic about the new announcements. The same countries promised $100 billion annually in 2009 to developing countries, but those funds have been slow to come. The announcements are only a first step, said Lily Odarno of the Clean Air Task Force, a Washington nonprofit. Until the money arrives, she said, “it’s better to wait and see.” Meanwhile, the UN’s environmental agency says developing countries spend about $70 billion on adaptation costs — responding to floods and droughts, for example — annually. Sidelining Africa’s concerns could have consequences, analysts say. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to see doubled population growth rates by 2050 and Nigeria will overtake the United States to become the second-most-populous country in the world. Africa also has the fastest urban growth rate in the world. By 2050, these populations are likely to be using up a lot of energy, whether it is clean or not. Some analysts argue that Africa’s leaders should, in fact, make faster progress on renewable energy, citing in particular the continent’s huge solar potential. Happy Khambule, a senior political adviser with Greenpeace Africa, said his organization rejected the calls to continue using fossil fuels on the continent and equated it with “burning up the house we all live in.” But overall, the message from African leaders at this month’s Glasgow climate talks is that the continent should be able to stick with some fossil fuels as part of the transition, considering the region’s economic and historic realities. “It will be a successful COP if the bulk of the action is done by countries outside the continent,” said Gwemende, of Open Society Foundation. “It will be successful if the moneys are dispensed by the big emitters. But our work should go beyond COP. There’s more work to do after.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Britain's government condemned the move as an attempt by Beijing to stifle criticism, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying he stood in solidarity with those affected. The Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement it had sanctioned four entities and nine individuals, including lawmakers such as former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith and the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, that "maliciously spread lies and disinformation". Targeted individuals and their immediate family members are prohibited from entering Chinese territory, the ministry said, adding that Chinese citizens and institutions will be prohibited from doing business with them. The move is a retaliation to a coordinated set of sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union, Britain and Canada against Beijing over what they say are human rights violations against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. Beijing has already applied retaliatory sanctions against the EU that were in line with Friday's announcement. "China is firmly determined to safeguard its national sovereignty, security and development interests, and warns the UK side not to go further down the wrong path," the Chinese ministry said. "Otherwise, China will resolutely make further reactions." The sanctions are the latest sign of deteriorating relations between London and Beijing. The two have been trading angry words over a range of issues including China's reforms in former British colony Hong Kong and China's trade policy. One of the sanctioned lawmakers, Duncan Smith, said he wore the sanctions as a "badge of honour". Prime Minister Johnson tweeted to express his solidarity with those affected. "The MPs (Members of Parliament) and other British citizens sanctioned by China today are performing a vital role shining a light on the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims," he wrote. "Freedom to speak out in opposition to abuse is fundamental and I stand firmly with them." Earlier this month Britain published a review of foreign policy which set out its ambitions to gain more influence in the Indo-Pacific region as a way to moderate China's growing global power, but acknowledged that it must work with Beijing on trade and global issues like climate change. Britain's Burberry has in recent days been hit by a Chinese backlash over Western accusations of abuses in Xinjiang. Activists and UN rights experts say at least a million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang. The activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labour and sterilisations. China has repeatedly denied all accusations of abuse and says its camps offer vocational training and are needed to fight extremism. "It seems I am to be sanctioned by the PRC (Chinese) government for speaking the truth about the #Uyghur tragedy in #Xinjiang, and for having a conscience," Jo Smith Finley, a Uighur expert at Newcastle University, said on Twitter. "Well, so be it. I have no regrets for speaking out, and I will not be silenced."

According to a White House memo dated Feb 14, Trump’s staff members have drafted an executive order to create a 12-member committee, which will include a White House adviser, Dr William Happer, whose views are at odds with the established scientific consensus that carbon dioxide pollution is dangerous for the planet. The memo attempts to cast doubt on multiple scientific and defense reports that have already concluded climate change poses a significant threat to national security. William Happer, a Princeton physicist whose views are sharply at odds with the established scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec 8, 2015. Happer, who has said that carbon dioxide is beneficial to humanity, will reportedly be on a 12-member presidential panel to examine how climate change affects national security. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times) The efforts to establish the panel appears to be the latest step by the Trump administration to play down or distort the established scientific consensus on the effect of climate change, as Trump rolls back Obama-era climate change regulations. William Happer, a Princeton physicist whose views are sharply at odds with the established scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec 8, 2015. Happer, who has said that carbon dioxide is beneficial to humanity, will reportedly be on a 12-member presidential panel to examine how climate change affects national security. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times) Critics of the effort to create the new panel pointed to the inclusion of Happer, a Princeton physicist who serves on the White House National Security Council. Happer has gained notoriety in the scientific community for his statements that carbon dioxide is beneficial to humanity. The memo cast doubt on the multiple scientific and defense reports concluding climate change poses a significant threat to national security, saying the reports “have not undergone a rigorous independent and adversarial peer review to examine the certainties and uncertainties of climate science, as well as implications for national security.” A view of the city skyline in drifting snow during the polar vortex in Buffalo, New York, US, Jan 31, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario Scientists defended the research. “The link between climate science and national security has been closely studied for over a decade at the highest levels of the US government — by scientists, the Defense Department and intelligence agencies, and all those studies have made a strong case that various aspects of climate change have an effect on national security,” said Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton. A view of the city skyline in drifting snow during the polar vortex in Buffalo, New York, US, Jan 31, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario In 2015, Happer was called to testify before a Senate committee after environmental group Greenpeace revealed he agreed to write a scientific paper at the request of an unnamed oil and gas company in the Middle East. In his email exchanges with Greenpeace, Happer wrote, “More CO2 will benefit the world. The only way to limit CO2 would be to stop using fossil fuels, which I think would be a profoundly immoral and irrational policy.”       © 2019 New York Times News Service

The study will explore the financial gain Cambridge might have accrued from the slave trade and also investigate the extent to which scholarship might have reinforced race-based thinking between the 18th and early 20th Century. Estimates vary widely, but somewhere between 10 million and 28 million Africans are believed to have been shipped across the Atlantic between the 15th and 19th centuries. Many died on the way. Those who survived endured a life of subjugation on sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. Britain abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807 although the full abolition of slavery did not follow for another generation. Martin Millett, the chairman of the eight-member advisory group overseeing the Cambridge study, said it was unclear what the investigation might turn up but that it was reasonable to assume that Cambridge had benefited from the slave trade. "It is reasonable to assume that, like many large British institutions during the colonial era, the University will have benefited directly or indirectly from, and contributed to, the practices of the time," said Millett, a professor of archaeology. "The benefits may have been financial or through other gifts. But the panel is just as interested in the way scholars at the University helped shape public and political opinion, supporting, reinforcing and sometimes contesting racial attitudes which are repugnant in the 21st Century." The inquiry will be conducted by two full-time post-doctoral researchers based in the Centre of African Studies. The research will examine specific gifts, bequests and historical connections with the slave trade. It is unclear what action Cambridge will take if it does find that it benefited from slavery or validated it. "CANNOT CHANGE THE PAST" Some of the West's top universities have been examining their past and the provenance of some of their wealth. In the United States, southern campuses have been rocked by arguments over the confederate flag. In 2017, Yale renamed its Calhoun College after protesters said the Ivy League school should drop the honour it gave to an alumnus who was a prominent advocate of U.S. slavery. It is now called Grace Hopper College after the computer scientist. In Britain, Oxford has been ensnared in a debate over whether to remove a statue of 19th century colonialist Cecil Rhodes from one of the university’s colleges. Last year, Glasgow University said it would launch a “programme of reparative justice” after discovering it gained up to 200 million pounds ($260 million) in today's money from historical slavery. "We cannot change the past, but nor should we seek to hide from it," said Stephen Toope, vice chancellor of Cambridge. "I hope this process will help the University understand and acknowledge its role during that dark phase of human history." But opponents say such inquiries are driven by a modern fashion for picking over historical injustices, often lack nuance and, if applied broadly, would place under question almost every aspect of the early history of such ancient institutions. Gill Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at Cambridge University, said that given the current “climate of anti-colonialism”, examining historic links with colonialism is one of the things every university now feels they have to do. "Given the norms of the day, what they thought they were doing is not what it looks like," Evans told the Daily Telegraph. "Before you start taking blame, the first task is to understand the period, look at what the people who acted at the time actually thought they were doing. Culpability isn’t transferable from age to age without some nuancing." Cambridge, one of the world's oldest universities, traces its history through more than 800 years of history to 1209 when scholars from Oxford, which traces its history back to 1096, took refuge in the city.

Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Oslo, June 29 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - This year is on track to be the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods in Pakistan or a heatwave in Greece may herald worse disruptions in store from global warming, experts said on Friday. "2007 is looking as though it will be the second warmest behind 1998," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, which provides data to the U.N.'s International Meteorological Organization. "It isn't far behind ... it could change, but at the moment this looks unlikely," he told Reuters, based on temperature records up to the end of April. Jones had predicted late last year that 2007 could surpass 1998 as the warmest year on record due to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases emitted mainly by burning fossil fuels and an El Nino warming of the Pacific. Almost all climate experts say that the trend is towards more droughts, floods, heatwaves and more powerful storms. But they say that individual extreme events are not normally a sign of global warming because weather is, by its nature, chaotic. "Severe events are going to be more frequent," said Salvano Briceno, director of the Geneva-based secretariat of the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. The 10 warmest years in the past 150 years have all been since 1990. Last year ranked number six according to the IMO. NASA, which uses slightly different data, places 2005 as warmest ahead of 1998. STORMS Among extreme events, more than 500 people have died in storms and floods in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India in the past week. Temperatures in Greece reached 46 C (114.80F) this week as part of a heatwave across parts of southern Europe. Parts of China have also had a heat wave in recent days. And torrential rains have battered northern England and parts of Texas, where Austin has had its wettest year on record so far. The U.N. climate panel, drawing on the work of 2,500 scientists, said this year that it was "very likely" that human activities led by use of fossil fuels were the main cause of a warming in the past half-century. It gave a "best estimate" that temperatures will rise 1.8-4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) this century. Briceno told Reuters that the world had to work out better policies to prepare for disasters, saying that climate change was adding to already increasing risks faced by a rising human population of about 6.6 billion people. Irrespective of warming, many people were cramming into cities, for instance, settling in plains where there was already a risk of floods or moving to regions vulnerable to droughts. "We need to reduce all the underlying risk factors, such as by locating communities out of hazard-prone areas," he said. "We now have a clearer picture of what is going to happen and it's urgent that governments give this higher priority." In Germany, average temperatures for the 12 months to May 2007 smashed records for the past century, raising questions about whether climate change was quickening, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said. "If this trend continues in the near future, we will be experiencing an acceleration of global warming in Germany so far unexpected by climate scientists," it said in a statement.

Organisers of the 'Extinction Rebellion' event said they wanted to put pressure on Britain's government to take greater action to slow climate change and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. The protest centred for several hours on Westminster Bridge, near Britain's parliament, but there was also disruption to traffic on four other bridges. Hundreds of people protested near Westminster, carrying banners with messages including "Stop Climate Breakdown", "Fossil Fuel Era Over" and "Rebel For Life". "This is an act of mass civil disobedience. This is the start of an international rebellion protesting the lack of action on the ecological crisis," one organiser, Gail Bradbrook, told reporters. Police said demonstrators had mostly been arrested for obstructing the road, and had no immediate information on charges or the total number of protesters. Organisers said more than 6,000 people had been involved. "The demonstration is having a direct impact on others across London who wish to go about their daily business - and (stopped) the emergency services from using the bridges to travel around London," police superintendent Waheed Khan said just before the bridges reopened. Britain reduced greenhouse gas emissions by over 40 percent between 1990 and 2016, and the government has committed to a total reduction of 80 percent by 2050. The Extinction Rebellion campaigners are calling for emissions to be reduced to zero on a net basis by 2025.

BEIJING, Thu Jul 3,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - China must make a stand against the opponents of reform and allow market forces to play a greater role in setting prices, including the yuan's exchange rate, a senior US official said on Thursday. Alan Holmer, the US Treasury's special envoy to China, welcomed the recent accelerated pace of yuan appreciation and said it needed to continue because exchange rate flexibility is key to allowing monetary policy to focus on curbing inflation. "These reforms are -- and will continue to be -- resisted by increasingly influential Chinese interest groups, both business and political. "However ... the greater risk to China's long-term economic security is not that China opens too fast, but, rather, that protectionists prevail, and Chinese reforms proceed too slowly," Holmer said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the top government think-tank. Holmer's speech reviewed progress made at last month's session of the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED), a cabinet-level forum in which the United States and China address bilateral issues covering everything from exchange rates to climate change. Holmer, the U.S. envoy to the SED, rejected the view that the main lesson China should learn from the still unfolding credit crunch in the United States is that it should slow the pace of economic reforms. Doing so would entail significant costs for China, he said, as financial sector liberalization is crucial to promote growth and to efficiently allocate investment. "To enable market forces to efficiently rebalance the economy and spread prosperity to all the Chinese, China needs more flexible prices, including a more flexible, market-driven exchange rate," Holmer said. "Exchange rate flexibility is also key to allowing monetary policy -- the most potent instrument for guiding an economy -- to focus on controlling inflation and ensuring financial stability," he said. The People's Bank of China, which tightly controls the yuan, on Thursday set the currency's daily reference rate at 6.8529 per dollar, the highest level since it abandoned a peg to the dollar three years ago in favor of a managed float. The yuan has now risen more than 20 percent against the dollar in that time. Holmer specifically welcomed the recent 18 percent increase in fuel prices, to more accurately reflect market prices, and urged China to keep reforming the energy sector.

Sally, which made landfall early Wednesday near Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a Category 2 storm, was downgraded in the afternoon to a tropical storm as maximum sustained winds dropped to 70 miles per hour (113 kph). The storm is believed to have killed one person in Alabama. “We had a body wash up, we believe it was hurricane related, but we have no definitive proof of that right now,” said Trent Johnson, a police lieutenant in Orange Beach, Ala. The person was local to the area, but has not yet been publicly identified, Johnson said. Some parts of the Gulf Coast had been inundated with more than 18 inches (46 cm) of rain over the previous 24 hours, with more precipitation expected as the storm’s winds slow further, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said. The coastal community of Pensacola, Florida, suffered up to five feet of flooding, and travel was cut by damaged roads and bridges. More than 500,000 homes and businesses across the area were without power as the storm knocked over stately oak trees and tore power lines from poles. Several residents along the Alabama and Florida coasts said damage from the slow-moving storm caught them off guard. “Normally it goes away. But with this one it was first the anxiety of it coming and then when it finally came, it didn’t move,” said Preity Patel, 41, who has resided in a downtown Pensacola apartment for two years. “It was just constant rain and wind.” A section of the Pensacola Bay Bridge, known also as the “Three Mile Bridge,” is missing a “significant section,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a press conference. The storm was moving at a slow 5 mph pace toward the Alabama-Florida border but was predicted to pick up speed, the NHC said. “The rain is what stands out with this one: It’s unreal,” said Cavin Hollyhand, 50, who left his home on a barrier island and took shelter in Mobile, Alabama, where he viewed the damage on Wednesday. Some isolated areas could see up to 35 inches (89 cm) of rain before Sally is done, the NHC said. Upon landfall at Gulf Shores, Sally’s winds were clocked at 105 mph. Along the coast, piers were ripped away by the storm surge and winds. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey told residents not to go outside to check on damage unless necessary, and to stay away from live power lines and fallen trees. “We had strong winds for a long period of time,” said 38-year-old Grant Saltz as he took a break from clearing debris outside his Mobile restaurant. “Instead of a few hours we got it for 12 hours.” In Pensacola, where wind gusts were clocked at 77 mph at one point, images on social media showed major floods. One witness reported hailstorms in the city as well and the NHC warned of possible tornados. Pensacola police warned of high winds and urged residents not to drive around looking at damage. “We see lots of ‘lookers’ out,” the police department wrote on Twitter. “It’s slowing our progress down. Please stay at home!” Electrical crews from other states have arrived in Pensacola to aid in restoration efforts. “This year we’ve just got hurricane after hurricane,” said Matt Lane, 23, a member of a crew from New Hampshire Electric Coop, who arrived late Tuesday directly from Hurricane Laura recovery efforts in Texas. Sally is the 18th named storm in the Atlantic this year and the eighth of tropical storm or hurricane strength to hit the United States. There are currently three other named storms in the Atlantic, highlighting one of the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons on record. “We’ve only got one name left,” said Jim Foerster, chief meteorologist at DTN, an energy, agriculture and weather data provider, referencing the procedure to name storms and the prospect of running out of letters. “That’s going to happen here soon, Wilfred, and then we’ll be into the Greek alphabet.” Hurricanes have increased in their intensity and destructiveness since the 1980s as the climate has warmed, according to researchers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climate change is also a factor in the increasing frequency of record-breaking wildfires plaguing the western United States, scientists say. Damage from Sally is expected to reach $2 billion to $3 billion, said Chuck Watson of Enki Research, which tracks tropical storms and models the cost of their damage. That estimate could rise if the heaviest rainfall happens over land, Watson said. As the storm moved east and inland, ports on the western Gulf Coast were reopened to travel and energy companies were beginning to return crews to offshore oil platforms. Sally shut more than a quarter of US Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and gas production. Two coastal oil refiners halted or slowed operations, adding to existing outages from last month’s Hurricane Laura and pandemic-related demand losses.

Kim, appointed twice by former US President Barack Obama for five-year terms, had pushed financing for green energy projects and largely dropped support for coal power investments, but had avoided public clashes with the Trump administration, which has made reviving the US coal sector a priority. Just last month, the World Bank announced it would double its investments to fight climate change to around $200 billion over the next five years. Kim told World Bank employees in an email that he was leaving the world's largest lender and donor to poor and middle-income countries on Feb 1 to join a private-sector firm focused on infrastructure investments in the developing world. "The opportunity to join the private sector was unexpected, but I've concluded that this is the path through which I will be able to make the largest impact on major global issues like climate change and the infrastructure deficit in emerging markets," Kim said. Kim said details about his new job would be released later. The physician and former Dartmouth College president said he would also rejoin the board of Partners in Health, a health advocacy group he co-founded 30 years ago. Kristalina Georgieva, who in 2017 became the World Bank's chief executive officer, will assume the role of interim president when Kim departs, the bank said. Georgieva, a Bulgarian national, had previously held senior European Union posts after serving 15 years at the World Bank, starting as an environmental economist in 1993. Two people familiar with Kim's shock announcement to the World Bank executive board said he was leaving of his own accord and was "not pushed out" by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump, however, will wield strong influence in choosing Kim's successor as the United States holds a controlling share of the World Bank's voting rights. The bank president has traditionally been an American chosen by the US administration, but some of the multilateral lender's 189 member countries could mount a new challenge with alternative candidates. Mark Sobel, a former US executive director at the International Monetary Fund and a longtime former US Treasury official, said chances were high for a challenge from bigger emerging market countries such as Brazil or China, which have been clamouring for more influence in multilateral institutions commensurate with their economic clout. "The world is suspicious of the Trump administration, which has a different agenda for the bank," Sobel said in a phone interview. "If they were to put forward somebody that is hardline, that would engender a reaction and antipathy." The World Bank's board will still need to reach a consensus on a candidate, and a more moderate US nominee would have a better chance of winning approval, he added. A spokeswoman for the US Treasury, which oversees the US voting interest in the World Bank, said that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "looks forward to working with his fellow governors in selecting a new leader." David Malpass, the Treasury's undersecretary for international affairs, has questioned the need for additional resources for the World Bank and other international financial institutions, arguing instead that the lenders should focus more of their resources on poorer countries and lend less to middle-income countries such as China. Nonetheless, the Treasury backed a $13 billion capital increase for the World Bank last year, which imposed some lending and management reforms, including some caps to the rate of salary increases.

Malaysia said on Thursday Australia and the United States should not hijack next week's summit of Asia-Pacific leaders to discuss climate change, saying it was not the right forum. Host Australia has written to leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to put climate change at the top of the agenda at the Sept. 8-9 summit in Sydney. But fellow APEC member Malaysia said Australia and the United States lacked credentials to lead discussions on the subject. "It is unfortunate that people who are talking about climate change like America are not even members of the Kyoto Protocol," Malaysia's outspoken Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said. "If you want to talk about climate change, please join in with the rest of the global community to make commitments about managing climate change," she told reporters. "So there's no point talking outside of the (Kyoto Protocol) forum," said Rafidah, who is due to attend APEC ministerial talks on Sept. 6 ahead of the summit. A visiting U.S. trade official brushed aside Rafidah's criticism, saying that climate change was key to APEC as the issue has both political and economic dimensions. "An issue like climate change...is the kind of thing that APEC can usefully help address," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Karan Bhatia told Reuters. "President Bush's administration remained focused on pushing forward in that area." Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Monday that APEC leaders would be asked to back practical ways for their nations to save energy. The United States and Australia have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol setting greenhouse emissions targets for developed countries. Howard has long been a critic of the pact because it does not include major developing economies and unfairly punishes energy-rich countries such as Australia, a major coal exporter. Rafidah also said Malaysia would back a project to study the idea of setting up a pan-APEC free-trade pact but said any decision should not be binding on the member economies. APEC members account for nearly half of world trade, 40 percent of the world's population and 56 percent of the world's gross domestic product. While trade is a major focus for the group, the subject is often pushed down the agenda during annual summits by more pressing issues of the day, such as bird flu and the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Democrats aimed to enact President Joe Biden’s plan to transform the nation’s infrastructure, he said, provide for paid family and medical leave, and expand health care, potentially including Medicare. The musing by Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, reflected the high hopes that Democrats have that a new ruling from the chamber’s parliamentarian will open more avenues for them to push a wide range of their priorities through a Congress where they have precariously small majorities. “The devil is in the details, and we don’t know the details yet — that’s going have to be negotiated, and better understood,” Sanders said in an interview Tuesday. “It gives us the possibility of going forward with more than one piece of legislation, and that’s obviously advantageous to what we’re trying to do.” All of it could be easier thanks to the parliamentarian’s opinion issued Monday that the budget resolution passed in February could be reopened to include at least one more round of reconciliation, which allows for measures governing taxes and spending to be protected from filibusters. That could give Democrats more chances to steer around Republican opposition and push through major budgetary legislation. The process is fraught with challenges, including strict rules that limit what can be included, and Democrats would still have to muster 50 votes for any proposal, a tall order for some of their more expansive ideas. But the newfound leeway could ultimately ease the way for some of their most ambitious endeavours. It could allow them to break down some of Biden’s proposals, including his two-part infrastructure plan to address both an ailing public works system and the economic inequities facing the nation’s workforce, into smaller, more palatable pieces. Activists have also urged Biden to consider more remote possibilities, like using reconciliation to provide a pathway to citizenship for some of the millions of immigrants living in the United States without legal permission, including farmworkers, essential workers and those brought to the country as children known as Dreamers. It remains unclear how and when Democrats might take advantage of the ruling. But pressure is mounting for them to push the boundaries of what the ruling party can do when it controls both congressional chambers and the White House. In an interview on Tuesday, Sen Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said the decision marked “an important step, and it adds an extra arrow in our quiver.” But he declined to disclose how exactly the ruling would impact his legislative strategy going forward, including passage of a massive public-works plan Biden released last week. “We’ll have to get together as a caucus and discuss things — as we always do — about the best place to use it,” he said. The initial guidance from Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian, seems to have given Biden and his congressional allies at least one more chance to use the reconciliation process before the fiscal year ends Sept 30, as well as more opportunities in the next fiscal year. MacDonough told lawmakers on Monday evening that Senate rules appear to allow a revision to the budget plan they used to pass the $1.9 trillion  mhave to return to MacDonough with additional questions about how to proceed. But for now, her decision has buoyed some activists who have pressed for Biden and Democrats to be more aggressive about using their power to force through big policy changes. They are likely to intensify pressure on the White House and leading Democrats in the coming weeks to use the newfound tool. Most immediately, Democrats believe the ruling could provide additional flexibility for winning enactment of Biden’s plans for as much as $4 trillion in new economic investments — including rebuilding electric grids, fighting climate change, reducing poverty and helping millions of women work and earn more. Since Biden won the White House, his advisers have been consumed with contingency planning to get his agenda through Congress, including trillions of dollars in new government spending at least partly offset by tax increases on corporations and the rich. When Democrats won a pair of Georgia runoff elections that handed them Senate control in January, reconciliation became the centerpiece of many of those plans. It would be a way to bypass what Biden aides worried would be entrenched Republican opposition to the amount of pandemic aid they believed was needed, and then a vehicle to carry his longer-term economic agenda of spending on roads, bridges, water pipes, clean energy, child care, education and more. But the administration has seen firsthand that the process will not work for all its priorities: MacDonough tossed a provision to raise the federal minimum wage out of Biden’s relief package because she deemed it in violation of budget rules. Activists argue that legalising some unauthorised immigrants would affect the budget by making them eligible for government benefits and increasing tax revenue, but it is not clear whether the parliamentarian would allow it as part of a reconciliation measure. Both Schumer and Sanders stressed that they had not committed to a particular strategy for reusing reconciliation. Determining how Democrats prioritise and sequence their legislative priorities, Sanders said, “is a difficult issue that we wrestle with every day.” White House officials insist, publicly and privately, that Biden is committed to pursuing a bipartisan agreement with Republicans on his infrastructure plan. Business groups are also eager to broker a deal on the issue, although they and Republicans have expressed strong opposition to Biden’s proposed tax increases. Biden continues to believe “that there is a bipartisan path forward” on the issue, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters Tuesday. But she left the door open to moving the bill through the more partisan process. “As you know, reconciliation is a mechanism for passing budgetary bills in Congress,” she said. “We will leave the mechanisms and the determination of the mechanisms to leaders in Congress. But, right now, less than a week after he announced the American Jobs Plan, our focus is on engaging with Democrats and Republicans, with staff, with committee staff, inviting members to the White House next week.” Lobbyists and congressional staff members say they expect Biden to give Senate moderates a short window to begin to build a bipartisan consensus on the plan — and to move on quickly if no such deal materialises. Psaki suggested on Tuesday that Biden wanted to see a quick start to work on Capitol Hill. “He’d like to see progress by May,” she said, “and certainly a package through by the summer.” Privately, some administration officials stress the difficulty of passing any of Biden’s agenda items without using reconciliation. To clear a Senate filibuster, any compromise would need to attract at least 10 Republican votes. A group of that size entered negotiations with Biden over his economic aid package, which Biden proposed to be $1.9 trillion. The Republicans countered with a proposal of $600 billion, which Democrats quickly dismissed as insufficient. Biden instead went ahead with his own plan, steering around Republican opposition to win passage of a $1.9 trillion bill through reconciliation. © 2021 The New York Times Company

NEW DELHI, Fri May 29, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The government has started a pilot project to quantify climate benefits from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the anti-poverty scheme that could become one of the country's main weapons to fight criticism it is not doing enough to tackle global warming. The flagship anti-poverty plan, started three years ago, provides 100 days of employment every year to tens of millions of rural poor, a move that partly helped the Congress party-led coalition return to power in a general election this month. About 70 percent of works under the NREGA are "green jobs" such as water harvesting, afforestation and land development. "Here is a programme which is an anti-poverty project that also yields co-benefits of adaptation to climate change and reduction of vulnerabilities against climate change," said Rita Sharma who heads the ministry overseeing the jobs scheme. The pilot project is being carried out in four states in collaboration with experts from the premier Indian Institute of Science. "Within the next two years we should begin to get some handle on what kind of quantification is happening as a result of the NREGA works," Sharma said, adding some data could be available from smaller samples in about a month. India's current stand on climate change does not please Western countries, which want more commitment to curbing rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions from one of the world's top polluters. The top U.S. energy forecast agency said on Wednesday that much of the growth in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels over the next two decades will come from developing countries, which already produce more than half of mankind's carbon pollution. By 2030, carbon dioxide emissions from developing countries should hit 25.8 billion tonnes, while the pollution from rich countries should be 14.6 billion tonnes, said the Energy Information Administration in its annual International Energy Outlook. PRIORITY New Delhi says priority must go to economic growth to lift millions out of poverty while gradually shifting to clean energy led by solar power as well as increased energy efficiency. Despite rapid expansion of renewable energy, such as wind turbines, coal is likely to remain a growing source of energy to power India's economy. Indian officials say the West must recognise the huge amount of benefit, such as carbon sequestration and emission reductions, achieved through projects such as NREGA. But some experts worry India could use such projects as a way to avoid additional investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. According to official figures, even if renewable energy was expanded 40-fold, carbon dioxide emissions could rise from one billion tonnes per year to 3.9 billion tonnes per year by 2031-2032. Under energy projections that assume an even higher rate of coal use, such emissions could rise to 5.5 billion tonnes per year by 2031-2032. So, experts say, climate benefits accruing from development projects would fall way short in fighting any exponential rise in pollution in India. "At best, climate benefits from development schemes should be be treated as a supplementary effort to the main climate change plan," said K. Srinivas of Greenpeace's India climate change programme. But Sharma said such views only reflected a narrow Western outlook which did not have the required mechanism to recognise the climate contribution from social projects. "The Clean Development Mechanism and other mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol are yet not fine-tuned enough so that programmes of this kind could be recognised," she said. Under the CDM, companies and governments can invest in emissions cuts made by projects in developing nations, and in return receive offset credits that can be used to meet Kyoto targets or sold for profit. "There is both a need for us to do the quantification and on the other hand there is also need for the international community to be able to develop mechanisms that recognise and give credit for such programmes."

