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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lent support on Tuesday to President George W Bush on Iraq, saying violence there was a problem for all countries. As Bush hosted Ban at the White House, the UN chief also welcomed the president's plan to hold a high-level meeting on the Middle East peace process in the autumn. "As for the Iraqi situation, this is the problem of the whole world," Ban said, promising UN help with rebuilding Iraq politically, economically and socially. On Monday, Ban warned against an "abrupt withdrawal" by US forces from Iraq and said the international community should not abandon the Iraqi people, shocking some UN officials for inserting himself into the US debate on the war. At least six people were killed on Wednesday when a pair of roadside bombs exploded in south-eastern Baghdad, Iraqi police said. Five people were wounded in the attacks in the Al-Amin district, which police said occurred in an area used as a stopping point by people travelling by bus to the capital from the Shi'ite south. U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched a major security clampdown in and around Baghdad to thwart sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, but violence has continued to flare. Bus terminals mainly used by Shia have been attacked on numerous occasions in the past. The show of Ban's support comes as Bush faces the American public's growing frustration with the Iraq war and rising pressure even from within his own Republican Party for a US pullout. The two discussed climate change, said Ban, who invited Bush to participate in a conference on the environment that he has called for September, on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly. Bush looks forward to attending the Sept. 24 event, a White House spokesman said later. Climate change is a contentious issue in the Bush administration, which has fought mandatory caps on the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. Ban said he was encouraged by Bush's initiatives on climate change at last month's G8 summit, where world leaders agreed to pursue substantial cuts in greenhouse gases.

Djordjevic makes combustion engines for Daimler, one of Germany’s flagship carmakers. He has a salary of around 60,000 euros (about $70,000), eight weeks of vacation and a guarantee negotiated by the union that he cannot be fired until 2030. He owns a two-story house and that E-class 250 model Mercedes in his driveway. All of that is why Djordjevic polishes the star on his car. “The star is something stable and something strong: It stands for Made in Germany,” he said. But by 2030 there will be no more combustion engines at Daimler — or people making combustion engines. “I’m proud of what I do,” Djordjevic said. “It’s unsettling to know that in 10 years’ time my job will no longer exist.” Djordjevic is the picture of a new German pride and prosperity — and German anxiety. As Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to leave office after 16 years, her country is among the richest in the world. A broad and contented middle class is one facet of Merkel’s Germany that has been central to her longevity and her ability to deliver on a core promise of stability. But her impact has been far greater. To travel the country she leaves behind is to see it profoundly transformed. There is the father taking paid parental leave in Catholic Bavaria. The married gay couple raising two children outside Berlin. The woman in a hijab teaching math in a high school near Frankfurt, where most students have German passports but few have German parents. There is the coal worker in the former communist East voting for a far-right party that did not exist when Merkel took office. And two young brothers on a North Sea island threatened by rising sea levels who do not remember a time when Merkel was not chancellor and cannot wait to see her gone. “She has known about the danger of climate change for longer than we’ve been alive,” one of the brothers told me while standing on the grassy dike that protects the small island, Pellworm, from flooding. “Why hasn’t she done anything about it?” As Merkel steered her country through successive crises and left others unattended, there was change that she led and change that she allowed. She decided to phase out nuclear power in Germany. She ended compulsory military service. She was the first chancellor to assert that Islam “belongs” to Germany. When it came to breaking down her country’s and party’s conservative family values, she was more timid but ultimately did not stand in the way. “She saw where the country was going and allowed it to go there,” said Roland Mittermayer, an architect who married his husband shortly after Merkel invited conservative lawmakers to pass a law permitting same-sex marriage, even though she herself voted against it. No other democratic leader in Europe has lasted longer. And Merkel is walking out of office as the most popular politician in Germany. Many of her postwar predecessors had strongly defined legacies. Konrad Adenauer anchored Germany in the West. Willy Brandt reached across the Iron Curtain. Helmut Kohl, her onetime mentor, became synonymous with German unity. Gerhard Schröder paved the way for the country’s economic success. Merkel’s legacy is less tangible but equally transformative. She changed Germany into a modern society — and a country less defined by its history. She may be remembered most for her decision to welcome more than 1 million refugees in 2015-16 when most other Western nations rejected them. It was a brief redemptive moment for the country that had committed the Holocaust and turned her into an icon of liberal democracy. “It was a sort of healing,” said Karin Marré-Harrak, headmaster of a high school in the multicultural city of Offenbach. “In a way we’ve become a more normal country.” Being called a normal country might seem underwhelming elsewhere. But for Germany, a nation haunted by its Nazi past and four decades of division between East and West, normal was what all postwar generations had aspired to. Almost everywhere, however, there was also a nagging sense that the new normal was being threatened by epic challenges, that things cannot go on as they are. THE GERMAN DREAM Djordjevic lives near Stuttgart, the capital of Germany’s powerful car industry. In 1886, Gottlieb Daimler invented one of the first cars in his garden here. These days the city is home to Daimler, Porsche and Bosch, the world’s biggest car-part maker. Arriving home after his shift one recent afternoon, Djordjevic was still wearing his factory uniform — and, beside the Mercedes logo, the hallmark red pin of the metal worker union. Most Daimler employees are unionized. Worker representatives take half of the seats on the company’s supervisory board. “The success story of German industry is also the story of strong worker representation,” he said. The security, the benefits, the opportunities to build skills — all of that underpins “the loyalty workers feel to the product and the company.” If the American dream is to get rich, the German dream is job security for life. Djordjevic, 38, always knew he wanted to work for Daimler. His father worked there until he died. “It was like an inheritance,” he said. When he got his first job at age 16, he thought he had arrived. “I thought, ‘That’s it,’” he recalled. “‘I’ll retire from here.’” Now he is less sure. Like other German carmakers, Daimler was late to start its transition to electric cars. Its first pure electric model was launched only this year. Daimler’s target is to phase out combustion engines by 2030. No one knows what exactly that means for jobs, but Djordjevic was doing the math. “There are 1,200 parts in a combustion engine,” he said. “There are only 200 in an electric car.” “Sustainable cars are great, but we also need sustainable jobs,” he said. Daimler is still growing. But much of the job growth is in China, said Michael Häberle, one of the worker representatives on the company board. Häberle, too, has been at the company all 35 years of his working life. He started as a mechanic and worked his way up to a business degree and eventually a seat on the board. Standing in one of the factories now churning out batteries for the new EQS line of electric cars, Häberle said he hoped company would not only survive this transformation but come out stronger on the other side. The main question, he said, is: Will Germany? There was a time when he took his country’s export prowess for granted. But now, he said, “Germany is in a defensive crouch.” A GERMAN HIJAB Germany’s car industry helped fuel the country’s postwar economic miracle. And immigrants fuelled the car industry. But they don’t really feature in that story. They were known as “guest workers” and were expected to come, work and leave. Until two decades ago, they had no regular path to citizenship. Among them were the grandparents of Ikbal Soysal, a young high school teacher in the city of Offenbach, near Frankfurt, whose father worked in a factory making parts for Mercedes. Soysal’s generation of immigrant Germans do feature in the story of Germany today. Not only do they have German passports, many have university degrees. They are doctors, entrepreneurs, journalists and teachers. Germany’s immigrant population has become the second largest in the world, behind the United States. When Merkel came into office in 2005, 18% of Germans had at least one parent who was born outside the country. By now it is 1 in 4. In Soysal’s school in Offenbach, 9 in 10 children have at least one parent who emigrated to Germany. Many of the teachers do, too. “When I started teaching here, all teachers were Germans with German roots,” the head teacher, Karin Marré-Harrak, said. “Now, nearly half of them have diverse roots.” Soysal, a Muslim, always wanted to be a teacher, but she knew it was a risk. There had never been a high school teacher with a headscarf in her state. So when she was invited for her first job interview, she called ahead to warn the school. It was 2018. The secretary consulted with the headmaster, who promptly reassured her, “What matters is what’s in your head, not what’s on your head.” She got that job and others since. It wasn’t always easy. “The students forget about the headscarf very quickly,” Soysal said. But some parents complained to the head teacher. Once, a student asked Soysal’s advice. The girl was wearing a headscarf but was unsure about it. “If it doesn’t feel right, you need to take it off,” Soysal told her. For her, that is what freedom of religion, enshrined in the German constitution, is all about. “The thing is, I am German,” she said, “so my headscarf is German, too.” THE ALTERNATIVE TO MERKEL Leaving Offenbach, the next stop is Hanau. It was here, in February last year, that a far-right gunman went into several bars and shot nine mostly young people who had migrant backgrounds. The backlash against the diversification and modernization that Merkel has overseen has turned increasingly violent. Germany suffered three far-right terrorist attacks in less than three years. The ideological breeding ground for that violence is in many ways embodied by a party that chose its name in opposition to the chancellor. Merkel often justified unpopular policies by calling them “alternativlos” — without alternative. The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, was founded in 2013 in opposition to the bailout of Greece that Merkel’s government engineered during Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis. When she welcomed more than 1 million refugees in 2015 and 2016, the party adopted a noisy anti-immigrant stance that catapulted it into Germany’s parliament. The AfD is marginalised in the country’s West. But it has become the second-strongest party in the former communist East, the place where Merkel grew up. Politically at least, Merkel’s Germany is more divided between East and West than at any other point since reunification. In Forst, a once-prosperous textile hub on the Polish border that lost thousands of jobs and one-third of its population after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the AfD came first in the last election. Downtown, shuttered factories and smoke stacks still dot the skyline. The lingering inequality between East and West three decades after reunification is still evident, even though taxpayers’ money has flowed east and things have gradually improved. With the government planning to phase out coal production by 2038, billions more in funding are promised to help compensate for the job losses. But as Mike Balzke, a worker at the nearby coal plant in Jänschwalde, put it: “We don’t want money — we want a future.” Balzke recalled his optimism when Merkel first became chancellor. Because she was an easterner and a scientist, he expected her to be an ambassador for the East — and for coal. Instead, his village lost one-quarter of its population during her chancellorship. A promised train line from Forst to Berlin was never built. The post office shut down. Balzke, 41, worries that the region will turn into a wasteland. That anxiety runs deep. And it deepened again with the arrival of refugees in 2015. TWO FATHERS AND TWO SONS Merkel’s decision to welcome the refugees was one reason Balzke stopped voting for her. But for plenty of other people, the opposite was true. Mathis Winkler, a development aid worker in Berlin, had never voted for Merkel’s party. As a gay man, he was appalled by its narrow conservative definition of family that until only a few years ago excluded him, his long-term partner and their two foster sons. But after Merkel became the target of far-right anger during the refugee crisis, he joined her party in solidarity. Merkel pushed her own base on several fronts. On her watch, legislation was passed that allows mothers and fathers to share 14 months of paid parental leave. The conservative wing of her party was up in arms, but only a decade later, it has become the new normal. Merkel never backed same-sex marriage outright, but she allowed lawmakers to vote for it, knowing that it would go through. Winkler left the party again in 2019 after Merkel’s successor as conservative leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, disparaged same-sex marriage. But he acknowledged his debt to the chancellor. On June 30, 2017, the day of the vote, he wrote her a letter. “It is a pity that you could not support opening marriage to same-sex couples,” he wrote. “Still, thank you that you ultimately made today’s decision possible.” Then he invited her to visit his family, “to see for yourself.” She never replied. But he and his family used to live just around the corner from Merkel, who never gave up her apartment in central Berlin. They would see her occasionally in the supermarket checkout line. “There she was with toilet paper in her basket, going shopping like everyone else,” Winkler’s partner, Roland Mittermayer, recalled. Even after 16 years, they are still trying to figure the chancellor out. “She is an enigma,” Winkler said. “She’s a bit like the queen — someone who has been around for a long time, but you never feel you really know her.” THE POST-MERKEL GENERATION Six hours northwest of Berlin, past endless green fields dotted with wind farms and a 40-minute ferry ride off the North Sea coast, lies Pellworm, a sleepy island where the Backsen family has been farming since 1703. Two years ago, they took Merkel’s government to court for abandoning its carbon-dioxide emission targets under the Paris climate accord. They lost, but then tried again, filing a complaint at the constitutional court. This time they won. “It’s about freedom,” said Sophie Backsen, 23, who would like to take over her father’s farm one day. Sophie’s younger brothers, Hannes, 19, and Paul, 21, will vote for the first time on Sunday. Like 42% of first-time voters, they will vote for the Greens. “If you look at how our generation votes, it’s the opposite of what you see in the polls,” Paul said. “The Greens would be running the country.” Pellworm is flush with the sea level and in parts even below it. Without a dike ringing the coastline, it would flood regularly. “When you have permanent rain for three weeks, the island fills up like a bath tub inside the dikes,” Hannes said. The prospect of rising sea levels is an existential threat here. “This is one of the most important elections,” Hannes said. “It’s the last chance really to get it right.” “If not even a country like Germany can manage this,” he added, “what chance do we stand?” ©2021 The New York Times Company

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

The United Nations says momentum is building for broader long-term action to fight global warming beyond the UN's Kyoto Protocol and a climate meeting starting in Vienna on Monday will be a crucial test. About 1,000 delegates from more than 100 countries at the Aug 27-31 talks will seek common ground between industrial nations with Kyoto greenhouse gas caps until 2012 and outsiders led by the United States and China, the top two emitters. "Momentum is very much building," for global action, Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate change official, said of the meeting of senior officials, scientists and activists. "And Vienna's going to be crucial." "The coming week will give us an indication of whether the political community ... is willing to move beyond well-intentioned platitudes towards real negotiations," he told a news conference on the eve of the talks. "The fight against climate change must be broadened," Austrian Environment Minister Josef Proell said, welcoming U.S. willingness to take part in a long-term U.N. deal to cut emissions mainly from burning fossil fuels. Vienna will try to break a diplomatic logjam and enable environment ministers to agree at a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December to launch formal two-year negotiations to define stiffer long-term curbs on greenhouse gases. But while delegates talk about talks, many worry that climate change is already taking its toll, especially in developing nations heavily dependent on agriculture. "We have a very dangerous situation developing," said Lesotho's Minister of Natural Resources Monyane Moleleki. "For the past 30 years climate change has been spooky to say the least." The number of severe droughts in southern Africa had doubled since 1978 compared to the rest of the 20th century, he said. "And when the rains come they come in deluges, torrents that are useless." "Cape Verde is an island state, hit by all vulnerabilities of climate change," said Cape Verde Environment Minister Madalena Neves, pointing to risks such as rising seas and desertification. Chances of a deal in Bali have risen sharply after UN reports this year blamed human activities, led by use of fossil fuels, for a changing climate set to bring ever more severe heat waves, droughts, erosion, melting glaciers and rising seas. And President George W. Bush, a Kyoto opponent, agreed in June with his industrial allies on a need for "substantial cuts" in greenhouse gas emissions. It is unclear exactly what "substantial" means for Washington. The European Union, Japan and Canada have all talked about a need to halve world emissions by 2050 to slow warming. Many nations want a "Bali road map" agreed in Indonesia -- a two-year plan to work out a deal to succeed Kyoto, which obliges 35 industrial nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. A road map could include principles that a deal should include major emitters, that it should not undermine economic growth in developing nations and that rich nations should take the lead, delegates say. Even though there are five years left until 2012, many experts say time is already running short. Anyone planning to build a coal-fired power plant, or to invest in carbon markets, wants to know the long-term rules.

But people can have an impact, experts say, both by how they spend their money and how they spend their time. Mary Weathers Case, for instance, chose to offset the carbon cost of a cross-country plane trip for her family through the site Gold Standard. Case, a psychiatrist who lives in South Salem, New York, with her husband and two children, said she had been reading and watching more news about climate change during the pandemic and had been motivated to do her part after hearing about the searing temperatures in the West. What surprised her, though, was that after spending $3,000 on plane tickets to Portland, Oregon, she could offset that carbon for $150. “I was surprised that it was so cheap,” Case said. Buying carbon offsets for a plane trip is one way to reduce your environmental impact. But people can allocate their money in other ways, both big and small, that reduce their contribution to climate change. Take how you invest. With certain investments — namely, those that reduce or remove carbon from the atmosphere — there are defined ways to measure their environmental impact. With others, like water conservation, the metrics are not as clear because there is not an agreed-upon unit to measure. “The improvement in measurement is growing by leaps and bounds,” said Sir Ronald Cohen, an early venture capitalist and the author of the book “Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change.” He advocates using what are called impact-weighted accounts, an initiative led by Harvard Business School, to evaluate a company’s positive and negative impact on the environment. By this measure, he has written, airlines like Lufthansa and American Airlines have an environmental impact that makes both companies unprofitable. Yet he is also open to a less-bad approach. People invested in fossil fuel companies should consider that Exxon Mobil caused $39 billion in environmental damage from its carbon impact, according to Harvard Business School estimates, while BP caused $14 billion in damage. It is like deciding which energy bar is better for you to eat: Those that have less sugar have a better health impact. “It’s where the world is heading,” Ronald said. “You can buy the products of the company whose values you share.” Individuals can make other environmentally conscious choices as well, beyond carbon offsets or investing in cleaner energy. When Leah Weinberg, owner and creative director of Color Pop Events, which plans weddings, was moving from Long Island City, New York, to Forest Hills in Queens, she found a company that had done away with cardboard boxes. Instead, the company, Movers, Not Shakers, provides the plastic, flip-top boxes that retailers like CVS use to deliver products to stores. Weinberg said that it had cost the same as another estimate from a moving company but that she and her husband, Marc, felt better about not having scores of cardboard boxes to recycle. “I think it was easier because the boxes are hard plastic, so they’re built to stack, and you don’t have to worry about the handles coming off,” she said. Mark Ehrhardt, the company’s founder, said the mover had decided to emphasise its environmental consciousness to distinguish itself from competitors. The company does about 4,000 moves a year within the five boroughs of New York. Those moves save 160 tons of cardboard, he estimated. His trucks are also powered by biodiesel. This ethos can be woven into however people spend their money. Paul Greenberg, whose new book is “The Climate Diet: 50 Simple Ways to Trim Your Carbon Diet,” said continuing to work from home at least a few days a week was one significant way to reduce the carbon emissions from driving a car. But such decisions are not always so straightforward. Take buying clothes. A shirt made with a synthetic material, like polyester, which is derived from petrochemicals, is more carbon-intensive than a cotton shirt. But that cotton shirt requires huge amounts of water to produce — more water than a person drinks in a year, Greenberg’s research found. His recommendation? Consider buying used clothing. Some choices are harder than others. Dogs and cats may be beloved companions, but they are carnivores that are bad for the environment. “If you had a choice between a carnivorous dog and a guinea pig that eats seeds,” Greenberg said, “go with the guinea pig.” The real beasts, though, are free-standing homes. To reduce their carbon footprint, people can look for electricity providers that get their power from solar and wind. Once the electricity coming into the home is clean, Greenberg said, people can switch to electric appliances. He replaced his gas stove with an electric induction stove. Solar panels have grown in popularity as their costs have fallen and their efficiency has increased. Milton Ross, who has owned a brownstone in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighbourhood since 1979, no longer has an electric bill because of the panels he had installed on his roof. “My system back in 2015 was around $30,000,” Ross said. “My neighbours don’t do it because of the cost. I used my home equity line of credit, and I could claim the interest as a tax deduction. It just made sense to me. Meanwhile, everything is all paid back, and I don’t have an electric bill anymore.” He has also replaced two gas-fired water heaters with an electric heat pump water heater, which cost him several thousand dollars to buy and have installed. “These things pay for themselves down the road,” he said. Brooklyn Solar Works, which installed Ross’ array, said it had put in place more than 1,000 sets of solar panels in New York City. On average, federal, state and city incentives cover about 60% of the cost, which ranges from $28,000 to $40,000. For most homes, the remaining amount is paid off in electricity savings over about eight years, said TR Ludwig, the company’s founder. He said most of his company’s systems offset about 10,000 pounds of carbon each year and produce about 7,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, about one-quarter of what a family of four would use in a year. “The limiting factor is, real estate is so constrained here,” he said. A suburban home usually has more roof space or a yard for a solar array. Case said her experience buying carbon offsets for a plane trip had led her to research how to reduce her household’s carbon emissions. She consulted the website of a company called Wren, which asks a series of questions — how big is your house, how many cars do you have, how often to you order online — to determine how much carbon her household emitted. “Right now, we don’t look so good,” Case said. “We have two cars. We live in a house. I got into the habit in the pandemic of ordering everything through Amazon.” Still, even with an above-average rating for carbon emissions, she said, the offset costs only $35 a month. Greenberg said some things mattered more than others. Using paper straws and LED light bulbs is not a huge way to reduce your carbon footprint. But steering clear of bottled water does help, since it takes 17 million barrels of oil to produce the world’s plastic water bottles each year. “It’s always good to do something rather than nothing,” he said. “The problem is, sometimes we’re doing a lot of self-soothing when we buy some LED light bulbs. The real beast in our home lies beyond light bulbs.” Case said she would feel better when she and her family moved to Brooklyn this summer and got rid of one car and started walking more in their neighbourhood. She is also committed to buying things locally and not ordering them online. “A lot of people tell me it doesn’t matter, that it’s too late,” she said. “That might be true. But I still think there’s value to doing the right thing.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the summer within 20 years, raising sea levels and harming wildlife such as seals and polar bears, a leading British polar scientist said on Thursday. Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge, said much of the melting will take place within a decade, although the winter ice will stay for hundreds of years. The changes will mean the top of the Earth will appear blue rather than white when photographed from space and ships will have a new sea route north of Russia. Scientists say evidence of melting Arctic ice is one of the clearest signs of global warming and it should send a warning to world leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December for UN talks on a new climate treaty. "The data supports the new consensus view -- based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition -- that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years," Wadhams said in a statement. "Much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years." Wadhams, one of the world's leading experts on sea ice cover in the North Pole region, compared ice thickness measurements taken by a Royal Navy submarine in 2007 with evidence gathered by the British explorer Pen Hadow earlier this year. Hadow and his team on the Catlin Arctic Survey drilled 1,500 holes to gather evidence during a 450km (280 miles) walk across the Arctic. They found the average thickness of ice-floes was 1.8 metres, a depth considered too thin to survive the summer's ice melt. Sometimes referred to as the Earth's air-conditioner, the Arctic Sea plays a vital role in the world's climate. As Arctic ice melts in summer, it exposes the darker-coloured ocean water, which absorbs sunlight instead of reflecting it, accelerating the effect of global warming. Dr Martin Sommerkorn, from the environmental charity WWF's Arctic programme, which worked on the survey, said the predicted loss of ice could have wide-reaching affects around the world. "The Arctic Sea ice holds a central position in our Earth's climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world," he said. "This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions .... and extreme global weather changes." Britain's Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the research "sets out the stark realities of climate change". "This further strengthens the case for an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen," he added.