POZNAN, Poland, Mon Dec 1, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) -UN climate talks opened in Poland on Monday with pleas for urgent action to fight global warming despite the economic slowdown, and a warning that inaction could mean water shortages for half the world by 2050. US President-elect Barack Obama also won praise at the opening ceremony of the Dec. 1-12 talks among 10,600 delegates from 186 nations for setting "ambitious" goals for fighting climate change. "Our work on the natural environment should be timeless ... irrespective of the economic situation," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said amid worries that the financial crunch is distracting from a drive to agree a new UN climate treaty. "We must understand, and let this idea be a landmark of this conference, that financial crises have happened in the past and will happen in the future," he said. The talks in the western Polish city of Poznan are the half-way point in a two-year push to agree a climate pact at the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which sets 2012 goals for 37 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "The financial crisis should not prevent the commitment to other urgent issues like climate change," said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will host a meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009 meant to agree the UN deal. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the UN Climate Panel, said that many people had still not woken up to the risks of what could be "irreversible change" if the world failed to act. By illustration, he said the number of people living in river valleys with water stress could rise from more than 1.1 billion in 1995 to more than 4.3 billion in 2050, or "almost the majority of humanity". GREENLAND It was also possible that the Greenland icecap could melt down. Ever more species of animals and plants were at risk of extinction, he said. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said the world had to step up work to reach a deal by next year. "The clock is ticking, work now has to move into a higher gear," he said. The WWF environmental organisation handed out walnuts to delegates as they arrived at the conference centre and urged them to "crack the climate nut". Greenpeace unveiled a 3 metre (10 ft) high sculpture showing the planet threatened by a giant wave of wood and coal. Rasmussen praised Obama's policies after years of disputes with President George W Bush. "I am delighted to see that Obama is planning ambitious climate and energy policies as part of the solution to the economic slowdown," he said. De Boer also described Obama's policies as "ambitious" on Sunday. Obama plans to cut US emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. US emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars, are about 14 percent above 1990 levels. Bush's policies foresee a peak only in 2025. In Europe, the economic slowdown has exposed doubts about the costs of an EU goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. UN talks host Poland, which gets 93 percent of its electricity from coal, and Italy are leading a drive for concessions in a package meant to be agreed at a December 11-12 summit of EU leaders in Brussels.

LONDON, Dec 3, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The planet would be better off if the forthcoming Copenhagen climate change talks ended in collapse, according to a leading US scientist who helped alert the world to dangers of global warming. Any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed, said James Hansen, that it would be better for future generations if we were to start again from scratch. "I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told the Guardian newspaper. "The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then we will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means." On Wednesday China and other big developing nations rejected core targets for a climate deal proposed by the Danish hosts in a draft text, such as halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Developing nations want richer countries to do much more to cut their emissions now before they agree to global emissions targets which they fear may shift the burden of action to them and hinder their economic growth. Hansen is strongly opposed to carbon market schemes, in which permits to pollute are bought and sold, seen by the European Union and other governments as the most efficient way to cut emissions and move to a new clean energy economy. Hansen opposes US President Barack Obama's plans for a cap and trade system for carbon emissions in the United States, preferring a tax on energy use. Tackling climate change does not allow room for the compromises that govern the world of politics, Hansen said. "This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill," he said. "On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a compromise and reduce it 50 percent or reduce it 40 percent." "We don't have a leader who is able to grasp it and say what is really needed," he added.

BRUSSELS, Fri Mar 6, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience on Friday "never waste a good crisis," as she highlighted the opportunity of rebuilding economies in a greener, less energy intensive model. Highlighting Europe's unease the day after Russia warned that gas exports to the EU via Ukraine might be halted, she also condemned the use of energy as a political lever. Clinton told young Europeans at the European Parliament global economic turmoil provided a fresh opening: "Never waste a good crisis ... Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security." Europe sees the United States as a crucial ally in global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, after President Barack Obama signaled a new urgency in tackling climate change, in stark contrast to his predecessor George W Bush. Europe has already laid out plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions to about a fifth below 1990 levels in the next decade, while Obama has proposed a major shift toward renewable energy and a cap and trade system for CO2 emissions. But with many countries in the grip of a punishing recession, some question whether businesses can muster the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to cut carbon emissions. "Certainly the United States has been negligent in living up to its responsibilities," said Clinton, on her first visit to Europe as secretary of state. "This is a propitious time ... we can actually begin to demonstrate our willingness to confront this. POLITICAL LEVER Many politicians argue that the economic crisis, energy security issues and climate change can all be dealt with in a "New Green Deal," replacing high-carbon infrastructure with green alternatives and simultaneously creating millions of jobs. "There is no doubt in my mind the energy security and climate change crises, which I view as being together, not separate, must be dealt with," Clinton added. She attacked the use of energy as a political weapon, echoing Europe's worries after repeated spats between Russia and gas transit country Ukraine hit EU supplies in recent years. "We are ... troubled by using energy as a tool of intimidation," she said. "We think that's not in the interest of creating a better and better functioning energy system." Clinton is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for dinner in Geneva in the hope of improving relations after a post-Cold War low during Bush's presidency. The latest cuts to Russian gas exports in January forced the closure of factories, hospitals and schools in Eastern Europe and left thousands of snowbound households shivering. A new row between Ukraine and Russia appeared to have been averted on Thursday after state-owned Gazprom said Ukraine had settled payments at the heart of the disagreement. But European leaders were rattled by the warning of cuts to supply by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin .

On the eve of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's arrival in Japan, the organisation has urged her to promote the German Energy Transition (Energiewende) during her visit.She will be visiting Japan from March 8 to 10.Chancellor Merkel is attempting to secure national climate change commitments from Japan and other Group of Seven nations ahead of the G7 summit to be held in Germany in June. The Abe government has yet to make a national climate commitment as it has so far failed to announce its energy share for 2030.The ministry of economy, trade and industry is currently deliberating a 15-25 percent nuclear target and a 20 percent renewable target by 2030, with a decision to be reached before the G7 summit."Prime Minister Abe's nuclear energy policy lacks credibility and undermines renewable industry investments, despite Japan's massive renewable energy potential," energy campaigner with Greenpeace Japan Hisayo Takada said in a statement."In addition, the flawed assumptions of Japan's energy policy will result in the importation of vast and expensive fossil fuels. Chancellor Merkel should understand that with its present obsession with nuclear reactor restarts, the Abe government won't be able to achieve Japan's climate targets."In contrast to German society and government, Japan's government is simply ignoring the important lessons of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Takada added.

Bainimarama's Fiji First party led with about 50 percent of the votes, closely followed by nearly 40 percent for opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), according to the Fiji Elections Office (FEO). Bainimarama, who has been the Prime Minister of Fiji since leading a bloodless coup in 2006, has won 27 of 51 seats, according to the electoral commission. "I'm proud to become your prime minister once again," Bainimarama told FBC News from Auckland, New Zealand, where he had been attending his brother's funeral. SODELPA, which won 21 seats, and three other losing parties urged the electoral commission and the FEO to refrain from officially announcing results, saying the tally process was not transparent. Fiji went to polls on Wednesday, only the second time the country has held democratic elections since 2006. "The supervisor of elections has been in a great hurry to get the results out," Mahendra Chaudhry of the Fiji Labour Party said on Facebook Live video, along with SODELPA, National Federation Party and Unity Fiji. "He (the supervisor) has, in the process, compromised the procedures and the requirement of the law, so that should be set right if this election is to have any credibility," Chaudhry said. Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneem said in response that the authorities had been open. "The people of Fiji deserve better in terms of information. And the Fiji Elections Office is giving all the information accurately in a timely manner," Saneem said, also on Facebook Live. Endorsing Saneem's claims, election monitoring body Multinational Observer Group (MOG) said in a short interim statement on Friday that the Fijian election campaign was conducted according to international standards. "We understand that there are some members of the public who have concerns about the integrity of the pre-poll ballots, and therefore we recognised the need to look closely at this process," it said. "The MOG assesses that the legal framework underpinning the electoral system complies with the fundamental international principles of universal suffrage and non-discrimination." Earlier in the week, heavy rain disrupted the election in some venues. Voting in those places was rescheduled to Saturday, Nov 17, to ensure all eligible votes were counted.

Leaders of the Commonwealth group of mostly former British colonies Friday took tentative steps to tighten up on human rights abuses by members, but have still to address tougher measures some warn the group must take to remain relevant. The Queen opened the meeting of leaders of the 54 states of the Commonwealth, home to a third of the world's population and five of the G20 leading economies but struggling to make much impact on global policies. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters that the leaders had backed an internal report calling for a more proactive stance in defending human rights. "That report and all of its reform proposals and recommendations, has been adopted ... It means that this meeting has already acted to embrace reform and strengthening of the Commonwealth," she said. "The purpose of these reform proposals is to enable the Commonwealth to act when a country is veering off course in terms of democratic values and the rule of law, rather than waiting until a country has gone to a grossly unacceptable stage, and leaders only having the option of suspension or expulsion in front of them." The leadup to the summit has been dominated by pressure to take a stronger line on human and political rights abuses, with a spotlight on Sri Lanka, which will host the next Commonwealth summit in 2013. Sri Lanka is under international pressure to allow an independent inquiry into accusations of war crimes during its 25-year civil war, especially in its final months in 2009. It says will wait for the results of its own investigation next month, calling the pressure over human rights a propaganda war waged by the defeated Tamil Tigers. "There does need to be truth telling," Gillard said. Canada, home to a large ethnic Tamil community, has said it will boycott the 2013 Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka, unless the host country improves its human rights record. RISKING IRRELEVANCE? The summit still has to grapple with the contentious "eminent persons" report which warns that without a much tougher stand, the Commonwealth could slide into irrelevance. A key suggestion in the confidential report, seen by Reuters, is for the group to establish a human rights commissioner -- which some members oppose. "Today, Commonwealth leaders are faced with a choice -- reform the Commonwealth so that it can effectively address human rights violations by its members, or risk becoming irrelevant," said Madhu Malhotra, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Deputy Director. Smaller countries within the group, many at risk from the effects of global warming, are pressing for a strong statement ahead of next month's international summit of climate change in the South African city of Durban. There have also been calls on leaders to help end the practice of child brides. Twelve of the 20 countries with the highest rates of child brides are in the Commonwealth. And health advocates say laws in 41 Commonwealth states making homosexuality a crime breached human rights, hindering the fight against HIV-AIDS. Commonwealth states represent 60 percent of the world's HIV-AIDS population. There was one early accord. The 16 countries that have the Queen as their monarch agreed to end royal discrimination by changing the rules of succession to the throne by abolishing rules that favoured sons for the throne and barring those in line for the throne from marrying Roman Catholics.

They called for urgent action to avoid ‘an existential threat to civilisation’ ahead of the COP25 climate change summit in Madrid, reports the Climate News Network. The group of seven researchers, who published a commentary in the journal Nature, said there is growing evidence to suggest that irreversible changes to the Earth's environmental systems are already taking place, and that we are now in a ‘state of planetary emergency’. A global tipping point is a threshold when the planet's systems go beyond the point of no return-- such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest, accelerated melting of ice sheets, and thawing of permafrost -- the scientists said in the commentary. Such a collapse could lead to ‘hothouse’ conditions that would make some areas on Earth uninhabitable. The scientists argue that the intervention time left to prevent tipping 'could already have shrunk towards zero, whereas the reaction time to achieve net zero emissions is 30 years at best'. File Photo: A boat and a bicycle are seen on the dried lake Poopo affected by climate change, in the Oruro Department, Bolivia, Dec 16, 2017. REUTERS The team led by Timothy Lenton, professor of climate change and Earth system science at the University of Exeter, in southwest England, identified nine areas where they say tipping points are already underway. File Photo: A boat and a bicycle are seen on the dried lake Poopo affected by climate change, in the Oruro Department, Bolivia, Dec 16, 2017. REUTERS These include widespread destruction of the Amazon, reduction of Arctic sea ice, large-scale coral reef die-offs, melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, thawing of permafrost, destabilising of boreal forests -- which contain vast numbers of trees that grow in freezing northern climes -- and a slowdown of ocean circulation. The scientist claimed that these events are interconnected and change in one will impact another, causing a worsening ‘cascade’ of crises. Regional warming is leading to an increased thawing of Arctic permafrost, soil that stays frozen throughout the year, which is releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The warming has triggered large-scale insect disturbances and fires in North American boreal forests ‘potentially turning some regions from a carbon sink to a carbon source’, according to the study. Researchers said the early results from the preliminary models suggest the climate is much more sensitive than first thought and that a global tipping point is possible. File Photo: An Urus Muratos offering to Kota Mama (Mother Water) is seen on the dried lake Poopo affected by climate change, in the Oruro Department, Bolivia, Sep 1, 2017. REUTERS "Research last year analysed 30 types of regime shift spanning physical climate and ecological systems, from the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet to a switch from rainforest to Savanna," the study added. "This indicated that exceeding tipping points in one system can increase the risk of crossing them in others." File Photo: An Urus Muratos offering to Kota Mama (Mother Water) is seen on the dried lake Poopo affected by climate change, in the Oruro Department, Bolivia, Sep 1, 2017. REUTERS The idea of a climate tipping point is not new, according to the Climate News Network. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, introduced the concept 20 years ago. Back then, the UN suggested such ‘large-scale discontinuities’ would only come about when global warming exceeded 5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But climate scientists said data from the two most recent IPCC reports in 2018 and September 2019, suggest tipping points can happen between 1 C and 2 C of warming. Global average temperatures are around 1 C higher now than in the pre-industrial age and continue to rise.

A deep sea submarine exploration off Australia's southern coast has discovered new species of animals and more evidence of the destructive impact of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide on deep-sea corals. The scientific voyage by US and Australian researchers explored a near vertical slice in the earth's crust known as the Tasman Fracture Zone, which drops from approximately 2 km (1.2 miles) to more than 4 km (2.5 miles) deep. "We set out to search for life deeper than any previous voyage in Australian waters," said Ron Thresher from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). "Our sampling documented the deepest known Australian fauna, including a bizarre carnivorous sea squirt, sea spiders and giant sponges, and previously unknown marine communities dominated by gooseneck barnacles and millions of round, purple-spotted sea anemones," Thresher said in a statement on Sunday. Vast fields of deep-sea fossil corals were also discovered below 1.4 km (1 mile) and dated more than 10,000 years old. The four-week expedition deployed a deep-diving, remotely operated, submarine named Jason, which belongs to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the United States. Jason is about the size of a small car and was capable of collecting samples, and photographing and filming areas as deep as 6 km (4 miles). Jason made 14 dives lasting up to 48 hours each and reaching a maximum depth of more than 4 km (2.5 miles). The researchers, from the California Institute of Technology and CSIRO, said some of the deep-sea coral discovered was dying and they had gathered data to assess the threat of ocean acidification and climate change on Australia's unique deep-water coral reefs. "We need to closely analyze the samples and measurements we collected before we can determine what's caused this, as it could be the result of several factors, such as ocean warming, disease or increasing ocean acidity," said Thresher. Carbon dioxide spewing into the atmosphere by factories, cars and power plants is not just raising temperatures, but also causing what scientists call "ocean acidification" as around 25 percent of the excess CO2 is absorbed by the seas. Australian scientists have already warned that rising carbon dioxide levels in the world's oceans due to climate change, combined with rising sea temperatures, could accelerate coral bleaching, destroying some reefs before 2050.

On Friday, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou flew home to China from Canada after reaching an agreement with US prosecutors to end the bank fraud case against her, a point of tension between China and the United States. Within hours of the news of the deal, the two Canadians who were arrested shortly after Meng was taken into custody were released from Chinese jails and were on their way back to Canada. Beijing had denied that their arrests were linked. When asked if the White House was involved in brokering a "prisoner swap," White House press secretary Jen Psaki rejected the premise. The deferred prosecution agreement with Meng was "an action by the Department of Justice, which is an independent Department of Justice. This is a law enforcement matter," she said, adding, "There is no link." But Psaki also confirmed that in a call on Sept 9, two weeks before the announcements, China's leader Xi Jinping brought up Meng's case and US President Joe Biden pressed for the release of the two Canadians, businessman Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, who had been held in China for more than 1,000 days. "These two leaders raised the cases of these individuals but there was no negotiation about it," Psaki said. Psaki said she had no information on whether Biden knew about the status of the negotiations between Meng's lawyers and the Justice Department. Meng had been arrested at Vancouver International Airport in Canada on a US warrant, and was indicted on bank and wire fraud charges for allegedly misleading HSBC in 2013 about the telecommunications equipment giant's business dealings in Iran. The years-long extradition drama had been a central source of discord in increasingly rocky ties between Beijing and Washington, with Chinese officials signalling that the case needed to be dropped to help end a diplomatic stalemate. Psaki emphasised the deal announced on Friday did not indicate a softening of US concerns about Chinese behaviour. "Our policy has not changed, our policy toward China," Psaki said. "We are not seeking conflict. It is a relationship of competition and we are going to continue to hold the PRC to account for its unfair economic practices, its coercive actions around the world and its human rights abuses," she said, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China. BALL IN THE US COURT Earlier in September, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Biden's climate envoy John Kerry in a virtual meeting that Washington needed to take practical steps to improve relations by responding to a list of demands, which included dropping the case against Meng. "Right now, the ball is in the United States' court," Wang told Kerry, according to a Chinese statement. But US officials have rebutted any suggestion that Kerry or other administration officials had negotiated Meng's release with China for other concessions. Earlier in the week, Xi announced at the United Nations that China would not build new coal-fired power projects abroad, a pledge Kerry had been pressuring Beijing to make to help the world stay on course to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement. "We were not involved in their internal decision-making on it in any way, shape, or form," a White House official told Reuters of the Justice Department's process. "The movement on coal, number one, is, frankly, China acting in its own interest," the official said. "I think they realised that they weren't going to get anything for it. They weren't going to be able to use it as leverage." Meng arrived to a hero's welcomed in China, and official media there suggested that her release could be a chance to reboot fraught US-China ties. While some Republican senators criticised the Biden administration for giving in to Beijing's demands, analysts said that didn't add up. "I believe that the deal that the PRC made to get Meng released was on the table during the Trump administration. She had to acknowledge wrongdoing and ultimately that is what she did. I don't see capitulation," said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank. The Justice Department says it is still preparing for trial against Huawei.

The Edelman Trust Barometer, which for two decades has polled thousands of people on trust in their governments, media, business and NGOs, conversely showed rising scores in several autocratic states, notably China. It also highlighted that business, thanks to its role developing vaccines and adapting workplace and retail practices, had retained strong levels of trust globally, albeit with reservations about its commitment to social fairness. "We really have a collapse of trust in democracies," said Richard Edelman, whose Edelman communications group published the survey of over 36,000 respondents in 28 countries interviewed between Nov 1-24 of last year. "It all goes back to: 'Do you have a sense of economic confidence?'" he added, noting high levels of concern about job losses linked either to the pandemic or automation. The biggest losers of public trust over the last year were institutions in Germany, down 7 points to 46, Australia at 53 (-6), the Netherlands at 57 (-6), South Korea at 42 (-5) and the United States at 43 (-5). By contrast, public trust in institutions in China stood at 83%, up 11 points, 76% in United Arab Emirates (+9) and 66% in Thailand (+5). The trillions of dollars of stimulus spent by the world's richest nations to support their economies through the pandemic have failed to instil a lasting sense of confidence, the survey suggested. In Japan, only 15% of people believed they and their families would be better off in five years' time, with most other democracies ranging around 20-40% on the same question. But in China nearly two-thirds were optimistic about their economic fortunes and 80% of Indians believed they would be better off in five years. Edelman said higher public trust levels in China were linked not just to economic perceptions but also to a greater sense of predictability about Chinese policy, not least on the pandemic. "I think there is a coherence between what is done and what is said...They have had a better COVID than the US for example." According to the Reuters pandemic tracker, the United States currently leads the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported, while China has regularly been reporting no new deaths for months as it pursues strict "zero-Covid" policies. The results of the latest Edelman survey are in tune with its findings in recent years that charted rising disillusionment with capitalism, political leadership and the media. Concerns about "fake news" were this time at all-time highs, with three-quarters of respondents globally worried about it being "used as a weapon". Among societal fears, climate change was now just behind the loss of employment as a major concern. The burden of expectation on business leaders remains heavy, with strong majorities saying they bought goods, accepted job offers and invested in businesses according to their beliefs and values. Around two-fifths, however, also said that business was not doing enough to address climate change, economic inequality and workforce reskilling.

"Biden ran with bold promises for action and climate and we turned out for him," said John Paul Mejia, an 18-year-old student from Miami among hundreds at the Sunrise Movement protest, which featured Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive members of Congress. "We did everything in our power to get him elected and we need to have some say in our future and the safety of our communities," Mejia said. Mejia's disappointment is being echoed by young climate activists around the country who say Biden's opportunity to fulfill campaign pledges is slipping away as he negotiates with Republicans. "We have a Democratic president, we have majority both in the House and the Senate, and it should be a time in which we are able to get things done, and we really haven't," said Kallan Benson, a 17-year-old organiser for Fridays for Future, a global activist group. "We have incremental gains but nothing that is really a game changer for us," Benson said. Asked about the climate protest Monday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that "the president is absolutely committed to addressing climate." Many young activists are critical of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal between Republicans and Democrats that includes half of the funding Biden originally proposed for electric vehicle (EV) technology such as charging stations, none for EV rebates, and does not require utilities to meet a clean energy standard. The White House said Monday the bipartisan deal was just a "down payment" on Biden's long-term climate goals. Maintaining support from young, liberal Americans is crucial to Biden, who leaned on progressives like New York Representative Ocasio-Cortez, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and activist groups including the Sunrise Movement to unify the Democratic Party before the 2020 election. "Sometimes folks need a little reminder of the community that took them to the dance," Ocasio-Cortez told protesters outside the White House Monday. "We’re inviting the White House to the dance." Ocasio-Cortez is among Democrats in Congress critical of the bipartisan deal. More than half of Americans aged 18 to 29 voted in the 2020 general election, a Tufts University research group found, up 11 points from 2016. The group estimates 61% of them voted Democratic.

The latest measures, along with decisions by some US states to impose mandatory quarantines on health workers returning home from treating Ebola victims in West Africa, have been condemned by health authorities and the United Nations as extreme.The top health official in charge of dealing with Washington's response to Ebola warned against turning doctors and nurses who travel to West Africa to tackle Ebola into "pariahs".The Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 5,000 people since March, the vast majority in West Africa, but nine Ebola cases in the United States have caused alarm, and states such as New York and New Jersey have ignored federal advice by introducing their own strict controls.The United Nations on Monday sharply criticized the new restrictions imposed by some U.S. states on health workers returning home from the affected West African states of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone."Returning health workers are exceptional people who are giving of themselves for humanity," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said. "They should not be subjected to restrictions that are not based on science. Those who develop infections should be supported, not stigmatized."American soldiers returning from West Africa are also being isolated, even though they showed no symptoms of infection and were not believed to have been exposed to the deadly virus, officials said on Monday.In a statement, the Army said Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno ordered the 21-day monitoring period for returning soldiers "to ensure soldiers, family members and their surrounding communities are confident that we are taking all steps necessary to protect their health."The Army isolated about a dozen soldiers on their return during the weekend to their home base in Vicenza, Italy. That included Major General Darryl Williams, the commander of U.S. Army Africa, who oversaw the military's initial response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa."We are billeted in a separate area (on the base). There's no contact with the general population or with family. No one will be walking around Vicenza," Williams told Reuters in a telephone interview.The US military has repeatedly stressed that its personnel are not interacting with Ebola patients and are instead building treatment units to help health authorities battle the epidemic. Up to 4,000 U.S. troops may be deployed on the mission."From a public health perspective, we would not feel that isolation is appropriate," said Dr. Jeff Duchin, Washington State epidemiologist and chairman of the public health committee of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.The decision goes well beyond previously established military protocols and came just as President Barack Obama's administration sought to discourage precautionary quarantines being imposed by some US states on healthcare workers returning from countries battling Ebola.QUESTIONS OVER QUARANTINEUS federal health officials on Monday revamped guidelines for doctors and nurses returning from West Africa, stopping well short of controversial mandatory quarantines.Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), called for isolation of people at the highest risk for Ebola infection but said most medical workers returning from the three countries at the centre of the epidemic would require daily monitoring without isolation."At CDC, we base our decisions on science and experience. We base our decisions on what we know and what we learn. And as the science and experience changes, we adopt and adapt our guidelines and recommendations," Frieden said.The Obama administration's new guidelines are not mandatory, and states will have the right to put in place policies that are more strict. Some state officials, grappling with an unfamiliar public health threat, had called federal restrictions placed on people traveling from Ebola-affected countries insufficient to protect Americans and have imposed tougher measures.Australia on Monday issued a blanket ban on visas from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa to prevent the disease reaching the country, becoming the first rich nation to shut its doors to the region.Australia has not recorded a case of Ebola despite a number of scares, and conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott has so far resisted repeated requests to send medical personnel to help battle the outbreak on the ground.The decision to refuse entry for anyone from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, while touted by the government as a necessary safety precaution, was criticised by experts and advocates as politically motivated and shortsighted.Adam Kamradt-Scott, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney's Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, said the ban would do nothing to protect the country from Ebola while potentially having a negative public health impact by unduly raising fears and creating a general climate of panic.Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not airborne.There has been a growing chorus of critics, including public health experts, the United Nations, medical charities and even the White House, denouncing mandatory quarantines as scientifically unjustified and an obstacle to fighting the disease at its source in West Africa."Anything that will dissuade foreign trained personnel from coming here to West Africa and joining us on the frontline to fight the fight would be very, very unfortunate," Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Ebola Emergency Response Mission (UNMEER), told Reuters in the Ghanian capital Accra.He said that health workers returning to their own countries should be treated as heroes.

Earlier harvesting, changes in grape varieties and new wine-making processes have already helped counter the impact of the harsher weather hitting vineyards across the globe, the head of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) says. "Wine producers all over the world have adapted to the changes and the plant has a capacity of adjustment that you can find in no other plant," OIV Director General Jean-Marie Aurand told Reuters in an interview. He cited the example of the Canary island of Lanzarote where vines are grown in lava which absorbs overnight dew - virtually the sole water they receive in the summer - and releases it during the day. In China, he said, more than 80 percent of production acreage is located in regions where temperatures can drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) in winter. Growers cover vines to protect them and uncover them when spring comes. Some winemakers, meanwhile, are shifting the way they produce wine. Australia's Treasury Wine Estates Ltd, for example, is testing technology to water vines underground and is expanding fermentation capacity to combat the impact of climate change on its vineyards around the world. "You can adapt to climate change or you can react to it," Treasury Wine Chief Supply Officer Stuart McNab said at a Reuters Global Climate Change Summit earlier this month. "You've got time to react, but you've got to know what's happening." Outlook Despite the worries of many producers, notably in the Champagne region, Aurand was not very concerned for the future of wines sold under protected designation labels that tie them to the soil and viticulture practices of a specific region such as the Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) system in France. "We have today other strains and cultivation techniques, so I'm not worried in the short or mid-term on this question, which does not mean we should not consider the issue of climate change as a whole," Aurand said. It was too early to give an outlook for 2050, he said. The OIV sees global wine output rising 2 percent in 2015 to 275.7 million hectolitres (mhl), Aurand said. A 10-percent rebound in Italy's output meant it would regain its position as leading world producer after losing it to France last year due to a weather-hit grape crop. OIV gave an initial consumption forecast for 2015 at between 235.7 and 248.8 mhl, down from around 240 mhl last year. As opposed to western European countries where consumers are drinking less wine, consumption would rise again in the United States, which became the world's largest consumer in 2013, it said.

The UK’s new £40 million Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme will provide expert training, simulation drills and new disaster monitoring systems to ensure countries most at risk from natural disasters -- such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Ethiopia or Sudan -- can prepare for future shocks.UK’s International Development Secretary Justine Greening will announce the programme at the ongoing World Bank’s Spring Meeting in Washington.Under this programme funding will be awarded on a competitive basis to projects which will improve the quality and speed of humanitarian response.In a press release UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) said, at the World Bank Spring Meetings, Justine Greening will highlight the growing danger of some countries graduating from aid leaving far behind the most fragile and vulnerable countries.The release said, Greening will point out: “The humanitarian system is already stretched to breaking point. The reality is that we are facing ever more demands on the system, as we deal with the effects of a changing climate, growing population, conflict and extremism.“Our global humanitarian system does great work but the scale of the challenge means all of us need to up our game. The global investment in emergency preparedness is extremely low. We urgently need larger, sustained investment in preparedness and resilience.”Working with the START network – previously known as the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies – and the Communicating with Disaster-affected Communities Network, accredited international training programmes will be organised and run in the most at risk countries, the release said. This could include vulnerable developing countries such as Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti or South Sudan.To improve early warning system support will be awarded to innovative new systems which improve the communications and coordination of disasters, it said.This could include extending satellite or geographic data monitoring to track disasters, national communication systems to warn vulnerable communities or more detailed risk analysis in disaster-prone regions, the DFID informed in the press communiqué.The DFID will also set up a new £20 million fund forUNICEF and the World Food Programme to improve disaster planning in 11 high risk countries or regions – where 17million people are at risk of a disaster, including 14 million women and children in emergencies.This will allow agencies to preposition relief items and replenish their stocks so that humanitarian responses can start as soon as a disaster hits. The countries will include Afghanistan, Burma, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Chad, Madagascar, Central America, Central Asia, African Great Lakes and the Syria region.To show the effectiveness of this approach, it also cited how Bangladesh reduced casualties from two very comparable cyclones-- from 500,000 in 1972 to 3,400 in 2008.Apart from these, the release said, Greening will also set out DFID’s five key areas for improvement to help ease the demand on emergency assistance.The areas are: 1. Preparing for disasters: Greater investment in preparedness and resilience is needed so communities at risk of disaster can better withstand and quickly recover from shocks.1. Supporting national and local leadership: More support for local civil society organisations is needed so that they can lead humanitarian responses locally and help reduce the burden on the UN.2. Recipients driving aid: the people in need of assistance are best placed to say what they need. Responses need to be better tailored to emergencies so the specific needs of those affected are met.3. A 21st Century response: new and innovative approaches to humanitarian assistance are needed including using mobile phones, making use of advancements such as more flexible shelter kits and distributing cash instead of traditional relief supplies so people can make choices on what they urgently need.4. The development challenge: humanitarian disasters are increasingly in the places where extreme poverty is focused. Long-term planning is needed to help prevent or minimise the impact in areas that are vulnerable to regular or protracted crises such as food shortages.

British leader Tony Blair flew to Libya for talks with Muammar Gaddafi on Tuesday as BP sealed a big energy deal with Tripoli in a further boost to the West's ties with the once-isolated north African state. Blair, making the second trip of his prime ministership to Libya, arrived in Gaddafi's home town of Sirte and was due to meet the Libyan leader in a tent in the desert, officials said. Blair was also due to meet representatives of families of hundreds of HIV-infected children at the centre of a case in which five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been sentenced to death by a Libyan court. In a sign of a developing economic relationship between Britain and Libya that Blair's spokesman called "hugely important", BP negotiated an agreement to explore for natural gas in Libya, according to a Libyan official. "There is a natural gas exploration deal worth $900 million," Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of state owned National Oil Corporation (NOC), told reporters. The Libya visit marks the start of Blair's last tour of Africa before he resigns as prime minister on June 27 after a decade in power, handing over to finance minister Gordon Brown. Blair will also travel to Sierra Leone and South Africa in preparation for a summit of the Group of Eight industrialised countries in Germany next week, when Africa and climate change will top the agenda, and to push for a global free trade deal. Blair first visited Libya in 2004, sealing Tripoli's return to the international fold after it abandoned efforts to acquire banned weapons and agreed to pay damages for a 1988 airliner bombing over Scotland. Gaddafi complained in a BBC interview in March that Libya had not been properly compensated for renouncing nuclear weapons and said that as a result countries like Iran and North Korea would not follow his lead. Blair's spokesman said the prime minister would discuss the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region with Libyan officials. "Libya has played a useful role in the African Union and has been playing a useful role in regard to Sudan," the spokesman said. "We will want to hear their assessment of where we are." The U.N. Security Council endorsed plans last Friday for an African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force for Darfur, where some 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million made homeless since 2003. Blair has pushed for tough action over Darfur and his spokesman welcomed President George W. Bush's decision to impose new U.S. sanctions on Sudan over Darfur. In Sierra Leone, Blair is expected to win praise for sending British troops to the country in 2000 to help shore up the United Nations peacekeeping operation there and hasten the end of a civil war marked by atrocities against civilians. Sierra Leone has scheduled presidential and legislative elections for July 28, although the poll may be delayed. In South Africa later this week, Blair is expected to discuss Zimbabwe with President Thabo Mbeki, his spokesman said. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, 83, has vowed to seek another presidential term in 2008, dismissing calls to step down despite his country's economic crisis, which critics blame on his policies. Mugabe blames former colonial power Britain.

Sergei Zimov bends down, picks up a handful of treacly mud and holds it up to his nose. It smells like a cow pat, but he knows better. "It smells like mammoth dung," he says. This is more than just another symptom of global warming. For millennia, layers of animal waste and other organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now climate change is thawing the permafrost and lifting this prehistoric ooze from suspended animation. But Zimov, a scientist who for almost 30 years has studied climate change in Russia's Arctic, believes that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will accelerate global warming faster than even some of the most pessimistic forecasts. "This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop," he said. When the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, his theory runs, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years spring back into action. As a by-product they emit carbon dioxide and -- even more damaging in terms of its impact on the climate -- methane gas. According to Zimov, the microbes are going to start emitting these gases in enormous quantities. Here in Yakutia, a region in the north-eastern corner of Siberia, the belt of permafrost containing the mammoth-era soil covers an area roughly the size of France and Germany combined. There is even more of it elsewhere in Siberia. "The deposits of organic matter in these soils are so gigantic that they dwarf global oil reserves," Zimov said. U.S. government statistics show mankind emits about 7 billion tonnes of carbon a year. "Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases," Zimov said. "If you don't stop emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere ... the Kyoto Protocol (an international pact aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions) will seem like childish prattle." METHANE EMISSIONS It might be easy to dismiss the 52-year-old, with his beard and shock of wavy hair, as an alarmist crank. But his theory is grabbing attention in the scientific community. "There's quite a bit of truth in it," Julian Murton, member of the International Permafrost Association, told Reuters. "The methane and carbon dioxide levels will increase as a result of permafrost degradation." A United Nations report in June said there was at yet no sign of widespread melting of permafrost that could stoke global warming, but noted the potential threat. "Permafrost stores a lot of carbon, with upper permafrost layers estimated to contain more organic carbon than is currently contained in the atmosphere," the report said. "Permafrost thawing results in the release of this carbon in the form of greenhouse gases which will have a positive feedback effect to global warming." CRACKS IN THE WALLS Zimov is chief scientist at the Russian Academy of Science's North Eastern Scientific station, three plane rides and eight times zones away from Moscow. At Duvanny Yar on the shores of the Kolyma River, the phenomenon that Zimov describes in speeches at scientific conferences can be seen first hand. The steep-sided river bank, until now held up by permafrost, is collapsing as the ice melts. Every few minutes, a thud can be heard as another wedge of soil and permafrost comes tumbling down, or a splash as a chunk falls into the river. Nearby, Zimov points to an area so far unaffected by the melting -- a forest of larch trees with berries and mushrooms and covered with a soft cushion of moss and lichen. Further down the slope though, the landscape is covered with trees toppled over as the soil disintegrates. Brooks murmur down the slope carrying melted water. Elsewhere, places that five or 10 years ago were empty tundra are now dotted with lakes -- a result of thawing permafrost. These 'thermokarst' lakes bubble with methane, over 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The permafrost thaw affects those rare outposts where humans have settled. In Chersky, a town of 3,000 people, apartment blocks have cracks running through their walls as the earth beneath them subsides. Many have been demolished as unsafe. So few people live in or visit this wilderness that the changing landscape on its own is unlikely to worry people on the other side of the world. But Zimov warns that people everywhere should take notice, because within a few years, the knock-on effect of the permafrost melting in Siberia will be having a direct impact on their lives. "Siberia's landscape is changing," he said. "But in the end local problems of the north will inevitably turn into the problems of Russia's south, the Amazon region or Holland."

Firefighters were battling about 60 fires burning across New South Wales state, with strong winds fanning blazes in the Blue Mountains, a major commuter area of small towns west of Sydney.Christiana Figueres, head of the UN's Bonn-based Climate Change Secretariat, told CNN earlier this week that there was "absolutely" a link between climate change and wildfires.She hinted at a possibility of linking the Australian fires to global warming, saying: "The World Meteorological Organization has not established a direct link between this wildfire and climate change yet."Conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott rejected any suggestion that the blazes in Australia were the product of rising carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, a major Australian export."I think the official in question is talking through her hat," Abbott told Fairfax radio on Wednesday."Climate change is real and we should take strong action against it," he said. "But these fires are certainly not a function of climate change. They are just a function of life in Australia."Figueres later dug in her heels, pointing in a statement to a UN scientific panel's finding that decisive action was needed to avert more frequent and extreme weather events in coming decades."Climate change is known to alter the likelihood of increased wildfire sizes and frequencies," she said in the statement, issued after she spoke by phone with Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt.Combined with more stress on trees "this suggests an increasing likelihood of more prevalent fire disturbances, as has recently been observed," she said, quoting a 2007 report by the UN panel.LOADING THE DICEThe dispute highlights how almost all climate experts say man-made global warming is under way but it is usually impossible to link it to individual extremes such as floods, heatwaves, droughts or the wildfires raging around Sydney.Wildfires, many of them devastating, have happened naturally throughout history. Global warming may, however, be loading the dice in favor of more extremes.Figueres welcomed Hunt's assurances that Australia was on target with its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, even though the government wants to ditch a cap and trade market.The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last month raised the probability that global warming is mainly man-made to 95 percent from 90 percent in 2007. It will issue a new report about the impacts of climate change in March 2014.A draft summary for policymakers, obtained by Reuters, predicts "increased damages to ecosystems and settlements, economic losses, and risks to human life from wildfires in most of southern Australia and parts of New Zealand, driven by drying trends and rising temperatures."The report will face extra scrutiny after the IPCC made an error in its previous 2007 report, the main guide for government action in shifting from fossil fuels, by exaggerating the melt rate of Himalayan glaciers.

The target, announced by China's economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), comes as the world's top climate negotiators have gathered in Scotland for the COP26 climate talks. Average coal use for electricity generation in China fell by about 17.4% in the 15 years till 2020. NDRC's statement did not refer to the UN event, which Chinese President Xi Jinping is not attending and offered no additional pledges in a written response. By 2025, coal-fired power plants in China must adjust their consumption rate to an average of 300 grams of standard coal per kilowatt-hour (kWh), NDRC said on Wednesday. That compares to 305.5 grams per kWh in 2020. "Further promoting the energy saving and consumption reduction at coal-fired power units is an effective means to improve energy efficiency and is of great significance for achieving carbon emission peak in the power industry," the NDRC said. China, the world's biggest source of climate-warming greenhouse gases, has vowed to bring its carbon emissions to a peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Last week, China published a roadmap on the peak carbon target, aiming to reduce waste, promote renewables and unconventional fuel as well as reform its electricity network. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the power generation and heating sectors account for more than 40% of total CO2 emissions in China. Average coal use for power generation in China is down now compared with 370 grams per kWh in 2005. "The reduction of coal use helped to cut 6.67 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from the power sector in 2006-2020, or 36% of total emission reductions in the industry," NDRC said. China's powerful NDRC is in charge of crafting policies on economic development for the country, with plans and orders issued by the agency expected to be carried out by local and regional authorities. "China has built a lot of coal-fired projects and is very good at constructing coal plants and making them efficient, which means we have picked up pretty much all low hanging fruit of making existing coal feeds very efficient," said Li Shuo, senior climate adviser with Greenpeace in Beijing. The NDRC also mandated that new power plant projects adopt ultra-super critical units that consume coal at an average rate below 270 grams per kWh. It also said that new water-cooling units in power plants that use more than 285 grams per kWh and air-cooling units that consumer more than 300 grams per kWh will not be allowed. Further, power plants with average coal use above 300 grams per kWh that cannot be upgraded for energy efficiency improvement will be gradually shut down, NDRC said. "The level of coal use is already set once it is launched, unless plants invest huge money to upgrade it. So China's average efficiency target could be slowed to achieve if there are no new units with higher efficiency continuing to join the power fleet," said Zhang Shuwei, a director at Draworld Energy Research Centre. But Zhang also said that Chinese coal-fired power plants would welcome the government policy as reducing coal use would help lower input cost. China's thermal coal prices surged nearly 190% this year, causing drastic losses at power plants and a widespread power outage, before Beijing rolled out a raft of measures to tame prices. China is also aiming to upgrade 200 GW of coal-fired power plant capacity in 2021-2025 to give its power system, where an increasing portion of renewable energy is being used, the flexibility to switch sources. NDRC also said it will guide financial institutions to offer more credit support to energy savings projects at coal-fired power plants, and will improve power market mechanisms to benefit coal-fired power units that have completed the upgrade.

This is the fourth year that drought has devastated Aly's home in southern Madagascar. Now more than one million people, or two out of five residents, of his Grand Sud region require emergency food aid in what the United Nations is calling a "climate change famine." "In previous years there was rain, a lot of rain. I grew sweet potatoes and I had a lot of money... I even got married because I was rich," said Aly, 44. "Things have changed," he said, standing on an expanse of ochre dirt where the only green to be seen is tall, spiky cacti. Climate change is battering the Indian Ocean island and several UN agencies have warned in the past few months of a "climate change famine" here. "The situation in the south of the country is really worrying," said Alice Rahmoun, a spokeswoman with the United Nations' World Food Programme in Madagascar. "I visited several districts... and heard from families how the changing climate has driven them to hunger." Rainfall patterns in Madagascar are growing more erratic – they've been below average for nearly six years, said researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "In some villages, the last proper rain was three years ago, in others, eight years ago or even 10 years ago," said Rahmoun. "Fields are bare, seeds do not sprout and there is no food." Temperatures in southern Africa are rising at double the global rate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says. Cyclones, already more frequent in Madagascar than any other African country, are likely getting stronger as the earth warms, the US government says. Conflict has been a central cause of famine and hunger in countries such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, when fighting stopped people moving to find food. But Madagascar is at peace. "Climate change strongly impacts and strongly accentuates the famine in Madagascar," President Andry Rajoelina said while visiting the worst-affected areas earlier this month. "Madagascar is a victim of climate change." The country produces less than 0.01 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, the World Carbon Project says. Half a million children are expected to be acutely malnourished in southern Madagascar, 110,000 severely so, the UN Children's Fund says, causing developmental delays, disease and death. Nutriset, a French company that produces emergency food Plumpy'Nut, opened a plant in southern Madagascar last week. It aims to annually produce 600 tonnes of therapeutic fortified food made of peanuts, sugar and milk for malnourished children. The Malagasy government is also giving parcels of land to some families fleeing the worst-hit areas. Two hundred families received land with chickens and goats, which are more drought-resilient than cows. They were also encouraged to plant cassava, which is more drought-resilient than maize. "It's a natural disaster," said Aly. "May God help us."

Johnson had wanted to use the conference this week to turn the page on more than 18 months of COVID-19 and to refocus on his 2019 election pledges to tackle regional inequality, crime and social care. Instead, the prime minister finds himself on the back foot more than nine months since Britain completed its exit from the European Union - a departure he said would hand the country the freedom to better shape its economy. He is now faced with an outcry by those unable to fill up their cars with petrol, by retailers who fear there may be shortages of Christmas fare and by gas companies struggling with a spike in wholesale prices. In a statement released on the eve of the conference in the city of Manchester, Johnson did not refer to the ongoing crises and instead talked up what he called his government's "track record of delivering on the people's priorities". "We didn't go through COVID to go back to how things were before -- to the status quo ante. Build Back Better means we want things to change and improve as we recover," he said. "That means taking the big, bold decisions on the priorities people care about – like on social care, on supporting jobs, on climate change, tackling crime and levelling up." He repeated his mantra that the government did all it could to prop up businesses during the pandemic, to protect jobs and had successfully rolled out a mass vaccination programme. But for many critics, this often repeated statement underscores a refusal to acknowledge missteps in the early days of the pandemic when the government seemed reluctant to lockdown the economy to stop the spread of the virus. At the conference, the withdrawal of a top-up to a state benefit for low-income households and the end of a COVID jobs support scheme might also attract criticism from some lawmakers, particularly those from regions in northern and central England which have traditionally supported the opposition Labour Party.

Dengue, a mosquito-borne virus that causes high fever, nausea and painful body aches, is reaching epidemic levels in the Caribbean and Latin America, health officials say. Changing weather patterns as well as increased tourism and migration have raised its prevalence, according to a Pan American Health Organization report released this week. The disease is raging now during the wettest time of year for most countries in the region. The virus, which has four distinct strains, usually keeps victims bed-ridden for a week with painful flu-like symptoms. About 5 percent of cases develop into the more severe and sometimes fatal hemorrhagic form marked by internal and external bleeding. Victims can also die from dehydration if they do not receive prompt treatment, which normally includes bed rest and hydration. Severe cases can require hospitalization. The Pan American Health Organization expects dengue cases in the hemisphere to top 1 million this year. It has logged 630,356 cases so far this year, 11 percent more than for all of 2006. Of those, 12,147 were of the severe hemorrhagic type and 183 people died. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a dengue outbreak notice that included Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mexico, Nicaragua and Brazil. Puerto Rico's health department on Friday said it was seeing more than 500 new cases weekly and had recorded 6,175 so far this year with 4 confirmed deaths. With no vaccine available, public health experts rely on fumigation and other campaigns to control mosquitoes. On Friday, Health Department employees handed out educational material on street corners, urging people to eliminate potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes and seek medical attention at the first sign of the disease. "We need the commitment and participation of all sectors of society to be able to prevent and control dengue," Puerto Rico State Epidemiologist Enid Garcia Rivera said. "Given the amount of rain these days, the dengue mosquito can reproduce at astonishing speed." The Dominican Republic has reported more than 6,000 cases and 30 deaths this year, according to local press reports. Mexico has reported 67,562 cases with 5,212 developing into the hemorrhagic form, according to the Pan American Health Organization. Guadeloupe registered 899 cases. Health officials in Martinique declared a dengue epidemic last month with more than 1,300 cases reported, and Jamaica has had about 100 cases. CROWDED CITIES A report delivered at the PAHO conference this week in Washington identified unprecedented population growth in crowded urban areas, where a lack of basic services can help mosquitoes breed, as one factor behind the surge. Travel and tourism help also spread the disease, according to the report, "Dengue Prevention and Control in the Americas." It also cited "radical, destabilizing" climate changes as a result of global warming, as well as cyclical weather patterns that have increased the intensity and duration of the region's rainy seasons. Dr. Raul Castellano, the PAHO coordinator in Puerto Rico, said nearly every country in the region was trying to control the disease but greater efforts were needed. "It's very difficult because it takes changing people's behavior. Fumigation in the streets won't work because we have to go inside people's houses," he said. "We have to break the chain of the mosquito."

A member of South Africa's ruling ANC has launched a legal bid to postpone the party's conference this month, citing divisions over its leadership and breaches of the bill of rights, local media said on Thursday. Infighting between supporters of President Thabo Mbeki and his party deputy Jacob Zuma ahead of the Dec 16-20 ANC conference has opened the worst splits in the history of a party whose strength was long based on discipline and unity. The Star newspaper said lawyer and ANC member Votani Majola would seek an interdict at the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday to stop the Dec 16-20 conference because "the playing fields are not level". "We can't have a conference in this unhappy climate," Majola told the paper. The Business Day newspaper quoted ANC Secretary-General Kgalema Motlanthe as confirming that the party was served with legal papers on Wednesday relating to charges of infringements of the bill of rights. The paper gave no details and Motlanthe and ANC spokesman Smuts Ngonyama were not immediately reachable for comment on Thursday. Zuma has taken a lead over Mbeki in the race for ANC chief, which would open the way for him assuming the state presidency in 2009, given the ANC's dominance of South African politics. Investors are nervous about Zuma's close ties with the left, but on Wednesday a top aide to Mbeki told Reuters that South Africa's economic policies are unlikely to change much whoever emerges the winner. The aide also dismissed fears of instability should Zuma emerge victorious.

Former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett started a new job promoting alternative environment policies for Australia on Monday as the centre-left Labor Party uses his profile to try to end a decade of conservative rule. In his past, Garrett the rock star played to packed stadiums from London to New York during 26 years with Midnight Oil, becoming an ardent opponent of the nuclear industry and advocate for the environment and Australia's aborigines. But after two years in Australia's national parliament, Garrett has been promoted to Labor's spokesman on the environment and says politics is "more fun" than a rock tour. "I really enjoyed my time on the road with the Oils," Garrett told Australian radio in the northern Queensland town of Bundaberg, where he was campaigning with Labor leader Kevin Rudd. "To be able to spend some time out here in the community as a member of the Labor front bench ... with, I think, really good things to say to the people of Queensland, a tremendous privilege and a tremendous buzz." One of his famous stunts was playing a protest concert on a truck outside of the New York headquarters of global oil giant Exxon, and an anti-nuclear concert Jabiluka uranium mine in Australia's remote north. PROMOTION WELCOMED Political analysts welcomed Garrett's promotion, saying his image should help Labor sell its environment policies to voters and help stem growing support for leftist Green candidates. "He will give the issue even more profile, which should be good for Labor," political editor Michelle Grattan said in The Age newspaper on Monday. But Grattan warned that Garrett's long-term opposition to nuclear energy could pose a problem for Labor as the government pushes Australia's uranium exports and greater use of nuclear energy as a pragmatic solution to global warming. The environment is shaping up as a major issue for the next Australian elections, due in the second half of 2007. Labor has promised to sign the Kyoto Protocol, but Howard, a close ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, has steadfastly refused to ratify the agreement or set pollution caps which would then allow for domestic national carbon trading. Opinion polls show voters want the government to do more to combat greenhouse emissions, with 79 percent wanting Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and eight out of 10 Howard supporters wanting more action on climate change. High-profile Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said he had worked alongside Garrett for the environment for 30 years, but said he was unsure if Garrett would be able to make a difference to Labor policies. "The Question will be whether Peter makes Labor greener, or Labor makes Peter less green," Brown said.

One of Mexico's most eminent scientists, Molina conducted some of his first experiments at a tender age in his childhood home before becoming a global authority on climate change. The Centro Mario Molina, an environmental research body he founded, said he died of "unexpected cardiac problems". Born in Mexico City, Molina was a graduate of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and took postgraduate degrees at universities in Germany and California. In 2008, he was appointed a scientific adviser to US President Barack Obama and also advised authorities in the Mexican capital on their efforts to reduce smog and air pollution, a chronic problem in the metropolis. When Molina was a small boy, his parents bought him a microscope. He recalled transforming one bathroom into a makeshift laboratory and was at the age of 10 already devouring biographies of Nobel laureates, such as Marie Curie. In 1995, Molina, Frank Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work showing how CFCs used in spray cans were destroying the ozone layer. Molina worked at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD), a key centre of learning on phenomena linked to climate change. His commitment to fighting global warming set Molina at odds with Mexico's current government, which has pursued an energy agenda aimed at strengthening state energy firms whose business models depend heavily on the use of polluting fossil fuels. In an interview with Reuters in July, Molina vigorously condemned that policy, saying his homeland was "going backwards to the last century - or the one before" on climate change, an assessment the government denies.

Almost half of the 1.3 million people who die each year from traffic accidents are pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) noted in a report. Across the low and middle-income countries studied in Africa, Asia and Latin America, proportionally twice as many people as in rich nations die in road traffic accidents, it said. In the sample of 20 countries surveyed, the top three most dangerous for walking and cycling were in Africa. In Malawi, 66 percent of all road fatalities were pedestrians and cyclists; in Kenya 61 percent; and in South Africa 53 percent. “People are risking their lives every time they leave their homes,” UNEP Executive Director Erik Solheim said. As well as causing deaths, designing transport systems around cars increases climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions and deadly air pollution, he noted in a statement. "We must put people, not cars, first in transport systems,” he urged. Ways to do that include bicycle-sharing schemes in cities, adding cycle paths to roads, and putting in more pedestrian crossings and traffic-calming measures, the report said. Motorized transport is responsible for a quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions, UNEP said. It is the fastest-growing sector for emissions, and at current rates is projected to be responsible for a third of emissions by 2050. The world's fleet of private cars is forecast to triple by 2050, with most of the growth in developing countries. This explosion in cars "will severely restrict" the world's ability to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, as agreed by governments, UNEP warned. Poor air quality, partly due to vehicle emissions, is estimated to cause around 7 million premature deaths each year and is worsening health problems like bronchitis, asthma and heart disease, the agency said. Besides boosting spending on walking and cycling infrastructure, UNEP called on countries to draft policies for non-motorized transport, and to implement them urgently where they already exist. Among those who walk and ride bikes, particular attention should be paid to the needs and safety of vulnerable users, such as children, the elderly and the disabled, it added. Governments also were urged to make an effort to champion walking and cycling. "Political will is not only about policies - it is about giving walking and cycling equal status to private cars," the agency said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday called for a global centre to coordinate research on clean-energy technology, saying innovations should be viewed as "public goods" that poorer countries could afford. Transferring clean energy technologies is a key issue being negotiated as part of a broader global pact to fight climate change that the United Nations hopes will be agreed in Copenhagen in December. Developing nations say wealthy states have grown prosperous by fuelling their economies with polluting oil, coal and natural gas and that they should help poorer states grow with finance and clean-energy technology to curb the pace of climate change. But rich countries fear losing competitiveness with any dilution of intellectual property rights (IPR) for innovations. "Climate friendly and environmentally sound technologies should be viewed as global public goods," Manmohan Singh told a conference on clean technology in New Delhi. "This implies that the IPR regime applied to those goods should balance rewards for innovators with the need to promote the common good of humankind. "The key issue is that of developing the appropriate technologies and then collapsing the time from their first commercialisation to their large-scale adoption in developing countries." A report by London-based think tank Chatham House said last month the time taken for clean technologies to spread globally must be halved by 2025 to meet emissions cut targets by 2050. Singh said in August that India, the world's fourth largest polluter, must invest in its own environmentally friendly technologies as the country's energy use rises sharply in the coming decades. New Delhi says it will not commit to legally binding emissions targets under any new U.N. climate deal and that it is crucial for its economy to keep growing quickly to lift millions out of poverty. It says it will take its own voluntary steps to cut emissions. Actions supported by finance from rich nations would be open to scrutiny as part of a broader climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol from 2013, the government has said. Singh said the world should look at creating a platform to bring together global resources to deliver technologies that can transform entire industries. "We have good examples to guide us, including the ITER or fusion energy project and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CIFOR)," he said. "I have no doubt that if developed countries make a serious effort to bring their per-capita emissions within tolerable levels, they will unleash large resources directed towards research. "This will generate an upsurge of technology that will make it much easier for other countries to follow suit." Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF's Global Climate Initiative, told Reuters last week it could be possible to find a solution in Copenhagen on licensing and buying up rights to technology. "Setting up a small fund or facility that would enable identification of technological solutions and buying up or licensing within the framework of the existing IPR system I think that sounds something that should be acceptable to all parties.