India must ban incandescent light bulbs in favour of more energy efficient light sources, environmental group Greenpeace said on Monday, adding the ban would cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by four percent. Currently contributing to around three percent of total global emissions, India is already amongst the world's top five polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Experts say the populous Asian nation's carbon emissions, like those of China, are set to rise steeply due to its rapid economic development. "With India's growing population and ambitious economic plans, carbon emissions will rise to three times more than current levels by 2050," K. Srinivas, Greenpeace's climate change campaigner, told a news conference. "It is therefore essential that India looks at becoming more energy efficient. And one way of doing this is through replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights or CFLs which use much less energy and will cut emissions by four percent." Experts say unchecked greenhouse gas emissions could see temperatures rising between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) in the 21st century. The Indian subcontinent is expected to be one of the most seriously affected regions in the world by global warming, which will mean more frequent and more severe natural disasters such as floods and droughts, more disease and more hunger. Srinivas said CFLs -- although eight times more expensive than the yellow incandescent bulbs that have been in use virtually unchanged for 125 years -- use 80 percent less energy and would save households and industries money. Approximately 20 percent of electricity generated in India is consumed by lighting, he said, adding that switching to CFLs would also help address the country's growing power needs. In February, Australia announced it would be the first country to ban the light bulbs, saying they would be phased out within three years. However, there are concerns about the mercury content in CFLs by environmentalists, who say disposing of them could present serious health risks due to the toxicity of the heavy metal. Global demand for CFLs remains relatively low, accounting for only 10 percent of the world's market share in light sources. India uses 640 million incandescent light bulbs every year compared to 12 million CFLs, Greenpeace said.

SINGAPORE, Jul 11, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Rising seas, a rapid weakening of the Indian monsoon and spiralling costs of adapting to a warmer, drier world are just some of the looming risks from rapid climate change, a report for the Australian government says. The report, "Climate change 2009, faster change and more serious risks", examines the rapid progress of climate change science in recent years and the growing threats that face billions of people around the planet. Rising temperatures, drought and long-term drying out of farmlands in Australia, Africa, the United States, acidifying oceans and rapid switches in weather patterns all threaten to undermine societies and cost billions in damage. "Part of the reason for suggesting that the risks are higher than we thought is that the climate system appears to be changing faster than we thought likely a decade ago," the report's author Will Steffen told Reuters on Friday from Canberra, Australia. The report was written for the Department of Climate Change and comes five months before a major U.N. meeting that aims to seal a broader pact to fight global warming. (The report is available here) Many scientists have revised upwards their projections for the pace of global warming since United Nation's Climate Panel issued a major report in 2007, underscoring the increased focus on understanding the risks from climate change. Steffen, executive director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University, said drought and long-term drying out of farmlands and water catchment areas will likely cause costs to spiral as societies try to adapt. "I think there are risks that are potentially more important. One is drought and drying risk and not just in Australia but in other parts of the world where that appears to be linked to climate change. That's going to affect water resources, it's affecting it now," he said. He said there was now evidence of climate change being linked to the drying trends in major agricultural regions of Victoria state and southern South Australia. Evidence was much stronger for the grain-growing area of south-west of Western Australia. SEA LEVEL Sea level was less of a risk in the medium-term. "Whereas sea level rise, unless there is a really fast, catastrophic event in West Antarctica, we're not going to see huge changes till the second half of the century at least," he said referring to a major collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Potentially greater threats were abrupt changes to the ocean and atmosphere that led to irreversible switches in weather or ocean patterns, so-called "tipping points". "An example is the Indian monsoon. According to some models, that could switch into a drier mode in a matter of years," he said. More than a billion people in South Asia rely on the monsoon for agriculture and water supplies. Steffen pointed to the accumulation of carbon-dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming, in the atmosphere that is now near the upper range of scenarios by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2007 report. Sea level rise of more than 3 millimetres per year was also tracking near the upper range of the panel's projections. The rate at which global ocean temperatures have been rising had also been revised up by 15 percent, he said. "I think the reports coming out at various fora are clear the system seems to moving at the upper range of IPCC projections," he said. "That in itself is a major change in thinking. What it says is there's a sense of urgency to getting on top of this issue."

This study revealed that nerve cells existing deep inside the brains of quails, called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-contacting neurons, respond directly to light.These neurons are involved in detecting the arrival of spring and thus regulate breeding activities in birds."The mechanism of seasonal reproduction has been the focus of extensive studies, which is regulated by photoperiod," said Takashi Yoshimura from the University of Nagoya in Japan."Small mammals and birds tend to breed during the spring and summer when the climate is warm and when there is sufficient food to feed their young offspring," he noted.Light sensitive cell hidden deep in the brains of birds, responds directly to light and regulates photo biological functions.The study was published online in the journal Current Biology.

Perhaps most striking is the warning about large productivity losses already being experienced due to heat stress, which can already be calculated for 43 countries. The paper estimates that in South-East Asia alone “as much as 15% to 20% of annual work hours may already be lost in heat-exposed jobs”. And that figure may double by 2030 as the planet continues warming − with poor manual labourers who work outdoors being the worst affected. The release of the papers on July 19 coincided with the start of a conference on disaster risk reduction, held in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and jointly sponsored by the International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) and the UN Development Programme. The aim was to alert delegates to the already pressing scale of the problem and the need to take measures to protect the health of people, and to outline the economic costs of not taking action. Substantial health risks In an introduction to the six-paper collection, UNU-IIGH research fellows Jamal Hisham Hashim and José Siri write that humanity faces “substantial health risks from the degradation of the natural life support systems which are critical for human survival. It has become increasingly apparent that actions to mitigate environmental change have powerful co-benefits for health.” The author of the paper on heat stress, Tord Kjellstrom, director of the New Zealand-based Health and Environment International Trust, says: “Current climate conditions in tropical and subtropical parts of the world are already so hot during the hot seasons that occupational health effects occur and work capacity for many people is affected.” The worst area for this is problem is South-East Asia, with Malaysia being typical. In 2010, the country was already losing 2.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) because of people slowing or stopping work because of the heat. By 2030, this will rise to 5.9% − knocking $95 billion dollars off the value of the economy. The most susceptible jobs include the lowest paid − heavy labour and low-skill agricultural and manufacturing. Even so, the global economic cost of reduced productivity may be more than US $2 trillion by 2030. India and China are two of the worst affected economies. By 2030, the annual GDP losses could total $450 billion, although mitigation may be made possible by a major shift in working hours, which is among several measures employers will need to take to reduce losses. The list of 47 countries includes many in the hottest parts of the world, but countries in Europe − among them, Germany and the UK − are also on the list, along with the US. One of the side-effects of this increased heat is the demand for cooling, which is placing a major strain on electricity infrastructure. Dr  Kjellstrom notes that the additional energy needed for a single city the size of Bangkok for each 1°C increase of average ambient temperature can be as much as 2,000 MW, which is more than the output of a major power plant. The rising demand for cooling also contributes to warming the world. Air conditioners not only pump heat out directly, the electricity required is typically produced by burning fossil fuels, adding to atmospheric greenhouse gases. People acclimatised to air conditioning also become less heat tolerant, further increasing demand for cooling. But heat stress is only one of the problems addressed by the papers. From 1980 to 2012, roughly 2.1 million people worldwide died as a direct result of nearly 21,000 natural catastrophes, such as floods, mudslides, drought, high winds or fires. The number of people being exposed to disasters has increased dramatically – in cyclone-prone areas, the population has grown in 40 years from 72 million to 121 million. The papers also say: “Disastrously heavy rains can expand insect breeding sites, drive rodents from their burrows, and contaminate freshwater resources, leading to the spread of disease and compromising safe drinking water supplies. “Warmer temperatures often promote the spread of mosquito-borne parasitic and viral diseases by shifting the vectors’ geographic range and shortening the pathogen incubation period. Combination of disasters “Climate change can worsen air quality by triggering fires and dust storms and promoting certain chemical reactions causing respiratory illness and other health problems. They say that central and south China can anticipate the highest number of casualties from this combination of disasters that will befall them as a result of continuing climate change. This knowledge may help to explain why China has been so pro-active in tackling global warning in the last year. The authors underline the fact that fast-rising numbers of people are being exposed to the impacts of climate change, with much of the increase occurring in cities in flood-prone coastal areas or on hills susceptible to mudslides or landslides. Especially vulnerable are people living in poverty, including about one billion in slums. Urban planners, the authors say, can help by designing cities “in ways that enhance health, sustainability, and resilience all at once” – for example, by incorporating better building design, facilitating a shift to renewable energy, and fostering the protection and expansion of tree cover, wetlands and other carbon sinks. The delegates at the conference will be discussing ways to better prepare for and create warning systems to improve disaster response. They will also be recommended to take steps to reduce casualties by enhancing drainage to reduce flood risks and by strengthening healthcare, especially in poor areas.

Vladimir Putin took the oath as Russia's president on Monday with a ringing appeal for unity at the start of a six-year term in which he faces growing dissent, economic problems and bitter political rivalries. Parliament is expected to approve to his ally Dmitry Medvedev, 46, as prime minister on Tuesday, completing a job swap that has left many Russians feeling disenfranchised two decades after the Soviet Union collapsed. Outside the Kremlin's high red walls, riot police prevented protests by rounding up more than 120 people, including men and women in cafes wearing the white ribbons symbolising opposition to Putin, a day after detaining more than 400 during clashes. But in the Kremlin, 2,000 dignitaries applauded Putin's every step down the red carpet into a vast hall with gilded columns, the throne room of tsars, where he was sworn in with his right hand resting on the red-bound Russian constitution. "We will achieve our goals if we are a single, united people, if we hold our fatherland dear, strengthen Russian democracy, constitutional rights and freedoms," Putin said in a five-minute speech after taking the oath for the third time. "I will do all I can to justify the faith of millions of our citizens. I consider it to be the meaning of my whole life and my obligation to serve my fatherland and our people." The Kremlin's bells pealed, and the national anthem blared at the end of a ceremony which was followed by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church blessing Putin and the president taking charge of the nuclear suitcase. Although he has remained Russia's dominant leader for the past four years as prime minister, Putin, 59, has now taken back the formal reins of power he ceded to Medvedev in 2008 after eight years as president. AUTHORITY WEAKENED Putin is returning with his authority weakened by months of protests that have polarised Russia and left the former KGB spy facing a battle to reassert himself or risk being sidelined by the business and political elites whose backing is vital. "We want to, and we will, live in a democratic country," Putin declared, evoking patriotic images of Russia as a great nation and urging people to show a sense of responsibility and national pride to make the country stronger. Putin made no mention of the protest movement in his speech and no promises of political reform in a series of decrees he signed after the ceremony, most of them focused on economic goals and efforts to improve living standards. Despite his pledge, riot police, nervous after battling protesters at an anti-Putin rally on Sunday, cracked down on the slightest sign of dissent on the streets of central Moscow, many of which were almost empty. At least 22 protesters were led away when a crowd of more than 100 started shouting "Russia without Putin" near two luxury hotels 500 metres (yards) from the Kremlin. "This shows that Putin is scared of dissatisfied citizens. Although there are not so many of us, there are not so few either," said 18-year-old student Pavel Kopilkov. Dozens of others were detained by police on a boulevard near the route of Putin's motorcade to the ceremony, including some who had been sitting outside a French bistro wearing the white ribbon of protest on their jackets and coats. A Reuters correspondent saw tables and chairs being overturned as the people were hauled away. "This is shameful. This is not how you celebrate a holiday - this is how you celebrate seizing power," liberal opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said shortly before he was detained. Moscow police said a total of 120 had been detained for staging unsanctioned pickets and most would soon be released, but several more people were detained trying to protest after police gave that number. In Putin's hometown of St Petersburg, police detained a few protesters in a crowd of dozens on the central Palace Square. PUTIN UNDER PRESSURE Although the protests, sparked by allegations of electoral fraud, had lost momentum before Sunday's rally, they have given birth to a civil society that will press on with attempts to undermine Putin's authority by contesting local elections. Many of the protesters are angry that Putin is extending his 12-year domination of Russia and fear he will stifle political and economic reform in his third term as president. He is under pressure to show he can adapt to the new political landscape. Few think he has changed much, if at all. He has eased up on the choreographed macho antics that long burnished his image in Russia, such as riding horseback barechested and shooting a tiger with a tranquiliser gun. Harder to shake off will be his habit of seeking total control, as political rivals begin to gain status and a rising middle class demands more political freedom. He has to quell rivalries between liberals and conservatives battling for positions in the new cabinet under Medvedev, who is swapping jobs with Putin. The outcome of the struggle could help determine how far reforms go to improve the investment climate. The $1.9 trillion economy is in better shape than that of most European countries, but is vulnerable to any drop in the price of oil, the main export commodity. The budget is under pressure from Putin's lavish pre-election spending promises. Putin has said he wants to attract more foreign investment by improving the business climate, reduce corruption and red tape, and end Russia's heavy dependence on energy exports. He called for the creation of a "new economy" in the speech and reiterated those goals in economic decrees signed on Monday, but critics say he has had plenty of time to tackle the persistent problems in his years in power. He set out aims on a range of issues in other decrees, from higher wages for teachers and other state workers to better weapons for the military and a decrease in Russia's death rate. As in the past, he is likely to use tough anti-Western rhetoric on foreign policy to drum up support if times get tough in Russia. But he never yielded his strong influence over foreign policy as premier, so a major policy shift is unlikely. Putin struck familiar chords in a decree on foreign policy, emphasising opposition to interferece in the internal affairs of sovereign states and saying Moscow wants "strategic" ties with the United States but will not tolerate meddling.

Wealthy nations are under ever-greater pressure to deliver on an unmet pledge, made in 2009, to send $100 billion a year to help finance an adequate response by developing countries to rising global temperatures as the world prepares for COP26. "This $100 billion that the advanced economies are talking about actually for innovation in climate finance, you know, it's a drop in the ocean," KV Subramanian told Reuters. "I think their commitment needs to be much greater." Even though India has not yet committed to a net-zero emission target year, Asia's third largest economy will keep adding renewables to its energy mix and push industries to see the benefit of using cleaner fuels, he said. Subramanian said the government was creating incentives for firms to pursue cleaner energy, without which net zero is just "talk without actually the actions happening." COAL FIRED PLANTS India has installed over 100 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy, which accounts for over 25% of its overall capacity. The energy hungry nation plans to increase its green energy capacity to 450 GW by 2030. India will do everything that is necessary to attain average annual economic growth of over 7 percent and coal fired plants will be part of the mix, he said. India is the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the United States and thus is vital in the fight against climate change, currently focused on reaching global net zero emissions by mid century or thereabouts. The COP26 summit is seen as a crucial chance to wring out ambitious enough commitments from governments to stop global warming spiralling beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius - the limit that scientists say would avoid the worst impacts of climate change. China has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060 while US President Joe Biden has promised to cut US emissions 50 percent to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Earlier this year Reuters, citing sources, reported that India was unlikely to bind itself to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goal by 2050.

Industrialised nations have broken promises to alleviate poverty and provide better health and education, leading to the deaths of millions of people in poorer nations, Oxfam International said on Thursday. Group of Eight (G8) nations had fallen far short of meeting a $50 billion funding pledge made at a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland two years ago, said Oxfam, an independent group that works to fight poverty. "In the past two years, overall progress has fallen far short of promises. The cost of this inaction is millions of lives lost due to poverty," Oxfam said in a report ahead of a meeting of G8 leaders in the German resort of Heiligendamm. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States at the June 6-8 summit, which will focus on climate change, African poverty and economic cooperation. Oxfam said that promises made at the summit in Scotland to increase international aid by $50 billion by 2010 could fall $30 billion short if the current rate of donations continued. Industrialised nations were also failing to provide the billions of dollars needed by poor countries to help them adapt to the challenges of climate change. "They are providing just a few million and diverting these small amounts from existing aid budgets," the statement said. Germany should use the summit to push for further debt cancellation for poor countries and more HIV/AIDS medication for women and children, Oxfam said.

The small Himalayan state of Sikkim on India's border with Tibet was declared fully organic in 2016 after phasing out chemical fertilisers and pesticides and substituting them with sustainable alternatives. Sikkim's experience shows that "100 percent organic is no longer a pipe dream but a reality," said Maria-Helena Semedo, deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which co-organises the Future Policy Awards. The awards have previously honoured policies combating desertification, violence against women and girls, nuclear weapons and pollution of the oceans. This year's was for agroecology, which includes shunning chemicals, using crop residues as compost, planting trees on farms and rotating crops to improve the soil and protect against pests. Proponents say agroecology could increase farmers' earnings and make farms more resilient to climate change as erratic rainfall and extended dry periods hamper food production. Tourism numbers in Sikkim rose by 50 percent between 2014 and 2017, according to the World Future Council, another co-organiser. "Sikkim sets an excellent example of how other countries worldwide can successfully upscale agroecology," said Alexandra Wandel, director of the World Future Council. "We urgently need to shift to more sustainable food systems. Agroecology is absolutely vital to make our food systems sustainable and inclusive," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email. The second prize was split three ways, with Brazil honoured for a policy of buying food for school meals from family farms; Denmark for a successful plan to get people buying more organic food, and Ecuador's capital Quito for boosting urban gardening. The prizes honour "exceptional policies adopted by political leaders who have decided to act, no longer accepting widespread hunger, poverty or environmental degradation," added FAO's Semedo.

Australian climate finance expert Howard Bamsey announced he was stepping down as executive director of the GCF at the end of the four-day meeting in Songdo, South Korea, the GCF said in a statement. The GCF, whose South Korean headquarters opened in 2013 with backing from almost 200 nations, aims to help poor nations cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt their economies to heatwaves, storms and rising seas. But it has been bogged down by disputes between rich and poor nations about how and where to invest. "This has been a very difficult and disappointing board meeting for all of us, but most importantly for those people who are most vulnerable to climate change impacts, and who depend on the activities of the Fund," GCF chair Lennart Baage said in a statement. The meeting had "challenging and difficult discussions between Board members", the GCF said in a statement. A GCF spokesman said Baage declined further comment. The meeting failed to add to its portfolio of 76 projects worth $3.7 billion, which range from promoting rooftop solar energy in India to helping Colombia safeguard wetlands. The fund, which won initial pledges from developing nations totalling $10.3 billion in 2014, including $3 billion from the United States, has been plagued by red tape and suffered last year when Trump said it was a waste of US taxpayer dollars. Trump halted US contributions as part of his decision to quit the 2015 Paris climate agreement. That cut the GCF to $8 billion, since former president Barack Obama had paid $1 billion of the planned $3 billion. The GCF did not give a reason for Bamsey's departure, which was effective immediately, but Baage said he had done an "exceptional job" since taking over in 2016. As part of the Paris agreement, rich nations pledged to raise total climate finance, from both private and public sources, to $100 billion a year by 2020 and to raise it further in the 2020s.

A New Year's eve address by Bongo "reinforced doubts about the president's ability to continue to carry out of the responsibilities of his office," said Lieutenant Kelly Ondo Obiang, who described himself as an officer in the Republican Guard and leader of the self-declared Patriotic Movement of the Defence and Security Forces of Gabon. In a video circulating on social media, Ondo Obiang is seen in a radio studio wearing military fatigues and a green beret as he reads the statement, which was broadcast at around 4:30 a.m. local time (0530 GMT). Two other soldiers with large assault rifles stand behind him. Ondo Obiang said the coup was being carried out against "those who, in a cowardly way, assassinated our young compatriots on the night of August 31, 2016," a reference to deadly violence that erupted after Bongo was declared the winner of a disputed election. A source close to the government said there were gunshots around the national television station, but that the plotters appeared to be a small group of soldiers. A spokesman for the presidency told Reuters he would make a statement shortly. Bongo, 59, was hospitalised in October in Saudi Arabia after suffering a stroke. He has been in Morocco since November to continue treatment. In his speech on New Year's, Bongo acknowledged health problems but said he was recovering. He slurred some of his words and did not move his right arm, but otherwise appeared in decent health. The Bongo family has ruled the oil-producing country for nearly half a century. Bongo has been president since succeeding his father, Omar, who died in 2009. His re-election in 2016 was marred by claims of fraud and violent protest. Bongo won re-election in 2016 by fewer than 6,000 votes, sparking deadly clashes between protesters and police during which the parliament was torched. The European Union said it found anomalies during the election in Bongo’s stronghold province of Haut-Ogooue, where he won 95 percent on a 99.9 percent turnout.

Rivers in some of the world's most populated regions are losing water, many because of climate change, researchers reported on Tuesday. Affected rivers include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado in the southwestern United States. When added to the effects from damming, irrigation and other water use, these changes could add up to a threat to future supplies of food and water, the researchers reported in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate. "Reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world, especially with more demand for water as population increases," Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study, said in a statement. "Freshwater being a vital resource, the downward trends are a great concern." Dai's team looked at records of river flow in 925 big rivers from 1948 to 2004, finding significant changes in about a third of the world's largest rivers. Rivers with decreased flow outnumbered those with increased flow by 2.5 to 1, they said. For instance, annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about 6 percent, or 526 cubic kilometers -- about the equivalent volume of water that flows out of the Mississippi River each year. Annual river flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about 3 percent during the 56-year period, or 140 cubic kilometers. The Columbia River in the U.S. Northwest lost about 14 percent of its volume from 1948 to 2004, largely because of reduced precipitation and higher water usage in the West, Dai's team said. But the Mississippi River drains 22 percent more water because of increased precipitation across the U.S. Midwest since 1948, they said. Annual discharge from melting ice into the Arctic Ocean also rose about 10 percent, or 460 cubic kilometers. "Also, there is evidence that the rapid warming since the 1970s has caused an earlier onset of spring that induces earlier snowmelt and associated peak streamflow in the western United States and New England and earlier breakup of river-ice in Russian Arctic rivers and many Canadian rivers," the researchers wrote. "As climate change inevitably continues in coming decades, we are likely to see greater impacts on many rivers and water resources that society has come to rely on," said NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, who worked on the study.

It's US National Bike to Work Day on Friday and Americans are facing record high gasoline prices, but most commuters will stick to their cars. The combination of gas near $4 a gallon and the annual campaign to get people to pedal to work may prompt a few more people than usual to commute on two wheels. But the majority won't consider the bicycle as a regular means of transport because they simply have too far to go and feel nervous about riding on traffic-choked streets, bicycling advocates and dedicated motorists say. "It's never just a matter of picking up a few things you could carry on your bike," said Crystal Kelson, 33, a nurse and mother from North Philadelphia. "You need a car." Kelson said there was no real alternative to her Dodge Charger -- which now costs her $65 a week in gasoline -- even for short trips to the supermarket. According to the National Sporting Goods Association, the number of Americans who bike "frequently" -- 110 days a year or more -- fell almost 10 percent in 2007 to 3.7 million people. Similarly, the number of people who ride bikes at least six times a year fell to 35.6 million in 2006, the lowest since the survey began in 1984, from 56.3 million in 1995. Thomas Doyle, vice president of information and research at the association, said the decline was probably due to the aging population, reluctance by parents to allow children to ride bikes and more children using wheeled toys such as scooters and skateboards. The proportion of personal trips made by bike is less than 1 percent, according to the League of American Bicyclists, a Washington-based advocacy group. That compares with 27 percent in the Netherlands and 18 percent in Denmark, both of which have networks of bike-only paths, bike lanes and calm streets where people of all ages can feel safe riding. SIGNS OF A TURNAROUND Still, American bicycle advocates said there are signs the trend could be reversed, prompted most recently by gas prices, and by concerns over climate change, air pollution, energy security and personal health. "All the indications are that people are looking at cycling and other transportation alternatives, and gas prices are pushing them to do that," said Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists. Some American cities including Portland, Oregon, and Washington have higher rates of bike use than the national average thanks to bike-friendly infrastructure. In Philadelphia, the jump in gas prices has become the "tipping point" for getting more people on their bikes, said Alex Doty, director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. He said bike use in the city rose 25 percent in 2007 and is up 6 percent this year, but only 1.4 percent of personal trips in Philadelphia are made by bike, compared with 30 percent in Amsterdam. Jesse Gould, a salesman at Assenmacher's Cycling Center in Flint, Michigan, said more people are buying bikes for commuting. "Gas prices give them a kick, but the big thing that makes them start riding to work is that they see their friends doing it," Gould said. Edgar Gil bikes seven miles to work in Washington from his home in Arlington, Virginia, every day. He will be making the trip -- about 60 percent of which is on traffic-free bike paths -- on Bike to Work Day to show seven coworkers how he does it. Gil, 35, said biking saves about $100 a month in bus fares, and, despite the traffic and pollution, he simply likes to ride. "You enjoy it more, you get to work relaxed," he said. "You have a better day." Catherine Williams, a retiree, filled her Cadillac with $3.77 gasoline at a BP station in North Philadelphia for a 50-mile (80-km) roundtrip to the doctor's office. She said she uses public transportation when she can, but wouldn't feel safe on a bike. "This is the U.S. and people will kill you out there riding your bike," she said. "I would not take my life in my hands and ride a bike."

With just two weeks left in the campaign, Trump does not hold an edge on any of the most pressing issues at stake in the election, leaving him with little room for a political recovery absent a calamitous misstep by Biden, the Democratic nominee, in the coming days. The president has even lost his longstanding advantage on economic matters: Voters are now evenly split on whether they have more trust in him or Biden to manage the economy. On all other subjects tested in the poll, voters preferred Biden over Trump by modest or wide margins. Biden, the former vice president, is favoured over Trump to lead on the coronavirus pandemic by 12 points, and voters trust Biden over Trump to choose Supreme Court justices and to maintain law and order by 6-point margins. Americans see Biden as more capable of uniting the country by nearly 20 points. Overall, Biden is backed by 50% of likely voters, the poll showed, compared with 41% for Trump and 3% divided among other candidates. Most of all, the survey makes clear that crucial constituencies are poised to reject Trump because they cannot abide his conduct, including 56% of women and 53% of white voters with college degrees who said they had a very unfavourable impression of Trump — an extraordinary level of antipathy toward an incumbent president. His diminished standing on economic matters and law and order is a damaging setback for the president, who for much of the general election has staked his fortunes on persuading Americans that a Biden administration will leave them impoverished and unsafe. But that argument has not managed to move the electorate in his direction. Nor, according to the poll, have Trump’s efforts to tarnish Biden’s personal image and make him unacceptable to swing voters. Fifty-three percent of voters said they viewed Biden in somewhat or very favourable terms, compared with 43% who said the same of Trump. A majority of voters said they saw Trump unfavorably, with 48% viewing him very unfavourably. The margin of sampling error for the poll, which was conducted from Oct. 15 to 18, was 3.4 percentage points. Part of the shift away from Trump on the economy may stem from voters’ urgent hunger for new relief spending from the federal government — which Trump has nominally endorsed but which he has not sought actively to extract from congressional Republicans. Seven in 10 voters, including more than half of Republicans, said they wanted to see a new multitrillion-dollar stimulus program that includes government support for citizens and emergency help for state and local governments. There is also widespread public support for a $2 trillion renewable energy and infrastructure package that Biden has proposed as a form of economic stimulus. Michael Zemaitis, an independent voter in Minnesota, said that he did not have complete confidence in Biden but that he saw him as a clearly superior option to Trump when it came to the pandemic and the economy. “I guess I would say I have 70% confidence in him,” said Zemaitis, 49, who said he believed a Democratic administration would better handle the coronavirus pandemic. “Once that is dealt with, the economy will fall back into line.” Voters have also been unpersuaded by Trump’s insistence, in defiance of public facts, that the coronavirus is receding as a problem. A slim majority of voters said they believed that the worst of the pandemic was yet to come, compared with 37% who said the worst was over. But many voters also seem to be separating their personal well-being from their views on the state of the country. About half said that they were personally better off than they were four years ago, compared with 32% who said they were worse off. However, a clear majority of voters — 55% — said the country as a whole was doing worse than in 2016. Trump retains a few important bastions of support, most notably among white voters without college degrees, who continue to favor him over Biden by 23 percentage points. But that lead is far narrower than the advantage Trump held among less-educated whites in 2016, when those voters preferred him over Hillary Clinton by 37 points. Biden is on track to win with the overwhelming support of women, people of color and whites with college degrees. If women alone voted, the election would be a landslide of epic proportions: Biden is ahead of Trump among female voters by 23 points, 58% to 35%. And unlike four years ago, the Democratic nominee is leading Trump among white women by a formidable margin, 52% to 43%. Kathryn Jorgensen, 51, a registered Republican in Brookfield, Wisconsin, said that she did not vote for Trump in 2016 and would not do so this year. Trump, she said, has been “so divisive” throughout his tenure as president. “The important thing is bringing the country back together and addressing the divisions affecting people like racial equity,” Jorgensen said. A rare spot of welcome news for Republicans came on the subject of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court: While more voters said they would like to see Biden choose future justices, rather than Trump, a plurality of voters also said that the Senate should vote on Barrett’s nomination before the election. Voters were about evenly split on Barrett as a nominee, indicating that the Supreme Court fight had not given a clear electoral advantage to either party. But a sizable number of voters — about 1 in 7 — gave no opinion, suggesting the court fight had not become an all-consuming issue. Forty-four percent of voters supported Barrett’s nomination, 42% opposed it, and the remainder declined to take a position. If Biden win the election, it remains to be seen whether he will be a compelling enough president to meld a broad array of anti-Trump constituencies into a sturdy governing alliance. Cassandra Williams, 21, of Greenville, North Carolina, said she saw Biden as a flawed candidate who might nevertheless be sufficient for the moment. A college student majoring in chemistry, Williams said she hoped he would focus on the coronavirus and climate change at the outset of his presidency. “If his opponent wasn’t President Trump, he would be a subpar candidate,” said Williams, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Democratic primary race. The poll shows that Trump is facing widespread rebuke because he has not met the great challenge of his presidency. Voters remain deeply concerned about the virus, with 51% of those sampled saying they feared the worst of COVID-19 was still to come, and just 37% saying they believed the worst was over. Among voters over 65, a bloc that has drifted away from Trump, the difference was even starker: Fifty-six percent said they worried the worst was still to come, and only 29% said the opposite. Even more striking was the disconnect between Trump’s cavalier approach toward wearing a mask to guard against the virus and the broad support to mandate the practice in public. Voters supported mandatory mask-wearing, 59% to 39% overall, and among women support for a mandate grew to 70%. Among voters over 65, 68% favoured it, and even about 30% of Republicans said they backed a nationwide requirement. There was also hesitation on taking an eventual vaccine for the coronavirus, with 33% saying they would definitely or probably not take a vaccine after it was approved by the FDA. Biden, if he wins, will find consensus on some of his policy priorities. Two in three voters supported allowing people to buy a health insurance plan through the federal government, a so-called public option, and the same supermajority backed Biden’s $2 trillion plan to increase the use of renewable energy and build energy-efficient infrastructure. Even more voters, 72%, said they backed the sort of package House Democrats have been seeking for months to send to Trump: a $2 trillion stimulus package that would extend increased unemployment insurance, send stimulus checks to most Americans and provide financial support to state and local governments. In a sign of how broad the support is for additional relief, and the risk congressional Republicans may be taking if they block further spending, even 56% of Republicans said they backed another $2 trillion package. What may prove riskier for Biden and his party, though, is the issue that he has for weeks sought to avoid staking out a clear position on: adding more justices to the Supreme Court. The poll showed that 58% of voters said Democrats should not expand the court beyond nine justices, and 31% said they should. Opposition was even firmer among independents: Sixty-five percent of them said they were against enlarging the court. ©2020 The New York Times Company

The ragpicker of Brooklyn sews in the back, behind a makeshift wall sprouting a riot of scraps. Under the pattern-cutting table there are bins of scraps of scraps, sorted by color (red and yellow and blue and black), and on one wall are shelves of Mason jars containing gumball-size scraps of scraps of scraps; up front are clothing rails and a dressing room canopied by a lavish waterfall of castoff cuttings that flows down onto the floor like a Gaudí sandcastle. The ragpicker of Brooklyn, whose name is Daniel Silverstein and whose nom de style is Zero Waste Daniel, looks like a fashion kid, which he is (or was). He is 30 and tends to dress all in black, with a black knit cap on his head; went to the Fashion Institute of Technology; interned at Carolina Herrera; and even was on a fashion reality TV show. And the ragpicker of Brooklyn would rather not be called that at all. “I prefer to think of it as Rumpelstiltskin, spinning straw into gold,” Silverstein said one day in early November. He was on West 35th Street, in the garment district, with his partner and husband, Mario DeMarco (also all in black). They were hauling home sacks of cuttings from their own production run at HD Fashion, which also makes clothes for Rag & Bone and Donna Karan’s Urban Zen line. Silverstein’s straw is more formally known as pre-consumer, postproduction waste, which is a fancy way of saying he works with the fabrics that other designers and costume departments and factories would normally throw out. His gold is streetwear: sweatshirts, pants, T-shirts and the occasional anorak, collaged together from rolls of old fabric, mostly black and gray, often containing brightly colored geometric patchwork inserts of smaller, brighter bits, like an exclamation point or an Easter egg. Those patchwork inserts have been put together from the castoffs of the bigger pieces, and then the castoffs from the inserts are saved and pieced together into mosaic appliqués (the hands from the Sistine Chapel and Earth as seen from above, for example). The appliqués can be custom-made and attached to any piece. Leftovers, all the way. As fashion comes to grips with its own culpability in the climate crisis, the concept of upcycling — whether remaking old clothes, reengineering used fabric or simply using what would otherwise be tossed into landfill — has begun to trickle out to many layers of the fashion world. That includes the high end — via the work of designers like Marine Serre, Emily Bode and Gabriela Hearst as well as brands like Hermès — and the outdoor space, with the Patagonia Worn Wear and Recrafted programs (to name a few). And yet, because there are few economies of scale and even fewer production systems, such clothing remains for many designers an experiment rather than a strategy, and for many consumers, a luxury rather than a choice. Silverstein, whose clothes range from $25 for a patch to $595 for an anorak made from what was a New York City Sanitation Department tent and who works only with fabric that would otherwise be thrown away, is one of several new designers trying to change that. How he got there, with lots of false starts and belly flops, is perhaps as representative as anything of the way fashion may be stumbling toward its future. We make too much, and we buy too much, but that doesn’t have to mean we waste too much. Welcome to the growing world of trashion. Saved by the Dumpster “I came to New York for that fashion dream — what I’d been watching on TV,” Silverstein said a few weeks before his garment district scrap-saving trip. “I wanted that life so badly.” He was sitting in the back of what he calls his “make/shop,” which he and DeMarco renovated in 2017 using materials from Big Reuse, a Brooklyn nonprofit. The make/shop has three sewing machines but no garbage can. Silverstein was born in Pennsylvania, and when he was 10, his parents moved to New Jersey so their fashion-aware son could be closer to New York. Silverstein’s father owned a swimming pool and hot tub supply company, and his mother worked part-time in the business. (She is also a therapist.) As a family, they did some recycling but were not particularly attuned to the environment. Silverstein always knew he wanted to be a designer. When he was 4, he started making clothes for his sister’s Barbies out of tissue paper and tinfoil. By the time he was 14, he was taking weekend classes at FIT and making his friends’ prom dresses. His Damascene moment was more like a series of cold-water splashes. For a senior-year competition for the Clinton Global Initiative, he designed a pair of sustainable jeans, which became his first zero-waste pattern. He didn’t win, but his teacher told him to hold onto the idea. “‘You have something there,’” he recalled the teacher saying. After graduating, he found himself working as a temp at Victoria’s Secret making knitwear. He would scroll through style.com looking at recent runway shows, find a sweater he liked, then create a technical design packet for a similar style for Victoria’s Secret. One of the patterns involved an asymmetric cut with a long triangular piece in front. Because of the irregular shape, the fabric “had an insanely poor yield,” Silverstein said, meaning that only a portion of every yard was used for the garment; almost half was waste. He did the math and realised, he said, “that if this is yielding only 47% per each sweater, and we are cutting 10,000 sweaters, then we are knitting, milling, dying and finishing 5,000 yards of fabric just to throw out.” The next day, he said, he left Victoria’s Secret to focus on a business he and a friend had started based on his zero-waste patterns. They were making classic ready-to-wear — cocktail dresses and suits and such — but with no waste left on the cutting-room floor. One of their first customers was Jennifer Hudson, who wore a turquoise dress that ended up in the pages of Us Weekly. Stores like Fred Segal in Los Angeles and e-tail sites like Master & Muse picked up the line, which was called 100% (for the amount of fabric used), and Silverstein spent a season on “Fashion Star,” ending his tenure as second runner-up. Still, the economics of fashion, in which stores pay after delivery, were working against him. In 2015, after American Apparel — which had bought Oak NYC, a store that was known for its edgy choices and was one of his wholesale accounts — declared bankruptcy, he was left with $30,000 worth of unpaid orders. He decided to quit. Silverstein got a part-time job helping students get their art portfolios together and, he said, “lay on the couch for a while.” Finally he boxed up his studio and threw all of his leftover fabric in a garbage bag. He was set to haul it to a dumpster, only to have the bag break, spilling its contents onto the floor. “I thought, ‘I can’t throw this out; it’s the antithesis of my mission,’” he said. “So I took the afternoon and made myself a shirt and put it on my Instagram. I had maybe 2,000 followers, and probably the most likes I had ever gotten was 95. I posted this dumb selfie of a shirt I’d made out of my own trash because I was too poor to go shopping, and it instantly got 200 likes. It was the most popular thing I’d ever done.” It occurred to him this may be a better way to go. He made “a bunch of scrappy shirts” and became Zero Waste Daniel, his Instagram name (which he had chosen because Daniel Silverstein was already taken). He rented a booth at a flea market and sold them all. Johnny Wujek, Katy Perry’s stylist, bought one. Chris Anderson — a mentor who ran Dress for Success in Morris County, New Jersey, where Silverstein had interned during high school — said she would back him. His father put in some money, too, as did Tuomo Tiisala, a professor at New York University who saw his work at a market. Silverstein got a small space at Manufacture New York, a group incubator in the Sunset Park neighborhood (it disbanded after a year), and made a deal with a factory that supplied the Marshalls chain to pick up its scraps. Fabric dumping, although less discussed than the clothes consumers throw out, is just as much a byproduct of fashion production and just as culpable in the landfill crisis. Reverse Resources, a group that has created an online marketplace to connect factories and designers who want to reuse their scraps, released a study in 2016 that estimated that the garment industry creates almost enough leftover textile per year to cover the entire republic of Estonia with waste. That was a best-case scenario. Worst case would be enough to cover North Korea. At that stage, Silverstein was mostly making sweatshirts, piecing them together by hand, but, he said, “people started making little videos about my work and putting up posts, and I started getting more orders than I could keep up with.” In 2017, he met DeMarco, who worked in hospitality. This year he joined the business full-time. In many ways, social media has also been their door to a customer base. Just as it creates pressure to buy new stuff, it can create pressure to buy new old stuff. Message vs Money “My freshman year at FIT, one of my teachers said there are good designers and there are great designers,” Silverstein said. “Good designers have careers and see their stuff in stores, and great designers change the way people dress. And, perhaps, think about dress.” He was driving a small U-Haul truck. He had spent the morning with DeMarco in FabScrap, a concrete loft in the erstwhile Army Terminal complex in Sunset Park filled with trash bags and storage boxes bulging at the seams with fabric waste. They were on the hunt for 400 or so yards of random black remnants with some stretch. Silverstein doesn’t ragpick in the 19th-century way (the way that gave birth to the term), sifting through garbage on the streets. He picks through giant boxes and metal shelves of castoff fabric rolls and then sews his finds together to make new rolls. He doesn’t really have seasons or shows by a traditional definition, although he flirts with the idea. In 2018, the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge invited him to do a show for New York Fashion Week, and instead of a runway, he decided to do a one-man stand-up routine called “Sustainable Fashion Is Hilarious,” which was more about concept than clothes. The hotel sold tickets online, and all of the proceeds went to Fashion Revolution, a nonprofit that advocates industry reform. In September, he did the same at the Ace Hotel in Manhattan. Silverstein is planning a performance for February at Arcadia Earth, the climate installation museum in downtown New York, which also sells some of his work. Last year the Sanitation Department came calling. It had done a collaboration with designer Heron Preston and was looking for another partner. While Preston saw the opportunity as a way to elevate the role of the sanitation worker in a one-off show, Silverstein saw it as a great partnership for raw material. The department’s dead-stock T-shirts, tents and tablecloths have proved something of a treasure trove for him. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Silverstein was one of the star companies in an American Express showcase on Small Business Saturday. He is also teaming up with a former mentor at Swimwear Anywhere for a line of bathing suits made in Taiwan, which will be his first foray into offshore production. (The scraps will be sent back along with the trunks and one-pieces, which are made from recycled ocean fishing nets.) Recently Lin-Manuel Miranda wore a Zero Waste Daniel sweatshirt at an Amex event. Drag queen Pattie Gonia wore a long mosaic gown based on Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” at the Tony Awards in June and made Vogue’s best-dressed slideshow, albeit without identification. The company has been profitable for a year, Silverstein said, and ships across the United States as well as to Canada, Britain, Brazil and Germany. Now Silverstein is at another turning point. Does he get bigger? Does he train other ragpickers to do what he does? Does he open another outlet? Does he really get in the game? He is not sure. “I can’t clothe the world, and maybe the world doesn’t need me to,” he said. Maybe the drive to clothe the world is part of what created the problem he is now trying to solve in the first place. “When I think about what I want in terms of brand recognition, I would love to see this brand as a household name. But I think that’s very different than dollars. And I don’t want to be any bigger than I can guarantee it’s a zero-waste product or that I feel happy.” He was gathering pieces for a Freddie Mercury mosaic. “Right now,” he said, surveying his mountain of scraps, “I am so happy.” © 2019 New York Times News Service