But these days, the 27-year-old spends nearly an hour each day before work putting on his protective gear, which includes special masks, gloves, boots and a suit. "A lot has changed in the last 10 years. Before, PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) was not a factor. But today we are not allowed to work without it," said Hossain, an employee of PHP Ship Breaking and Recycling Industries in the coastal city of Chattogram. It is the nation's only yard - of a total of about 80 - that complies with international health, safety and environmental rules for the risky occupation. "It's not the same everywhere," added Hossain. "Some workers from other yards told me they buy their own gloves." The industry in Bangladesh is evolving to come in line with new regulations, officials say. The government, through a parliamentary act in 2018, ordered yard-owners to clean up their practices by 2023 and implement standards laid down in the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships. That pact, adopted in 2009 and ratified by 17 nations so far, aims to improve worker safety and environmental protection, but has yet to come into force globally. The changes will include training workers on safety, preventing emissions of ozone-depleting substances and building storage for toxic waste from ships like asbestos and lead. Bangladesh is one of the world's top locations for dismantling end-of-life ships, with at least 144 broken down on its beaches in 2020, or about one in every five worldwide, according to Shipbreaking Platform, a global coalition that campaigns for clean, safe ship recycling. Most of the others ended up in India, Pakistan and Turkey. The sector has been criticised for failing to prevent workers' deaths - caused by gas explosions, employees falling from a height or being hit by ship parts - and for damaging the environment through oil spills and spreading harmful waste. At least 11 workers have died in Bangladesh's shipbreaking sector so far this year, according to Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), a local non-profit that focuses on shipyards. SLOW PROGRESS In Bangladesh, only PHP - which started work to reform its practices back in 2014 - has so far met the Hong Kong pact's goals. Although most of the country's shipbreaking yards have now submitted improvement plans, government and NGO officials expect just five or so to comply with the convention by next year. They attribute the slow progress mainly to the high investment needed to update the yards' operations, as well as lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic over the last year. "A good number of yard-owners don’t have the financial capacity," said Mizanur Rahman, a senior official at Bangladesh's Ministry of Industries. "We are working on a way to facilitate them with soft loans," he added. Many yards lack proper waste storage systems, due to a lack of trained people and investment, he noted. But he is confident all yards will comply by the time the convention comes into force, which could happen in 2025 provided Bangladesh ratifies it by 2023. The convention will take effect when it has been approved by countries that break 40% of the world’s ships by tonnage, a figure that currently stands close to 30%. Once it comes into force, ships sent for recycling must carry an inventory of hazardous materials contained in their parts. It will also be prohibited to use new parts made using these toxic substances.Bangladesh's PHP Ship Breaking and Recycling Industries - which has been certified by international auditing groups as meeting the convention's regulations - has spent at least $8 million since 2014 on developing its methods, said its managing director Zahirul Islam. For example, it now uses cranes to carry blocks - cut from ships moored on the tidal mud-flats - directly to an impermeable concrete platform where the rest of the cutting is done to avoid spillage onto the beach. "Traditionally ... every block would be dropped on the beach and then dragged by workers," said Islam. RECYCLING WASTE PHP's yard also has a sealed negative pressure unit that removes asbestos - which can cause cancer - from ship parts and stops the mineral escaping into the air. It has so far collected 32 kinds of waste, including ozone-depleting substances, paint chips and glass wool. For now, shipyards are expected to store waste temporarily until the government creates a central storage area and disposal system for collection and recycling, due to be ready by 2024. Until then, PHP is planning to pay vendors to remove waste from its yard. It recently started exporting asbestos to Germany to be used as landfill and is in talks to supply glass wool to a cement firm. From a global perspective, making shipbreaking yards greener and reusing materials can also help tackle climate change, said government official Rahman. Bangladesh already gets most of its steel from dismantled ships instead of extracting it from iron-ore through a process that produces high carbon emissions. The government will also monitor what happens to substances from shipbreaking that deplete the Earth's protective ozone layer, such as hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigeration, which are also greenhouse gases, said Rahman. JOBS DISAPPEAR The upgrades at PHP have come at a cost, though. The mechanisation of the yard saw Islam's workforce decrease from about 3,000 people to 300. In the past, ship parts were carried by groups of about 50 people on their backs but the arrival of magnetic cranes in many yards has changed that, explained yard boss Islam. Rahman from the industry ministry believes the sector must accept such "technological changes". "We don't want these jobs to remain because this is not decent work and there is an occupational risk," he said. Workers who lose their jobs at shipyards mainly find employment at nearby steel mills, scrap shops or as daily labourers, said a labour ministry official. For now, while the country's only convention-compliant yard paints a positive picture, the rest have a long way to go, said campaigners. "The intention to improve is there but the progress is slow. The shipbreaking firms need international expertise to focus on safer cutting and asbestos removal," said Ali Shahin, a YPSA programme manager. BANGLADESH BREAKTHROUGH? Ibrahim Khalil, 48, who was injured three months ago when a ship part he was cutting fell on his leg, has yet to get back to work. The owner of the non-compliant yard he works for provided him with initial treatment but abandoned him midway, he said. "You can still see the bone in my leg... I was wearing protective boots, but that (block) still went through," he said. "I need to be treated so that I can get back to work and feed my family. But they (management) keep giving excuses." Ruksana Akter, whose husband fell to his death at a shipyard five months ago, said the owners paid her just half the legally mandated compensation. "I had no choice but to accept whatever I got. I needed quick money for my two girls," she said. In addition, at least 10 workers who spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation said they were not being paid the government-approved minimum wage of 16,000 taka ($187.20) per month. Abdullah Al Sakib, a senior official at Bangladesh's labour ministry, said the situation was improving and the government had filed legal cases against a number of yards that had not paid the minimum wage. While many activists are sceptical the yards will meet the national deadline of 2023 to implement the new regulations, the government believes that, over time, rising pressure on owners will create a safer, more climate-friendly shipbreaking sector. "The whole world is looking at Bangladesh," said Rahman of the industry ministry. "(Our) ratification of the Hong Kong Convention will bring it into force and it will be a breakthrough."

The United States and France, whose relations soured over the Iraq war, underlined close links as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made her first visit to Paris since Nicolas Sarkozy became president. Sarkozy is an avowed US friend and Washington hopes Rice's two-night stay in Paris, a relatively long visit for the top U.S. diplomat, will mark a new turn in U.S.-French ties strained by former French president Jacques Chirac's opposition to the 2003 Iraq war. Rice's visit was timed to coincide with a meeting Sarkozy convened on Darfur, where U.S. officials felt that the previous French government did too little to help stop what the United States has called genocide in the western Sudan region. Rice had extensive talks with Sarkozy as well as the French foreign and defence ministers on global issues including Iran, Iraq, the Middle East and Kosovo. "The more we work together, the better things will be and the more we are together, the stronger we will be," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told a joint news conference on Sunday before hosting a dinner for Rice. "On a great many topics of current events, we had a chance to see how close we are. At times, we did not see things eye to eye. It is good, among friends, to speak frankly," he added. Rice was equally effusive, offering "great congratulations" to Sarkozy on his election victory. She also praised Kouchner for his work with Medecins Sans Frontieres -- the aid group he co-founded -- which she described as "one of the finest organisations ... ever created." Analysts said the cordiality should not obscure the many areas where the two countries disagree, including French misgivings about NATO expansion, U.S. plans for a missile defence shield in Europe and U.S. support for Israel. "There is a new climate ... There is a new sense of confidence but it's more in the tone and in the style than necessarily in the content," said Dominique Moisi, senior counsellor to the French Institute of International Relations. "Psychologically, there is a sense in the United States that there is a new France with an ally of Washington at the helm. At the same time, in France, I don't think the perception of the Bush administration has changed," he added. "To confirm that change of atmosphere, you should wait for a new president in Washington and ideally one from the Democratic party." In their public dealings, however, US and French officials were nothing if not warm. Kouchner kissed Rice on each cheek as they wrapped up their news conference, giving photographers an image to accompany the idea of France and the United States kissing and making up after the Iraq war even though that process began years ago. The French foreign minister beamed when Rice went out of her way to note French support for the American revolution, telling Kouchner that "there might not have been a United States of America but for your help."

San Francisco will become the first US city to offer a program to offset the impact of global warming by funding local green activities, the mayor said in an interview on Monday. Under the program to be announced on Tuesday, city officials would calculate the carbon cost of their travels and contribute to one of several city programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions -- or forego the travel altogether. "What we are trying to do by this is to set high standards to show carbon offset programs that work," Gavin Newsom told Reuters, adding he was wary of offsets with little accountability that promise action in distant lands. For official travel, that means a round-trip flight from San Francisco to New York would cost an additional $80 to $90, officials say, to be paid into the city's offset programs such as converting restaurant grease into fuel, installing solar energy devices or investing in energy conservation. The program will not cost additional funds, which means city departments would cut out some travel to pay for other trips with carbon offsets, Newsom said. A second phase of the program would also allow residents to buy offsets. With growing worldwide focus on the climate change impact of carbon emissions, entities from companies such as Google and Yahoo to organizations including the United Nations and countries such as Costa Rica, Norway and New Zealand are implementing carbon offset programs with the ultimate goal of becoming carbon neutral. Such plans seek to plant trees (which soak up carbon dioxide, the most common man-made greenhouse gas) or encourage a switch from high carbon-emitting fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy such as wind and water to cut emissions. WHERE DO THE OFFSETS GO? The problem with many such programs is that those who pay carbon offset fees often do know know what, if anything, becomes of contributions, the San Francisco mayor said. "Right now, my offsets, I don't know where the hell they go. They might be going to the Amazon," Newsom, a Democrat, told Reuters. "There are some scam artists doing nothing other than banking on this goodwill." He said he personally favored paying carbon offset fees for all his travel, whether he is stumping for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as he did last weekend in Iowa, or jetting off to the exclusive wedding of Google co-founder Larry Page in the Caribbean earlier this month. In 2004, Newsom set a goal of cutting the city's annual carbon dioxide emissions by 2.5 million tonnes by 2012, a 20-percent reduction below 1990 emissions. Newsom said officials were studying proposals to reduce emissions from transportation -- which account for more than half of the city's carbon emissions -- that could include new taxes or restrictions. "The whole movement in the United States is going to be towards congestion management," he said. San Francisco has long embraced initiatives to encourage conservation. Earlier this year the mayor barred city officials from drinking mineral water because of concerns about pollution from plastic bottles. The city also banned plastic shopping bags in large supermarkets to encourage recycling.

The failure by developed economies to effectively curb their greenhouse gas emissions contributes to rising sea levels and especially imperils island and low-lying nations at the mercy of water. "We simply have no higher ground to cede," Marshall Islands President David Kabua told leaders in a pre-recorded speech at the high-level gathering on Wednesday. "The world simply cannot delay climate ambition any further." Countries agreed under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation to attempt to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the threshold scientists say would head off the worst impacts of warming. To do that, scientists say, the world needs to cut global emissions in half by 2030, and to net-zero by 2050. "The difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees is a death sentence for the Maldives," President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih told world leaders on Tuesday. Guyana President Irfaan Ali criticized large polluters for not delivering on promises to curb emissions, accusing them of "deception" and "failure" and warning that climate change will kill far more people than the COVID-19 pandemic. "We hold out similar hope that the world's worst emitters of greenhouse gases that are affecting the welfare of all mankind will also come to the realization that, in the end, it will profit them little to emerge king over a world of dust," Ali told world leaders on Thursday. He said small island states and countries with low-lying coastlines, like Guyana, will bear the full brunt of the impending disaster despite being among the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases. "This is not only unfair, it is unjust," he said. Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group, said there had been a "sense of existential crisis" running through the annual gathering at the United Nations. "Both Beijing and Washington want to show they are leading the fight against global warming. If the small islands' leaders can't get people to listen at this General Assembly, they never will," Gowan said. US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he would work with Congress to double funds by 2024 to $11.4 billion per year to help developing nations deal with climate change. The funding would help achieve a global goal set more than a decade ago of $100 billion per year to support climate action in vulnerable countries by 2020. Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to stop building coal-fired power plants overseas, a move widely welcomed. 'WE MUST ACT NOW' Biden and Xi made their commitments less than six weeks before the Oct. 31-Nov. 12 COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said runs the risk of failure over mistrust between rich and poor countries. President Chan Santokhi of Suriname, where much of the coastal area is low-lying, called for "ambitious and actionable commitments" to be made at COP26, urging developed countries to recommit to the $100 billion per year. Santokhi said that ideals and political commitments do not mean much if not supported by new financial resources. "In the case of my country, Suriname, and the countries with low-lying coastal areas, we are committed to fighting climate change because we are particularly vulnerable even though we have contributed the least to this problem," he told the General Assembly. The Pacific archipelago nation of Palau warned the world is running out of time. "Simply put, we must act now to ensure our children inherit a healthy and reliable future. We need to act now before further irreparable damage is made to our planet," Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr., said at the gathering. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is preparing to host COP26, on Wednesday called on world leaders to make the necessary commitments and a collective pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. He warned that, on the current track, temperatures will go up by 2.7 degrees Celsius or more by the end of the century. "Nevermind what that will do to the ice floes, dissolving like ice in your martini here in New York," Johnson said. "We will see desertification, drought, crop failure and mass movements of humanity on a scale not seen before, not because of some unforeseen natural event or disaster, but because of us, because of what we are doing now."

It is a global contest with huge economic consequences for automakers, small battery startups and car buyers, who in a few years will chose from a dizzying array of electric cars that use different kinds of batteries as the combustion-engine era recedes. The chemical makeup of batteries — a technical subject that was the province of engineers — has become one of the hottest topics of discussion in the corporate boardrooms of General Motors, Toyota, Ford Motor and Volkswagen, as well in the White House. With financial and technological support from the government, these giant companies are embracing startups working to remake the battery so they are not left behind by the industrial revolution unleashed by the electric car. Automakers’ ability to master battery technology could help determine which companies thrive and which are overtaken by Tesla and other electric car businesses. Batteries will help determine the price of new cars and could become the defining feature of vehicles. Like the megapixels on cameras or the processing speeds of computer chips that consumers once obsessed over, the features of batteries will be the yardstick by which cars and trucks are judged and bought. “This is going to be the new brand differentiation going forward — the battery in electric vehicles,” said Hau Thai-Tang, chief product platform and operations officer at Ford Motor. “So, we’re making a huge effort.” Batteries, of course, will also play a central role in the fight against climate change by helping to move cars, trucks and the power sector away from oil, coal and natural gas. Automakers are taking a crash course in battery chemistry because demand for electric cars is taking off. Companies have to figure out how to make batteries cheaper and better. Today, batteries can make up one-quarter to one-third of the cost of electric cars. And most of those batteries are made by a few Asian companies. Even Tesla, the dominant producer of electric cars, relies on Asian suppliers and is seeking to bring more manufacturing in house. President Joe Biden this month encouraged companies to move more of the battery supply chain to the United States. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlined the strategic importance of such efforts. Volkswagen was forced to temporarily shut down its main electric vehicle factory in Germany after the fighting disrupted the supply of parts made in western Ukraine. Auto giants such as Stellantis, which owns Ram and Jeep, are lavishing cash on startups such as Factorial Energy, which has fewer than 100 employees in an office park in Woburn, near Boston. Factorial executives, who have stopped returning calls from automakers offering bags of money, are developing a battery that can charge faster, hold more energy and be less likely to overheat than current batteries. “Money can come and go,” said Siyu Huang, a co-founder at Factorial, who began experimenting with battery technology as a graduate student at Cornell University. “We want to deliver the safest battery and change the way people are living.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM.) Top Biden administration officials have said they want to help, acknowledging that the United States has done a poor job capitalizing on battery technologies created domestically. Many of those inventions have given birth to a huge industry in China. The Energy Department is considering financing companies that make batteries or supply the parts or critical minerals needed to build them. The agency already has at least 10 pending applications asking for a total of more than $15 million to support these battery-related projects, according to an agency tally. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last month that a failure to innovate hurt his hometown, South Bend, Indiana, once home to Studebaker, which went out of business in the 1960s. “Innovation is central to the past, present and future for our auto industry, and we see that right now with the opportunity for America to lead the electric vehicle revolution,” he said. Cheaper and More-Durable Batteries The most immediate change coming is in the building blocks of batteries. Most lithium ion batteries used in electric vehicles rely on nickel, manganese and cobalt. But some automakers, including Tesla and Ford, are moving to use batteries in at least some vehicles that rely on lithium iron phosphate, which is popular in China. These LFP batteries, as they are known, cannot store as much energy per pound, but they are much less expensive and last longer. Tesla plans to offer LFP batteries in shorter-range, lower-priced electric vehicles. Ford is planning to use them in some trucks sold under its Ion Boost Pro brand for fleet owners. “It could be delivery, it could be plumbers, electricians, landscapers that work in a fixed geographic zone,” said Thai-Tang, the Ford executive. Ford is teaming up with SK Innovation of Korea to make its batteries, but it hopes to bring much of that manufacturing to the United States, Thai-Tang said. “That will reduce some of the geopolitical as well as just logistics cost challenges.” But the LFP battery is not a complete solution. Teslas using these batteries can drive only about 270 miles on a charge, compared with about 358 miles for similar models powered by nickel and cobalt batteries. Also, LFP batteries can lose some of their power when the temperature drops below freezing and take longer to charge. New Designs and Ingredients Ford’s new electric F-150 pickup truck, which has not gone on sale but already has 200,000 reservations, will rely on batteries with a higher percentage of energy-dense nickel, also made by SK Innovation. Tesla in February said it had already built 1 million cells for its next-generation “4680” battery that it has started to use in its Model Y crossovers. CEO Elon Musk has said the battery will have 16 percent more range because of its distinctive honeycomb design. “It’s hard until it’s discovered, and then it’s simple,” he said in 2020. GM claims that its Ultium battery cell needs 70% less cobalt than the cells used in the Chevrolet Bolt electric hatchback. The company has added aluminum to its battery. The GMC Hummer pickup, which GM recently started selling, is the first vehicle to have this battery. GM, in partnership with South Korea’s LG Chem, is building a $2.3 billion battery factory in Lordstown, Ohio. It is one of at least 13 large battery factories under construction in the United States. Batteries are already becoming important to auto branding — GM is running ads for Ultium batteries. It adds to the imperative that they ensure these batteries are reliable and safe. GM has had to recall the Bolt to fix a battery defect that can lead to fires. Many automakers are eager to reduce their reliance on cobalt in part because it mostly comes from the Congo, where it is mined by Chinese-financed companies or by freelancers who sometimes employ children. “It’s the potential violation of human rights, the child labor or the artisan miners who are digging under very difficult circumstances — that’s the major concern that we have,” said Markus Schäfer, a senior Mercedes executive responsible for research and development. The auto industry is also concerned about nickel, because Russia is an important supplier of the metal. A team of about 25 government scientists at the Oak Ridge National Lab wants to push these innovations further still. Conventional electric car batteries have been set up next to an experimental cobalt-free alternative. Scientists spend weeks charging and discharging them, measuring how they perform. Ilias Belharouak, who runs the Oak Ridge Battery Manufacturing Center, said the goal was to cut battery costs by as much as half, increase their range beyond 300 miles and get charge times down to 15 minutes or less. (Current batteries typically take 30 minutes to 12 hours to charge depending on the car and outlet.) Some of this work will be funded by $200 million the Energy Department allocated late last year to seven national labs. The department next month will host a “virtual pitchfest” where battery designers present ideas to scientists, government officials and industry executives. The Quest for Solid-State Batteries Factorial Energy and other US startups, such as Solid Power and QuantumScape, are aiming to revolutionize the way batteries are constructed, not just change their ingredients. Batteries today rely on a liquid solution for the electrolyte that allows the flow of electricity between different components. Solid-state batteries don’t have a liquid electrolyte and, thus, will be lighter, store more energy and charge faster. They are also a lot less likely to ignite and, therefore, need less cooling equipment. Most major carmakers have placed big bets on solid state technology. Volkswagen has put its money on QuantumScape, based in San Jose, California. BMW and Ford are wagering on Solid Power, based in Louisville, Colorado. GM has invested in SolidEnergy Systems, which emerged from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is based in Singapore. But it’s not clear how soon solid-state batteries will arrive. Stellantis has said it hopes to introduce mass-market vehicles with those batteries by 2026, but executives at other companies say the technology might not be broadly available until about 2030. Whichever carmaker offers solid state batteries first will have an enormous advantage. Huang of Factorial said it was not unusual for her and her business partner, Alex Yu, to work all night as they race to achieve technical bench marks. She is motivated, she said, by memories of the polluted air she breathed while growing up near Shanghai. “Our company’s founding mission is to strive toward a fossil free future,” Huang said. “That is what I strive for in my life.” Eventually, Factorial, which Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai have also invested in, wants to build factories around the world — an ambitious goal considering the company just moved into a second floor. In a series of laboratories, employees wearing white coats and intense expressions test prototype cells. Despite this frenzied activity, the auto industry could struggle to fill demand for new batteries because the world cannot mine and process all the raw materials needed, particularly for lithium, said Andrew Miller, chief operating officer at Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, which tracks battery makers and supplies worldwide. “All of the models that are being announced, everything those companies want to do over the next three years,” Miller said, “I don’t know where the raw materials are coming from.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Bruce Springsteen, who narrated a television ad for Biden during the campaign, revealed the magazine’s choice at the end of an hourlong television special on NBC. Biden, 78, the former vice president under President Barack Obama, and Harris, 56, a US senator from California who became the first Black woman and the first Indian American elected to the vice presidency, will appear side by side in a portrait on the magazine’s cover on Dec 21. They edged out frontline health care workers (along with the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci), the racial justice movement and President Donald Trump for the distinction. Earlier, on the “Today” show, Time announced the four finalists for the recognition. “Time has always had a special connection to the presidency,” Edward Felsenthal, the editor-in-chief and chief executive officer of Time, said Thursday night. Felsenthal noted that it was the first time that the magazine had chosen to include the vice president as a person of the year. “Person of the year is not just about the year that was but about where we’re headed,” he said. “The next four years are going to be an enormous test of them and all of us to see whether they can bring about the unity that they promised.” Biden, appearing in a taped segment of the show, said that had Trump been reelected, it would have changed who Americans were for a long time. “This moment was one of those do-or-die moments,” he said. Harris, who began the campaign as a candidate for president, acknowledged the pressure that she and Biden would face. “We’re at a moment where we’re being confronted by many crises that have converged,” she said. At a time when weekly print magazines have struggled to remain relevant in the media landscape, the marketing hype over the purely ceremonial distinction has continued to create fanfare for Time. The tradition goes back to 1927, when Time named aviator Charles Lindbergh its first man of the year, as the honour was then called. The magazine, which began publishing in 1923, has bestowed the distinction on presidents, peacemakers, astronauts, popes and Queen Elizabeth II, on American women and the endangered Earth. But some of the newsmakers chosen turned out to be infamous; Time selected Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Josef Stalin in 1939, a distinction that was given to Stalin again in 1942. Time has noted that its selection process is not a popularity contest, however. Its choice reflects “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill,” the magazine said in 2014. Last year, Time named Greta Thunberg its person of the year, choosing her over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump, the Ukraine whistleblower and the Hong Kong protesters. The choice of Thunberg, the young climate activist who sailed across the Atlantic in an emissions-free yacht before her speech last year at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, rankled Trump. The president called the nod to Thunberg “ridiculous” on Twitter. In 2018, the magazine selected a group of journalists that included murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi as its person of the year. The magazine said it wanted to underscore the threats faced by independent journalists at a time of so much disinformation. The journalists included the staff of The Capital Gazette newspapers in Maryland, where five people were shot dead in June 2018. The previous year, Time recognised “the silence breakers,” a group of women who catalysed the Me Too movement when they stepped forward to accuse powerful men of sexual harassment and assault. Before the magazine revealed its pick in 2017, Trump boasted on Twitter that he had been told he would “probably” be chosen again and claimed to have turned down the recognition. Time quickly released a statement saying that the president was incorrect. With his upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Trump was chosen as Time’s person of the year for 2016. The last three presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, each of whom was elected to a second term, unlike Trump — were named Time magazine person of the year twice while in office. Nine presidents have been selected more than once by the magazine, with President Dwight D Eisenhower first recognised in 1944 for helping lead the Allies to victory in World War II as an Army general. President Franklin D Roosevelt was named person of the year three times.   c.2020 The New York Times Company

Gail Bradbrook, one of the founders of the group, climbed onto the top of the entrance of the transport ministry and put up a sign reading "HS2 is our climate emergency" above the revolving doors. Bradbrook, invoking the example women's suffrage activist Emmeline Pankhurst, then tried to smash one of the ministry's windows with a hammer and screwdriver. She was later brought down by a police climber. "Rebels have glued themselves to the building and co-founder, Gail Bradbrook has climbed on top of roof at entrance in civil disobedience due to our government complicit inaction on the climate and ecological emergency we are facing," Extinction Rebellion said. Extinction Rebellion, which uses civil disobedience to highlight the risks posed by climate change and the accelerating loss of plant and animal species, is midway through a new two-week wave of actions in cities around the world. Police ordered a halt to all Extinction Rebellion protests in London on Monday after a week action, saying those who did not comply would be arrested. They have already made almost 1,500 arrests since the protests began. The group said High Speed 2 project (HS2), aimed at improving links from London to central and northern England but which is billions of pounds over budget and running late, would damage or destroy 108 ancient woodlands. A spokesman for the transport ministry declined immediate comment on the action. Another activist tried to lock herself to the transport ministry but was arrested. "Everybody who is not paying attention is numb at the moment. We all use tactics to numb ourselves because this is scary," the arrested woman said. She said the high speed rail project would be a "scar across the belly of this land" and that it would destroy vital woodlands and wildlife habitats. The project aims to slash journey times between the capital and Birmingham, which supporters say would give Britain the kind of fast rail services enjoyed by other major countries. An independent review is considering whether it should go ahead given that it would cost around 88 billion pounds ($111.5 billion) under current estimates.

A group of developing countries, among the world's fastest growing carbon emitters, said on Sunday a legally binding global agreement to limit climate change needed to be completed by 2011 at the latest. Environment ministers of the so-called BASIC bloc -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- met in Cape Town to look at how to fast-track a globally binding agreement that would bind rich nations to cut emissions and reduce global warming. "Ministers felt that a legally binding outcome should be concluded at Cancun, Mexico in 2010, or at the latest in South Africa by 2011," the ministers said in a joint statement, referring to UN climate talks. The Kyoto Protocol, which the United States did not agree to, binds about 40 developed nations to cutting emissions by 2008-12. UN climate meetings have failed to reach a legally-binding agreement on what happens post 2012. More than 100 countries have backed a non-binding accord, agreed in Copenhagen last year, to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, but did not spell out how this should be achieved. It included a goal of $100 billion in aid for developing nations from 2020. The United States supports the Copenhagen Accord but many emerging economies do not want it to supplant the 1992 UN Climate Convention which more clearly spells out that rich nations have to take the lead in cutting emissions and combating climate change. Industrialised nations have been unwilling to take on new commitments beyond 2012 unless major emerging nations, such as India and China, also sign up. "The question of Cancun -- right now it looks as if we will have to come back to Cape Town in 2011. There is no breakthrough in sight ... we have a long way to go," Jairam Ramesh, India's Environment and Forestry Minister told reporters.