Australia promised to press on with its carbon trade plan on Tuesday despite the UN climate summit's failure to set emissions targets, but the Copenhagen outcome has cooled chances an early election on climate policy. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government would consider targets by other countries before finalising domestic targets to curb carbon emissions, blamed for gobal warming. "We have our target range, we will consider what is put forward by the rest of the world under this agreement, and we will do no more and no less," Wong told Australian radio. Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and the developed world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gas per person, and has promised a broad target to curb carbon emissions by between 5 and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020. The accord from the UN climate summit of 193 countries in Copenhagen included no new emissions targets, but agreed that deep cuts were needed to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius. The result is also likely to make it harder for US President Barack Obama to win Congressional support for a cap and trade carbon scheme in the United States. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants carbon trading to start in Australia in July 2011, obliging 1,000 of the biggest companies to buy permits for their carbon emissions and providing a market-based incentive to clean up pollution. But laws to set up the carbon trade scheme have twice been rejected in parliament's upper house, where the opposition has the largest voting bloc, giving Rudd the option of calling an early election on his key climate policy to resolve the deadlock. Rudd plans to re-introduce the carbon trade laws to parliament in February, but the opposition Liberal Party has hardened its stand after electing new leader Tony Abbott, who won the job with the backing of climate sceptics. Abbott has been buoyed by the outcome at Copenhagen, saying the lack of firm emissions targets was a rebuff for Rudd and proved Australia should wait to see what other countries do. EARLY ELECTION COOLS Analyst Rick Kuhn said the results in Copenhagen would now make Rudd cautious about an early election, with the government more likely to wait for a regular poll due in late 2010. "Climate change is now clearly not the issue to go to an early election on. I think for the time being, it is off the agenda," Kuhn, from the Australian National University, told Reuters. Opinion polls continue to show Rudd holds a strong lead and would easily win a fresh election with an increased majority, although analysts expect Abbott's election as opposition leader will see a shift back towards the opposition. Betting agency Centrebet on Tuesday said Abbott's honeymoon period may already be over, with the odds of the government winning the next election narrowing over the past two weeks to $1.19 for a $1 bet from $1.23. Kuhn said Abbott, a blunt speaking social conservative who once studied to become a Catholic priest, would win back votes from traditional Liberal Party supporters, but was unlikely to secure enough support to win an election. "He can play all sorts of right-wing issues, but unless he has some traction on the economic issues, I don't think he is going to get that far," he said.

South Korea's president-elect named the first member of his cabinet on Monday, saying he wants a veteran diplomat and a low-key conservative who is now working on a UN climate change team to be his prime minister. By naming Han Seung-soo as premier, Lee Myung-bak is turning to a proven technocrat who has already served as foreign, finance and commerce minister, to manage the government's policy at home and abroad, analysts said. Prime ministers in South Korea hold little real power but play an important role in coordinating the tasks of various government agencies. Analysts view Han's appointment favourably, seeing him as more of a pragmatist than an ideologue. "At a time like this, the new government will face some economic difficulties," Han said at a news conference. "But if it eases regulations and investment in the private sector becomes active, I think many of these problems can be overcome." Conservative Lee, who takes office Feb. 25, won the Dec. 19 presidential election with pledges to rebuild South Korea's economy and improve ties with the United States and Japan, which had been strained by the current liberal government. Han's appointment needs to be approved by parliament, which is controlled by left-of-centre lawmakers.

Computer models have accurately forecast conditions on Mars and are valid predictors of climate change on Earth, US and French astronomers said on Tuesday. These computer programs predicted Martian glaciers and other features on Earth's planetary neighbor, scientists found. "Some public figures imply that modeling of global climate change on Earth is 'junk science,' but if climate models can explain features observed on other planets, then the models must have at least some validity," lead researcher William Hartmann of the Planetary Science Institute said in a statement. The team's findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's planetary sciences division in Reno, Nevada. Some climate change skeptics, notably US Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, dismiss human-spurred global warming as a hoax. Others accept that Earth's climate is changing, but discount a human cause. Still others, including Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, accept the idea of climate change, but maintain the science is inconclusive. The science of climate change prediction is dependent in part on complex computer models that take into account multiple factors that influence Earth's climate, including the level of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Many such models have forecast the globally averaged temperature will rise by 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) this century if greenhouse emissions continue at current levels. Recent global temperature increases support these predictions. On Monday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that September 2012 was tied for the warmest month on Earth in the modern record, and was the 331st consecutive month above the 20th century average. MODELING MARTIAN SNOWS Hartmann, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said he and his team confirmed the earthly computer models' effectiveness by using them to forecast conditions on Mars. New satellite observations of glaciers, ice flows and other features on the red planet showed that the models' predictions corresponded with what was on the Martian surface, Hartmann said in a telephone interview. One key difference between Earth and Mars is their tilt, he said. Earth's axis is fixed, with very small variations, at 23.5 degrees, held steady by the gravitational pull of our moon. This tilt is responsible for changing seasons as Earth moves through the year, alternately tipping its northern and southern hemispheres toward the sun. Mars lacks a big moon to stabilize its tilt, and its rotational axis can vary as much as 70 degrees toward the sun. When that happens, polar ice evaporates and puts moisture into the Martian atmosphere, which dumps snow, ice and ultimately glaciers in Mars' mid-latitudes. The last time this happened, astronomers say, was between 5 million and 20 million years ago. Factoring in the planet's varying tilt, topography, atmosphere and other information, the climate models forecast specific regions for massive snowfalls, and the remnants of those snowfalls are right there, Hartmann said. So are ice flows and other features, viewed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. "We do have a lot of public figures, in our country particularly, saying that the global climate modeling studies have very little value," Hartmann said. "If the global climate modeling people can run these models on Mars and we actually see things that come out of the model on another planet, then the climate modeling people must be doing something right."

Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the UN panel on climate change that won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore, said on Friday he was overwhelmed by the news. "I can't believe it, overwhelmed, stunned," Pachauri told reporters and co-workers after receiving the news on the phone at his office in New Delhi. "I feel privileged sharing it with someone as distinguished as him," he added, referring to former US Vice President Gore. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this year made the strongest ever link between mankind's activities and global warming -- gaining widespread publicity around the world. "I expect this will bring the subject to the fore," he said.

President George W Bush on Tuesday urged Congress to give his new Iraq plan a chance in his State of the Union speech, saying it is not too late to shape the outcome in Iraq. He also sought to push a domestic agenda, including plans to address climate change, create a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants and expand health care for Americans. Following are some reactions to the speech: SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL, SENATE MINORITY LEADER AND KENTUCKY REPUBLICAN "Americans want to see success in Iraq. We are not a country that shies from challenges. I think the president should be given a chance to carry out his plan for a secure Iraq." SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM, SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN, MEMBER OF SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE "I completely agree with President Bush that the outcome in Iraq is part of the overall war on terror. Success in Iraq with a functioning democratic government will empower moderates throughout the Mideast. Failure in Iraq will lead to regional chaos. SENATOR HARRY REID, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER AND NEVADA DEMOCRAT, NANCY PELOSI, HOUSE SPEAKER AND CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT, IN JOINT STATEMENT "Unfortunately, tonight the president demonstrated he has not listened to Americans' single greatest concern: the war in Iraq. The overwhelming majority of Americans, military leaders, and a bipartisan coalition in Congress oppose the president's plan to escalate the war." "While the president continues to ignore the will of the country, Congress will not ignore this president's failed policy. His plan will receive an up-or-down vote in both the House and the Senate, and we will continue to hold him accountable for changing course in Iraq." SENATOR JOHN KERRY, MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRAT AND 2004 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE "The President missed a golden opportunity tonight to admit that he made a mistake in Iraq and to share with the American people a plan for gradually removing our troops and allowing the Iraqis to solve the political crisis in Iraq." SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY, MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRAT, CHAIRMAN OF SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE: "The President has laid out a vision of comprehensive immigration reform that includes genuine enforcement of immigration laws; creation of an employment program that would meet the needs of our economy; establishment of a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants who have roots in our country; and integration of immigrants into American life through civic education and English language training." "We can agree with the principles the President has put forth and we look forward to working with the administration and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact a comprehensive bill." SENATOR BARACK OBAMA, ILLINOIS DEMOCRAT AND POSSIBLE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE "The President offered some serious proposals tonight on two issues -- energy and health care -- that we all agree must be addressed. But the last election proved that politics-by-slogan and poll-tested sound bites aren't going to cut it with the American people anymore, and that's why the real test of leadership is not what the president said to Congress tonight, but how he works with Congress to find real solutions to the problems we face. ROBERT LIEBER, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY "I thought it was a civil and sober speech in which the president made the case for his Iraq policy as an integral part of a 'generational struggle.'" "He was mainly on foreign policy side making the case for his Iraq strategy and the specific initiatives he referred to -- the main one of course is the increase of 20,000 troops in Iraq now -- and it is an initiative which Congress is, practically speaking, not likely to be able to do anything about even if a majority of members of Congress disagree with that." JON ALTERMAN, DIRECTOR OF MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES "Where I saw something new was on the domestic side, rather than on the foreign policy side. On the foreign policy side he fell into the familiar pattern of 'al Qaeda wants it, it must be bad, and if we want it, then al Qaeda must not want it.' I don't think that's how the world works. Part of the problem is that the president doesn't seem to recognize that some of what alienates people is what we do, and it doesn't just alienate extremists but it alienates people in the middle. KEN WARREN, ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR "Generally I think that he did a pretty good job under the circumstances but his circumstances are so pathetic. He didn't say anything to rally anyone or turn the numbers around for him with the American people. It was old hat stuff. We've heard it all before ... with a Congress not really behind anything he said." JOHN STREMLAU, HEAD OF THE PEACE PROGRAMS AT THE CARTER CENTER "It was all gain and no pain, the rhetoric and reality part company. If I was in a foreign country I would say America is missing in action. He's lost in Iraq and he's bogged down in a domestic salvage operation, trying to do things he should have years ago." CHARLEY RICHARDSON, CO-FOUNDER OF MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT "He says if we leave Iraq it will fall into chaos. I think Iraq is the classic definition of chaos. The idea of putting more US troops into a situation where the presence of US troops is the problem makes absolutely no sense."

In a video posted on Twitter on Saturday, Thunberg said the environmental impact of farming as well as disease outbreaks such as COVID-19, which is believed to have originated from animals, would be reduced by changing how food was produced. "Our relationship with nature is broken. But relationships can change," Thunberg said in the video marking the International Day of Biological Diversity. A focus on agriculture and linking the climate crisis to health pandemics is a new angle for Thunberg who has typically focused her ire on policy-makers and carbon emissions from fossil fuels. "The climate crisis, ecological crisis and health crisis, they are all interlinked," she said. Thunberg said the spillover of diseases from animals to humans was caused by farming methods, adding that a move to a plant-based diet could save up to 8 billion tonnes of CO2 each year. The World Health Organisation has said the coronavirus was probably transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, while scientists say 60percent of the infectious human diseases that emerged from 1990 to 2004 came from animals. Meanwhile, demand for alternatives to regular meat is surging worldwide due to concerns about health, animal welfare and the environment. More than two dozen firms are testing lab-grown fish, beef and chicken, hoping to break into an unproven segment of the alternative meat market, which Barclays estimates could be worth $140 billion by 2029. The Global Center on Adaptation, which works to accelerate climate resilience, said in January climate change could depress global food production by up to 30 percent, while rising seas and more intense storms could force hundreds of millions of people in coastal cities out of their homes.

Four years after Sri Lanka's army crushed the Tamil Tiger guerrilla army and ended a civil war that had lasted nearly three decades, Tamils say they are blatantly repressed in Jaffna, the capital of this Indian Ocean island's northern peninsula.Newspaper printing machines have been burned, former rebels say they face extortion and sexual harassment and army spies keep a close eye on political activity. It all makes ethnic Tamils feel they are still seen as enemies of the state.As a summit of Commonwealth nations opens in Sri Lanka's capital on Friday, the nation is under intense scrutiny after a chorus of warnings from the United Nations and the West that its failure to resolve old enmity means it is losing the peace.President Mahinda Rajapaksa defended his government's human rights record on Thursday, saying Sri Lanka had legal procedures to deal with complaints.He and his government say Sri Lanka is on the path to reconciliation, helped by fast economic growth, and bristle at charges of creeping authoritarianism favouring the Sinhalese majority.But some observers warn that, in the long term, the repressive climate and slow progress towards Tamils' demand for more autonomy risks making Rajapaksa's fears of a resurgence in violence a self-fulfilling prophecy."If it continues to close off avenues of peaceful change, the risks of violent reaction will grow," the International Crisis Group said this week in a report entitled 'Sri Lanka's Potemkin Peace: Democracy Under Fire'.For land activist Somasundaram Sugeerthan, the threat beeped onto his phone one Sunday night. It read: "Hey dog, do you know what will happen to you if you protest? We'll send your body without the head in front of your home."In the morning, he found a cow's skull on the gatepost of his house. Cows are worshipped by ethnic Tamils like Sugeerthan who follow the Hindu religion on the Buddhist-majority island.Sugeerthan believes the threat came from the army, which still occupies 6,400 acres (2,400 hectares) of prime farmland outside Jaffna despite promises to return it to deed holders after the war ended in 2009.Military spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya said the army had released over 25,000 acres since the war and more than half of the land still occupied is used for an airport and port."Even out of that, we are trying to release as much land as possible," he said, branding claims of threats by military agents "false allegations simply to serve one or other agenda".CLIMATE OF FEAR AND SUSPICIONThe war pitted the army against the ruthless Tiger separatists, infamous for popularising the suicide bomb and striking civilian targets. Its bloody stalemate ended after Rajapaksa launched an assault in 2006 that ultimately wiped the rebels out.The United Nations says tens of thousands of civilians died during the assault, mainly due to army shelling but also because many were used by the Tigers as human shields. It has called for an international inquiry into allegations of war crimes in the final months of the conflict.Land is perhaps the most sensitive issue in post-war Sri Lanka. Tamil leaders believe the government has a strategy to give army-occupied land to Sinhala Buddhist settlers to change the demographic mix."The reason is the ethnic percentage range," Sugeerthan said, barefoot and in a white sarong, among a few dozen protesters symbolically fasting under the watchful eye of police and men with cameras whom he suspected were army intelligence. "They want to settle the area with non-Tamil army families."The government denies this, but the army presence and the climate of fear and suspicion in Jaffna spreads mistrust and a belief that the Tamil population is still seen as a threat."We are not insurgents, we want to make peace, we want a settled life like the people of the south," said retired teaching assistant B. Murugesu, who was forced off his land in 1990 and has drifted between half a dozen towns ever since.Peacetime has brought new buildings, smooth roads and gleaming consumer showrooms to Jaffna, a watery peninsula that was cut off from the country and the rest of the world until 2009. But it has not changed attitudes towards many Tamils, especially those with links to the former rebels."It is an occupational army ... everything is being done to repress the rights of the people, take over their lands, take over economic activities," said C.V. Wigneswaran, the newly elected chief minister of the northern province.The airy offices of Uthayan, a leading newspaper in Jaffna, are decorated with gruesome photos of six journalists slain in armed attacks since 2006. The walls are riddled with bullet holes. In April, a group of unknown armed men poured gasoline over the central printing press and set it alight."There is no chance at all for reconciliation, the government is not inclined to seek a solution," said E. Saravanapavan, the owner of the newspaper, which represents the views of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the former political proxy for the Tigers that won the September election.Although the TNA won with a landslide, the new chief minister finds his decisions blocked by the governor, a retired general appointed by Rajapaksa.FORMER FIGHTERS VULNERABLEFormer rebel fighters are especially vulnerable. Viewed with suspicion by the army, even after a government rehabilitation programme, many struggle to find work and are ostracised partly because other Tamils fear harassment for associating with them.They are frequently picked up by intelligence agents and taken into custody. Often money changes hands to stop threats.Human Rights Watch and advocacy group Freedom From Torture have recorded dozens of cases of former fighters now living in Britain who claim they were tortured in custody after the war.Ananthi Sasitharan, the wife of a rebel leader who has been missing since he surrendered at the climax of the war, said women whose husbands disappeared or were killed at that time are sometimes coerced into having sex with army officers.No victim of sexual violence was willing to meet Reuters for this story, citing fears of social stigma and reprisals.One ex-rebel glanced nervously out a window as he recounted how he had been ordered to visit a local military base several times in the last year, and was forced each time to pay bribes.Soldiers in civilian dress he recognises from the base also regularly visit his corner store to demand small payments. He said he had paid a total of $35,000 to soldiers since being released from jail in 2011.Wigneswaran, the new chief minister, says that - so long after the war - there is no need for a robust military presence, and worries about where it will lead."If you allow this to happen it will definitely lead to some form of violence in the future," he said.

HANOI, Tue May 26, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Asian and European foreign ministers condemned North Korea's nuclear test on Tuesday, and urged Myanmar to free detainees and lift political restrictions as Aung San Suu Kyi defended herself in a controversial trial. As the two-day meeting ended, several diplomats applauded China for taking a strong position on both issues at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) foreign ministers' conference in Hanoi. Beijing is the closest thing that North Korea has to an ally and a strong backer of the junta that runs the former Burma. In a statement, the ministers said they "strongly urge" North Korea not to conduct further tests and to comply with UN resolutions, and called on Pyongyang to "immediately return" to so-called six-party talks with regional powers aimed at ending its nuclear programme. "Bearing in mind the need to maintain peace and stability in the region and the international non-proliferation regime, ministers condemn the underground nuclear test ... which constitutes a clear violation of the six-party agreements and the relevant UNSC resolutions and decisions," it said. ASEM comprises 44 countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat. North Korea is not a member, but Myanmar is. A separate, more general statement at the end of a two-day meeting said the ministers had discussed the situation in Myanmar "in light of the concern about the recent developments relating to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi". "They called for the early release of those under detention and the lifting of restrictions placed on political parties," it added. Carl Bildt, Foreign Minister of Sweden, said that wording went beyond anything previously endorsed by China or Vietnam. "I think it's a major step forward," he said. "It's a substantial increase on the political pressure on the regime in Burma." Jan Kohout, foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, went a step further in his closing remarks, saying Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was an "indespensible partner in the dialogue leading to national reconciliation". "She should be released immediately and the Burmese government should engage in an inclusive dialogue with all relevant political and ethnic groups," he said. The statement also called for more humanitarian assistance to Myanmar and the ministers "affirmed their commitments to the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Myanmar. CHINA'S ROLE Some diplomats sensed that China had adopted a fresh tone on Myanmar and had been constructive on North Korea. "We can certainly say that they have not been pushing on the brake. I'm not saying that they're pushing on the accelerator either, but they are not holding things up," Finland's Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday. He said in discussions on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi "did mention political prisoners and he did talk about the dangers of the nuclear test in North Korea. So, the message that we got in the meeting room was loud and clear". Another senior European diplomat, who declined to be named, said Yang did not mention Suu Kyi by name, "but he de-facto did". "It was a new tone from China on the question of Burma. That, I think, can be said. There's no question about it," he said. Yang declined to comment specifically on Tuesday. Asked about the statements, Yang told Reuters: "It's a consensus". Last week, after the military junta that rules Myanmar put Suu Kyi on trial, China's foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Myanmar should be left to handle its own affairs. In Beijing on Tuesday he said there had been no change in this position. Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win declined repeatedly to comment to journalists on the sidelines of the Hanoi meeting, but diplomats said that in bilateral meetings and the larger forum he defended the regime's charges and the trial of Suu Kyi. "If I'm honest, I think the Burmese regime has miscalculated and has been somewhat taken aback by the force of international reaction," said Bill Rammell, Britain's junior foreign minister. The global financial crisis, pandemic flu and climate change were among other issues on the agenda of the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), involving 45 member countries.

Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad on Saturday renewed his attack on his successor, calling him intolerant and asking the people to reject nepotism. The outspoken 81-year-old, in his first political speech after a lull following a heart attack in November, said Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had created a climate of fear within his ruling UMNO party. Speaking at a forum in the southern city of Johor Baru, he also warned Abdullah, whose son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin is an ambitious politician, against forming a political dynasty. "Don't try to make your son or son-in-law as the PM," Mahathir, who in September asked Abdullah to resign, told the 400-strong crowd at a function. "I hope all Malaysians would oppose any attempts to start a dynasty. In our country anybody can become the PM even the fisherman." The rally could mark the start of a second round of an Abdullah-Mahathir fight which has unsettled Malaysians as well as foreign investors. Mahathir, who led the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the country for 22 years until he handed power to Abdullah in late 2003, remains a party member. "I feel very sad because UMNO has now changed. Today it is not ready to hear what it doesn't want to hear," he said. "There's climate of fear." Abdullah's aides could not be immediately reached for comments.

The prime minister said on Monday he wanted to lower the average age of his cabinet, a remark that could signal a greater role for young and reformist ministers in a team dominated by a socialist old guard. Prime Minister Manmohan's Singh's comments came ahead of a possible cabinet reshuffle before the winter parliament session begins in November. Several elderly and powerful ministers have been criticised for scuttling new thinking in the government, frustrating Singh's efforts toward rapid reforms, like opening up retail to foreign investors, after last year's resounding election victory. "I would like to reduce the average age of my cabinet," Singh was quoted by the semi-official Press Trust of India news agency as saying after the 77-year-old leader met newspaper and television editors in New Delhi. The Congress party-led government's term has seen the rise of some younger figures like Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who who created a stir last year by suggesting that India could be more flexible in its negotiating stance at the Copenhagen climate change summit. He soon backed down under pressure. Singh's drive for youth is also backed by Rahul Gandhi, 40-year-old son of Congress party head Sonia Gandhi and a likely future prime minister. "Younger people are more dynamic, they are open to newer ideas and can be more flexible -- all these are things investors will like," said DH Pai Panandikar, head of the New Delhi-based private think-tank RPG Foundation. The average age of Singh's cabinet is almost 64 -- old compared with that of Britain at about 51 years or even the United States at just above 57 years. Most ministers heading top ministries are about 70 years old or more. The younger ministers have been in the headlines, for trying to push established norms of policy-framing or even the use of modern technology such as Twitter. But any attempt at building a younger cabinet may mean Singh will only bring in more young faces rather than drop ageing ministers, most of whom remain powerful. He may give more responsibilities to incumbent junior ministers who are young.

But as their call ricocheted around the planet, it only underscored the challenge ahead: getting the world’s biggest polluters and its most vulnerable countries to cooperate against a grave global threat. In unequivocal terms, the new UN report said that the world has been so slow to cut emissions, it was certain to miss one of its basic goals to limit warming. It said atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide had not been this high in at least 2 million years, and the past decade is likely the hottest the planet has been in 125,000 years. And in unusually direct terms, it said that human activity — burning oil, gas and coal — was squarely to blame. The report prompted outrage among some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, whose leaders demanded that rich, industrialised powers immediately reduce their planet-warming pollution, compensate poor countries for the damages caused and help fund their preparations for a perilous future. “What science is now saying is actually happening in front of our eyes,” said Malik Amin Aslam, special assistant on climate change to the prime minister of Pakistan, where temperatures exceeded 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) last year. “It’s like a hammer hitting us on the head every day.” Tensions over the report’s findings are likely to course through negotiations taking place ahead of a major UN climate conference set for November in Glasgow. The report concluded that essentially all of the rise in global average temperatures since the 19th century has been driven by humans burning fossil fuels, clearing forests and loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane that trap heat. Environmental groups said those findings will bolster international legal strategies to try to hold fossil fuel companies and governments accountable. The report may prove particularly valuable because, unlike previous reports, it focuses extensively on regional effects of climate change. That may allow environmental groups to fashion stronger, more specific legal arguments. “It’s like a turbocharge” for some of the legal strategies that Greenpeace and other organisations have been pursuing in courts for years, said Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International. Earlier this year, Greenpeace successfully sued Royal Dutch Shell in a Dutch court using evidence from an earlier UN report. “I just expect the pace and the scale of the calls for action, whether they be in the courtrooms or on the streets or in the committee hearing rooms, to be clearer louder, bigger than ever before,” Morgan said. Hours after the report was published, demonstrations were being planned for later this month in London and other cities. The report shows that if emissions of greenhouse gases continue at the same levels or are only slightly reduced, the outcome will be continued warming and worsening effects for at least the rest of the century. But if governments make immediate, drastic cuts in emissions, they can stabilise the climate at about 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to preindustrial levels. The Earth has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius. Despite the jolt the report sent through world capitals, it was clear that some of the biggest polluters, including China and the United States, were unlikely to make the kind of immediate pivot away from fossil fuels that scientists say is needed to hold the rise in global average temperatures to 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius, the higher limit set by the 2015 Paris climate accord, an agreement among nations to fight global warming. Nearly every nation that signed the accord is far off track to meet its commitment. At this point, every fraction of a degree of warming would bring ever more destructive floods, deadlier heat waves and worsening droughts as well as accelerating sea-level rise that could threaten the existence of some island nations, the report said. The United States, which historically has pumped more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other country, in April pledged to roughly halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. While that is an ambitious goal, it is slightly below the target enshrined in law by the European Union and significantly below that of Britain. John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, said the UN report showed that “we need all countries to take the bold steps required” to limit global warming to relatively safe levels. Unmentioned was the fact that current US laws and regulations are insufficient to meet its own climate goals. China, the world’s biggest current producer of greenhouse gases, is still increasing its emissions from power plants, transportation and industry. It plans to hit peak emissions by 2030 before starting to cut back until it no longer produces a net increase of carbon dioxide by 2060. The Chinese government didn’t respond to the UN findings. But in a recent talk, the country’s top climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, objected to proposals to set new goals to cut global emissions beyond the level agreed upon by nations in 2015 as part of the Paris climate accord. “As we’ve already achieved this consensus, there’s no need to ignite fresh controversy now over this goal,” Xie told an event organised by a Hong Kong foundation, adding, “Our issue now is taking action and stepping up.” And in India, where emissions per capita are a fraction of those of wealthy nations yet growing at a rapid pace, the government said the UN findings point to the need for industrialised nations to do more. India also has been resistant to new language demanding all nations take stronger action to hold global temperatures to a 1.5 degree Celsius increase, arguing wealthy countries have not yet made good on their own targets. “Developed countries have usurped far more than their fair share of the global carbon budget,” Bhupender Yadav, India’s environment minister, said in a statement. The report “vindicates India’s position that historical cumulative emissions are the source of the climate crisis that the world faces today,” he said. Referring to the report as “a code red for humanity,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres renewed his call for an end to the construction of new coal-burning plants as well as an end to fossil fuel subsidies by governments. “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet,” he said in a statement. The American Petroleum Institute, which represents major oil and natural gas producers in the United States, said in a statement that “reducing methane emissions and addressing the risks of climate change are top priorities for our industry.” It added that the industry has already made gains but said, “we have more work to do.” A representative from Shell declined to comment; Exxon Mobil did not respond to a request for comment. For the most vulnerable countries, the report may have given new life to a fight that they have waged with mixed success in recent years to persuade wealthy nations to pay for the climate-change-related damages they are suffering. “What’s happening in the science affects us immediately,” said Tina Stege, a climate envoy for the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a nation of coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean, much of which is only about 6 feet above sea level. Wealthier polluting countries need to step up their assistance “not just to protect our future generations, but current generations,” she said. Vulnerable island nations said they require financial assistance for relocation efforts, early warning systems and other critical steps to adapt to a changing climate. Wealthy nations agreed in 2009 to deliver $100 billion annually by 2020 in public and private finance to help developing countries adapt to climate change and transition to clean, renewable energy like wind and solar. That promise hasn’t been met. At the same time, poor countries have sought money to address the climate-fuelled disasters happening now. “People are suffering and somebody needs to pay for this,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh. Noting that Germany’s Cabinet recently approved $472 million to help its citizens recover from recent devastating floods, he questioned why nations could not find money for disasters being suffered by the countries that did the least to cause climate change. Sveinung Rotevatn, Norway’s minister of climate and the environment, sidestepped the issue of whether wealthy nations would agree to pay compensation to vulnerable countries. Europe and the United States have resisted calls for climate compensation to poor nations. “It remains of vital importance that the limited funding should be directed at saving lives, adapting to climate change and also to mitigation efforts,” Rotevatn said. Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, a climate think tank based in Nairobi, said the UN report predicts a dire future that some are already experiencing. “Those of us who live in Africa have been aware of the urgency of the climate crisis for many years,” he said. “Lives and livelihoods have been shattered. It was time, Adow added, “for us to act on the scientific words.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

The new Superman, Jonathan Kent — who is the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane — will soon begin a romantic relationship with a male friend, DC Comics announced Monday. That same-sex relationship is just one of the ways that Jonathan Kent, who goes by Jon, is proving to be a different Superman than his famous father. Since his new series, "Superman: Son of Kal-El," began in July, Jon has combated wildfires caused by climate change, thwarted a high school shooting and protested the deportation of refugees in Metropolis. “The idea of replacing Clark Kent with another straight white saviour felt like a missed opportunity,” Tom Taylor, who writes the series, said in an interview. He said that a “new Superman had to have new fights — real world problems — that he could stand up to as one of the most powerful people in the world.” The coming out of Superman, perhaps the most archetypal American superhero, is a notable moment even in an age when many comics have embraced diversity and are exploring pressing social issues. Batman’s sidekick, Robin, recently came out as bisexual (not Dick Grayson — who was Batman’s partner for over four decades — but Tim Drake, a later replacement; there are multiple Robins just as there are multiple Supermen). And a new Aquaman comic stars a gay Black man who is positioned to become the title hero. It has been a steady evolution for an industry that had moved to censor itself in a number of ways after “Seduction of the Innocent,” a 1954 book by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, raised concerns about sex, gore and violence and suggested a link between reading comics and juvenile delinquency. In one section, Wertham described Batman and Robin as “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together.” The book helped inspire congressional hearings and led to the creation in 1956 of the Comics Code Authority, in which the comics industry set standards on what comics could depict. The character of Batwoman was introduced that year as a love interest for the Caped Crusader. She eventually fell into obscurity but was rebooted in 2006. (As part of her new backstory, she leaves the military because she refuses to lie about being a lesbian.) One of the earliest mainstream comics to feature gays or lesbians appeared in 1980. It was not a positive portrayal. In the story, Bruce Banner, the alter ego of Marvel’s Hulk, is at a YMCA, where two gay men try to rape him. Things had started to evolve by 1992, when Northstar, another Marvel hero, came out — an event that was praised in an editorial in The New York Times. “Mainstream culture will one day make its peace with gay Americans,” the editorial said. “When that time comes, Northstar’s revelation will be seen for what it is: a welcome indicator of social change.” Though Superman is not the first LGBTQ hero and will not be the last, comics experts said that there was something particularly momentous about Superman coming out. “It is not Northstar, who your aunt has never heard of,” said Glen Weldon, the author of “Superman: The Unauthorised Biography,” and the co-host of the Pop Culture Happy Hour on NPR. “It’s not Hulkling. It’s not Wiccan. It’s not Fire and Ice. It’s not Tasmanian Devil. It is Superman. That counts for something — just in terms of visibility, just in terms of the fact that this is going to attract attention.” There has been some blowback to the recent evolution charted by comics. In August, as rumours about the Superman development began to circulate, a commenter on one website complained that “Marvel and DC have ruined their characters to please the woke mob, who don’t even buy comics.” But others have cheered the news: “It’s nice to see queer superheroes being more mainstream now, I’m very happy to see people like me being the main characters,” a commenter wrote on another site. Weldon said that the changes in comics can lead to more vibrant storytelling. “Any step that can be taken to make the world on the superhero comics page look more like the world outside of it is good,” he said. “That gives you access to more varied stories, more interesting stories, more compelling stories, more different ways of telling stories.” Jonathan Kent took the mantle of Superman alongside his father this year. The Clark Kent version of Superman was introduced in 1938. He married Lois Lane in 1996. Jonathan was introduced in 2015 and — let us skip a lot of comic book shenanigans — spent some time as Superboy before being encouraged by his father to become the new Superman. Jonathan and Jay Nakamura met in an August story during the new Superman’s ill-fated attempt to establish a secret identity and attend high school. Last month, Jay, a budding journalist, met Jonathan’s parents — and was awe-struck by Lois Lane. Jonathan and Jay will share a kiss in a story that will be published next month. This month, readers will discover that Jay has special abilities. “Jay could be the only person in Jon’s life that he does not have to protect,” Taylor said. “I wanted to have a really equal, supportive relationship for those two.” The editors at DC were already considering similar lines of the development for the character and were supportive, he said. “I’ve always said everyone needs heroes, and they deserve to see themselves in their heroes,” Taylor said. “For so many people, having the strongest superhero in comics come out is incredibly powerful.”     © 2021 The New York Times Company

"The countries most responsible for historic and present-day emissions are not yet doing their fair share of the work," Johnson told reporters after a Group of 20 summit, before flying to Glasgow for the COP26 meeting. "If we are going to prevent COP26 from being a failure, then that must change, and I must be clear that if Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails."

European Union leaders on Friday named former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, a past critic of Turkey's EU membership bid, to head a "reflection group" to study the long-term future of the 27-nation bloc. The panel was the brainchild of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a vehement opponent of Turkish accession, who called in August for the EU to create a group of "wise people" to consider Europe's final borders. The mandate has since been changed to look at the future of the region in 2020-2030, focusing mostly on the economic challenges of globalisation. Sarkozy said on Friday the group would study the issue of EU borders, not specifically Turkey. But Sarkozy appeared to have scored a point by stealth with the choice of Gonzalez, a socialist who governed Spain from 1982 to 1996. Spanish newspapers quoted the ex-premier in May 2004 as telling a Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona there were limits to the enlargement of Europe, which should "stop at the borders of Turkey" because of social and cultural differences. Asked about those comments, Gonzalez's spokesman Joaquin Tagar told Reuters in Madrid on Friday: "He was just expressing a theoretical opinion, not taking a definite position on the matter. He was just pointing out the difference between European and Turkish culture." Pressed to say what Gonzalez's position on Turkey's candidacy was now, he said: "What he has been saying in recent times is that if the European Union has a commitment to Turkey, it should honour it." WHERE DOES EUROPE END? The reflection group, which will number no more than nine people, is mandated to look at "the stability and prosperity of the Union and of the wider region," touching on the sensitive issue of EU enlargement. The formulation deliberately left open whether Turkey would be part of the Union or the wider region in 2020-2030. "We cannot talk about the European project without raising the question of its territory," a French diplomat said. The panel will also look at issues such as energy, climate change and justice matters. It is due to report its findings to EU leaders in June 2010. Former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Jorma Ollila, the chairman of mobile phone giant Nokia , were named as the two vice-chairs of the panel. Some politicians were critical of the choice of a leader from the 1980s to study the EU's future. "If you ever wanted to see Jurassic Park in reality, then this appointment (of Gonzalez) is just that," said Graham Watson, leader of the Liberal Democrat political group in the European Parliament. "It's not about age, but all three of the panel so far represent old Europe." But Spain voiced delight at the choice of Gonzalez, who has been canvassed for top European jobs but never received one. "It's a very happy day for the Spanish people, for Spain, and for Europe," Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told reporters.

New Delhi has the worst air quality of all world capitals, but even by its sorry standards Friday's reading was extra bad, as people paid the price for celebrating India's biggest festival in the noisiest, and most smoky way. The Air Quality Index, or AQI surged to 451 on a scale of 500 - the maximum recorded this year - indicating "severe" conditions that affect healthy people and seriously impacts those with existing diseases, according to the federal pollution control board's guidance. The AQI measures the concentration of poisonous particulate matter PM2.5 in a cubic metre of air. In Delhi, a city of nearly 20 million people, the PM2.5 reading on Friday averaged 706 micrograms, whereas the World Health Organization deems anything above an annual average of 5 micrograms as unsafe. Airborne PM2.5 can cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases such as lung cancer. And, in India, toxic air kills more than a million people annually. "The firecracker ban didn't seem to be successful in Delhi, which led to hazardous pollution levels adding on top of existing perennial sources," Sunil Dahiya, Analyst, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, or CREA said. Every year, either government authorities or India's Supreme Court impose a ban on firecrackers. But the bans rarely appear to be enforced. Making matters worse, Diwali falls in period when farmers in the Delhi's neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana burn the stubble left after harvesting to prepare their fields for the next crop. Stubble fires accounted for up to 35 percent of New Delhi's PM2.5 levels, according to data from SAFAR's monitoring system, which falls under the federal Ministry of Earth Sciences A rare spell of clear skies in October due to intermittent rains and winds had helped Delhiites breathe their cleanest air in at least four years. But during winter months pollution levels surge in northern India, as lower temperatures and a drop in wind speed tend to trap pollutants in the air longer. Sick of the lack of commitment to making the capital more livable, Ambrish Mithal, a doctor at the Max HealthCare hospital in New Delhi, vented his frustration over the deteriorating AQI readings. "It's terrible for those with allergies and asthma. We will continue to squabble over reasons and are doomed to suffer," he wrote in a post on Twitter. Indian governments are often accused of not doing enough to curb pollution, as they prioritise economic growth to lift living standards in the world's second-most populated country. On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow that India would achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2070, but some experts reckoned that target was at least two decades too late.

Swaraj will lead an Indian delegation to Islamabad for talks on Afghanistan, India's foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said on his Twitter page. Top Pakistani foreign affairs official Sartaj Aziz said Swaraj would meet him and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. "This is a good beginning, that the deadlock that was present has to some extent been removed," Aziz, the prime minister's adviser on security and foreign affairs, told reporters. The visit comes after the collapse of talks in August that raised questions about the ability of the nuclear-armed rivals to overcome animosity that has festered since their independence from British rule almost seven decades ago. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sharif resumed high-level contacts with a brief conversation at climate change talks in Paris last week and their national security advisers met in Bangkok on Sunday. Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary, said the foreign minister's visit showed the Modi government had softened its hard-line stance towards Pakistan after realising that the lack of sustained talks yielded no returns. "The countries can agree to disagree, but they will have to start talking," Sibal said. Taken by surprise, Indian opposition parties questioned the government's on-off approach to talks and a former foreign minister from Modi's party said the policy was being conducted in the shadows. Since taking office in 2014, Modi has authorised a more robust approach to Pakistan, giving security forces the licence to retaliate forcefully along their disputed border and demanding an end to insurgent attacks in Indian territory. Swaraj's visit is the first ministerial-level visit to Pakistan since the then foreign minister, SM Krishna, travelled to Islamabad in 2012, which was before Modi became prime minister. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim in full but rule in part. India has for years accused Pakistan of backing separatist Muslim rebels in India's part of Kashmir. Despite considerable evidence, Pakistan denies the accusations and blames India violating human rights in Kashmir and fomenting unrest in Pakistan.

Australia said Tuesday it remained in talks with East Timor over a regional asylum-seeker centre, despite a rejection by the country's parliament which dealt the pre-election policy a severe blow. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Timor's government was still discussing processing Australia's poor Asian migrants -- a major plank of her election strategy which has become mired in difficulty. Australia's first woman leader, who is expected to announce polls within days after ousting the once hugely popular Kevin Rudd last month, was speaking after 34 of Timor's 66 lawmakers voted against the plan. "This was a vote on a resolution in the East Timorese parliament at a time when the parliament was not well attended," she told reporters in Canberra. "We, of course, are dealing with the East Timorese government. We have officials in East Timor, they were involved in discussions with East Timor yesterday. Those discussions will continue. "Our focus is on discussions with the East Timor government, and the East Timor government continues to confirm to us that it is open to the dialogue about the regional processing centre, and we're in that dialogue now." Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is also holding talks on the proposal this week in Indonesia, a major transit point, following criticism that Gillard did not consult widely enough before making her announcement. The prime minister was forced to backtrack last week when she said Timor was only one possible location for the centre, despite earlier indicating it would be built there. The controversy has taken some gloss off the straight-talking, Welsh-born lawyer's image, which had gleamed after she settled a damaging mining tax row just days into her premiership. "The East Timor solution is totally and utterly sunk," said opposition leader Tony Abbott. Australia's ruling Labor Party and opposition have both unveiled tough policies on asylum-seekers, with Greens party chief Bob Brown saying the debate reminded him of 1990s anti-immigration firebrand Pauline Hanson. Gillard's "Timor Solution" has won favour with about two-thirds of voters, although a similar number also believes the policy was badly thought-out, according to a poll of voters released this week. The prime minister is also expected to announce a new strategy on climate change this week before calling elections. Australia currently processes asylum-seekers at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, but a steady flow of refugees has overwhelmed facilities and forced the reopening of centres on the mainland. The arrival of asylum-seekers, mainly from war-torn Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, proved a thorn in Rudd's side after he scrapped the harsh mandatory detention policy of his conservative predecessor, John Howard. Some 2,982 asylum-seekers were intercepted this year until May 19, official figures show, putting 2010 on course to beat the 2001 record of 5,516 arrivals. But Gillard has said the asylum-seekers are only a tiny fraction -- 0.6 percent -- of the world's total, and make up just eight percent of Australia's overall migrant intake. East Timor, a mainly Catholic country of just over a million people, remains aid-dependent more than 10 years after its bloody vote to split from Indonesia. Australia is a major donor and has about 400 peacekeeping troops there.

It has taken weeks for EU countries to agree on the contours of the measure, and intensive talks will continue over the weekend before the European Commission, the bloc’s executive, puts a finalised proposal on paper for EU ambassadors to approve. The ambassadors will meet Wednesday and expect to give their final approval by the end of the week, several EU officials and diplomats involved in the process say. The diplomats and officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the progress of the sensitive talks. The oil embargo will be the biggest and most important new step in the EU’s sixth package of sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The package will also include sanctions against Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, which has so far been spared, as well as additional measures against high-profile Russians, officials said. Barring an unlikely last-minute demand by Hungary, which has been dragging its feet, the process should be completed without requiring an EU leaders’ meeting — avoiding the time-consuming effort of dragging all 27 heads of state to Brussels. The embargo is likely to affect Russian oil transported by tankers more quickly than oil coming by pipeline, which could take a matter of months. In both cases, however, it is likely that the bloc will allow its members to wind down existing contracts with Russian oil companies as it did with its coal ban, which was given four months to be fully put in place. Germany’s position has been critical in finalising the new measure. The country, the bloc’s economic leader, was importing about one-third of its oil from Russia at the time of the Ukraine invasion. But its influential energy minister, Robert Habeck, said this week that Germany had been able to cut that to just 12% in recent weeks, making a full embargo “manageable.” “The problem that seemed very large for Germany only a few weeks ago has become much smaller,” Habeck told the news media during a visit to Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday. “Germany has come very, very close to independence from Russian oil imports,” he added, but he did not explain how it was able to accomplish that so quickly. Russia is Europe’s biggest oil supplier, providing about one-quarter of the bloc’s yearly needs, according to 2020 data — about half of Russia’s total exports. As the oil embargo is phased in, officials said the bloc would seek to make up the shortfall by increasing imports from other sources, such as Persian Gulf countries, Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. The embargo, even if softened by a monthslong phase-in period, is likely to put pressure on global oil prices, compounding already high energy costs around the world. An idea to lessen the impact, floated by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week, was to impose tariffs or a price cap on Russia’s oil instead of an outright embargo. But that did not gain traction with Europeans, officials said. © 2022 The New York Times Company

As the coronavirus now stampedes across Britain and much of the world, Johnson is heeding the same principle, spurning the mass closures that have become commonplace across Europe and gambling his political future on a more restrained approach. While countries across Europe have shut schools, sporting events and even restaurants and bars, Johnson has largely kept Britain open, opting for more targeted measures like asking people with respiratory symptoms to stay home. In effect, his government has said that mass closures will not halt the outbreak, and that exposing a large segment of the population will help build immunity and limit future infections. That strategy has startled some epidemiologists, drawn criticism from a former health secretary and political ally, and prompted angry demands that Johnson’s government reveal more of its reasoning. Cases of the coronavirus in Britain, held low for weeks as officials tracked down the contacts of known patients, have now surged, rising to nearly 800 on Friday from fewer than 600 a day before. With testing limited to hospital patients, Johnson said on Thursday that the true number of people infected may be as many as 10,000. President Donald Trump, citing the rising case count, said Friday that he was considering adding Britain to the list of European countries whose citizens are banned from flying to the United States. People at Convent Garden in London on Friday, Mar 13, 2020. The New York Times “There’s no other country in the world managing the epidemic in the same way,” Francois Balloux, an infectious disease epidemiologist at University College London, said of Britain’s approach. But, he said, “It’s not an insane decision. And it might actually pay off.” People at Convent Garden in London on Friday, Mar 13, 2020. The New York Times The government is leaning heavily on scepticism in some scientific circles about the effectiveness of mass closures. Some epidemiologists fear that closing schools only pulls front-line doctors and nurses away from their work, and believe that large events are less dangerous for spreading the virus than more intimate gatherings at bars or at people’s homes. It has also said that the measures it has taken, like asking people with persistent coughs and high temperatures to stay home for a week, will reduce the spread of the virus considerably. But British advisers are also leaning on a more contentious theory: that exposing a large proportion of the population to the coronavirus could help people develop immunity, and put Britain in a better position to defend itself against the virus roaring back next winter. Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s chief scientific adviser, said the government was looking “to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission.” Herd immunity, a term usually used to refer to the way mass vaccinations can stop the spread of disease and protect people who are not immune, is not seen by many scientists as a tool to be used against the coronavirus. Vallance has said that it would require roughly 60% of Britons to become infected, creating enough immunity in the population that a second surge in cases next winter would be less severe. But experts said that was an unusual and untested approach, and that it would be impossible to keep older and more vulnerable people from becoming infected too, putting them at a significant risk. They cautioned that the science was unsettled on how quickly people develop immunity to the coronavirus, and for how long. And experts urged the government to show more of the evidence behind its thinking. “Herd immunity means 70% of people or so have been infected,” said Martin Hibberd, a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “In my mind, that’s not a desirable aim. That’s a kind of consequence of the strategy.” Britain’s approach reflects the hyper-rationalist self-image of a prime minister who has not always hewed so closely to scientists in the past, as when he occasionally trafficked in discredited theories about climate change. In this instance, Johnson has fashioned himself as the dispassionate answer to leaders across Europe who have acted more aggressively. A woman helps her young daughter put on a face mask as they arrive at London's Heathrow Airport, for their flight on Friday, Mar 13, 2020. The New York Times But his government is not immune from public alarm, signalling late Friday night that it would reverse course on at least some aspects of its approach. It told British news outlets that it would ban some mass gatherings, like sporting matches and concerts, starting next weekend, and lay the groundwork for more widespread working at home. A woman helps her young daughter put on a face mask as they arrive at London's Heathrow Airport, for their flight on Friday, Mar 13, 2020. The New York Times So far, in the absence of government-mandated shutdowns, private entities in Britain have taken up the slack. Unilever, the British-Dutch consumer goods company, said on Friday that it was ordering all its office-based employees to work from home starting next week. And the Premier League, England’s highest-level soccer league, suspended games until at least next month. Johnson’s government itself moved on Friday to postpone hundreds of local elections and the London mayoral election for a year after a watchdog said the coronavirus would affect campaigning and voting. But Johnson has resisted other measures, like closing schools, restricting mass gatherings, steering people away from restaurants or bars and banning crowds from sporting events. “They’re trying to walk this terrible balance between not alarming the public, not hurting the economy, but making sure you try to flatten this epidemic,” said Roy Anderson, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London. “Is it going to work? I’m not sure, to be honest.” The strategy amounts to a blunt admission by the British government that stopping the coronavirus here was now impossible, and replicating the success of places like Hong Kong that have encouraged more extreme social distancing a futile hope. Instead, Britain is effectively banking that its more modest restrictions will keep the outbreak limited until summer, scientists said. By then, it hopes that the warmer weather will reduce further transmission — though virologists still do not know if that will hold true — and the National Health Service, free of the usual wintertime crowds, will be better able to cope with whomever is infected. “The idea is more to minimise the number of casualties over the long term,” Balloux said, “and that’s completely unique. All other countries are firefighting in the short term.” President Donald Trump during a meeting with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Ireland, at the White House in Washington, where topics included the coronavirus, Thursday, Mar, 12, 2020 But the clamour for short-term firefighting has picked up in recent days. President Donald Trump during a meeting with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Ireland, at the White House in Washington, where topics included the coronavirus, Thursday, Mar, 12, 2020 Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, who like Johnson is a Conservative lawmaker, broke ranks and called for more stringent restrictions: banning visitors from nursing homes, encouraging people to work from home and closing schools. “I think it is surprising and concerning that we’re not doing any of it at all when we have just four weeks before we get to the stage that Italy is at,” Hunt said in a television interview. “You would have thought that every single thing we do in that four weeks would be designed to slow the spread of people catching the virus.” Some epidemiologists have also bristled at the government’s reliance on a private firm of behavioural scientists, known as the “nudge unit.” That unit has helped shape the government’s approach to delaying any shutdowns until later in the course of the virus, on the theory that people will get bored of staying at home by the time the outbreak is at its peak and separation is most needed. Helen Ward, a professor of public health at Imperial College London, said the government’s advisers should disclose more of their thinking. “We don’t know the evidence on which the government has made its decisions,” Ward said. She also said the government should consider making stronger recommendations to older people to cut back on their exposure. Johnson discouraged older Britons this week only from going on cruises, though many epidemiologists urge considerably stronger precautions. And Hibberd, of the London School of Hygiene, said the government’s approach may not rely enough on testing. Without knowing whether Britain is suffering a more concentrated outbreak, as in the north of Italy, or whether its death rate is as low as it believes, it is difficult to craft the right response. “If there’s something I feel is missing,” he said, “it’s that they haven’t tested sufficiently.” © 2020 New York Times News Service

All that’s left of this village in Guatemala is their memories. “This is where I live,” said Jorge Suc Ical, standing atop the sea of rocks and muddy debris that entombed his town. “It’s a cemetery now.” Already crippled by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, Central America is now confronting another catastrophe: The mass destruction caused by two ferocious hurricanes that hit in quick succession last month, pummelling the same fragile countries, twice. The storms, two of the most powerful in a record-breaking season, demolished tens of thousands of homes, wiped out infrastructure and swallowed vast swaths of cropland. The magnitude of the ruin is only beginning to be understood, but its repercussions are likely to spread far beyond the region for years to come. The hurricanes affected more than 5 million people — at least 1.5 million of them children — creating a new class of refugees with more reason than ever to migrate. Officials conducting rescue missions say the level of damage brings to mind Hurricane Mitch, which spurred a mass exodus from Central America to the United States more than two decades ago. “The devastation is beyond compare,” said Adm. Craig S Faller, head of the US Southern Command, which has been delivering aid to survivors of the storm. “When you think about COVID, plus the double punch of these two massive, major hurricanes back to back — there are some estimates of up to a decade just to recover.” The relentless rain and winds of Hurricanes Eta and Iota downed dozens of bridges and damaged more than 1,400 roads in the region, submerging a Honduran airport and making lagoons out of entire cities in both countries. From the sky, Guatemala’s northern highlands look as though they’ve been clawed apart, with giant gashes marking the sites of landslides. If the devastation does set off a new wave of immigration, it would test an incoming Biden administration that has promised to be more open to asylum-seekers but may find it politically difficult to welcome a surge of claimants at the border. In Guatemala and Honduras, authorities readily admit they cannot begin to address the misery wrought by the storms. Leaders of both countries last month called on the United Nations to declare Central America the region most affected by climate change, with warming ocean waters making many storms stronger and the warmer atmosphere making rainfall from hurricanes more ruinous. “Hunger, poverty and destruction do not have years to wait,” said President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala, pleading for more foreign aid. “If we don’t want to see hordes of Central Americans looking to go to countries with a better quality of life, we have to create walls of prosperity in Central America.” Giammattei also requested that the United States grant so-called temporary protection status to Guatemalans currently in the country, so they won’t be deported amid the natural disaster. With hundreds of thousands of people still crowded into shelters in Guatemala, the risk of coronavirus spread is high. Aid workers have found widespread disease in remote communities hammered by the twin storms, including fungal infections, gastritis and flulike sicknesses. “We are facing an imminent health crisis,” said Sofía Letona, director of Antigua to the Rescue, an aid group, “Not just because of Eta and Iota, but also because these communities are completely unprotected from a second wave of COVID.” Just as pressing are the illnesses brought on by a lack of food, potable water and shelter from continuing rain. “What I’m seeing is that the smallest children are the most affected by nutritional disorders,” said Francisco Muss, a retired general helping lead Guatemala’s recovery. With little government support, Guatemalans have had to come up with creative solutions. Near the border with Mexico, people crowd into handmade rafts to cross immense lakes created by the storms. To traverse one river in the east, commuters hop into a wire basket, attached to a zip line where a bridge used to be. Food supplies are unloaded from an American military helicopter in the Guatemalan village of Playa Grande on Nov 26, 2020. Hurricanes Eta and Iota displaced hundreds of thousands of people, creating a new class of refugees with more reason than ever to migrate north and setting up an early test for the incoming Biden administration. Daniele Volpe/The New York Times Francisco García swims back-and-forth across a muddy waterway to pick up food for his neighbours. Food supplies are unloaded from an American military helicopter in the Guatemalan village of Playa Grande on Nov 26, 2020. Hurricanes Eta and Iota displaced hundreds of thousands of people, creating a new class of refugees with more reason than ever to migrate north and setting up an early test for the incoming Biden administration. Daniele Volpe/The New York Times “I did this during Mitch,” he said, gesturing toward the crowd of young boys who have gathered to watch him take his fourth trip of the day. “They have to learn.” No one knows exactly how many people in Quejá died in the mudslide, though local officials put the toll at about 100. The Guatemalan government called off the search for the dead in early November. Just a few weeks earlier, the town was celebrating: The monthslong coronavirus curfew had been lifted, and the local soccer league’s championship tournament could begin. The first round was held in Quejá, known for its pristine, natural-grass soccer field. Hundreds streamed in to watch their favourite teams, while local fans now in the United States followed the game live on Facebook. “People went there because of the field,” said Álvaro Pop Gue, who plays midfield for one of Quejá’s teams. “It was beautiful.” Now their season is on hold, with their beloved field sinking in water. Reyna Cal Sis, principal of the town’s primary school, believes 19 of her students died that day, including two kindergartners and a 14-year-old named Martín, who liked to help her clean up after class. “He had just started sprouting hairs on his upper lip,” she said. “He lived with his mother and his siblings, right near where the land came down.” The boulders blanketing Quejá today are almost as tall as the electricity wires. The only road into the village is encased in mud so thick and wet that its residents leave holes in it the shape of legs. Still, they walk it, carrying tattered wardrobes and bags of coffee beans on their backs, extracting what they can from the wreckage of their homes. People started leaving here for the United States only a few years ago, but Cal Sis is certain more will follow. “They are determined, now that they’ve lost almost everything,” she said. Suc, 35, was eating lunch with his family when the sound shook his home. “It was like two bombs exploding,” he said. He ran out to find a gusher of mud crushing everything in sight, sending roofs and walls careening through the town. “There are houses right in front, and they are coming at us all of a sudden,” Suc said. “A lot of people were trapped in there.” One of them was his niece, Adriana Calel Suc, a 13-year-old with a knack for customer service honed by selling soda and snacks in her mother’s store. Suc never saw her again. After the disaster, Suc walked for four hours to reach Santa Elena, the nearest dry village, pulling along his grandfather and distributing two of his children to stronger, taller family members who hoisted them above waist-deep water on the journey. But after he and other survivors spent weeks in makeshift shelters there, the town’s hospitality ran out. On Saturday, a group of Santa Elena residents looted the stock of provisions in town that had been donated to Quejá’s residents. Suc is now looking for anywhere else to go. He has no idea how he could make it to the United States, but he’s ready to try. “Yes, we’re thinking about migrating,” he said, eyeing the dwindling bag of corn he has left to feed his family. “Because, to give our children bread? We have nothing.” © 2020 New York Times News Service

“Growing up in Oklahoma, wearing the hijab, I had to come to terms with being visibly Muslim,” the Iranian American organizer and activist said. “People would call me a terrorist or pretend to run me over.” And when policymakers held up the hijab and women’s rights as part of the rationale for military action in Afghanistan or economic sanctions on Iran, she said, “that’s when I started really thinking about clothes.” A decade and a half later, Katebi, 27, has become a leading critic of the global garment industry, particularly its fast-fashion sector. Where many of us might avoid peering too closely at our wardrobe’s iffy provenance, Katebi has devoted herself to that hidden world — and to ultimately tearing it down. “Rather than just, say, campaigning to get garment workers paid a dollar more,” she said, “we’re calling for an end to the system that puts workers in these positions to begin with.” The “we” there is Blue Tin Production, a small apparel manufacturing workers’ cooperative in Chicago run by working-class women of colour, which Katebi founded in 2019. Blue Tin executes clothing contracts in ways that are antithetical to the contemporary sweatshop: full equity and transparency, no exploitation, abuse or greenwashing (a term applied when a company exaggerates its eco-consciousness). The goal is to produce high-quality luxury apparel while shining a light on systemic issues stitched into fashion. In addition to running Blue Tin, Katebi works as a community organiser, speaker and writer, all while attending law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “I run on saffron ice cream and coloniser tears,” she said. (The following interview has been condensed and edited.) Q: What does abolitionism mean in the context of your work? A: Fast fashion is a very specific type of manufacturing, basically focused on speed and output. While the rest of the fashion industry usually works on a four-season year, fast fashion works on 52: There’s a new season every week. There’s no way that amount of product can be created in a way that’s ethical or sustainable. The system requires violence in order to function. Assaults on workers by managers are common, on top of the general subjugation and enforced poverty that give people little choice but to do this work. That violence can’t be reformed away. An easy analogy is slavery — you can ask slave owners to be nicer, but the institution is inherently violent. So Blue Tin is an abolitionist response to the fast-fashion industry. Q: How did fashion become your focus? A: I discovered fashion blogs just before college. It was a fun outlet. But some of my favourite people were working with brands on the BDS list, (a list of companies and individuals that support Israel). They weren’t thinking about the politics behind the aesthetics. When I created my first website, it was to push people to think about their clothes in a more complex and nuanced way. Everything relates to fashion. Fashion is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, for example — it contributes more greenhouse gases than all of maritime shipping and air travel combined, (according to figures from the United Nations Environment Program and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation). Then there’s the connection between sustainability and policing, which upholds the ability for cheap labour to exist. That, in turn, allows certain neighbourhoods to be disproportionately impacted by, say, a coal power plant that pollutes the air, which in turn keeps the community there from thriving. Any issue that you care about, you can find in fashion. On top of that, 1 in 6 people in the world works in the fashion industry. No one knows this because the majority of them are working-class women of colour and farmers. Q: Can you provide an example of how this system resists change? A: In Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, factories will intentionally hire undocumented workers and then not pay them for months. When the workers get upset, management calls (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and has a self-reported raid of their own factory. Some of our former Blue Tin members have gone through that process. Q: What are your biggest challenges at Blue Tin? A: Abolition means putting an end to this industry, and it also means thinking about the world we want to create in its place. How can we create clothes in a way that’s not violent? That feels like a low bar, but it’s extremely complicated and stressful. I cry about once a week. Q: How does that play out on a day-to-day basis? A: At Blue Tin we try to prioritise people who are “unhirable” by the labour industry’s standards. That means people who may not speak English, or who have child care needs, or maybe they need to sit and process the trauma that they’ve been through because they’re domestic violence survivors. People who our systems have harmed in different ways. The year we started, one of our members got a call that her uncle and his 8-year-old son were killed in bombings in Damascus, Syria. We asked her, “What do you need in this moment?” We stopped production to go on a walk with her and to build care around her. So we were very behind on our production, and we lost that client. At the end of the day, we live in a capitalist world. We can’t create a utopia — so the question is, how can we create the best of what this can be, even if it’s flawed? Q: I’ve noticed that you tend not to use the word “refugees” when describing the Blue Tin team, though others do. A: For me, the class part is more important than the identity part because I hate identity politics. And “immigrant” and “refugee” have become catchphrases in the fashion industry. People are like, “Aw, a cute sewing circle of immigrant women.” The team didn’t want to be framed by their trauma. We’re trying to completely reimagine the fashion industry and build garment worker power, so brands should work with us because of these incredible skill sets and backgrounds, not because they feel bad. Oh, sure, go for the PR; I don’t care. But really it’s the beautiful clothes, and them bringing art and craftsmanship back to fashion where it belongs. Q: What’s everyone working on now? A: Right now they’re in “panty purgatory,” as they call it. They’ve been making underwear nonstop, for a big client. I think that’s finally done, but we’re basically panty entrepreneurs now. Q: How did your consciousness around these issues take shape? A: A lot of my values come from Islamic values of divine compassion and divine mercy. Those don’t sound radical, but it actually is a radical demand that we instead live in a world of compassion and mercy. So I’m all for an assault on empire and capitalism. But some nurturing is required, too. You have to hold both at the same time. I guess you throw your Molotov, but you also give someone a hug. ©2022 The New York Times Company