The yen slid to a record low against the euro and languished near a four-year trough against the dollar on Friday as Japanese rates looked set to stay low, while oil held near a seven-week high over $61. Germany's Ifo business sentiment survey for February fell more than expected, nudging the euro down only slightly against the dollar and lifting Bunds, but did nothing to change expectations that euro zone interest rates will rise next month. Shares in Japanese exporters benefited from the weak yen and helped lift the Nikkei average to a seven-year closing high, while weakness in banking stocks and jitters over Iran's nuclear programme weighed on European stocks. The euro rose to a record high of 159.63 yen before pulling back to around 159.25 yen, but traders said it was only a matter of time before the single currency broke the 160-yen level. The dollar hovered around 121.40 yen after climbing as high as 121.63 yen for the second day running -- not far off the 122.20 yen struck in January, which was the highest since December 2002. This week's 25-basis-point rise in Japanese interest rates to a decade-high of 0.5 percent has done little to stem the yen's fall against major currencies, since Japanese rates remain much lower than elsewhere in the developed world. "The higher short-term rates in Japan will do nothing to slow the heavy buying of foreign bonds and stocks by Japanese investors, particularly households, seeking better returns abroad," Ronnie Steadman of Lloyds TSB Financial Markets wrote in a note. Investors have also build huge short positions against the Japanese currency in so-called carry trades, borrowing in yen to buy higher-yielding assets elsewhere. The high-yielding New Zealand dollar hit a 14-month high against the yen on Thursday. Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui on Friday repeated that the central bank will raise rates only gradually. Germany's Ifo research institute said its closely watched business climate index fell to 107.0 in February from last month's 107.9, but analysts said a European Central Bank rate rise to 3.75 percent was still firmly on the cards for March. At 1015 GMT the euro was about 0.1 percent lower at $1.311. Euro zone bonds erased early losses and turned positive on the Ifo reading, putting yields on the benchmark 10-year Bund 3.2 basis points lower at 4.066 percent. Oil climbed above $61 a barrel to a seven-week high on an unexpected sharp fall in US gasoline stocks and mounting anxiety over Iran's nuclear ambitions. US crude was 45 cents higher at $61.40 a barrel. It earlier hit $61.49, its highest level since Jan 2. Iran said it would show 'no weakness' over its nuclear programme, a day after the UN nuclear watchdog said Tehran had failed to meet a Feb. 21 deadline to suspend uranium enrichment. European shares drifted lower in early trade, as Iran worries and weakness in banking stocks offset strong results from industrials and higher commodity prices. The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.16 percent at 1,537.54 points, with indexes in Britain and France down slightly and Germany's barely changed. Japan's Nikkei advanced 0.44 percent to a seven-year closing high, led partly by gains in exporters such as Canon Inc that benefit from the weak yen. The rise was tempered by a drop of as much as 29 percent in Sanyo Electric Co. after the consumer electronics firm said it was being probed by regulators and a newspaper reported it had failed to account for more than $1 billion in losses. The MSCI All-Country World Index was 0.05 percent higher at 380.93.

TOYAKO, Japan,Wed Jul 9, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The world's biggest polluters agreed on Wednesday on the need for 'deep cuts' in greenhouse gas emissions, but differences between developed and emerging economies kept them from setting specific targets. Climate change has been the most contentious topic at this year's Group of Eight summit in Japan, which the heads of big emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil were invited to join on the third and final day. The statement by leaders of 16 countries, including top emitters China and the United States, came a day after the G8 rich nations endorsed a target of halving global emissions by 2050 while stressing they could not achieve that goal alone. Tuesday's G8 statement papered over deep gaps, with the United States opposed to committing to firm targets without assurances big emerging economies will act too. Developing countries, along with the European Union and green groups, say rich countries must take the lead and specify interim targets for how to reach the mid-century goal, which scientists say is the minimum needed to prevent dangerous global warming. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Wednesday's meeting had been constructive. "We have to get real," Barroso said in a statement. "It is quite wrong to see this in terms of a confrontation between developed and developing countries. Of course we accept the lion's share of responsibility but this is a global challenge, which requires a global response." But environmentalists immediately blasted the agreement, which represented no changes from an earlier draft agreed on in late June by negotiators from the same countries in Seoul. "It's the stalemate we've had for a while," Kim Carstensen, director of the WWF's global climate initiative, told Reuters. "Given the lack of willingness to move forward, particularly by the U.S., it hasn't been possible to break that." Climate experts are sceptical that any significant advance on steps to combat global warming can be made until a new U.S. president comes to office in January 2009. MID-TERM GOALS, BUT NO TARGET On Wednesday, the 16 countries' leaders agreed major developed economies would set mid-term goals, but set out no specific numbers. The group also said poorer countries would act to rein in rapid growth in their emissions. The stance of emerging nations is important. The G8 nations emit about 40 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions. China and India together emit about 25 percent of the total, a proportion that is rising as their coal-fueled economies boom. A Japanese government official told reporters that only Indonesia, Australia and South Korea had supported the G8 call to share their vision of halving global emissions by 2050. The others arguing that advanced countries that are responsible for the bulk of historical emissions must act first. "China is a developing country and is in the process of industrialization and modernization," China's state Xinhua news agency quoted President Hu Jintao as saying. "People's living standards are still not high, and China's core task at present is developing its economy and improving people's welfare." The G8 summit on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido brings together the leaders of Japan, Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and the United States. Climate change was not the only bone of contention at Wednesday's talks. Emerging nations are suffering more than rich countries from soaring fuel and food prices and have bristled at the suggestion that their rising demand is to blame. "The emphasis was that rising food prices was hurting the poor and that it was important to increase food production to deal with this," a Japanese official said after a meeting of five big emerging nations with G8 leaders. "There was concern about rising oil prices and many emerging countries stressed the factor of speculative trade."

But now Johnson finds himself back in crosswinds of the kind Trump used to stir up. His refusal to condemn crowds who booed England’s national football team for kneeling to protest racial injustice carries a distinct echo of Trump’s targeting of NFL players who knelt for the same cause in the United States. One of his Cabinet ministers criticised the players for engaging in “gesture politics,” while his spokesperson said of the jeering spectators that the prime minister “fully respects the right of those who choose to peacefully protest and make their feelings known.” In Johnson’s case, it was less what he said than what he failed to say. But in England, as in the United States, the mix of sports, politics and racial justice has proved volatile, boomeranging on a prime minister whose populist instincts on cultural issues have often served him well. England’s inspiring run in the European soccer championship captivated the nation. When three of its Black players were subjected to racist abuse after their crushing loss last weekend in the final, it put Johnson’s silence and the gibes of other Conservative politicians under a harsh spotlight. Suddenly, they were on the wrong side of a team that symbolized England’s racial diversity. “This was the Trump playbook, and it worked for Trump until George Floyd,” said Frank Luntz, an American pollster, referring to the killing of an unarmed man by the police last year in Minneapolis. That crime ignited enormous protests against racism and police violence, overwhelming Trump’s campaign to fire football players who refused to stand during the national anthem. Luntz, who has advised many Republican candidates, is now working with the Center for Policy Studies, a London research institute with historic ties to the Conservative Party, to survey voter attitudes in Britain. A classmate of Johnson’s at Oxford University, Luntz rejects the comparisons of the prime minister to Trump. (The better analog, he said, is Ronald Reagan.) But Luntz said there were other alarming parallels between Britain and the United States. The deep polarisation of voters, he said, has led to an exploitation of some issues — whether the populist appeals of Johnson’s Conservatives or the political correctness of the left — that threaten to corrode British politics as badly as they have US politics. “We’ve crossed the Rubicon in the United States,” he said. “They’re getting perilously close to crossing it here.” While Trump eventually dropped the NFL campaign, Johnson is in full-fledged retreat. Under questioning by the opposition Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, this week in Parliament, a rattled prime minister insisted he wholeheartedly supported the England team. “I support them in the way they show support with their friends who face racism,” Johnson added. That did not mollify Starmer, who declared, “The government has been trying to stoke a culture war, and they have realised they are on the wrong side. And now they hope that nobody has noticed.” The bigger threat to Johnson comes not from politicians but the players, some of whom have struck back at the eruption of racist gibes on social media after the team lost to Italy in a penalty shootout. Bukayo Saka, one of three young Black players who missed their kicks, posted on Twitter that “there is no place for racism or hate of any kind in football or in any area of society.” Tyrone Mings, a defender who is Black, drew a direct link between the abuse and the government, tweeting, “You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.” His reference was to Johnson’s home secretary, Priti Patel, who said the team’s practice of kneeling was “gesture politics” and refused to condemn fans for jeering it. Lee Anderson, a Conservative member of Parliament who was elected in 2019 in a surge of pro-Brexit support for Johnson’s party, vowed not to watch England games as long as the players knelt. Patel, who is one of the most hard-line Cabinet ministers on immigration issues, played a supporting role in this drama, not unlike that of Vice President Mike Pence in Trump’s NFL crusade. In October 2017, under orders from the president, Pence conspicuously walked out of a game in Indianapolis. Johnson has been more subtle than was Trump, who once described a protesting player as a “son of a bitch.” The prime minister never openly criticised the team, leaving it to a spokesperson to respond to questions about booing fans. There are several reasons for Johnson to tread carefully. England’s team represents the nation, not the interests of wealthy private owners, like a typical NFL franchise. England’s players sing “God Save the Queen” and kneel for only a few moments before kickoff. That makes them less vulnerable to charges of being unpatriotic than players sitting out the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Most important, under its manager, Gareth Southgate, the England team has found rare success on and off the field. It reached the first final of a major tournament in 55 years, vanquishing Germany and Denmark. And its players have used their fame effectively in pursuit of social justice — completing a decadeslong transformation in the team’s image from the days in which some viewed it uncomfortably as symbolizing a strain of English nationalism linked to the right. Another of its Black players, Marcus Rashford, led a campaign that forced Johnson to reverse plans to end a free-lunch program for poor families during the pandemic. After Rashford also missed his penalty kick in the final, vandals defaced a mural of him in his native Manchester with racist graffiti. Within hours, the slurs had been covered with hearts, letters and English flags. Southgate, in an eloquent “Dear England” letter, steadfastly supported his players’ rights to get involved in political issues. He said it was natural they would have different views of being English than people of his generation — a distinct contrast to the messages that were delivered by the NFL and its owners. The league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, first required players to stand for the anthem before reversing himself amid the Black Lives Matter protests. All of this left Johnson wrong-footed. Only a few months ago, he stridently opposed plans to form an elite European superleague, presenting himself as a champion of football’s working-class fans. Now, though, Johnson’s gestures — wearing an England “Three Lions” jersey or flying an English flag outside No 10 Downing St. — struck many as belated and inauthentic. “It’s confused the Tories; they don’t know how to run with this,” said John M Williams, a sports sociologist at the University of Leicester, referring to the governing Conservatives. “They have their own right-wing constituency, so they feel they have to go after the taking of the knee. But they’re afraid that the England team is doing politics better than they are.” As in the United States, Williams said, social issues in Britain are part of a deeper debate — between a liberal, inclusive, multiracial society and its opposite. “Weirdly,” he said, “the England national team is at the heart of this debate.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Copenhagen, Dec 19 (Reuters/bdnews24.com)--US president Barack Obama reached agreement with major developing powers on a climate deal on Friday, a U.S. official said, but he said the accord was only a first step and was insufficient to fight climate change. The official said Obama, China's premier Wen Jiabao, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and South Africa's president Jacob Zuma had reached a "meaningful agreement," after a day of deep divisions between leaders of rich and developing nations. Brazil also approved the deal that appeared to bypass other participants at UN-led climate talks in Copenhagen. The accord did not have guaranteed approval from all 193 nations. Noticeably, EU nations were absent from the meeting. But French president Nicolas Sarkozy said all countries agreed a deal to combat climate change. "We have an agreement," Sarkozy told a news conference in Copenhagen after the meeting of 120 world leaders. He added: "The text we have is not perfect." Under the accord, he said all countries including China would have to submit written plans for curbs in carbon dioxide emissions by January 2010. And he said that all countries had signed up for a plan to provide developing nations with $100 billion a year in aid by 2020. Tensions between China and the United States, the world's two biggest emitters, had been particularly acute after Obama -- in a message directed at the Chinese -- said any deal to cut emissions would be "empty words on a page" unless it was transparent and accountable. Negotiators struggled all day to find a compromise acceptable to all 193 countries which could avert the threat of dangerous climate change, including floods, droughts, rising sea levels and species extinctions. A draft text under discussion on Friday included $100 billion in climate aid annually by 2020 for poor countries to combat climate change, and targets to limit warming and halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But it abandoned earlier ambitions for any deal in Copenhagen to be turned into a legally binding treaty next year. "Today, following a multilateral meeting between President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma a meaningful agreement was reached," the U.S. official said. "It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change but it is an important first step." "No country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress," the official added. Under the five-nation agreement, rich and poor nations had agreed to a "finance mechanism," emissions cuts to curb global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and "to provide information on the implementation of their actions." Earlier, Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh told Reuters December 7-18 meeting was "close to seeing a legally non-binding Copenhagen outcome after 36 hours of grueling, intensive negotiations." The European Union had pressed for a strong deal to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and which included tough carbon curbs from other industrialized nations such as the United States. Scientists say a 2 degrees limit is the minimum to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including several meters sea level rise, species extinctions and crop failures. "Given where we started and the expectations for this conference, anything less than a legally binding and agreed outcome falls far short of the mark," said John Ashe, chair the Kyoto talks under the United Nations.

The G7 consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US. The EU also has representatives. The summit will focus on issues surrounding security and growth. A tough debate is expected on issues including trade and climate change. Those participating in the Taormina summit include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, along with the Prime Ministers of Italy, Japan and the UK, Paolo Gentiloni, Shinzo Abe and Theresa May respectively. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk will be representing the European Union at the summit. After the opening ceremony, the leaders will pose for a G7 family photo. The agenda of the first day includes three working sessions that will start around midday and focus on foreign policy, international security, economy and sustainable development. In the evening, the leaders will attend a concert at the theatre by Milan's La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra and then dine with Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the Timeo hotel. The seaside town of Taormina, located between the Ionian coast and the Etna volcano, has been in lockdown for the summit and security has been beefed up massively with almost 10,000 military personnel on the streets.

Global carbon emissions rose rapidly in 2007, an annual study says, with developing nations such as China and India now producing more than half of mankind's output of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming. The Global Carbon Project said in its report carbon dioxide emissions from mankind are growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the 1990s, despite efforts by a number of nations to rein in emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. Emissions from burning fossil fuels was a major contributor to the increase, the authors said in their "Global Carbon Project (2008) Carbon budget and trends 2007" report (http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbontrends/index_new.htm). India would soon overtake Russia to become the world's third largest CO2 emitter, it says. "What we are talking about now for the first time is that the absolute value of all emissions going into the atmosphere every year are bigger coming from less developing countries than the developed world," said the project's Australia-based executive director Pep Canadell. "The other thing we confirm is that China is indeed now the top emitter," he told Reuters, adding that China alone accounted for 60 percent of all growth in emissions. The United States was the second largest emitter. The project is supported by the International Council for Science, the umbrella body for all national academies of science. "DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES" The rapid rise in emissions meant the world could warm faster than previously predicted, said professor Barry Brook, director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He said CO2 concentrations could hit 450 ppm by 2030 instead of 2040 as currently predicted. They are just above 380 ppm at present. "But whatever the specific date, 450 ppm CO2 commits us to 2 degrees Celsius global warming and all the disastrous consequences this sets in train." The Global Carbon Project started in 2001 and examines changes in the earth's total carbon cycle involving man-made and natural emissions and how carbon is absorbed through sinks, such as oceans and forests. Canadell says the project analyses data from CO2 samples taken around the globe and national emissions figures sent to the United Nations. He called the rapid rise in emissions between 2000 and 2007 and accumulation of the gas unprecedented, and pointed out that it occurred during a decade of intense international efforts to fight climate change. At present, the Kyoto Protocol, the main global treaty to tackle global warming, binds only 37 rich nations to emissions curbs from 2008. But Kyoto's first phase ends in 2012 and the pact doesn't commit developing nations to emissions caps. The United Nations is leading talks to expand Kyoto from 2013 and find a magic formula that brings on board all nations to commit to curbs on emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. "WAKE-UP CALL" According to the report, atmospheric CO2 concentration rose to 383 parts per million in 2007, or 37 percent above the level at the start of the industrial revolution, and is the highest level during the past 650,000 years. It said the annual mean growth rate of atmospheric CO2 was 2.2 ppm per year in 2007, up from 1.8 ppm in 2006. "This latest information on rising carbon dioxide emissions is a big wake-up call to industry, business and politicians," said professor Matthew England, joint director of the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre. Canadell said the credit crisis would most likely trim emissions growth. "There is no doubt that the economic downturn will have an influence. But unless the big players, China, India, Russia and Japan, suffer as much as the United States is suffering, we'll see a small decline only."

Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovich was sworn in as president on Thursday and immediately pledged to fight corruption and poverty, and restore political stability to win back foreign support for the struggling economy. Yanukovich took the oath of office in a low-key ceremony which reflected a bitterly-contested election -- still disputed by his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- and which highlighted deep divisions in the country. All the same, his inauguration marked a comeback from humiliation in 2004 when mass protests, called the Orange Revolution, overturned an election that had been rigged in his favour. Speaking to a gathering of officials, lawmakers and foreign dignitaries after accepting the traditional trappings of office, the 59-year-old Yanukovich said the country faced "colossal debts", poverty, corruption and economic collapse. "Ukraine needs a strategy of innovative movement forward and such a strategy has been worked out by our team," he said. Turning to the paucity of foreign investment in the ex-Soviet republic of 46 million, and its notoriously unpredictable business climate, he said he sought to restore political stability, end corruption and set out rules governing links between the state and business. These were all "necessary conditions for investors and international financial institutions to establish trust in Ukraine," he said. Ukraine's economy has been hit hard by the global downturn which hurt its vital exports of steel and chemicals and halved the hryvnia's value to the dollar over the past 18 months. The country is dependent on a $16.4 billion International Monetary Fund bail-out programme, but lending was suspended late last year and is only likely to resume when stability returns. The finance ministry said on Thursday that an IMF technical mission would visit on April 7. This usually leads to full-blown visit from IMF officials who may later decide whether to restart the programme. TIES WITH RUSSIA A burly former mechanic backed by wealthy industrialists, Yanukovich had a deprived childhood in eastern Ukraine and as a young man was convicted twice for petty crime including assault. He is expected to improve ties with Russia, Ukraine's former Soviet master, after five years of estrangement under the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko. He has hinted at possible concessions to Moscow over the future of Russia's Black Sea fleet forces in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and has proposed the creation of a consortium including Russia to run the country's gas pipelines. However, he says he wants to change a 10-year-old agreement on supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine which was negotiated by Tymoshenko and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He also says he will pursue a balanced foreign policy and has vowed to push for closer ties with the European Union. In his speech on Thursday, he kept all his options open, saying his foreign policy would be one of "equal and mutually-advantageous ties" with Russia, the EU and the United States which would reap "maximum results" for Ukraine. His web site later quoted him as confirming he would go to Brussels next week, a visit which EU officials say will take place on Monday. He is also intending to visit Moscow in the first 10 days of March, his Regions Party said. Yanukovich beat Prime Minister Tymoshenko by 3.5 percentage points but won the support of only a third of the 37 million-strong electorate. The voting pattern highlighted a sharp split between Russian-speaking voters in the industrial east and south who backed him, and Ukrainian-speakers in the west and centre who voted for Tymoshenko. Tymoshenko dropped her legal challenge to Yanukovich's election only last Saturday. But she maintains he was not legitimately-elected and she and most of her bloc in parliament stayed away on Thursday, giving the ceremony a hollow ring. Despite Yanukovich's call for the establishment of a "competent executive power", Tymoshenko is still resisting attempts to oust her as prime minister, signalling continued political tension at least in the short-term. She is trying to persuade her allies to close ranks round her in parliament, while his party and its powerful backers are seeking to draw deputies away from her coalition and forge a new one. Forging a coalition requires some tricky horse-trading and could be a lengthy process. If Yanukovich fails to secure a new coalition, he will reluctantly have to call new parliamentary elections, further prolonging uncertainty.

German authorities launched raids is six northern German states on Wednesday on concerns left-wing radicals were planning attacks to disrupt a G8 summit in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm next month, prosecutors said. The federal prosecutor's office said in a statement that some 900 security officials were involved in searches of 40 sites in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. "We suspect those targeted, who belong to the militant extreme-left scene, of founding a terrorist organisation or being members of such an organisation, that is planning arson attacks and other actions to severely disrupt or prevent the early-summer G8 summit in Heiligendamm from taking place," the office said. The statement said German security officials suspected the group of being behind nine minor attacks in the Hamburg area and three in the Berlin region over the past two years. The list of attacks included a well-publicised incident last December when a car in front of the home of deputy finance minister Thomas Mirow was set on fire and his house's windows and walls splattered with paint. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned earlier this year that there was a risk of left-wing extremists launching attacks during Germany's year-long presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) club of industrialised nations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States at the Heiligendamm summit, which is likely to focus on climate change, global economic coordination and other hot foreign policy topics. Germany has not experienced any major left-wing violence since the militant Red Army Faction (RAF), which waged a bloody two-decade long campaign of killings and kidnappings, announced in 1998 that it was disbanding.

Developing nations that are fast industrialising, such as China and India, have braked their rising greenhouse gas emissions by more than the total cuts demanded of rich nations by the UN's Kyoto Protocol. A draft UN report, to be released in Bangkok on Friday after talks between governments and scientists, also shows that policies meant to curb air pollution from factories or cars or to save energy, have had a side-effect of fighting global warming. "Efforts undertaken by developing countries (i.e. Brazil, China, India and Mexico) for reasons other than climate change have reduced their emissions growth over the past 3 decades by approximately 500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year," according to a technical summary seen by Reuters. It said that was "more than the reductions required from (developed nations) by the Kyoto Protocol." By contrast, France's annual emissions in 2004 were 563 million tonnes, Australia's 534 million and Spain's 428 million. The data may spur debate about what is a fair share-out of curbs on emissions in any deal to extend and widen Kyoto, which now binds 35 industrial nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. President George W Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing it would cost US jobs and that it wrongly excluded 2012 goals for poorer nations such as China. "China is already doing a lot," said Hu Tao, of China's State Environmental Protection Administration. He said China's one-child per couple policy introduced in the early 1980s, for instance, had a side-effect of braking global warming by limiting the population to 1.3 billion against a projected 1.6 billion without the policy. "This has reduced greenhouse gas emissions," he told a conference in Oslo last month. China is the number two emitter of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, behind the United States and ahead of Russia. Developing nations argue that they should get credit for policies that have helped slow rising emissions. They note that east European nations in Kyoto get credit for the collapse of Soviet-era smokestack industries -- unrelated to deliberate efforts to fight global warming. Russia, for instance, has apparently done most among Kyoto nations with a 32 percent fall in emissions between 1990, a year before the Soviet Union fell apart, and 2004. And overall, the world's use of energy has become more efficient for the past century. The amount of energy used per dollar of economic output has fallen at about 0.3 percent a year, according to UN data. "The carbon intensity of production has been falling, especially in the developed countries. It partly reflects a movement from manufacturing to services," said Sudhir Junankar of the economics and environmental forecasting think-tank Cambridge Econometrics. And it is hard to say which Kyoto nations have done most, with deliberate policies, to cut emissions since 1990. "Within Europe you could look at Sweden, Germany and the UK at the top end," said Jennifer Morgan, of the London-based E3G think-tank. Germany has also benefited from the collapse of East German industry and Britain from a shift from polluting coal.

The Eiffel Tower is to turn its famous night-time illuminations off for five minutes on Thursday to help draw attention to energy consumption and the environment on the eve of the release of a UN report on climate change. The 336 projectors that light up the tower at night will be switched off between 7:55 pm and 8:00 pm (1855-1900 GMT), a spokeswoman for SETE, the company that operates the 19th century metal tower in central Paris said. The Eiffel Tower's illuminations are one of the most notable features of the French capital's skyline and account for 9 percent of the 7,000 megawatts consumed hourly by the structure. Earlier this week, environmental campaigners from Greenpeace hung a banner showing a giant thermometer from the Eiffel Tower to publicise the global warming issue. A UN report on climate change to be released officially on Friday in Paris projects a big rise in temperatures and warns of heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels linked to greenhouse gases, released mainly by the use of fossil fuels. The switch off is part of a campaign organised in conjunction with the Paris mayor's office to highlight the impact of energy consumption on global warming.

This year, scientists are urging a focus on another potent greenhouse gas – methane – as the planet's best hope for staving off catastrophic global warming. Countries must make "strong, rapid and sustained reductions" in methane emissions in addition to slashing CO2 emissions, scientists warn in a landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released Monday. The plea could cause consternation in countries opting for natural gas as a cleaner alternative to CO2-belching coal. It also could pose challenges for countries where agriculture and livestock, especially cattle, are important industries. But while both methane and CO2 warm the atmosphere, the two greenhouse gases are not equal. A single CO2 molecule causes less warming than a methane molecule, but lingers for hundreds of years in the atmosphere whereas methane disappears within two decades. The report puts "a lot of pressure on the world to step up its game on methane," said IPCC report reviewer Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development in Washington, DC. “Cutting methane is the single biggest and fastest strategy for slowing down warming,” Zaelke said. BUT WHY METHANE NOW? Today’s average global temperature is already 1.1C higher than the preindustrial average, thanks to emissions pumped into the air since the mid-1800s. But the world would have seen an additional 0.5C of warming, had skies not been filled with pollution reflecting some of the sun’s radiation back out into space, the report says. As the world shifts away from fossil fuels and tackles air pollution, those aerosols will disappear – and temperatures could spike. Quickly reducing methane could “counteract” this effect, while also improving air quality, said IPCC report summary author Maisa Rojas Corradi, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Chile. On a global scale, methane emissions are responsible for around 30% of warming since the pre-industrial era, according to the United Nations. But the role of methane, aerosols and other short-lived climate pollutants had not been discussed by the IPCC until now. “The report draws attention to the immediate benefits of significant reductions in methane, both from an atmospheric concentration point of view, but also the co-benefits to human health from improved air quality,” said Jane Lubchenco, deputy director for climate and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. METHANE MOMENTUM Updates in technology and recent research suggest that methane emissions from oil and gas production, landfills and livestock have likely been underestimated. The report sends a loud signal to countries that produce and consume oil and gas that they need to incorporate “aggressive oil and gas methane reduction plans into their own climate strategies,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of energy at Environmental Defense Fund. Landfill and energy company emissions might be the easiest to tackle, he said. Large-scale agricultural methane is tougher, because scaled-up replacement technology does not exist. The EU is proposing laws this year that will force oil and gas companies to monitor and report methane emissions and to repair any leaks. The United States is expected to unveil methane regulations by September that are more stringent than rules issued by the Obama administration, which were then rolled back under former President Donald Trump. The United States and the EU account for more than a third of global consumption of natural gas. But major economies without strict regulations on oil and gas production or agriculture, such as Brazil and Russia, are also likely to be high methane emitters, said IPCC co-author Paulo Artaxo, an environmental physicist at University of Sao Paulo. “(Methane) leakage from gas and also oil wells is very difficult to quantify,” he said. If countries are not looking, they will not find it. Some environmental groups and government officials have urged a global agreement on methane, such as the Montreal Protocol that tackled ozone depletion. Such an agreement could start with methane from the oil and gas industry, which already has technology to curb those emissions, said Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based climate technology group. “It's not rocket science. There's no exotic technology required here,” he said. “So let's start there.”