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum challenged President Barack Obama's Christian beliefs on Saturday, saying White House policies were motivated by a "different theology." A devout Roman Catholic who has risen to the top of Republican polls in recent days, Santorum said the Obama administration had failed to prevent gas prices rising and was using "political science" in the debate about climate change. Obama's agenda is "not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology," Santorum told supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement at a Columbus hotel. When asked about the statement at a news conference later, Santorum said, "If the president says he's a Christian, he's a Christian." But Santorum did not back down from the assertion that Obama's values run against those of Christianity. "He is imposing his values on the Christian church. He can categorize those values anyway he wants. I'm not going to," Santorum told reporters. A social conservative, Santorum is increasingly seen as a champion for evangelical Christians in fights with Democrats over contraception and gay marriage. "This is just the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity - a stark contrast with the President who is focused everyday on creating jobs and restoring economic security for the middle class," said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt. The campaign's response signaled a new respect for Santorum. Until this week, the Obama campaign appeared exclusively focused on Mitt Romney. Republicans are waging a state-by-state contest to pick a candidate to challenge Obama in November's election. At a campaign appearance in Florida last month, Santorum declined to correct a voter who called Obama, a Christian, an "avowed Muslim." Santorum told CNN after that incident, "I don't feel it's my obligation every time someone says something I don't agree with to contradict them, and the president's a big boy, he can defend himself." QUESTIONS ROMNEY RECORD ON OLYMPICS On Saturday, Santorum also took aim at Romney, his main Republican rival, on one of the central accomplishments of his resume, saying the former Massachusetts governor's rescue of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics required millions of dollars in handouts from the federal government. The attack was a response to the Romney camp trying to portray Santorum as a proponent of big government because of his use of earmarks while he served in the US Senate. "He heroically bailed out the Salt Lake City Olympic Games by heroically going to Congress and asking them for tens of millions of dollars to bail out the Salt Lake Olympic Games - in an earmark," Santorum said. "One of his strongest supporters, John McCain called it potentially the worst boondoggle in earmark history. And now Governor Romney is suggesting, 'Oh, Rick Santorum earmarked,' as he requested almost half a billion dollars of earmarks as governor of Massachusetts to his federal congressmen and senators. Does the word hypocrisy come to mind?" Santorum said. Romney often talks of how he turned around the struggling Olympics organization and is appearing in Utah on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the Olympics. In a statement, the Romney campaign said Santorum was in a weak position to challenge its candidate on big spending. "Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you end up shooting yourself in the foot. There is a pretty wide gulf between seeking money for post-9/11 security at the Olympics and seeking earmarks for polar bear exhibits at the Pittsburgh Zoo. Mitt Romney wants to ban earmarks, Senator Santorum wants more 'Bridges to Nowhere,'" said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

BEIJING, Tue May 26, (dnews24.com/Reuters) - Ties between the United States and China could be transformed by cooperation on climate change, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, linking environmental concerns to human rights and the rule of law. Pelosi told an audience in the Chinese capital on Tuesday that the two nations -- the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases -- must work together to fight global warming. "China and the United States can and must confront the challenge of climate change together," she said at a meeting organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. "I think that this climate change crisis is a game-changer in the US-China relationship. It is an opportunity that we cannot miss." Pelosi was speaking during a visit to China with a group of US lawmakers examining how the two powers can cooperate better while governments seek to agree on a new global treaty on fighting global warming from greenhouse gases. But Pelosi, a Democrat well known as a critic of China over human rights and its rule in Tibet, also obliquely linked that concern to rights concerns, calling it a matter of "environmental justice". Fighting global warming would require political transparency, rule of law and accountability, Pelosi told the audience, which included former Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and its current ambassador to Washington, Zhou Wenzhong. Pelosi, however, did not mention specific human rights issues in her speech. Whether Washington and Beijing can agree on how each will help contain greenhouse gas emissions will be crucial to negotiations aimed at striking a new treaty by the end of the year in Copenhagen. While the two sides have struck up-beat notes since President Barack Obama took office, much still divides them. Many US lawmakers want China to make firm commitments to contain its growing greenhouse gas output before they back any deal. Pelosi's visit comes on the heels of the House Energy and Commerce Committee approving a climate change bill on Thursday that would cut US emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activity, by 17 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2020. But Beijing has said that in a new climate change pact all developed countries should agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by a much steeper 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. As the world's biggest emitter of these gases, China also faces pressure to begin cutting them soon. But it says developing nations should not accept mandatory emissions caps to solve a problem caused over the centuries by wealthy countries, which still have much higher per capita emissions.

Scientists counting emperor penguins from space have found twice as many of the birds in Antarctica as expected. The discovery is reassuring for a species seen as under threat from global warming and will provide researchers with a benchmark for monitoring the giants of the penguin world in years to come. Using high-resolution satellite images to study each of 44 colonies around the coastline of Antarctica, experts said on Friday they put the total emperor penguin population at 595,000, or roughly double previous estimates of 270,000 to 350,000. "It's good news," team leader Peter Fretwell of the British Antarctic Survey said in an interview. "It gives us a bit more confidence not only that there are lots of emperor penguins out there but that we can actually keep track of them as well." Seven of the colonies studied had never been seen before. A key advantage of satellites is that they can capture multiple images in one go, whereas visiting dozens of remote colonies in temperatures as low as -50 degrees Celsius (-58 degrees Fahrenheit) would be hugely expensive and time-consuming. Still, conducting a penguin roll-call from space is not simple. It took a special technique known as pan-sharpening to increase the resolution of the satellite images to differentiate between birds, shadows and penguin poo, or guano. While some images remained tricky to analyse, Fretwell believes the overall population figure is correct to within a 10-12 percent margin of error. Scientists are concerned that emperor penguins will be badly affected by climate change, since they form large colonies on the sea-ice, which is fragile and vulnerable to earlier spring warming. Their more northerly colonies are particularly at risk. The study by Fretwell and colleagues, published in the online journal PLoS ONE (link.reuters.com/byb67s), marks the first time that researchers have counted the entire population of any species by satellite in a single season. In future, the same technique could also be use to tot up numbers of other wild animals that stand out clearly against their natural habitat, such as flamingos or reindeer. Counting other types of penguins from space, however, may not be so easy. While emperors are large and contrast sharply against the white snow and ice on which they stand, other species are smaller and tend to breed on dark-coloured rock.

A remote chain of Arctic islands is advertising itself as a showcase of bad things to come from global warming. Visitors to Svalbard can see reindeer, seals or polar bears in the Arctic, where U.N. scientists say warming is happening twice as fast as on the rest of the planet in what may be a portent of changes further south. Local authorities said such visits are less environmentally harmful than Russian-led tours on nuclear ice-breakers or sky-diving trips over the North Pole. "This is one of the few ecosystems we have in the world that is functioning, with the polar bear as the top predator," said Rune Bergstrom, environmental expert at the governor's office. "Svalbard is probably the best place to see change, and the easiest place to reach in the high Arctic," he said. Glaciers have been retreating in parts of the Norwegian-run archipelago, Europe's largest wilderness. Last summer, some previously unknown islands were found after a glacier shrank. U.S. senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain, among contenders to take over from President George W. Bush in 2009, visited in 2004. Since then Nordic prime ministers, tourists, climate students and Arctic researchers are coming too. Tourists, many on cruise ships, spent a total of 70,000 nights in the islands last year, up from almost zero 20 years ago. Bergstrom said tourists were rich, and so could be influential when they returned home. "Svalbard is an important meeting place...You clearly see the melting of the ice, problems for polar bears, for birds, which are damaged by global warming and environmental pollutants," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy told Reuters. Norway wants more world action to fight global warming and last month set the toughest national goal in the world, to become "carbon neutral" by 2050, with no net emissions of greenhouse gases that come mostly from burning fossil fuels. Trying to influence politicians to go green is a big change for Longyearbyen, a village of 1,800 people built around a coal mine where temperatures in early May are about minus 5 Celsius (23.00F) even with a midnight sun. A coal-fired power plant emits greyish smoke from a high chimney into the pristine Arctic air over Svalbard, whose islands cover an area about as big as Ireland. Svalbard is trying to clean up its own act with a plan to bury the carbon dioxide emissions from the local coal-fired power plant by about 2025. Bright blue, red and yellow houses nestle in a valley between snow-covered peaks, and specialities in a local restaurant include seal and whale. Visitors are warned that a climber was killed by a polar bear in 1995 on a mountainside above the village. A road sign warns of polar bear danger on the entire island. Bjoernoy is planning a conference on Svalbard in August -- guests will include the head of the U.N. climate panel which released reports this year warning of widening damage from droughts, floods, a spread of disease and rising seas. Companies are also visiting the islands to raise awareness. A group of Dutch, British and Irish students attended a climate change college in Longyearbyen run by Ben & Jerry's, a U.S. ice cream maker, to educate them about climate change and help them launch grassroots environmental campaigns back home. Briton Rob Bell, for instance, wants mobile phone companies to create chargers that switch off when the phone is full: "If everyone unplugged their phone chargers it would be enough to power 33,000 homes for a year." Anne Leeflang said she would try to persuade students in the Netherlands to shift to water-saving shower heads. And Lesley Butler from Ireland will work as a consultant to help small businesses go green. Environment Minister Bjoernoy she said she saw no contradiction between showing off the impacts of global warming in the Arctic when many oil companies, such as Norway's state-controlled Statoil, are hoping for new finds as the sea ice recedes. "It's important for Norway to contribute to develop technologies for oil and gas and simultaneously be honest about the problems posed by our production," she said. Norway is the world's number 5 oil exporter. Experts say the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the planet because darker water and land, when exposed by melting ice and snow, soaks up more heat and accelerates the thaw.

CHINA Currently the world’s top carbon emitter, China’s near-future actions will help determine whether the world can meet its climate goals. It is also facing the impact of climate change, including extreme rainfall that devastated the province of Henan and unleashed flooding that killed more than 300 people in the summer. President Xi Jinping said last year China planned for an emissions peak in 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 – 10 years beyond the target scientists say is needed. China also pledged to halt funding coal projects overseas and to start cutting its own coal consumption in 2026. But an economic slowdown coupled with power shortages in recent weeks have fuelled policymakers’ arguments that China is not yet ready to make bolder moves. Xi is not expected to attend the talks in person, and China will likely send vice-environment minister Zhao Yingmin, but analysts say that without Xi there would be little chance for a bold announcement. UNITED STATES The United States is currently the world’s second-largest carbon emitter but has historically put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other country since the Industrial Revolution. It returns this year to UN climate talks, after former President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement and eschewed global efforts to curb emissions. US public awareness has grown amid a series of climate-fuelled disasters, including wildfires and the worst drought in nearly a century in the US West. President Joe Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement and has pledged that the country will cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% from 2005 levels by 2030. But domestic climate legislation is facing headwinds in Congress. A lack of concrete policies will undermine US efforts in Glasgow to push major emitters like China, India and Brazil to do more, diplomats and NGOs have said. UNITED KINGDOM The conference host, along with Italy. British minister Alok Sharma, who is leading the conference, said he hopes the talks “consign coal power to history.” In 2019, Britain pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and earlier this year committed to a 78% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government faces a dilemma: there is increasing public pressure to halt new North Sea oil and gas exploration, but doing so would leave the country more reliant on imported fuel. EUROPEAN UNION The 27-country bloc produces around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and its emissions have been trending downward for years. The EU has fixed into law targets to cut net emissions at least 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels, and reduce them to zero by 2050. Now, its member countries are negotiating a huge legislative package to meet those goals. Extreme heatwaves and floods killed thousands in Europe over the last two years. EU countries negotiate as one group at the climate talks, and are expected this year to push for rules requiring stronger climate targets every five years from all countries, a position likely to prove sticky in negotiations. LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES (LDCs) This group represents the world's 46 poorest nations, whose 1 billion citizens across Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean are particularly vulnerable to climate change, but least responsible for causing it. Along with blocs such as the African Group of Negotiators and the Climate Vulnerable Forum, LDCs are expected to push wealthy countries to honour a pledge to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance to the developing world for the 2020-2024 period - a target they are on track to miss. 'BASIC' COUNTRIES Brazil, South Africa, India and China make up this bloc of populous, fast-developing countries with high-polluting economies. Each has called on rich countries to provide more climate financing, and have demanded equity through the UNFCCC concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” – meaning wealthy countries that contributed the most emissions to the atmosphere have a greater responsibility to address it. New Delhi has said the current $100 billion a year pledge is not enough, and that India is unlikely to commit to a net-zero target by 2050. Brazil also wants financial compensation to halt rampant Amazon deforestation. South Africa wants stronger evidence that developed countries will come up with the $100 billion they have promised, but also says the figure should be more like $750 billion. OTHER NEGOTIATING BLOCS INCLUDE: CLIMATE VULNERABLE FORUM Representing 48 countries most at risk from climate impacts, including Bangladesh and the Maldives, this group urges the need for a strong global agreement and is also asking for countries to update their climate pledges annually, instead of every five years. ALLIANCE OF SMALL ISLAND STATES The alliance's countries are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change effects, particularly sea level rise and coastal erosion. POWERING PAST COAL ALLIANCE Spearheaded by the UK and Canada, 41 nations and dozens more local governments and private companies have pledged faster transitions from coal to clean energy. HIGH AMBITION COALITION Formed in 2015 by the Marshall Islands, Costa Rica, the United States, the EU, and others, this group pushes for more progressive emissions targets and climate policies. G77 + CHINA A longtime alliance of 77 developing countries and China, this group holds the line on the concept that different countries have differing responsibilities. UMBRELLA GROUP This alliance of non-EU developed countries includes Australia, Japan, Russia, and the United States. AFRICA GROUP Africa’s UN members will push for additional climate financing for the developing world.

If the results apply throughout the tropics, much of the carbon stored underground could be released as the planet heats up. “The loss rate is huge,” said Andrew Nottingham, an ecologist at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study. “It’s a bad news story.” The thin skin of soil that covers much of our planet’s land stores vast amounts of carbon — more, in total, than in all plants and the atmosphere combined. That carbon feeds hordes of bacteria and fungi, which build some of it into more microbes while respiring the rest into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Many of these microbes grow more active at warmer temperatures, increasing digestion and respiration rates. The finding “is another example of why we need to worry more” about how fast the globe is warming, said Eric Davidson, an environmental scientist at the University of Maryland College of Environmental Science in Frostburg who was not involved in the research. In an attempt to forecast the future, ecologists began in the early 1990s building apparatuses to artificially heat soils. Such experiments in temperate and boreal forests have shown that carbon-rich soils almost always belch carbon dioxide when warmed. In 2016, a group of researchers estimated that, by 2050, soils could release so much of the planet-warming gas that it would be like adding the carbon emissions of a new country the size of the United States. But that study left out the perpetually warm, mega-biodiverse tropics, where a third of all soil carbon resides. Figuring out the fate of this carbon would require grappling with the many pitfalls of doing research in the tropics: humidity, storms and a multitude of hungry animals that can take a toll on research equipment — chewing through electrical wires or protective coverings, for example — and on researchers themselves. For understanding soils’ contributions to climate change, the tropics “is a really important region” that “really hasn’t been studied,” said Margaret Torn, an ecologist at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in California, who was not involved in the study. In 2014, Nottingham, then a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh, traveled to Barro Colorado Island, a human-created island in the Panama Canal area that’s home to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He buried electrical wires in five circular plots to a depth of nearly 4 feet. For protection from the elements and ravenous insects, he shielded the wires inside metal structures shaped like freakishly large spiders. Measurements were logged inside weatherproof boxes. A photo provided by Ben Turner, shows, One of Dr Andrew Nottingham’s soil profile pits in Panama. Warming soils in the tropics could cause microbes to release carbon dioxide from storage. (Ben Turner via The New York Times) “Our experiment was basically me as a postdoc making things out of a DIY shop,” Nottingham said. A photo provided by Ben Turner, shows, One of Dr Andrew Nottingham’s soil profile pits in Panama. Warming soils in the tropics could cause microbes to release carbon dioxide from storage. (Ben Turner via The New York Times) The team encountered a number of hiccups, including poor electrical connections that blew up and cost the researchers nearly a year and much of their budget to repair. Starting in November, 2016, the wires’ electrical resistance began warming the soil by almost 6 degrees Fahrenheit, within the range of how much the tropics are projected to warm by century’s end according to current climate models. Other equipment measured the carbon dioxide coming out of both experimental plots and nearby plots that weren’t artificially warmed as well as microbial activity in the plots. An experiment warming soil in El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico had turned on two months earlier but was pummeled by back-to-back Category 5 hurricanes in September 2017; the study team didn’t turn the power back on for a year. The results from Nottingham’s team are sobering: Over two years, warmed soils spewed out 55% more carbon than control plots. “This is a very large response,” said Torn, who runs a similar warming experiment in a California forest that reported a roughly 35% increase in carbon emissions after two years. “It’s one of the largest I’ve heard of.” If the entire tropics were to behave similarly, the researchers estimate that 65 billion metric tons of carbon would enter the atmosphere by 2100 — more than six times the annual emissions from all human-related sources. Scaling the results to account for the entire tropics is complicated, however. The soils on Barro Colorado Island are richer in nutrients than many others, such as those of much of the vast Amazon rainforest, Davidson noted. That could make it easier for the Panamanian microbes to ramp up their activity. Microbial communities in African and Asian soils are very different from those in the Americas, Torn added. And while there is agreement that climate models need to treat soil more realistically, how best to do that is unclear. The new study strikes a blow against simple theories predicting that tropical soils will respond weakly to warming, said Kathe Todd-Brown, a soil scientist at the University of Florida in Gainesville who was not part of the research team. But to really get a handle on the problem, she said, modelers will need information about how microbes respond to variations in soil moisture and nutrients in addition to temperature. By warming only the soil, the Barro Colorado Island experiment did not capture how plants would fare under warmer conditions, said Tana Wood, a US Forest Service ecologist who is leading the Puerto Rico experiment. If plants were to photosynthesize more, for example, they could take up some of the carbon dioxide that soils release, making the overall impact on the climate less severe. “This is only telling half the carbon story,” she said. (Her team is warming both the soil and the air with infrared heaters and measuring how plants and microbes respond.) Torn said she was eager to see more than two years’ worth of data, which could reveal whether the carbon dioxide spike is prolonged or short-lived. “In the life of a tropical forest, that’s a very short time,” she noted. Nottingham has funding to keep the Panama project running for at least another five years. But even two years has shown how critical it is to find ways to keep ecosystems intact, he said. “It makes you realize how fortunate we’ve been up until this point to have a relatively stable climate.” © 2020 The New York Times Company

The United States and other major powers on Wednesday told Iran to prepare a "serious response" by October 1 to demands it halt its nuclear program or risk the consequences. The demand from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany came after U.S. President Barack Obama made his first speech to the U.N. General Assembly, urging leaders to stop blaming America and join him in confronting world issues including Iran's nuclear plans. "We expect a serious response from Iran and will decide, in the context of our dual track approach, as a result of the meeting, on our next steps," British Foreign Minister David Miliband said, reading a statement agreed by Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said all sides agreed there could be consequences if Iran did not reply substantively when negotiators meet in Geneva next month. But China later said that stepping up pressure on Iran would not be effective. "We believe that sanctions and exerting pressure are not the way to solve problems and are not conducive for the current diplomatic efforts on the Iran nuclear issue," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news briefing in Beijing. Jiang's comments suggest China, which often says it does not interfere in other nations' internal affairs, might be a brake on efforts to build up international pressure on Tehran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his own U.N. address, did not directly mention the nuclear issue. But the Iranian leader delivered his usual tough rhetoric on Israel, accusing it of "inhuman policies" in the Palestinian territories and of dominating world political and economic affairs. U.S. and British officials in the assembly hall left at the time of Ahmadinejad's comments about Israel. "It is disappointing that Mr. Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," said U.S. mission spokesman Mark Kornblau. Hours after protesters gathered outside Iran's U.N. mission to accuse him of stealing the June election, Ahmadinejad hailed the "glorious and fully democratic" poll which "entrusted me once more with a large majority." 'GREED, EXCESS AND ABUSE' Obama, in his first speech to the assembly since taking office in January, pledged U.S. global engagement but said the United States could not shoulder the responsibility alone. "Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," Obama said. Obama, who will host a Group of 20 nations summit in Pittsburgh this week, also pledged to work with allies to strengthen financial regulation to "put an end to the greed, excess and abuse that led us into disaster." Obama was among the first major speakers at the gathering, which brings more than 100 heads of state and government together to air issues ranging from nuclear proliferation and international terrorism to climate change and global poverty. Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, delivering his own inaugural U.N. address, took a swipe at the veto power wielded by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. He called the group the "terror council" and demanded it be scrapped. Obama has brought a new tone in U.S. foreign policy, stressing cooperation and consultation over the unilateralism of his predecessor, George W. Bush. But despite Obama's global popularity, the new approach has delivered few concrete foreign policy achievements. U.S. officials were again disappointed this week when Israel and Palestinians rebuffed a new Obama push to restart peace talks in time for the U.N. meeting. On Wednesday, however, Obama got some good news as both Russian and U.S. officials signaled the two sides may be moving closer on how to deal with Iran's nuclear program -- one of his most pressing foreign policy priorities. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said sanctions could be inevitable -- a significant hardening of Moscow's position. U.S. officials denied the Russian shift represented payback for Obama's decision last week to scale back a Bush-era plan for European missile defense that had angered Moscow. But they acknowledged that the climate had changed. "It wasn't that long ago where we had very divergent definitions of the threat and definitions of our strategic objectives vis-a-vis Iran. That seems to me to be a lot closer, if not almost together," Michael McFaul, a White House adviser on Russia, said in New York. But Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi repeated his nation's position that the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme should be resolved through dialogue.