Together, the mammoth structures proposed by scientists would completely enclose the North Sea and offer protection for tens of millions of Europeans threatened by rising sea levels caused by climate change.The scientists behind the proposal, outlined in a paper published on Thursday in the American Journal of Meteorology, said that the scale of the project — which exists only in the broadest outlines at this point — reflected the urgency of the crisis.“See this as a warning,” said one of the authors, Sjoerd Groeskamp of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. “What we’re saying is: Here’s a plan, a plan we don’t want. But if we end up needing it, then it’s technically and financially feasible.”The project would be one of the largest engineering feats ever attempted on the planet and would cost anywhere from $250 billion to $550 billion, according to the proposal — a cost the authors suggest could be covered by more than a dozen Northern European countries that would be protected by the barrier.Some experts expressed doubt that damming the North Sea was the best solution for dealing with rising sea levels.“My initial reaction is skepticism,” said Craig Goff, who has been a dam safety engineer in Britain for about 20 years. “I suspect that it would be cheaper and quicker to build defenses along the coastline of Europe than to build dam structures across the North Sea.”Even the scientists behind the proposal acknowledge that attempting to dam the entire North Sea is not an ideal solution.Much better, they said, would be for the proposal to serve as an alarm, vividly illustrating the kind of drastic action that might become necessary if global leaders cannot find a way to address climate change.“It might be impossible to truly fathom the magnitude of the threat” posed by rising sea levels, the scientists wrote. “However, conceptualizing the scale of the solutions required to protect ourselves against global-mean sea level rise aids in our ability to acknowledge and understand the threat that sea level rise poses.”The other co-author of the paper, Joakim Kjellsson, a Swedish professor at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, said that no official proposal had been made to the nations that would be protected by the barrier.“In the end, we came to realize it’s such an extreme solution that it would be much better and much less dramatic to reduce our CO2 emissions and curb global warming so that we don’t need these kind of things,” he said in an interview.If carbon pollution continues to grow, sea level rise by 2100 could exceed 40 inches (1 meter), Groeskamp said.If nothing changes, Kjellsson said, millions of people will be forced from their homes — effectively becoming climate refugees. Even today, coastal cities such as San Francisco and Manila are faced with the consequences of sea level rise. FILE -- The OceanAire apartment complex in Pacifica, Calif, on Dec 3, 2019. A proposal to build two huge barriers, one that would connect Norway to Scotland, the other France to England, was described as a warning about the urgency of the climate crisis and together, the mammoth structures proposed by scientists would completely enclose the North Sea and offer protection for tens of millions of Europeans threatened by rising sea levels. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times) By 2050, some 150 million people in low-lying coastal cities could find themselves below the high-tide line, threatening to submerge whole cities, according to a report by Climate Central, a science organization based in New Jersey.The proposed dams would dwarf the largest such barriers built so far — the Afsluitdijk in the Netherlands, and the Saemangeum Seawall, in South Korea, which at 21 miles in length is the world’s longest sea wall.For scale, the North Sea dams would require at least 51 billion tons of sand — roughly equal to the total annual use of that commodity in construction projects around the world.While the depths of waters are manageable in much of the proposed area to be covered, engineers would also have to contend with the Norwegian Trench, which plunges to a depth of nearly 1,000 feet.The authors say that technology used by fixed oil rigs could be adapted for the dam.Building such structures across the North Sea would forever alter the ecological makeup of the area. Isolating the sea would stop the tidal flow, eventually turning it into a freshwater lake of sorts which would make it unlivable for species that depend on salt water.That, in turn, would have economic consequences, including on the income from North Sea fishing.But, as the authors of the proposal note, the good choices become fewer as the threat of rising sea levels increases.If there is one nation that is familiar with the risks and challenges of dealing with the sea, it is the Netherlands, where much of the country exists on land below sea level.“It’s a fairly extreme plan for the far future,” said Ferdinand Diermanse, an expert on flood risk at Deltares, a Dutch research institute for water. But when talking about the possibility of a sea level rise of multiple meters, he noted, “there are no simple solutions.”c.2020 The New York Times Company FILE -- The OceanAire apartment complex in Pacifica, Calif, on Dec 3, 2019. A proposal to build two huge barriers, one that would connect Norway to Scotland, the other France to England, was described as a warning about the urgency of the climate crisis and together, the mammoth structures proposed by scientists would completely enclose the North Sea and offer protection for tens of millions of Europeans threatened by rising sea levels. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)

The June 2-4 opinion poll suggests American voters may not penalize President Donald Trump too harshly for walking away from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, even if they would have preferred he keep the country in the deal. The poll found 68 percent of Americans want the United States to lead global efforts to slow climate change, and 72 percent agree "that given the amount of greenhouse gases that it produces, the United States should take aggressive action to slow global warming." Even so, Americans rank the environment near the bottom of their list of priorities for the country. Only about 4 percent of Americans believe that the "environment" is a bigger issue than healthcare, the economy, terrorism, immigration, education, crime and morality, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows. Source: Reuters/Ipsos "I just kind of feel helpless about it," Dana Anderson, 54, of Mesa, Arizona, said about climate change. "If something happens to the environment, it is what it is, right?" Source: Reuters/Ipsos Anderson, who has multiple sclerosis, said that whatever Trump says about healthcare will matter to her much more than his thoughts on global temperatures. The poll was conducted after Trump announced on Thursday that the United States would abandon the landmark agreement with 195 countries to slash carbon emissions and curb global warming. The Republican president, who had previously called climate change a "hoax" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, said he thought the pact would harm the US economy without providing a tangible benefit. The decision drew anger and condemnation from world leaders and business chiefs, many of them worried a US exit would put the planet at risk and leave the United States behind in a global shift away from fossil fuels. The poll found the US public split along party lines over the move to withdraw from the global climate pact, with most Republicans supporting it and most Democrats opposing it. Overall, 38 percent agreed with Trump's decision, 49 percent disagreed and 13 percent were undecided. The poll also showed 50 percent of Americans believe global temperatures will rise faster as a result of the US withdrawal from the climate deal, and 64 percent think US relations with other countries will suffer. The public was split over the decision's economic impact, too, with 41 percent saying it will strengthen the economy and 44 percent saying it will not. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,398 Americans, including 459 Republicans and 635 Democrats. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire group and 5 percentage points for the Republicans and Democrats.

But this is a drought year, and a confluence of extreme conditions now threatens the state’s legendary waters. Higher temperatures early in the year, worryingly low river levels, fish die-offs and pressure from the crush of anglers yearning to recapture a year lost to the pandemic have swirled into a growing crisis. This week the state announced a slate of new restrictions, including outright closures, for some of the top trout streams. And a new coalition of businesses, fly fishing guides and environmentalists warned that the severe drought may not be a temporary problem and that the state’s fisheries could be nearing collapse. The coalition, which includes Orvis, the fly fishing company, and the clothing manufacturer Patagonia, sent Gov. Greg Gianforte a letter Wednesday seeking the creation of a task force to address the decline of the fisheries. “Between early season fish kills, unnaturally warm water temperatures and low trout numbers, it’s an all hands on deck moment,” said John Arnold, owner of Headhunters Fly Shop in Craig, along the Missouri River, one of the state’s premier fisheries. The coalition said that the conditions not only threatened the fisheries, but also would be devastating for businesses. “If water quality in our rivers continues to decline, and our rivers themselves dry up, these negative changes will also tank our state’s robust outdoor economy that directly depends on upon vibrant cold water fisheries,” the group stated in its letter. “This is a really unique, ecologically speaking, part of the world,” said Guy Alsentzer, the executive director of Upper Missouri Waterkeeper. “These rivers are really hurting and they need cold, clean water.” The crisis is occurring as the state was just beginning to recover from the pandemic, with tourists and fishing enthusiasts returning in large numbers. Anglers of all kinds spend nearly $500 million a year in Montana, according to the American Sportfishing Association. In addition to low river levels and even dry sections of some small streams, dead trout have been found floating in rivers around the state, a sight that in other seasons was rare. And there has been a mysterious, steep decline in one of the most sought-after fish, brown trout, over the last several years in southwest Montana. Trout thrive in water between 45 and 60 degrees. Temperatures in some rivers have hit the low-70s much earlier than usual. At those temperatures the fish are lethargic because there is less oxygen in the water and they quit feeding; the stress of being caught by fishers in that weakened state can kill them. About 75 degrees can be lethal to trout. Montana’s rivers and streams are wild trout fisheries, which means that unlike in most states, rivers there are not stocked with hatchery-reared trout. If populations crash, the state’s wild trout would have to rebound on their own, which could take years or might not happen at all. Low flows and warm temperatures are affecting sport fishing across the West, from California to Colorado. On the Klamath River in Northern California, the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery could not, for the first time in its 55-year history, stock the river with young hatchery-reared salmon and steelhead because extremely low flows and warmer water temperatures have increased infections from C shasta, a parasite. Utah has doubled the allowable limit for fishers because low water levels are expected to kill many fish in the streams. In Colorado, state officials asked people not to fish a 120-mile-long stretch of the Colorado River in the north-central region because of low river levels and warmer water. “The water temperatures have been above 70 degrees for multiple days in a row,” said Travis Duncan, a spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “And there is a potential for more closures as we get further along in the season.” On Tuesday, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks imposed “hoot owl” restrictions on the Missouri River, one of the most popular trout fishing sites in the state, between Helena and Great Falls because of warm water temperatures. The rule bans fishing after 2 p.m. (The term “hoot owl restrictions” stems from the early days of the timber industry. Loggers work early in the mornings of late summer, when it’s cooler, because the forests are dry and that increases the risk of chain saws or other equipment sparking a fire. Loggers often heard owls during their early morning shifts.) Yellowstone National Park announced that, beginning on Saturday, it would shut down fishing on its rivers and streams after 2 p.m. until sunrise the following day, citing water temperatures exceeding 68 degrees and extremely low river flows. “These conditions are extremely stressful and can be fatal to fish,” the park said in a news release. Although restrictions are often put in place at some point in the summer season, this year is unusual. “From what we know historically, this is unprecedented in the extent” of limits that have been imposed, said Eileen Ryce, the administrator for the state’s fisheries division. Compounding the situation here is the decline over several years in brown trout populations in the southwestern part of the state, including the Big Hole, Ruby, Yellowstone, Madison and Beaverhead Rivers, some of the top destinations for fly fishers. This year on the Big Hole River, for example, on one of the most popular stretches, a May census found 400 brown trout per mile, down from 1,800 in 2014. The Beaverhead River has dropped to 1,000 from 2,000 brown trout per mile. And those counts were conducted early in the season, before the onset of this summer’s extreme conditions. The state is considering long-term restrictions on all of these rivers, which could include release of all brown trout or shutting down fishing in some places. What, precisely, is causing the decline over such a large regional area of the Upper Missouri River Watershed is stumping experts, especially since brown trout are traditionally a hardy, resilient species, able to handle warmer temperatures. Many attribute the decreases, at least in part, to shifting river conditions caused by climate change. Oddly enough, an unintended benefit of the raging wildfires in the West has been the smoky skies, which may be keeping the rivers from getting even warmer by reducing the amount of direct sunlight. Meanwhile, on the Beaverhead and Bitterroot Rivers, anglers have reported seeing fish with large lesions whose cause is still unknown. Beyond hoot owl limits, those who fish have been asked to rapidly land their catch and carefully and quickly release them, to minimise the stress of handling and reduce the potential for killing them. Other factors threatening Montana’s trout include agricultural changes. Ranchers used to primarily flood irrigate their fields, which returned about half the water to the river system. Now many use pivot irrigation systems, which are far more efficient and use nearly all of the water. “We may have altered groundwater so much that brown trout haven’t been able to adapt,” said Patrick Byorth, the director of Trout Unlimited’s water project for Montana. The group is a nonprofit focused on fisheries. Water pollution also adds to the problem. Increasing construction near resort areas along the Gallatin River near Yellowstone National Park, for instance, has contributed, with stormwater runoff and septic systems sending phosphorus and nitrogen into the Gallatin River, causing algae blooms. The bloom is exacerbated by warmer temperatures and lower flows. One big question that can’t be answered is whether this is just a bad year, or a part of a more permanent change in the climate, a long-term aridification of the West. Arnold, the fly-fishing guide who has worked on the Missouri River for decades, said the decline in trout populations has been occurring over a longer span of time than just this year. “My top guides could put 60 fish in the boat in a day,” he said. “Now half of that would be considered a good day.” “It’s all climate-change related,” Arnold said. Twenty years ago, nobody fished in November and March because it was so cold, he recalled. Now they do. “It’s starting to feel like a downward spiral.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

The White House on Friday praised former US Vice President Al Gore and the UN climate panel for winning the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to raise awareness of the threat of global warming. "Of course we're happy for Vice President Gore and the IPCC for receiving this recognition," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the award with Gore. Gore, a Democrat, has been a vocal critic of the environmental policies of President George W Bush, a Republican who beat him narrowly in a disputed presidential election result in 2000.

Many emerging economies cannot afford sophisticated forecasting tools such as ground-based radar and rain-gauge networks, making it harder to predict seasonal rains that are the lifeblood for farmers in many Asian countries. "Weather information - that's the number one need farmers have more than anything else," said Daniele Tricarico, who works on agritech at the mobile communications industry body GSMA. "We are trying to use very useful mobile operator data to provide better, enhanced services to small-holder farmers for climate resilience," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at an agricultural conference in Hyderabad in south India. Mobile phone towers transmit radio signals that are disturbed when it rains, providing data that enables local weather agencies to improve the accuracy of their rainfall predictions. The sheer number of mobile phone towers means the data can help provide forecasts of up to 90% accuracy, said Tricarico, filling the equipment gap at no extra cost and giving more location-specific, high-resolution data than satellites provide. The forecasts can be sent to farmers through calls and text messages, helping them plan when to sow their seeds or use fertilisers, said Damitha Gunawardena, digital inclusion manager at Sri Lanka's largest mobile phone operator, Dialog Axiata. Improved forecasting is key to helping farmers deal with the impact of climate change, which is making weather patterns harder to predict, he said. According to the World Bank, climate change effects could cost India 2.8% of its GDP and reduce the living standards of nearly half the country's 1.2 billion population by 2050. "If you talk to any farmer, they'll say climate has been changing so much that they have no idea what to expect any more," said Gunawardena. "And that's making farmers move out of agriculture." Improved access to data could also encourage greater uptake of crop insurance among small-scale farmers, most of whom are uninsured, he said, providing a crucial safety net as climate change increases the risks around agriculture. Currently, the most popular insurance schemes in the region are based on satellite imagery or agents visiting fields in person. Using mobile phone towers would allow insurers to pinpoint where rain has fallen more accurately, said Gunawardena, calling it a "game-changer" for farmers. In India, where agriculture makes up about 15% of a $2.5 trillion economy, farmers are often on the front lines of climate change impacts - from severe droughts, unpredictable rainfall, frequent floods to powerful cyclones. The heaviest monsoon rains to lash India in 25 years triggered floods that killed hundreds in late September. It also led to crops being washed away or rotting. While the United States and some European countries have begun to use mobile phone networks commercially to predict rain, developing nations may take another few years, said Tricarico. Several hurdles stand in the way, including customising softwares and algorithms to specific climates, regulatory permissions and chalking out business models, he said. In January, Boston-based ClimaCell partnered with Mumbai-based charitable foundation Tata Trusts with the aim to start such a service in India. Pilot projects are under way in Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. "Results have been promising so far. And since we know it can be done, it's only a matter of time," said Dialog's Gunawardena.

Marine scientists called on Sunday for a $2-3 billion study of threats such as overfishing and climate change to the oceans, saying they were as little understood as the Moon. A better network of satellites, tsunami monitors, drifting robotic probes or electronic tags on fish within a decade could also help lessen the impact of natural disasters, pollution or damaging algal blooms, they said. "This is not pie in the sky ... it can be done," said Tony Haymet, director of the U.S. Scripps Institution of Oceanography and chairman of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO). He told Reuters that a further $2-3 billion would roughly match amounts already invested in ocean research, excluding more costly satellites. New technologies were cheaper and meant worldwide monitoring could now be possible. "Silicon Valley has come to the oceans," said Jesse Ausubel, a director of the Census of Marine Life that is trying to describe life in the seas. "Lots of cheap disposable devices can now be distributed throughout the oceans, in some cases on animals, in some cases on the sea floor, others drifting about," he told Reuters. POGO wants the 72-nation Group on Earth Observations (GEO), meeting in Cape Town from Nov. 28-30, to consider its appeal for a $2-3 billion study of the oceans as part of a wider effort to improve understanding of the planet by 2015. GEO is seeking to link up scientific observations of the planet to find benefits for society in areas including energy, climate, agriculture, biodiversity, water supplies and weather. MOON The ocean "has been relatively ignored" compared to land or the atmosphere, said Howard Roe, a director emeritus of the British National Oceanography Centre and former chairman of POGO. "It's a hoary phrase that we know more about the surface of the moon than the deep ocean. It's true. The oceans are virtually unexplored," he told Reuters. Among ocean projects, POGO wants to raise the number of drifting robotic probes, know as "Argos" and which measure conditions driving climate change, to 30,000 from 3,000 now. And the scientists said they wanted to expand a network of electronic tagging of fish to understand migrations and give clues to over-fishing. "By my estimates for $50-60 million a year the world could have a global system, an ocean tracking network that could follow sharks from Cape Town to Perth or follow tuna from Miami to Southampton, Ausubel said. And better monitoring of the oceans could give more advance warnings of storms, such as a Nov. 15 cyclone that struck Bangladesh and killed 3,500 people. It could also send tsunami alerts -- the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed up to 230,000 people. "2012 will be the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic. I think Captain Smith would be disappointed by the continuing hesitation to firm up our ocean observing system," Ausubel said. -- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:

Several Asian countries in addition to China could soon challenge the United States in the race to build a renewable energy industry if Washington doesn't provide more incentives for its domestic business, venture capitalists and others told a Congressional hearing on Wednesday. The United States, once the world's leader in energy innovation, is now also "challenged and threatened" by India, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, because it is not providing enough incentives to fund development of alternative energy and to increase demand, Ravi Viswanathan, a partner at New Enterprise Associates told a hearing chaired by US Representative Ed Markey. "These nations have outpaced the US in recruiting, incenting and developing domestic manufacturing of solar, wind, and battery technology," he said. China already has more than half of the world's market for solar panels and its companies are looking to export wind turbines. The Senate failed to pass a climate bill this year that would put a price on carbon emissions, so it must pass laws that would create demand for alternative energy or fall further behind, experts told the panel. Senator Jeff Bingaman introduced a bill this week that would require utilities to generate minimum amounts of alternative energy through a federal Renewable Electricity Standard, or RES, but the legislation faces an uncertain future. Mark Fulton, Deutsche Bank's global head of climate change investment research, said that many states in America have developed their own renewable power mandates, but "in most cases these do not have enforcement measures nor penalties to ensure that they are financed." Not everyone agrees that a federal RES is a good idea. James Sensenbrenner, the ranking Republican on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said mandates for alternative power could ultimately harm the industry by picking winners that might not ever become cheap, reliable sources of energy. Fulton countered that the oil and gas industries receive far more subsidies than alternative energy and that alternative energies will fall in price as they develop. Uncertainties in the United States, such as when it will pass a climate bill that would launch a carbon market and a political move in California to stop the state's ambitious program on emissions, discourage investors from deploying capital deployment into alternative energy on a long term basis, Fulton said. The United States could make progress if it passed a national RES, extend recovery act grant programs that will expire at the end of the year, and streamline the Department of Energy's loan guarantee programs for small businesses, said Tom Carbone, the chief executive at Nordic Windpower. Germany, Japan, and China have dedicated funds to develop domestic alternative energy technologies, but the United States has only just begun this effort, the experts said.

Maruf Mallick bdnews24.com environment correspondent Copenhagen, Dec 12 (bdnews24.com) – The EU's climate fund commitment is not enough, Bangladesh's state minister for environment said Saturday in Copenhagen. The European Union on Friday made a commitment of 10 billion euro over three years to the climate adaptation fund being negotiated in Copenhagen, through which rich nations are expected to assist poor and vulnerable countries. But state minister Hasan Mahmud said the EU did not clarify whether their commitment was in addition to Official Development Assistance (ODA). "We (vulnerable countries) are talking about contribution in theregion of 1.5 percent of GDP by Annex 1 countries (industrialised nations) to the adaptation fund. If we see this, it will create a $400 to $600 billion fund," he told newsmen at the Bella Conference Center on the 6th day of the climate talks in the Danish capital. "We think this proposal (of the EU) is not enough to raise the total $400-600 fund for adaptation." "We are firm in our demand," he added. The state minister stressed the demand by poor/vulnerable nations for a distinct climate fund, which should be in addition to existing ODA. This fund should not be managed by financial institutions like IMF and World Bank, he added. "A separate institution that will be easily accessible and more transparent has to be created," he said. 'MVC GROUP' Hasan also said 70 percent of any fund should be allocated to least developed or most vulnerable countries, and 15 percent to Bangladesh alone. "More than one billion people are vulnerable to climate change across the world." Hasan said Bangladesh has taken an initiative to form a new group of most vulnerable countries (MVCs). "Already, we have communicated with such countries. A total of 20 countries may be brought under the new group," he added. He said G-77 or LDCs in terms of economic development are recognised by the UN. "We are trying to do something similar for climate change and get UN recognition," he said. "It is necessary to form a new group of the vulnerable countries for better negotiation," he argued. 'CLIMATE VICTIM' However, Hasan stressed, Bangladesh was the most vulnerable country, topping a Global Climate Risk Index. "Fifteen percent of the 1 billion most vulnerable people are in Bangladesh. So, 15 percent of the adaptation fund must go for Bangladesh. It is our demand". "Bangladesh is affected by almost all the negative impacts of the climate change such as sea level rise, and extreme weather. The total number of affected people would be much higher than all the small island countries," he said. Earlier in the day, a Dhaka delegation organised an open discussion, on the sideline of the conference, titled Bangladesh: Victim of Climate change. Climate expert Dr. Ainun Nishat dwelt on the impact of climate change on food and agricultural production, water management, health and infrastructure.

Gone were the expansive warnings about the “existential threat” of climate change, explicit promises to advance “racial equity” in infrastructure projects and even the name of his $2.2 trillion Build Back Better package of social welfare and climate spending, once promoted as a transformative initiative akin to the Great Society programs of the 1960s. Instead, Biden described his agenda as a solution to the “rising cost of food, gas, housing,” pivoting to more centrist language in a nod to disaffected moderate Democrats who have pushed for their party to focus on the daily concerns of voters before midterm elections they are expected to lose. But while Biden changed his message, he spent much of his speech calling on Congress to resurrect pieces of his stalled domestic agenda, including expanding child care, lowering prescription drug prices and a minimum wage raise proposal that faltered in the Senate early in his term. And it was not clear how successful Biden would be in salvaging pieces of the social policy package, which fell apart late last year amid opposition from key moderates in his party. There were glimmers of hope Wednesday for reviving some aspects of Biden’s plan. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a centrist Democrat who abruptly ended talks over the sprawling spending plan in December, outlined the broad strokes of a package he could support, after weeks of declining to discuss details. And Biden continued his rebranding effort during a trip Wednesday to Duluth, Minnesota, to promote the bipartisan infrastructure package, framing his plan as a way of providing economic relief for struggling families. “These guys talk about how they’re always worried about spending,” Biden said, in what appeared to be a reference to moderate holdouts and Republicans. “We’re lowering the deficit.” Vulnerable Democrats who for months have fretted privately that the president’s expansive spending plans were not resonating with their constituents said they were relieved about the pivot. “One of our issues this past fall was we were treating legislation like a Christmas tree, and everyone’s favourite bauble got to get on the tree,” said Rep Elissa Slotkin. “What we heard last night, without using these exact words was, ‘My agenda is now more prioritized’ — and the priorities overlapped with what people are talking about in my district.” On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Manchin offered some new details about how he would seek to narrow Biden’s agenda. In an interview with Politico, and later in comments to reporters, Manchin said Democrats should first raise revenue by undoing some of the 2017 Republican tax law and approving legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs. From there, he said, the money should be used to both reduce the deficit and fund at least one major Democratic priority over a decade. “Half of that money should be dedicated to fighting inflation and reducing the deficit, the other half you can pick for a 10-year program — whatever you think is the highest priority,” Manchin told reporters, noting that several of his colleagues wanted to focus on combating climate change. “Everybody knows pretty much where I am,” he added. “If they’re not serious about inflation and debt, then you know, it’d be hard for me to negotiate.” It remained unclear whether all Democrats would rally behind such a plan, a virtual necessity with their razor-thin majorities. It could alienate progressives, abandoning huge programs that they have championed. And it could also meet resistance from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another Democratic centrist, who has balked at increasing tax rates for corporations and wealthy individuals, one result of rolling back the 2017 tax law. A spokesperson, Hannah Hurley, suggested that Sinema’s stance should be no impediment, because she had already embraced tax increases large enough to finance a “narrow plan.” Many Democrats said that given the obstacles to Biden’s initial, far-reaching plan, they were ready to rally around a piecemeal approach of the sort Manchin laid out. “I’ll take whatever works,” declared Sen Elizabeth Warren. “There’s no way around the math, so we’ve got to find out what 50 of us can agree on.” With all 50 Republicans opposed, all 50 senators who caucus with Democrats would have to support the proposal for it to pass with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote in the evenly divided Senate. The White House has fielded calls for months to distance the president from congressional wrangling and describe how his proposals would address the rising inflation stoking anxiety in his party and driving down his approval ratings. Biden’s top aides privately discussed whether the Build Back Better label had become a hindrance to negotiations, according to a senior administration official, who conceded that the final version of the package would look very different from the sprawling bill proposed last year. Moderate Democrats said they appreciated what they saw as a concerted effort to connect with voters in their states and districts. By highlighting popular components of the larger bill without putting them under a single, sweeping title, Biden may have made them more palatable, they said. “When I go back to the state of Montana, I hear about how people hate Build Back Better,” said Sen Jon Tester. “But then they say we need some help with child care, we need some help with housing, we need some help with elder care, we need to do something about climate change. So I think he struck the right tone.” Democrats in politically competitive districts have called for Biden to focus more on modest proposals on crime, combating the pandemic and rising costs. A group of moderates had put together a lengthy list of bipartisan bills — “singles and doubles,” said Rep Josh Gottheimer — and presented them to the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, as measures that could pass in rapid succession and send the message to voters that Washington can operate. The group received a positive response from the White House, according to Slotkin, who welcomed Biden’s focus on inflation, supply chain problems and veterans issues. Biden’s top aides also saw the State of the Union as an opportunity to push back on cultural attacks from Republicans on crime and immigration. Moderate Democrats latched on to Biden’s mention of the need for improved security at the border and his long-held call to invest in police departments. But a few liberal Democrats expressed frustration that the president not only glossed over some of their key priorities, such as student loan relief, but also devoted time to rejecting the slogan “defund the police,” which some of them have championed. “It’s unnecessary — we don’t need to feed into this rhetoric and these attacks from Republicans,” said Rep Cori Bush, who remained seated in the House gallery as Republicans and Democrats jumped to their feet and applauded Biden’s declaration that “the answer is not to defund the police.” “They don’t get to dictate to us what we need and how we can speak,” Bush said. “What we need to do is fix the problem.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

It could produce the ultimate "hot chick flick", or it may erupt as a boiling international rant against the threat of global warming. But whichever way it goes, producers of an all-women directed interactive mobile phone film say it will be a "cinematic symphony of women's voices from around the world". The project -- entitled "Overheated Symphony -- is part of the Birds Eye View film festival taking place in London next month which showcases the work of female film-makers. Women across the world are being asked to make a short film -- a "quick flick" -- between 40 seconds and four minutes long on a mobile phone and then send it via the internet to a London-based film director who will pull them all together. Apart from the the overall theme "Overheated", there is no restriction on content or subject matter. "If it's hot, we'd like to see it," the project's Web site declares: "Ladies, wherever you are, whoever you are, we want you to join in." According to Sarah Turner, the British film director whose task it will be to create a final edit from the mobile phone contributions, the inspiration for "Overheated Symphony" was the 1927 film by German filmmaker Walter Ruttmann called "Berlin - Symphony of a Great City", which used a montage of still pictures from many sources to document city life. Like that work, Overheated Symphony will be "very abstract", says Turner. It will give those who contribute the chance to engage in a "dialogue of ideas" with women across the world. "Because they are films made by women, women's themes and issues are bound to be an integral part of the finished piece," she told Reuters. "I expect some of them to be quite intense, because this is quite an intense thing to respond to. We all have overheated moments, when we are angry about something, or upset, or when we are sexually hot. We might even end up having some menopause films, you never know." Turner is gathering the mobile films ahead of the March 2 deadline and will then produce a live edit of the symphony to be aired on March 9 at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. Rachel Millward, director of the Birds Eye View festival, which is now in its third year, says the film is as much about new technology as it is about women and heat. "The way film and media are going is very much towards interactivity and multi-platform projects," she said. "We wanted to develop a project along those lines, and also one that had a kind of gamey feel to it -- the sense that everyone can join in and have a play." "Making a film from all these female voices around the world is quite a beautiful thing, but also it's about shooting down the idea that women are not up to date with technology." Contributors are being asked on www.birds-eye-view.co.uk to upload their cinematic efforts onto the festival's own youtube channel to be edited. And while Millward admits the end result is as yet unknown, she is confident it will be far more than the sum of its parts. "The great thing about this film is that you can't predict what it will be," she says. "It could be about climate change, or it could be about passion. I imagine it will be all of those things and more."

The United States may provide an incubating ground for some flu strains, helping them migrate to warmer climates, US researchers said on Thursday. For many years, researchers assumed that flu strains were mostly the product of China and Southeast Asia. But a team at the University of Michigan, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Florida State University found that not all strains of flu circulating in North America die off at the end of influenza season. Some of those appear to head to South America, and some migrate even farther, the reported. That may have happened with the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, they added. "We found that although China and Southeast Asia play the largest role in the influenza A migration network, temperate regions -- particularly the USA -- also make important contributions," said Trevor Bedford of the University of Michigan, whose study appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens. He and his colleagues tested genetic sequences from seasonal flu viruses collected from patients around the world between 1998 and 2009. They built a sort of family tree, charting the relationships among the viruses. The new understanding of flu may require public health officials to change some of their strategies for fighting flu, they said. For example, aggressive use of antiviral drugs such as Roche AG's Tamiflu could promote drug resistance if flu strains never really die out in the United States. "We found, for instance, that South America gets almost all of its flu from North America," Bedford said in a statement. "This would suggest that rather than giving South America the same vaccine that the rest of the world gets, you could construct a vaccine preferentially from the strains that were circulating in North America the previous season." The findings could also be used to keep better track of flu strains, the team said. "By doing this kind of research, we get a clearer idea of where in the world flu is actually coming from. We know that it's mostly Southeast Asia, but now we see that it can come out of temperate regions as well, so our surveillance needs to become more global," Bedford said. The first cases of H1N1 swine flu were diagnosed in the United States. Experts are still unsure where swine flu originated, but genetic analysis suggests it came from pigs and had been circulating for many years before it was detected.

The UN's top climate change official hailed on Thursday moves by a US Senate committee to fight climate change by capping greenhouse gas emissions in the world's top carbon emitter. "That's a very encouraging sign from the United States," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said at 190-nation UN talks in Bali, Indonesia on trying to widen action against global warming. It is the second piece of good news at the conference after Australia's new government ratified the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, leaving the United States as the only major industrialised nation outside the pact. US President George W Bush opposes mandatory caps on emissions. "Things are going well here," de Boer said of the Dec. 3-14 negotiations that are seeking ways to bind all nations, including the United States and developing nations such as China and India, more tightly into a fight against climate change. In Washington, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved legislation outlining a cap-and-trade system for industry, power generators and transport. The bill is headed for debate in the full Senate. "A parliament having a different opinion from a government is quite a common thing," de Boer said of opposition to Bush, a Republican. Many US Democrats will visit Bali next week. Bush has said Washington will support efforts to work out a new climate treaty by 2009, even though he says Kyoto would harm the US economy and wrongly excludes goals for developing nations until 2012. "The United States simply has to take a leadership role," Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican and the bill's co-sponsor told the committee. "If we don't act, China and India will simply hide behind America's skirts of inaction." DEEPER CUTS Separately, more than 200 climate scientists from around the world urged delegates at the Bali talks to make deeper and swifter cuts to greenhouse emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels. They said governments had a window of only 10-15 years for global emissions to peak and decline, and that the ultimate goal should be at least a 50 percent reduction in climate-warming emissions by 2050. "We appreciate this is a significant challenge for the world community," Professor Andy Pittman, from the University of New South Wales in Australia, told reporters in Bali. "But it is what is required to reduce the risks of dangerous climate change, and that is what we are all trying to do here." Professor Diana Liverman of Britain's Oxford University said the world was already seeing substantial impacts from global warming, but a warming of 2 degrees Celsius would have severe impacts in Africa, Australia, the polar regions and the Pacific Islands. Outside the Bali conference centre, eight activists dressed as polar bears -- threatened by a melt of Arctic ice -- added a twist to the climate debate by holding banners reading: "Humans need help too". Separately, the WWF conservation group said that 55 percent of the Amazon rainforest could be wiped out or severely damaged by 2030 by a "vicious feedback loop of climate change and deforestation". It said the effects of warming could cut rainfall and aggravate current trends in farming, fires, droughts and logging in the world's largest tropical forest. The Amazon's forests are a giant store of carbon dioxide -- trees soak up the main greenhouse gas as they grow and release it when they rot or are burnt. -- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/

Former president Mohamed Nasheed, who was ousted by police, military forces and armed demonstrators in February 2012, looked set to win back the presidency on Saturday after another vote in September was annulled over allegations of fraud.However, some candidates had still not signed a new voter register and hours before the polls were due to open police surrounded the Elections Commission forcing a delay that was condemned by the international community.The Indian Ocean archipelago has seen months of violence and political unrest since Nasheed was forced out and may face a constitutional crisis if it is unable to elect a president by November 11 when current President Mohamed Waheed's term ends.Waheed, who was Nasheed's vice president and took power when he was ousted, has proposed another vote on November 2 and says he will stay in power until his term finishes to make sure the elections are fair.It is not clear who will be in charge of the country's day-to-day actions if no leader is elected.Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president in 2008, said it was impossible to have an election with Waheed as president, Mohamed Nazim as Defence Minister, and Abdulla Riyaz as the Commissioner of Police."We believe that the only prudent way forward, and possible solution for the situation, is for Waheed to resign today and the Speaker of Parliament to take over government until November 11, or before the election," Nasheed told reporters on Sunday."It has become very evident that they've obstructed these polls, and very evident that the game they are trying to play, to take this country into and unconstitutional void, and then capture long term, unelected military power."Imad Masood, a presidential spokesman said Waheed will stay on in the office during his term and "do everything to workout a mutually acceptable compromise" to hold free and fair elections.Masood said a tentative date of November 2 has been agreed with Nasheed's two rivals to hold the polls.Nasheed's main election rival is Abdulla Yameen, a half-brother of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled for 30 years and was considered a dictator by opponents and rights groups. Holiday resort tycoon Gasim Ibrahim, who was finance minister under Gayoom, was also running.Nasheed looked set to return to office when he won the first round of an election on September 7, putting him in a good position to win a run-off vote set for September 28.But that election was cancelled by the Supreme Court which cited fraud. International observers had said the election was free and fair. The court later ordered a fresh election by October 20 and a run-off by Nov 3, if required.Police said on Saturday they could not support an election held "in contravention of the Supreme Court verdict and guidelines". Police Chief Superintendent Abdulla Nawaz said he had acted due to concern about "any unrest that may occur in the country as a result of letting the election proceed".Nasheed has called for blocking of all streets in Male and bring the densely-populated island and the capital of the archipelago to a standstill after the delay in the polls.His supporters have started sit-in protests in the two main junctions on Saturday blocking other streets with ropes, human chains, motorbikes and trucks forcing security forces to cordoned off part of Male that included the president's office and the Supreme Court.Nasheed's supporters have staged protests since he was ousted, and masked men this month fire-bombed a television station that backs Nasheed, who came to international prominence in 2009 after holding a cabinet meeting underwater in scuba gear to highlight the threat of climate change.Issues the new president will face include a rise in Islamist ideology, human rights abuses and a lack of investor confidence after Waheed's government cancelled the biggest foreign investment project, with India's GMR Infrastructure.

Ugandan flood victims stared up at the sky on Friday to witness UN planes start dropping bags of aid, the first food some had seen in months. Surrounded by rotting crops, some lined up eagerly and others took to the shade under sparse trees as an Antonov cargo plane droned past, dumping sacks full of beans and sorghum to the ground with a repetitive thud -- 26 tonnes in total. "It's not going to be enough," said George Kamara, surveying the white sacks piling up in a field. "Some of us have not eaten since last month." The United Nations' World Food Programme was forced this week to air drop food for the first time in Uganda, after the east African nation suffered its worst floods in 35 years. The operation was a last resort to help tens of thousands. "We bought heavy duty trucks and still they couldn't do it," Konjit Kidane, WFP logistics officer for Uganda told Reuters. "Roads are totally destroyed. Air is the only way." Uganda has been one of the countries worst hit by torrential rains that swept over east and west Africa in the past few months, washing away villages, destroying food crops and drowning livestock. In Olinim camp, 3,000 refugees who fled Uganda's 20-year civil war in the north with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels were cut off from aid. Though the waters have receded, they reduced hundreds of thatched huts to rubble and drowned acres of sorghum crops now turned brown and fetid in the sun. Locals said malaria followed -- mosquitoes thrived in the stagnant puddles -- killing scores of young children. "I planted ground nuts, cassava, potatoes -- they were just about to flower then it all got spoiled," said Felix Okello, 49, who lost 40 acres of crops and wonders how he will feed a wife and 10 children. "Look," said Lily Okong, 45, pointing to a pile of clay bricks strewn across overgrown grass. "These used to be huts. My home collapsed. Now I'm sleeping under a tree." As local aid workers gathered up the food sacks to distribute, children in rags chased after bags that had split on impact, gathering up the scattered grain. A teenage boy filled his pockets with beans. Conservative estimates put the total number of people killed in floods, from Ethiopia to as far west as Senegal, at 200. Aid agencies say a million people have been affected and expect the death toll to rise. More rains are expected. Meteorologists say Uganda's weather has become erratic, with unprecedented spells of drought followed by floods. Some blame climate change. "I heard about climate change, I'm worried," said Eugene Awany, 65, a retired county court clerk. "If this keeps happening, we can't survive here."

As leaders from around the globe gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for a pivotal United Nations climate summit next week, the focus will be on how much hotter the Earth will get and how to keep that number as small as possible. Humans have warmed the planet 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times, largely by burning coal, oil and natural gas for energy and by cutting down forests, which help absorb the planet-warming emissions created by fossil fuel use. Humanity is already paying a high price: This year alone, blistering heat waves killed hundreds of people in the Pacific Northwest, floods devastated Germany and China, and wildfires raged out of control in Siberia, Turkey and California. The World Meteorological Organization warned this week that the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record high last year and is rising again this year. Scientists say that every additional fraction of a degree of warming will exacerbate extreme weather and other risks around the globe. So, how much hotter could things get? To figure that out, scientists at Climate Action Tracker, a research group, regularly scrutinise all the climate and energy policies that countries have enacted worldwide. They then estimate the effect of these policies on future greenhouse gas emissions and calculate how much of a temperature increase the world can expect. It is a simple measure of progress to date in combating climate change. And the data offers reasons for both hope and alarm. How things improved In 2014, Climate Action Tracker estimated that the world was on track for nearly 4 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, compared with preindustrial levels. Warming of 4 degrees has long been deemed a worst-case scenario. One assessment by the World Bank explored the risks, such as cascading global crop failures, and bluntly concluded that 4 degrees “simply must not be allowed to occur.” This year, however, Climate Action Tracker painted a more optimistic picture, because countries have started doing more to restrain their emissions. Current policies put the world on pace for roughly 2.9 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100. (That is a best estimate; the potential range is between 2.1-3.9 degrees Celsius.) The United Nations issued its own analysis of global climate efforts Tuesday that reached broadly similar conclusions. “There has been a genuine shift over the past decade,” said Niklas Höhne, a German climatologist and founding partner of NewClimate Institute, which created the Climate Action Tracker. “You can say that progress has been too slow, that it’s still not enough, and I agree with all that. But we do see real movement.” There are several reasons for the improved outlook. In 2015, 195 nations signed the Paris climate agreement, which for the first time required every country to submit a plan for curbing emissions. While the plans were voluntary, they helped spur new actions: The European Union tightened caps on industrial emissions. China and India ramped up renewable energy. Egypt scaled back subsidies for fossil fuels. Indonesia began cracking down on illegal deforestation. Along the way, there was backsliding. The Trump administration rolled back some major climate policies. Deforestation in Brazil surged under President Jair Bolsonaro. But on the whole, countries are doing more than they were a decade ago. Just as importantly, clean energy advanced far more quickly than predicted. A decade ago, solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles were often seen as niche technologies, too expensive for widespread use. But costs have plummeted. Today, wind and solar power are the cheapest new source of electricity in most markets. Electric vehicle sales are setting records. Automakers like Ford and General Motors are now preparing to phase down sales of gasoline-powered cars in the years ahead. At the same time, coal power, a major source of emissions, has begun to wane. A decade ago, China and India were building new coal-burning power plants nearly every week. But as cleaner energy alternatives have matured and climate activists have ratcheted up pressure on banks and governments to stop financing coal, that pace has slowed; after the Paris agreement, one recent study found, 76 percent of proposals for new coal plants have been cancelled. All of this has made a difference. Between 2000-10, global emissions rose 3 percent per year on average. But between 2011-19, emissions grew more slowly, at roughly 1 percent per year. The International Energy Agency now projects that global carbon dioxide emissions could potentially peak by the mid-2020s, then start gradually declining. That would put the world on pace to warm a bit less than 3 degrees by 2100, although there are still uncertainties around whether current policies will work as intended and how sensitive Earth’s climate actually is to our greenhouse gas emissions. Still, scientists warn, that number is not something to celebrate. Yes, 3 degrees is far less nightmarish than 4 degrees. But it is immensely dangerous. Consider the vast ice sheets atop Greenland and West Antarctica, which together hold enough water to raise global sea levels nearly 40 feet and sink many of the world’s great coastal cities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently warned that at sustained global warming levels between 2-3 degrees, those ice sheets could melt irreversibly for thousands of years until they are almost entirely gone, condemning future generations to massive, relentless sea level rise for centuries to come. “We know there are these big tipping points in the climate system, and once we get past them, it’s too late to go back,” said Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison who co-authored a study finding that a 3-degree trajectory could lead to an abrupt jump in the rate of Antarctic melt as early as 2060. Promises on paper As governments have awakened to the danger, they have vowed to do more. But so far, their promises often just exist on paper. Before the Glasgow summit, at least 140 countries have formally updated their plans to curb emissions through 2030, according to the World Resources Institute. The United States and European Union pledged to pursue deeper cuts. Argentina and South Africa promised to slow future growth in fossil fuel use. But other major emitters, like China and India, have yet to formally update their short-term plans. If countries follow through on these new pledges, Climate Action Tracker estimates, the world could potentially get on track to hold warming to around 2.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, although temperatures would keep rising thereafter. But that is a big if Many pledges are not yet backed up by concrete policies, and countries are not all on track to meet them. One recent study by the Rhodium Group found that even if the Biden administration implemented a sweeping package of climate measures — including hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy spending that remains stalled in Congress — and individual states adopted tougher rules of their own, the United States would barely stay on track to meet its target. And that is not the hardest part. In recent years, more than 50 countries plus the European Union have formally vowed to get to “net-zero” emissions, which is essentially a promise to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere altogether by a certain date. The United States said it would get to net-zero by 2050. China said it would strive to get there by 2060. In theory, those goals could have a powerful impact. Climate Action Tracker estimates that if every country met its net-zero pledge, the world could potentially limit warming to around 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. But these plans would require extremely rapid reductions in fossil fuel use from power plants, factories and vehicles, as well as potentially new technology to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Many net-zero goals remain largely aspirational, and most governments have not yet laid out credible plans for achieving them. “You can see the glass as half-full or half-empty,” said Höhne. “The half-full story is that countries have good intentions and are sending the right signals to investors. The half-empty story is that none of the countries that have pledged to go to zero have sufficient short-term policies to really put themselves on track.” A narrow path forward Even as humanity has chipped away at the climate problem over the past decade, scientists have made progress, too. And their findings are dire: They have gathered stronger evidence that even small temperature increases can be powerfully damaging. In other words, the goalposts have moved. When the Paris agreement was signed, nations agreed that they should keep total global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and make a good-faith effort to stay at 1.5 degrees. But in the years since, a slew of studies have found that 2 degrees of warming is vastly more harmful than 1.5 degrees. That extra half-degree sounds small, but it could mean tens of millions more people worldwide exposed to life-threatening heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding. A half-degree may mean the difference between a world with coral reefs and Arctic summer sea ice, and a world without them. “We’re already seeing today, at just 1 degree of warming, that certain societal systems are more vulnerable to disruption than we previously thought,” said Joeri Rogelj, director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. In response, a growing number of world leaders, including President Joe Biden, have said that the world should hold to 1.5 degrees of warming, although some countries like China have not embraced the stricter goal. Yet 1.5 degrees is a vastly harder target to hit than 2 degrees or 3 degrees. It is not nearly enough for global emissions to peak in the next few years and then decline gradually. Instead, global fossil fuel emissions would have to plunge roughly in half this decade and then reach net zero by around 2050. This year, the International Energy Agency laid out a road map for what that might look like. By 2030, electric vehicles would have to make up more than half of new car sales globally, up from just 5 percent today. By 2035, wealthy countries would have to shut down virtually all fossil fuel power plants in favour of cleaner technologies like wind, solar or nuclear power. By 2040, all of the world’s remaining coal plants would have to be retired or retrofitted with technology to capture their carbon emissions and bury them underground. New technologies would be needed to clean up sectors like air travel. The United Nations warned Tuesday that the latest round of climate pledges that countries submitted before Glasgow would collectively produce just one-seventh of the additional emissions cuts needed this decade to help limit total global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Without an immediate and rapid acceleration of action, that climate goal could be out of reach within a few short years. “The pathway is extremely narrow,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. “We really don’t have much time left to shift course.” ©2021 The New York Times Company

Global warming is pushing northwards diseases more commonly found in developing countries, posing a risk to the financial and physical health of rich nations, the head of a livestock herders' charity said. Steve Sloan, chief executive of GALVmed, said on Friday insect-borne diseases were increasingly moving north, such as the viral infection bluetongue that has hit cattle and sheep in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany. If Kenya's Rift Valley Fever also reached Europe, the impact would be immense, he said. "These 'African' diseases have become global issues because of climate change," Sloan told Reuters in an interview. "Following the bluetongue outbreak in Germany, some meat markets in the country saw an annual drop of up to a third," he said. "Wait until something like Rift Valley Fever arrives, that brings death with it as well." Bluetongue, which is not harmful to humans, has been present for several years in Spain and Italy. The disease, transmitted by midges, was first discovered in South Africa and has been spreading north since the late 1990s. Experts say that is due to global warming. "There is a very real threat that diseases like River Valley Fever will follow bluetongue into Europe," Brian Perry, senior scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute, told Reuters. "Climate change has a definite impact in the establishment of these diseases." Within a month of bluetongue being detected in the southern Netherlands last year, the number of Dutch farms affected by it had doubled to more than 400, despite measures to stop the spread of the virus. "These are economic diseases that should frighten the hell out of Europe's meat business, not to mention the threat they pose to human lives," Sloan said. "Climate change is bringing them to Europe." GALVmed aims to reduce poverty of livestock keepers in developing countries by improving access to pharmaceuticals and vaccines.

Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are among acts expected to perform at the Live Earth concert in London on July 7 to raise awareness about climate change, organizers said on Tuesday. Built on the model Bob Geldof used for the anti-poverty Live 8 concerts in 2005, Live Earth will be held in Johannesburg, London, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. A U.S. venue has yet to be finalized as environmental campaigner Al Gore faces Republican opposition to holding one of the seven gigs in Washington. "By attracting an audience of billions, we hope Live Earth will launch a global campaign giving a critical mass of people around the world the tools they need to help solve the climate crisis," Gore said in a statement. Gore, whose climate change documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' won an Oscar this year, is spearheading efforts to recruit the world of pop music to his cause. Also due to appear at Wembley Stadium are Beastie Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Corinne Bailey Rae, Duran Duran, Genesis, James Blunt and Snow Patrol. Registration for tickets to the London concert opens from April 13 to 16 on the Web site www.livenation.co.uk/liveearth. Organizers are hoping to attract an audience of up to two billion people.

The purchase three years ago, in Exeter, promised to make his sprawling community a major hub for what seemed like Canada’s next big growth industry — legal pot — and the high-paying jobs it would bring. But before any of the 200 or so anticipated jobs in the greenhouse were filled — or before a single marijuana seed was even sown there — it became apparent that Canada was already growing far more marijuana than the market wanted. After sitting idle for two years, the 1-million-square-foot greenhouse was sold last year for about one-third of its original purchase price of 26 million Canadian dollars, or $20.75 million. Exeter’s experience with the greenhouse — high hopes, followed by disappointment — mirrors the broader Canadian story with the business side of legal pot. Analysts say one reason the sunny projections have failed to materialise is the tightly regulated distribution system introduced by Canada, which largely bans advertising and marketing. The halting rollout of stores in some provinces — particularly Ontario — is also a factor. Plus, surveys have suggested that many Canadians are simply not interested in adopting a new vice. “We were looking forward to it,” said the mayor, George Finch, standing outside Exeter’s 19th-century Town Hall. “Sounded too good almost, eh? It’s too bad. So it may well revert to vegetables again.” When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government legalised marijuana in 2018, a primary goal was to create a more equitable justice system — not a major new business sector. Investors, however, thought otherwise, and in the time leading up to legalisation, a “green rush” swept the Toronto Stock Exchange. Money poured into companies starting up to service not only the Canadian market but also eyeing other opportunities, particularly the US market, where more states were embracing legalisation. Long-dormant greenhouses were renovated and sold for record prices like the one in Exeter, and new indoor growing facilities popped up across the nation. Newspapers that had been cutting back on staff hired journalists to cover new marijuana beats. Like plastics in the film “The Graduate,” marijuana seemed destined to become Canada’s next big thing. The investment craze produced a strong echo of the dot-com stock boom of the late 1990s. And it ended with the same collapse. Even with a slight recovery propelled by the spreading legalisation in the United States — New York legalised marijuana last month, and voters in four states backed legalisation in November — one marijuana stock index is still down about 70% from its peak in 2018. And 2 1/2 years after legalisation, most marijuana producers in Canada are still reporting staggering losses. A major new competitor is looming as well; Mexico’s lawmakers legalised recreational pot use last month. So the business climate for Canada’s growers could become even more challenging. “There’s probably going to be a series of shakeouts,” said Kyle Murray, vice dean at the University of Alberta School of Business in Edmonton. “Things were way overblown. It’s very similar to the dot-com boom and then bust.” Canopy Growth, the country’s largest producer, lost CA$1.2 billion, or about $950 million, in the first nine months of its current operating year. Layoffs have swept the industry. Large producers have merged in a bid to find strength in size. The lights have been permanently switched off in many greenhouses in several provinces. The big bets on marijuana, analysts said, were made on the assumption that marijuana sales in Canada would mirror the sharp spike in liquor sales that occurred in the United States after the end of Prohibition. “Everyone thought that in Canada, the industry was going to move further, faster, and that hasn’t happened,” said Brendan Kennedy, chief executive of Tilray, a major grower based in Nanaimo, British Columbia, that lost $272 million last year. “One of the challenges around competing with the illicit market is that the regulations are so stringent.” Kennedy is among the few leaders in Canada’s marijuana industry still standing. As losses piled higher and stocks tumbled, most pioneers were shown the door. When a planned merger between Tilray and Ontario-based Aphria goes through this year, creating what is likely to be the world’s biggest cannabis company, Kennedy will remain as a director, although he will no longer be at the helm. In Ontario, the plan at first was to handle sales through a branch of the government-owned liquor store system, the way it is done in Quebec. But when a new Conservative government came to power in 2018, it swiftly canceled those plans, which left only online sales through a provincial website. Since then, the province’s plans have changed two more times, making for an uneven introduction of privately owned shops. Even after a recent increase in licensing, Ontario still has approved only 575 shops. By comparison, Alberta, which has about one-third of Ontario’s population, has 583 shops. While initial hopes for marijuana wealth were overly optimistic, Murray said he was confident that a viable business will emerge, with the rising number of Ontario shops one sign of that. That prices have dropped closer to parity with street prices should also help legal sales. “None of this means that it’s a bad market,” Murray said of the poor start. “Too much money and too many companies were involved initially. Eventually there will be some companies that are very successful for a long period of time. And if we’re lucky, they become global leaders.” One comparative bright spot has been British Columbia, previously the heart of Canada’s illegal marijuana industry. There, sales in legal stores grew 24% from June to October 2020. And in Quebec, while the government-owned cannabis store operator, Société Québécoise du Cannabis, lost nearly CA$5 million during its first fiscal year, it has since become profitable. Largely disappointed at home, some of the larger growers in Canada have pointed to foreign markets, particularly for medical marijuana, as their next great hope. But many analysts are skeptical. Mexico’s recent move toward creating the world’s largest legal market could doom most marijuana growing in Canada, said Brent McKnight, a professor at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Trade agreements will likely make it impossible for Canada to stop imports from Mexico, while Mexico’s significantly lower labor costs and warmer climate potentially give it a competitive advantage. “That would certainly put some downward pricing pressure on local growers,” he said. And as Canada’s industry is forced to consolidate to survive, some worry about who will lose out as large, publicly traded companies come to dominate the space. Long before legalisation, many of the first shops to defy Canadian marijuana laws were nonprofit “compassion clubs” selling to people who used cannabis for medicinal purposes. The current system’s emphasis on large corporate growers and profits has squeezed many people from minority communities out of the business, said Dr Daniel Werb, a public health researcher and drug policy analyst at St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Werb is part of a research group whose preliminary findings have shown that “there is a marked lack of diversity” in the leadership of the new, legal suppliers, he said. Sellers in Indigenous communities, too, have been left in limbo, generally not subjected to police raids but also outside the legal system, although Ontario has begun licensing shops in some of those communities. “I get more and more concerned about, on the one hand, the lack of ethno-racial diversity and, on the other hand, a lack of imagination around the fact that this didn’t have to be a wholly for-profit industry,” Werb said. “It seems like there was a missed opportunity to think creatively.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

In a long-awaited report, the commissioner, Mario Dion, said Trudeau had used his office “to circumvent, undermine and ultimately attempt to discredit” the former justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, by improperly pressuring her over the criminal case. This, the commissioner said, broke a long-standing tradition of separating the justice system from political interference. Although Trudeau faces no direct penalty as a result of the ethics commissioner’s finding, its release just weeks before campaigning begins for the October elections endangers his reelection effort, giving his adversaries plenty of ammunition. The prime minister came to office in 2015 with great fanfare, as a new face with a new approach to politics — what he called “sunny ways.” He created a gender-balanced Cabinet. He promised to push for protections against climate change while also protecting the energy business. He said the country should reconcile with its indigenous population, correcting historical wrongs. His critics, though, argue that his treatment of Wilson-Raybould showed that Trudeau was an old-fashioned politician who plays backroom politics even if those rooms are no longer filled with smoke. “He promised he would be different,” said Andrew Scheer, the Conservative leader, speaking Wednesday after the ethics commissioner issued his report. “We now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Justin Trudeau is not as advertised.” Scheer added that he believed there were grounds for a criminal investigation into the prime minister by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. While Scheer has repeatedly called for Trudeau’s resignation over the past six months, on Wednesday he said that no longer makes sense this close to the vote. “I believe Canadians will make the right choice and get rid of a scandal-plagued prime minister,” Scheer told reporters. FILE PHOTO: A sign is pictured outside the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada February 12, 2019. Reuters Earlier this year, Wilson-Raybould accused the prime minister and members of his staff of pushing her to settle a bribery case against a major Canadian engineering company, SNC-Lavalin, with a fine that avoided a criminal conviction. SNC-Lavalin, a multinational engineering company based in Quebec, was charged with bribing officials in Libya to win contracts there and defrauding the Libyan government. FILE PHOTO: A sign is pictured outside the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada February 12, 2019. Reuters When news of Wilson-Raybould’s accusations broke, Trudeau’s Liberal Party plummeted in polls. Though the party has recently clawed its way back, the new report is likely to rekindle the party’s problems even among its own supporters. Some women, whose votes helped ensure the victory of the Liberals in 2015, have said Wilson-Raybould’s accusations that Trudeau tried to improperly pressure her — even bully her — undermined his claim that he is a feminist. The controversy has also soured relations with some indigenous people who were elated when Wilson-Raybould, a former First Nations regional chief from British Columbia, was appointed to the Cabinet. Trudeau has steadfastly refused to apologise and has characterised the controversy as a difference of opinion. In his version of events, the prime minister said he was not trying to strong-arm a female indigenous minister, but was acting out of concern for thousands of jobs in Canada, because a criminal conviction would bar SNC-Lavalin from bidding on government contracts, a significant part of its business. Wilson-Raybould, who was also the attorney general, did not agree to pursue a civil penalty and was demoted to a different Cabinet position. Eventually, she left Trudeau’s Cabinet altogether and was later thrown out of the Liberal caucus by the prime minister. Another prominent woman in Trudeau’s Cabinet, Jane Philpott, quit in solidarity and was also removed from the party, further damaging the prime minister’s standing with women.c.2019 New York Times News Service

The report, released ahead of this week's virtual meetings of finance officials and leaders from the Group of 20 countries, underscored the uneven nature of the global recovery and warned the crisis would likely leave deep, unequal scars. In a separate blog post, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva hailed what she called significant progress in the development of vaccines to vanquish a virus that has claimed more than a million lives around the globe and resulted in tens of millions of job losses. But she cautioned that the economic path ahead remains "difficult and prone to setbacks." The IMF last month forecast a 2020 global contraction of 4.4%, with the global economy expected to rebound to growth of 5.2% in 2021, but said the outlook for many emerging markets had worsened. Georgieva said data received since that forecast confirmed a continuing recovery, with the United States and other advanced economies reporting stronger-than-expected economic activity in the third quarter. But she said the most recent data for contact-intensive service industries pointed to a slowing momentum in economies where the pandemic was resurging. While fiscal spending of nearly $12 trillion and monetary policies had averted even worse outcomes, poverty and inequality were increasing, and more support was needed, the IMF said. New outbreaks and more stringent mobility restrictions, and delays in vaccine development and distribution could reduce growth, increase public debt and worsen economic scarring. Georgieva urged G20 countries to act swiftly and in a united manner to provide continued support and ensure enough vaccines were available around the world, warning that no recovery could be sustained unless the pandemic was defeated everywhere. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday said G20 leaders had an opportunity to commit financially and politically to the COVAX global facility, set up to provide COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries. The United States, under outgoing President Donald Trump, has threatened to pull out of the WHO, and has refused to join the COVAX facility, but experts say his successor, Democrat Joe Biden, could change course after he takes office on Jan. 20. Georgieva also called on G20 leaders to commit to increased investment in green technologies and increases in carbon prices, estimating that doing so could boost global gross domestic product and create about 12 million jobs over a decade. Biden has also pledged to rejoin the 2015 Paris climate change agreement that Trump quit.