Globally there were 8.6 million fresh cases of people fleeing conflict last year within borders, an average of 24,000 a day, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) said in a report. More than half of those were in the Middle East. Some 2.2 million people in Yemen, or 8 percent of its population, were newly displaced in 2015, largely the result of Saudi-led air strikes and an economic blockade imposed on civilians, the report said. IDMC said the number of people forced from their homes by conflict but staying in their own countries was twice those who have become refugees by crossing international borders. "The world is in a tremendous displacement crisis that is relentlessly building year after year, and now too many places have the perfect storm of conflict and/or disasters," said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which runs IDMC. "We have to find ways to protect people from these horrendous forces of both nature and the man-made ones." The UN refugee agency has said the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide was likely to have "far surpassed" a record 60 million in 2015, including 20 million refugees, driven by the Syrian war and other drawn-out conflicts. The IDMC report said displacement in the Middle East and North Africa had "snowballed" since the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010 and the rise of the Islamic State militant group, which is waging war in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. "What has really led to the spike we have seen most recently has been the attack on civilians - indiscriminate bombing and air strikes, across Syria but also Yemen," said Alexandra Bilak, IDMC's interim director. "People have nowhere to go." Disaster prevention Globally, there were 19.2 million new cases of people forced from their homes by natural disasters in 2015, the vast majority of them due to extreme weather such as storms and floods, IDMC said. In Nepal alone, earthquakes in April and May uprooted 2.6 million people. Egeland said many countries, such as Cuba, Vietnam and Bangladesh, had improved their record on preventing and preparing for natural disasters. "But in Asia I would say, and to some extent Latin America, still too little is done to meet the growing strength of the forces of nature fuelled by climate change," he added. The former UN aid chief urged this month's World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul to focus on building resilience to natural disasters, and finding ways to avert conflicts and protect civilians in war. IDMC's Bilak said political action was needed to stop more people being forced from their homes, and staying displaced for long periods. "The numbers are increasing every year, which clearly shows that the solutions to displacement are not being found," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Sudan and South Sudan have featured in the list of the 10 largest displaced populations every year since 2003, the report noted. "People are not returning, they are not locally integrating where they have found refuge, and they are certainly not being resettled somewhere else," Bilak said.

WASHINGTON, Thu Nov 6, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection has some environmental advice for the incoming Obama administration: focus on energy efficiency and renewable resources, and create a unified US power grid. On Thursday, the group Gore founded rolled out a new media campaign to push for immediate investments in three energy areas it maintains would help meet Gore's previously announced challenge to produce 100 percent clean electricity in the United States in a decade. Pegged to Obama's election victory on Tuesday, the Gore group's ads on television, in newspapers and online, pose the question, "Now what?" "Our nation just made history," one video says. "We have an historic opportunity to boost our economy and repower America with 100 percent clean electricity within 10 years. It will create new American jobs, end our addiction to dirty coal and foreign oil and solve the climate crisis." More information on the campaign is available online at repoweramerica.org. Gore -- former vice president, Nobel Peace laureate and star of the Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" -- has said repeatedly he wants to play no official government role in the fight against climate change. But with environmental activists talking about a possible "climate czar" in President-elect Barack Obama's White House, Gore's name inevitably gets mentioned. IMMEDIATE ENERGY INVESTMENTS The plan advocates immediate investment in energy efficiency, renewable power generation -- including public investment in wind, solar and geothermal technology -- and the creation of a unified national smart grid. "Modernize transmission infrastructure so that clean electricity generated anywhere in America can power homes and businesses across the nation," the alliance said in a statement. The alliance favors "national electricity 'interstates' that move power quickly and cheaply to where it needs to be (and) local smart grids that buy and sell power from households and support clean plug-in cars." Gore and his group are in line with most US environmental groups, which see the next administration as a chance to act to stem global warming, after what many see as the Bush administration's stalling on this issue. R.K. Pachauri, head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Gore in 2007, sounded a similar note in a statement issued after the vote. "The US now has a unique opportunity to assume leadership in meeting the threat of climate change, and it would help greatly if the new president were to announce a coherent and forward looking policy soon after he takes office," Pachauri said on his blog at blog.rkpachauri.org/.

The show includes some mind-bending, beautiful work, on view through the end of May. But the collective emerged to serve longer-term, more radical goals. It taps into a legacy of Black collectives from earlier eras. In 1893, Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass joined to publish “The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition.” Seven years later, W E B Du Bois, Booker T Washington and Thomas J Calloway organized a display of charts and photographs about the African American experience to counter depictions of Black Americans at the world’s fair in Paris. These were necessary responses to a system of cultural exclusion that, time and again, erased, demeaned and denied Blackness. By the 1960s, in the wake of the Black Power movement, a variety of Black artists’ collectives had coalesced, among them Spiral, which included Norman Lewis and Romare Bearden; Amiri Baraka’s Black Arts Movement; and AfriCobra, a Chicago-based Black artists’ commune. “We have a responsibility beyond the exhibition, beyond us,” is how Amanda Williams, a Chicago-based architect and artist, and one of the members of the Black Reconstruction Collective, summed up the group’s thinking. The MoMA show was organised by Sean Anderson, an associate curator at the museum, and Mabel O Wilson, an architect, Columbia University professor and author, among much else, of “White by Design,” which describes the Modern’s failure to display and collect works by Black architects and designers. “Reconstructions” proceeds from a question: “How do we construct Blackness?” The architects enlisted to answer this question are a multigenerational mix, including some familiar names. Nearly all run small or solo practices. Their projects occupy rooms at the Modern dedicated to Philip Johnson, the New York power broker, architect and founding director of MoMA’s architecture department, who died in 2005, at 98. Members of the collective petitioned the museum to remove Johnson’s name from the wall because of his history of racism and Nazi sympathy. The museum declined. “Manifesting Statement,” a textile by the collective, temporarily covers the name. Other works in the show remap Los Angeles according to Black settlement patterns. They picture a mile-long stretch of Oakland rebuilt according to principles outlined in the Black Panthers’ 10-Point Programme. They contemplate how Black people might “navigate their way to free space,” which can take the form of the open sea or outer space — a project that also recalls Kinloch, Missouri. Having thrived for generations as an incorporated Black town, Kinloch ended up a victim of urbicide when authorities in neighboring St Louis converted town land to build an airport. All these projects re-imagine architecture from the perspective of Black people, a mission of the collective — and a first for the Modern. Until now, the museum hasn’t devoted any exhibition to African American architects. There is nothing in its permanent collection by major Black architects like Paul Revere Williams, J Max Bond Jr, Vertner Woodson Tandy or Amaza Lee Meredith. Since 1929, when MoMA opened its doors, it has acquired only two works by Black designers, both since 2016, neither of them strictly architecture: one is Charles Harrison’s “View-master (model G)” from 1962, the other a series of photographs by Amanda Williams. Which is to say, the Modern itself partly necessitated the Black Reconstruction Collective. The group addresses the bigger question: How can Blackness construct America? Four of the members gathered on Zoom the other day to talk about the collective’s impetus and goals: Amanda Williams, Emanuel Admassu, J Yolande Daniels and V Mitch McEwen. The four were chosen as representatives by the other members: Sekou Cooke, Germane Barnes, Felecia Davis, Mario Gooden, Walter Hood and Olalekan Jeyifous. The following is an edited, condensed version of the conversation. Michael Kimmelman: How did the idea of a collective come up? Amanda Williams: It was partly born from a lack of awareness by MoMA about what it meant to invite Black and (predominantly) solo practitioners to do a show like this. We were each given insufficient stipends to make full-scale, one-to-one objects. The real cost of doing this sort of thing may not mean much to big firms like OMA or Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who’ve been in MoMA shows. For them it may be the marketing budget on a single competition, I don’t know. But this reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of what it took for us to produce work of the calibre that we are capable of. There’s often an attitude when Black people enter certain spaces, despite having all the pedigrees and credentials, that we are like high schoolers getting a special chance. So early on, we started talking to each other, asking, “What if we pooled our resources?” J Yolande Daniels: There was also, I think, an assumption in our discussions with the exhibition advisory board that our projects were supposed to solve social problems, that that’s what Black architects do — we do community housing, as if it’s still the 1960s. That way of thinking about African American practitioners doesn’t afford us the luxury of doing speculative or other kinds of work, which white architects are automatically afforded. That wasn’t the brief from MoMA, was it — do affordable housing? Emanuel Admassu: No, but whenever you have a group of Black people in a predominantly white institution the idea is that it’s our responsibility to fix racism. Williams: Don’t worry! We’re here now! The word inclusion makes my skin crawl, because in a context like this it implies tolerance: tolerating Black people, tolerating a monolithic idea of Blackness. Instead of inclusion I prefer collectivity, the sharing of things — power, vision, access — which is not the typical mindset of institutions like MoMA and of people in positions of privilege and power, who tend to be straight, white and male. As Black architects and artists, we realised as we became involved with this show that we had to form a collective whether we liked it or not. Black people in every profession have to place the collective ahead of the individual. Ultimately, we have little choice. But we also realised that we could use the opportunity — that forming a collective could be the project’s most radical gesture. So what are your goals? Admassu: The exhibition is just a passing event. All the research we’ve done, all the amazing conversations we had about reconstruction, architecture and race with the advisory committee that Mabel and Sean put together — the museum didn’t seem to have any agenda going forward. We asked about the possibility of endowing a curatorial position to focus on race and architecture, about whether there are long-term plans to address the history of exclusion. There was no answer. The museum is committed long-term to programs around the environment and sustainability, but when it comes to the last 500 years of colonisation and subjugation of Black people, it’s a different story. V Mitch McEwen: That’s an understatement. MoMA created an effectively Whites Only architecture archive and department, by design. Engaging with these issues in the context of primarily white institutions can be emotionally draining and rife with conflicts. A number of us are on the boards of various national architecture organizations, whose origins tend to go back to groups of the most privileged architects sharing their European drawing techniques and travel sketches. We’ve seen from the inside the need for a radical shift in the role that architecture can play in civil society, whether it’s around issues like climate change or inequality. We can’t afford to keep waiting for the old models to adapt. We need to begin a different kind of work with each other. Daniels: So we spent long hours establishing the collective as a 501(c)(3), an independent nonprofit, to pursue liberation practices, to raise money and provide platforms for other African American architects, including students. I remember what it felt like when I was a Columbia student 30 years ago, how isolated I felt as a Black woman. Last year, in the course of putting the MoMA show together, the collective organised talks at Columbia, Harvard and MIT, and we heard back from Black students who said the talks really helped them deal with their sense of isolation. It was very moving. You said liberation practices. Daniels: They begin by asking questions like, What is an architecture of reconstruction? Can we imagine an architecture of reparations? What might be the architecture of Black futurity? Admassu: How can we redefine what architecture means? Daniels: Because as constituted, architecture rejects Blackness. Within the field of architecture there are certain terms and theories involving autonomy, critical distance. These terms basically support whiteness by rejecting, or devaluing, all other forms of experience, especially minority experience, because these other experiences are not abstract, they’re too subjective. I went to this lecture by Fernando Lara … A Brazilian architect and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Daniels: Right. And he was talking about abstraction and colonialism, how those things are all tied together and, in effect, make up the tool kit of modern architects. Architectural theories involving autonomy and critical distance basically support whiteness by rejecting other forms of experience — the Black experience, the Native American experience — because these other experiences are not abstract, they’re too subjective. McEwen: The status quo depends on a backward concept, which is that architecture is expensive, luxurious, elite and (pseudo) avant-garde — whereas I think architecture can be cheap, temporary, flexible. Admassu: I agree with Mitch. Mabel Wilson makes a distinction between buildings and Architecture, because Architecture with a capital A implies an academic infrastructure of discourse and knowledge production tied to Europe, whereas buildings are made all over the world. Part of what our collective wants to do is reclaim the larger, civic promise of architecture. Williams: I’ve stopped worrying about Architecture with a capital A. We should just be talking about spatial practice. How can Black people move through spaces in ways that are self-determined? Ultimately, we should be designing for freedom in these spaces — not a freedom from, but a freedom to. McEwen: The terminology is complicated. Four years ago I did a workshop in Detroit on reparations, and activists who showed up got very excited when I started talking about building for reparations, because in the lexicon of Black politics, you build when you talk with someone. You say, “I want to build with you.” It means I want to engage in politics. I want to build a movement. When I said, no, I meant actually building, folks suddenly seemed deflated, as if talking about the literally built environment negated the rhetoric of empowerment. They said, “We’re going to build joy. We’re going to build sharing. We’re going to build our arts together.” I was like, that’s great, and can we also start to put some parametres around where and how much we’re going to re-imagine the built environment? They thought that I was missing the nuance. I think that’s on architecture — the sense that architecture is not about building community, that it’s about exploiting people like us. There’s a widespread misperception that it’s just for rich people, museums, academics, or what’s on HGTV. Admassu: Let me add, I’m a Black immigrant who moved to the United States as a teenager from the continent of Africa. You cross the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is basically a planetary scar dividing Africa from the Americas, and to the west you become Black. To the east, you’re Yoruba, Amhara or whatever. Part of our goal as a collective is thinking about how these spaces, which are not considered architecture, come to be imbued with meaning because of how Black people occupy them — and in doing so, expand the conversation around Black spatial practices beyond the United States. Your project for MoMA focuses on Atlanta, Emanuel, and spaces like highways, strip malls and parking lots. Mitch, you conjure up an alternate New Orleans in which a failed 1811 uprising against slave owners had succeeded. You ask a remarkable question: “What architecture would Black people have already invented if we had been truly free for the last 210 years?” McEwen: As a discipline, architecture involves lots of speculative work. It allows us to picture what this country might look like, what reparations might look like. Williams: Folks who go to the MoMA show and expect to find the next 10 great Black architects, the next Paul R Williams or Vertner Tandy, or who think we’re going to solve gentrification — or other problems we understand personally and very well but didn’t create — they won’t find any of that. We need the next Paul Williams. But we also need to create the conditions for change. So that’s the goal of the collective. Williams: To empower architecture as a vehicle for liberation and joy.

Vipul Tejani runs a small factory in Surat, the diamond capital of India which in the past 15 years has been hit by massive floods, rising sea levels, and even the plague. His workshop is tucked in a warren of small diamond cutting businesses and textile mills employing thousands of workers. Like three-quarters of the city, it was flooded by muddy waters reaching two storeys high in 2006. But in Surat, someone like Tejani does not see himself as another disaster statistic. With a smile on his face, he says: "I am not planning to shift from here." Just next to India's west coast, Surat is learning to live with big upheavals and now wants to become a front-runner in preparing for the impact of climate change in a country with fast-rising emissions but generally low environmental awareness. GPS technology is being used to map the city of 4 million, which will enable rescuers to pinpoint where relief should be sent and whom to evacuate first if the flood waters come rushing. Flood warnings appear on LCD screens on the streets. Every year, an action plan is prepared ahead of monsoon season. Rescue boats are kept at the ready at fire stations. Families are trained on basics such as what medicines to keep in the house or where to take vulnerable people like pregnant women. "Whether it's in government or in the business community, there's a remarkably high level of engagement," said Ashvin Dayal, the Asia managing director for the Rockefeller Foundation. The 2006 flood "really consolidated in the minds of the citizens of the city the need for action. That's not something you see commonly across most cities in India", he added. TEST CASE The U.S.-based foundation chose Surat as one of a handful of Asian cities in which to fund adaptation studies. Successful projects could then inspire other cities at risk. It joined hands with a local business lobby, the consulting film TARU in a climate umbrella group that has its own website and Facebook page. ((www.suratclimatechange.org/)) The stakes on adaptation are high for India, seen as one of the nations most at risk from a warmer planet. But change may not be easy with its rowdy democracy of more than 1.1 billion and daunting development statistics despite India's global economic rise. Around 40 percent live on less than $1.25 a day and more than half are dependent on agriculture. Suruchi Bhadwal of the New Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute, said the country must top up existing government schemes to keep pace with escalating climate risks. "In terms of climate change adaptation, there's not much happening in India," she said, adding "implementation and hardcore active research is missing." Who should foot the bill for adaptation became a global debate ahead of the December global climate talks. Climate change will likely increase the intensity and frequency of extreme events the likes of which hit Surat, and leave India more vulnerable to floods, heatwaves, disease and erratic monsoon rains upon which its farmers rely. A government report said a 1 metre sea-level rise would flood nearly 6,000 sq km (2,300 square miles) of India, which could cause "significant population movements" among 63 million people in low-lying areas -- roughly the population of Britain. Surat could become a test case for India, the world's fourth largest emitter. Jyoti Parikh, who sits on the prime minister's climate change council, visited the city to scout out what lessons can be applied on a national level. "In some sense, it could become a laboratory or a best practice model for us," she told Reuters in late November. Surat's highest tide on record came in 2008, and rainfall on its flood plain is predicted to increase in the coming decades. Tidal pulls cause creeks in Surat to surge in areas populated by slum dwellers unable to live elsewhere. One such slum is Kamrunagar, built on a sloping hill down to a filthy pool. On one small shop, one can see a faded red line and a date, one of many such markers dotted around the city which record the water level rise of particular floods. "We want to shift over there to protect ourselves from the floods," said Sheikh Afsana Sheikh Yusuf, as children run around her in the slum and a small fire burns in a nearby skip. "Over there" is a government-funded block of flats next to the slum, built on stilts as a first defence against water level surges, one of many to shift thousands from flood-prone areas. Surat has come a long way from 1994, when poor flood cleanup caused a global health scare with an outbreak of deadly pneumonic plague that prompted hundreds of thousands to flee the city. Favourable comparisons are now made between the handling of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 and the 2006 flood in the much more populous Surat, where seven times as many people, 3.5 million, were affected according to the Surat government. "The city was brought back to normal in two weeks' time, where it took months to bring back New Orleans," said Kamlesh Yagnik, the group chairman of the Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, part of the climate group. "It tells us we are equal for flood management."

India and China signed on Wednesday a broad agreement to cooperate in the fight against climate change and also underlined a common position on contentious talks for a tougher global climate deal. The sweeping agreement covers cooperation for action to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gases, transfer of technology and in areas of energy efficiency and renewables, among others. It comes weeks before a major climate meeting in Copenhagen in December the United Nations hopes will end with agreement on a broader pact to slow the pace of climate change that scientists say is caused by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Finding ways to get big developing nations to join is crucial, the United Nations says, with China now the world's top greenhouse gas emitter and India the fourth largest. The deal is among several India is sealing with rich and developing nations as proof of its commitment towards sealing a new climate pact meant to expand or replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. "My clear understanding is that India is in no way signing bilateral deals to undermine multi-lateral negotiations. This is an expression of interest in finding common ground," said Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment. Tuesday's agreement, which holds good for five years, was signed by India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and Xie Zhenhua, vice minister at China's National Development and Reform Commission. India signed a similar deal with Japan this week and has spoken of cooperation with South Korea, Brazil and the United States. The India-China agreement said developed countries should take the lead in fighting climate change by reducing emissions and providing finance and technology to poorer nations. It said: "...that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol are the most appropriate framework for addressing climate change." The Kyoto Protocol, the first phase of which ends in 2012, obliges 37 rich nations to cut emissions by an average of five percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. A huge gap also exists between rich countries reluctant to pay the fiscal and lifestyle costs of deep cuts in their emissions, and developing states which say they must be allowed to increase emissions so their economies can catch up. Negotiations have stumbled on lack of clarity on the amount, sources and management of any climate funds as well as the legal nature of any new post-2012 pact.

UPDATE 2- (Adds SSE move, updates shares, background) LONDON, Jan 18 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - British Gas, Britain's biggest energy supplier, raised charges for domestic gas and electricity by 15 percent with immediate effect, its owner Centrica said on Friday. It said wholesale forward gas prices had risen 51 percent since it cut household charges last spring, eroding its profit margins to around 1 per cent, and if it didn't hike prices now it would make a loss in 2008. British Gas has a string of gas-fired power stations and is therefore more exposed to swings in the wholesale price of gas than its rivals, many of which have hydroelectric and coal-powered stations. It made its move after the energy regulator this week ruled out newspaper allegations the big power firms were colluding on prices. Centrica shares rose 2.6 percent to 346.75 pence by 1241 GMT. Rival EDF Energy said this week it would increase power prices for its customers from Friday, less than two weeks after Germany's RWE announced double digit increases for customers of its UK unit npower. Britain's energy regulator met finance minister Alistair Darling on Tuesday to assure the government the price hikes were the result of rising global energy costs, the cost of fighting climate change and increased network investment. Scottish & Southern, which has a broad mix of power sources including coal, hydro and wind, said it would not raise prices until March 30 at the earliest. British Gas called for the rest of Europe to follow Britain by liberalising energy markets faster to help break the historic link between gas prices and oil prices, which have recently reached historic highs. "The UK gas market is competitive but is now fully linked to Continental Europe where the gas market is less competitive and prices are linked to oil prices," British Gas MD Phil Bentley said. "As oil prices have increased, so has the cost of gas across Europe, and this has hit the UK," he added.

The Group of 20 rich and developing nations promised to give rising powers such as China more say in rebuilding and guiding the global economy, and declared their crisis-fighting efforts a success on Friday. Leaders pledged to keep emergency economic supports in place until sustainable recovery is assured, launch a framework for acting together to rebalance economic growth, and implement tougher rules governing banks by 2012. "Here in Pittsburgh, leaders representing two thirds of the planet's population have agreed to a global plan for jobs, growth and a sustained economic recovery," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said after a two-day summit. US President Barack Obama's first turn hosting a major summit ended on an upbeat note, with leaders claiming victory in stopping the recession from turning into a depression. "It worked," they said in the final communique. "Our forceful response helped stop the dangerous, sharp decline in global activity and stabilize financial markets." Obama said, "