Trade ministers opened a new front in combating global warming on the fringe of UN climate talks on Saturday despite splits over import barriers to clean energy technologies. About a dozen trade ministers, including from the United States, Australia, Brazil and Portugal, which holds the European Union presidency, started two days of meetings in Bali to discuss whether more trade will harm or help the environment. "The meeting...emphasises the point that it's not just the environmental imperative we are dealing with, but the economic opportunities that come from solving climate change," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean said. "Climate change solutions open up important opportunities for jobs and trade," he told reporters. "The intention is to start a dialogue. This is the first time that trade ministers are meeting to discuss these (climate) issues," Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said. The meeting, on the fringe of 190-nation climate talks involving about 10,000 delegates in a nearby resort on the Indonesian island, is the first time that annual UN climate talks have widened from environment ministers. In a sign of mounting worries about the economic impacts of more droughts, floods, and rising seas, a group of finance minister will also meet in Bali on Monday and Tuesday. The trade talks began around midday (0400 GMT), to discuss how trade policies can promote economic growth and shield the environment after UN reports this year warning of ever more droughts, heatwaves, disruptions to farming and rising seas. On Nov. 30, the United States and the EU made a proposal to eliminate barriers to trade in clean energy technologies, such as wind turbines or solar panels, as part of the long-running Doha round of world trade talks. PROTECTIONISM But India and Brazil criticised the measures as disguised protectionism to boost exports from rich nations. Brazil, a big producer of biofuels from sugar cane, noted the proposals did not include biofuels nor biofuels technologies. Australia's Crean said the US-EU proposal was encouraging if it helped eliminate trade barriers for environmental goods and services. The Dec. 3-14 UN climate change meeting in Bali is trying to launch two years of formal talks on a new pact to widen the UN's Kyoto Protocol to all nations beyond 2012, including more participation by the United States, China and India. Kyoto now binds 36 developed nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a step to slow global warming. At the climate talks, an alliance of 43 small island states urged much tougher action to fight climate change, saying they otherwise risked being washed off the map by rising seas and more powerful storms. "We want to see drastic action," said Angus Friday, of Grenada and chairman of the group in Bali. He said a protective barrier for one island in the Maldives alone cost $100 million. Saturday's trade talks were focused on the links between trade, investment and climate policies for the development of climate friendly technologies and clean energy systems. On Sunday, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy will look at "what kind of tools and instruments can be applied to maximise linkages between trade and climate policies". A UN report in August projected that net annual investments of $200-$210 billion by 2030 were needed to curb emissions, in cleaner areas such as renewable energies.

Speaking on the sidelines of the summit meeting, known as COP26, the 18-year-old Thunberg said the event was “sort of turning into a greenwash campaign, a PR campaign,” for business leaders and politicians. “Since we are so far from what actually we needed, I think what would be considered a success would be if people realise what a failure this COP is,” Thunberg said. At panel events Thursday at The New York Times Climate Hub in Glasgow, Thunberg and other young female activists, including Vanessa Nakate and Malala Yousafzai, also spoke about the critical role that young women have played in rallying protesters and pressuring world leaders to take action. “It is the young people, especially young women, who are the voices of the climate movement, and that gives hope to so many people,” Yousafzai said. The comments came on the fifth day of the summit meeting, a gathering that John Kerry, the US climate envoy, had billed as the planet’s “last, best chance” to curb the fossil fuel emissions that are driving climate change. More than 39,000 diplomats, business leaders and activists have registered for the event in hopes of hammering out agreements to reduce emissions and keep the average global temperature from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to preindustrial levels, by the end of this century. That’s the threshold beyond which many scientists say the planet will experience catastrophic effects from heat waves, droughts, wildfires and flooding. The average global temperature has already risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius. So far, leaders and business executives have made some significant commitments. On Tuesday, more than 100 countries agreed to cut emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by 30% by 2030. And on Wednesday, a coalition of the world’s biggest investors, banks and insurers that collectively control $130 trillion said they were committed to financing projects that would help get companies and countries to net-zero emissions by 2050. Environmentalists, however, criticised the financing pledge as lacking in detail. Several key leaders, including Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, were also criticised for not attending the event in person. Environmentalists say China's and Russia’s targets are not ambitious enough, and activists are sceptical that Bolsonaro will follow through on his country’s pledge to end deforestation by 2028. Nakate, a 24-year-old climate activist from Uganda and founder of the Africa-based Rise Up Movement, said at the panel discussion Thursday that the pledge by leaders of the 20 largest economies to “pursue efforts” to keep the average global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius did not go far enough. She said that 1.5 degrees would “not be safe” for communities like hers. “Even right now, it’s already evident that the climate crisis is ravaging different parts of the African continent,” Nakate said. Yousafzai, 24, said women were disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis. “Treating climate change and gender inequality and girls’ education as separate issues is not doing justice to the cause of creating a fairer and better and cleaner world for all of us,” Yousafzai said. “It is important that we take these issues seriously and see the link between all of these.” She and the other activists on Thursday said there was reason for hope. When the moderator at Thunberg’s event asked what one fact the panellists would want everyone in the world to know, she said that people should understand that their individual actions can make a difference. The changes that are necessary will not come from inside of conferences like COP26, she said. “This is the misconception,” Thunberg said. “That what we as individuals do doesn’t have an impact.” “And I’m not talking about not using plastic and so on,” she said. “I’m talking about going out onto the streets and making our voices heard, organising marches, demanding change.” ©2021 The New York Times Company

Without amending Canada’s Constitution, Charles will automatically succeed Queen Elizabeth II as Canada’s head of state just like every British monarch since the nation’s founding. Poll after poll shows that the 96-year-old queen who has battled some recent health issues is widely respected by Canadians. For the past several years, however, an ever-declining number of Canadians, polls show, want to swear allegiance to another British monarch, particularly Charles, who is disliked by many here and who represents an institution that many see as increasingly irrelevant to their lives. Much less clear, however, is what Canadians might do to prevent the rule of King Charles III. “Both sides in Canada are a bit at a truce,” said Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor at Carleton University and an expert on the role of the monarchy in Canada. “The monarchists get to keep the formal legal situation, they get the occasional royal tour and they get some symbolism. But the Republicans are able to say that the monarchical principle doesn’t really animate Canadian life in any significant way.” The visit by Charles and his wife, Camilla, which comes a year after the remains of hundreds of children were identified as buried on the grounds of a former residential school for Indigenous children in British Columbia, has something of an Indigenous theme. They will attend a reconciliation event in the province of Newfoundland, their first stop on the trip, and visit an Indigenous First Nation near Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories on the final day. In between, the royal couple will be in Ottawa, the capital. The trip will also feature climate-related discussions between Charles and business leaders as well as a visit to an ice road to discuss the effects of climate change in the far north. Perhaps the only mystery surrounding the visit is if handshaking, traditionally the major activity of Royal Tours, will be replaced by a more COVID-safe form of greeting. Late last month, a poll released by the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit public opinion research group, indicated that 55% of Canadians found the monarchy irrelevant and another 24% said it was becoming less relevant. A resounding 67% of Canadians who were questioned said they opposed the idea of Charles succeeding his mother. Large and enthusiastic crowds greeted Charles when he visited Canada with Diana, his first wife, three times. But public interest in him swiftly declined following their separation in 1992. His sometimes patronising manner does not work well in a country that values egalitarianism. The relationship between Charles’ brother Andrew and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who hanged himself in a Manhattan jail, have further eroded support among Canadian for the monarchy. Their standing was further damaged after Meghan Markle, Charles’ daughter-in-law who lived in Toronto and British Columbia, said in an interview that she was subjected to racially insensitive comments by royals Still, Charles and Camilla are likely to draw crowds, particularly in St John’s, Newfoundland, where their visit will be the dominant talk of the town. Geography plays a role in how the royals are viewed. In modern times, the monarchy has never enjoyed any significant support in largely French-speaking Quebec, the second-most populous province. And Canada’s changing demographics have contributed to the spread of that sentiment elsewhere. Many immigrants to Canada come from countries like China, giving them no real connection to Britain’s monarchy. Or they have roots in countries like India where the crown is still viewed by many as a symbol of occupation and repression. “There may well be a point at which Canadians say: ‘Huh, who’s this dude on my money?’” said Shachi Kurl, the president of Angus Reid. The lingering level of support for the monarchy is thanks, in large part, to respect for the queen, Kurl said, and is probably destined to fall even further following her death. “The lack of motivation around making a change really has to do with a genuine affection for her as much as anything,” she said. Barbados dropped the queen as its head of state and became a republic in November in a ceremony witnessed by Prince Charles and Rihanna. Six other Caribbean nations may follow suit. Separate tours of the Caribbean this year by Prince Edward, Charles’ brother, and Prince William, the future king’s son, were the subject of protests against the monarchy and Britain’s brutal history with slavery. The protests forced the cancellation of some stops. Rather than worrying about protests, the organisers of Charles’ trip to Canada seem to have made efforts to ensure that he simply has an audience. Aside from a wreath-laying ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, there are no real opportunities for crowds in major cities to gather. Instead, he will visit Quidi Vidi, a neighbourhood and fishing village in St John’s, a city with a population of 114,000 people, where an appearance by any international celebrity, popular or not, is bound to be a major event. The system for amending Canada’s Constitution to remove the British monarch as head of state makes such a step extremely difficult, according to Lagassé and Kurl. Replacing the British monarch with a Canadian head of state would require the unanimous consent of the federal government and all 10 provinces. In a country where politics are driven by regionalism, attaining that consent might be impossible. “Any talk of constitutional change is political kryptonite to most politicians,” Kurl said. “They would prefer not to go there and just look at their shoes.” One workaround, Lagassé said, might be to accelerate a long-running process of simply diminishing the monarch’s presence in Canada. He said that since 1947 the Queen’s powers, which are mostly symbolic, have been assigned to the governor-general, her official representative in Canada. There are, Lagassé said, a number of steps the Canadian government can take without legislation, let alone meddling with the constitution. The queen once appeared on all of Canada’s bank notes. Removing her from the last remaining one, the 20 dollar bill, poses no legal issue, he said, nor would replacing the royal effigy on coins. No law requires the monarch’s portrait to hang in government offices or, for that matter, mandates royal tours. “There’s a whole bunch of these things, the soft underbelly of monarchical symbolism, that can be altered,” Lagassé said. “The general approach now in Canada is that the monarchy is there, it’s not broken. Don’t deal with it, but also don’t give it any more room than it actually needs.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Washington, Feb 18 (BDNEWS)-Scientists say they have "compelling" evidence that ocean warming over the past 40 years can be linked to the industrial release of carbon dioxide, according to wire service report. US researchers compared the rise in ocean temperatures with predictions from climate models and found human activity was the most likely cause. In coming decades, the warming will have a dramatic impact on regional water supplies, they predict. Details of the study were released at a major science meeting in Washington DC. The team used several scenarios to try to explain the oceanic observations, including natural climate variability, solar radiation and volcanic emissions, but all fell short. "What absolutely nailed it was greenhouse warming," said Dr Barnett. This model reproduced the observed temperature changes in the oceans with a statistical confidence of 95%, conclusive proof - say the researchers - that global warming is being caused by human activities. Regional water supplies will be dramatically affected by climate change in the decades immediately ahead, say the team. In the South American Andes and western China, millions of people could be left without adequate water during the summer due to accelerated melting of glaciers. "If the snow pack melts sooner, and if societies don't have the ability catch all of that water, they're going to end up with water shortages in the summer," Dr Barnett explained. According to the Scripps researcher, political leadership was now needed to avert a global disaster. The researchers said," Hopefully we can get the US cranked around in that direction. I think the first thing to do is figure out the global warming-related problems we have ahead of us around the world". "Unless we know what we're dealing with, I think it's going to be pretty hard to fix it."

The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), places an emphasis on the risks and may make the case for cutting greenhouse gas emissions clearer both to policymakers and the public by placing it in the category of an insurance policy for the planet."Climate change is really a challenge of managing risks," Christopher Field, co-chair of the IPCC group preparing the report, told Reuters before its release on Monday."One critical way is in decreasing the amount of climate change that occurs, and the other is finding a way to cope as effectively as we can with the climate changes that can't be avoided," Field said.The time for action is now, according to the report, which follows an earlier assessment raising the probability that humans are responsible for global warming that is thought to cause droughts, colder weather and rising sea levels.Many governments have pleaded for greater scientific certainty before making billion-dollar investments in everything from flood barriers to renewable energies.The report, a draft of which was posted on a climate skeptical website "nofrakkingconsensus" in November, warns that parts of society and nature are more vulnerable than expected to climate change.Atmospheric warming will exacerbate threats to health, damage yields of major crops in many areas and lead to more floods, the report says. It could also deepen poverty and worsen economic shocks that are at the heart of violent conflicts."We are here to remind world leaders like Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, David Cameron and many others that this is the time to act, cut emissions to fight climate change," Christian Teriete, communications director of the Global Call for Climate Action, said on Sunday at a gathering near the conference center in Yokohama where the text of the report was finalized.The IPCC's credibility is under extra scrutiny, after the panel's last report in 2007 wrongly exaggerated the melt of Himalayan glaciers. Several reviews said that this error, however, did not undermine the key findings in 2007.The report is the second in a four-part IPCC assessment meant to guide governments that have promised to agree a pact in 2015 to slow climate change. The first, in September, raised the probability that most global warming is man-made to at least 95 percent from 90 in 2007.Climate scientists say they are more certain than ever before that mankind is the main culprit for global warming and warned the impact of greenhouse gas emissions would linger for centuries.The report is a compilation of the work of hundreds of scientists but skeptics, who challenge evidence for man-made climate change and question the need for urgent action, have become emboldened by the fact that temperatures have risen more slowly recently despite rising greenhouse gas emissions.The IPCC report says that a warming trend is "unequivocal". And some effects would last far beyond the lifetimes of people now alive.The report says that temperatures were likely to rise by between 0.3 and 4.8 degrees Celsius (0.5 to 8.6 Fahrenheit) by the late 21st century. The low end of the range would only be achieved if governments sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions.And it said world sea levels could rise by between 26 and 82 cm (10 to 32 inches) by the late 21st century, driven up by melting ice and an expansion of water as it warms, in a threat to coastal cities from Shanghai to San Francisco.

"I have heard that they are cutting down the number of workers there," said the 33-year-old, who returned to his home in Nepal when his job disappeared. To find another way to support his family of five, Jaisi is trying his hand at farming this year, having leased a half-hectare of land near Pyuthan, in central-west Nepal, to produce staples such as maize and paddy rice. But that too is now under threat. Fall armyworm, a pest new to Nepal this year, is devouring his maize field - and he is facing waves of locusts as well, as climate change brings conditions conducive to the spread of the insects. "Larva of this worm are scattered almost everywhere in the field," Jaisi said, standing amid half-eaten maize leaves. "I have seen this pest for the first time and I don't have much idea about its control," he said. He and other villagers successfully drove from their fields a first small swarm of locusts early this month, by using smoke and beating utensils against pans. But now a second swarm is arriving, he said. "I am worried if the paddy and remaining maize will remain after the second swarm," Jaisi said. RETURNING HOME With crucial migrant jobs, remittances and crops disappearing this year, families in Nepal - one of South Asia's poorer countries - face a growing risk of hunger and worsening poverty this year, officials warn. Lockdowns in countries that normally employ large numbers of Nepali migrant workers - from India to Saudi Arabia and Malaysia - have left many with little prospect of new jobs or alternative incomes. Giriraj Bhandari, another resident of Pyuthan, contracted the coronavirus while working as an electrician in Dubai. After recovering and returning home he now hopes to find a job in his own country, using the skills he acquired abroad. But with Nepal's economy - like many around the world - struggling under coronavirus restrictions, he and his family admit he may have a hard time. "The prospect of getting a job during this time is very dim so he is planning to earn from agriculture until he gets a job," said his wife Rima, as her husband waited out 14 days of quarantine. She said the pest attacks on farm fields this year leave her uncertain whether she and her husband will be able to feed their family, with other job options rare. "The extent of damage that these insects have done in our neighbourhood point toward a bleak future in farming," she said. Arjun Kumar Kakshyapati, the mayor of the municipality of Pyuthan, said about three-quarters of maize in the area had been affected by armyworms this year. "Though we distributed subsidised pesticide, its effectiveness was not as expected," he said. He said he expects about half of the maize crop in the area to be lost this year to armyworm infestations. So far only one ward of the municipality was hard-hit by the first locust swarm that arrived, in the first week of July, the mayor said. But a second and third swarm have been spotted and they "may cause more damage," he added. More than 2,000 people have returned to the municipality of Pyuthan from abroad - and more are still coming, said Kakshyapti. The municipality has about 38,500 residents. The mayor said most of those returning would try to farm to earn an income, leaving them vulnerable to pest problems and crop damage. Continuing crop losses to armyworms and locusts - plagues the community has not been prepared for - "would invite a dire situation", he said. "The crop harvest this year could be very lean and with income sources gone for many people, a majority of families could struggle for food, let alone education and other needs," he added. LIMITED HELP But the municipality is trying to help, using limited funds to try to make resuming farming easier, the mayor said. Each ward in the area has received a 300,000 rupee ($2,500) emergency allocation, he said, to provide farming inputs as needed. And "for those who don't have land for farming we have planned to give them employment in other sectors such as construction" he added. Last year, about 300 people were hired by the municipality to carry out work such as building or maintaining irrigation channels. This year that should rise to 800, Kakshyapti said. But he admitted that "it is not possible to provide a job for everyone who returns from abroad and agriculture still remains the major source of income for most of the families". That may mean more hungry people in months ahead, particularly if locust damage grows, the mayor and families say. "It has become a major challenge for us to make agriculture thrive when everything is moving in wrong direction," Kakshyapti admitted.

“The summary findings are bleak,” the report said, because countries have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions even after repeated warnings from scientists. The result, the authors added, is that “deeper and faster cuts are now required.” The world’s 20 richest countries, responsible for more than three-fourths of emissions, must take the biggest, swiftest steps to move away from fossil fuels, the report emphasised. The richest country of all, the United States, however, has formally begun to pull out of the Paris accord altogether. Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 1.5% every year over the past decade, according to the annual assessment, the Emissions Gap Report, which is produced by the UN Environment Programme. The opposite must happen if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, including more intense droughts, stronger storms and widespread food insecurity by mid-century. To stay within relatively safe limits, emissions must decline sharply, by 7.6% every year, between 2020 and 2030, the report warned. Separately, the World Meteorological Organisation reported Monday that emissions of three major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — have all swelled in the atmosphere since the mid-18th century. Under the Paris agreement, reached in November 2015, every country has pledged to rein in emissions, with each setting its own targets and timetables. Even if every country fulfils its current pledges — and many, including the United States, Brazil and Australia, are currently not on track to do so — the Emissions Gap Report found average temperatures are on track to rise by 3.2 degrees Celsius from the baseline average temperature at the start of the industrial age. According to scientific models, that kind of temperature rise sharply increases the likelihood of extreme weather events, the accelerated melting of glaciers and swelling seas — all endangering the lives of billions of people. The Paris agreement resolved to hold the increase in global temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit; last year, a UN-backed panel of scientists said the safer limit was to keep it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. There are many ways to reduce emissions: quitting the combustion of fossil fuels, especially coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel; switching to renewable energy like solar and wind power; moving away from gas- and diesel-guzzling cars; and halting deforestation. In fact, many countries are headed in the wrong direction. A separate analysis released this month looked at how much coal, oil and natural gas the world’s nations have said they expect to produce and sell through 2030. If all those fossil fuels were ultimately extracted and burned, the report found, countries would collectively miss their climate pledges, as well as the global 2 degree Celsius target, by an even larger margin than previously thought. A number of countries, including Canada and Norway, have made plans to reduce emissions at home while expanding fossil-fuel production for sale abroad, that report noted. “At a global level, it doesn’t add up,” said Michael Lazarus, a lead author of the report and director of the Stockholm Environment Institute’s US Centre. To date, he noted, discussions on whether and how to curb the production of fossil fuels have been almost entirely absent from international climate talks. The International Energy Agency recently singled out the proliferation of SUVs, noting that the surge of SUVs, which consume more gasoline than conventional cars, could wipe out much of the oil savings from a nascent electric-car boom. Diplomats are scheduled to gather in Madrid in December for the next round of negotiations over the rules of the Paris agreement. The world’s biggest polluters are under pressure to raise their pledges.  “This is a new and stark reminder,” Spain’s minister for ecological transition, Teresa Ribera, said of the Emissions Gap Report in an email. “We urgently need to align with the Paris agreement objectives and elevate climate ambition.” If there is any good news in the report, it is that the current trajectory is not as dire as it was before countries around the world started taking steps to cut their emissions. The 2015 Emissions Gap Report said that, without any climate policies at all, the world was likely to face around 4 degrees Celsius of warming. Coal use is declining sharply, especially in the United States and Western Europe, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief. Renewable energy is expanding fast, though not nearly as fast as necessary. And city and state governments around the world, including in the United States, are rolling out stricter rules on tailpipe pollution from cars. Those who have followed the diplomatic negotiations say they are confronted by something of a cognitive dissonance when they think about this moment. The world’s biggest polluters are nowhere near where they should be to draw down their emissions at a time when the human toll of climate change is near impossible to ignore. And yet, renewable energy is spreading faster than could have been anticipated even a few years ago; electric buses and cars are proliferating and young people are protesting by the millions in rich and poor countries alike. Even in the United States, with its persistent denialist movement, how to deal with climate change is a resonant issue in the presidential campaign. “There’s a bit of a best of times, worst of times about this,” said David Waskow, director of the international climate initiative at the World Resources Institute, a research and advocacy group. © 2019 New York Times News Service

Trudeau, 49, is betting that high vaccination rates against the virus and a post-pandemic economic rebound will help him prolong and strengthen his grip on power. Newly-released data shows 71% of the country's eligible population is fully vaccinated. The election comes at a "pivotal, consequential moment" for Canada, Trudeau said. "We will be taking decisions that will last not just for the coming months but for the coming decades. Canadians deserve their say. That's exactly what we're going to give them," he told reporters. Trudeau spoke after visiting Governor General Mary Simon, the representative of head of state Queen Elizabeth, to formally request the dissolution of Parliament. Polls suggest the Liberals will win their third consecutive election but may not regain a majority in the 338-seat House of Commons. Trudeau currently has only a minority of seats, leaving him reliant on other parties to govern. Nationally, Liberals would win 35% of the vote, compared with 30% for the Conservatives and 19% for the left-leaning New Democrats, a Leger Marketing poll showed on Aug. 12. FACTBOX on main parties and leaders, click The Liberals spent heavily on subsidies to businesses and individuals to limit the damage from COVID-19, sending both the national debt and budget deficits to record highs. The Conservatives and New Democrats have in recent days condemned the idea of an early election, saying there was no need for it and describing the call as a power grab. "This is a really important moment," Trudeau said when asked repeatedly why he was calling an election during a pandemic. He said some Conservative legislators had described as "tyrannical" the government's push to make vaccinations mandatory for federally regulated industries. "The answer to tyranny is to have an election," he said. The right-of-center Conservatives, the Liberals' biggest rivals, say spending will increase if Trudeau wins again, leaving generations of Canadians hobbled by debt. With a parliamentary majority, Trudeau would have a free hand to follow through on his stated policy priorities of fighting climate change and supporting those who suffered most during the pandemic. "Our planet and our future are at stake. So I need you alongside me in this fight," he said on Sunday. Nanos Research pollster Nik Nanos said the Liberals had no choice but to go to the polls now, noting that the longer they wait, the more risk they face of a fourth wave of the coronavirus. "They see a window and they're going to shoot for that window before the bad news comes out, before there's another variant or before the bill shows up for the full cost of fighting the pandemic," he said in an interview. The Bank of Canada last month painted an optimistic picture of growth heading into the second half of the year. But the bond market already is signaling that the pace of Canada's economic growth could slow as Delta variant cases rise in the United States, its largest trading partner, and in some other major export markets. 'RISKY SITUATION' Trudeau, the son of longtime former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, first won a majority in 2015. But in the 2019 election, after decades-old black face pictures surfaced, he came up short of a majority. Another minority administration would leave him likely relying once more on the New Democrats, who favor even heavier spending on social programs. It would also raise questions about Trudeau's future as the leader of his party. Trudeau repeatedly refused to say on Sunday if he would resign as leader if he does not secure a majority in the vote. Without a strong opponent to rail against in this election, as the main opposition Conservatives struggle, the Liberals fear the vote may fragment and hand them yet another minority government. Some Liberals question the need for an early election, saying that although Trudeau had complained about obstructionism from opposition parties, he managed to pass most of the legislation the Liberals proposed. "It's a risky situation to go the polls when you don't have to," said Peter Donolo, a political strategist at Hill+Knowlton Strategies and communications director for former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien.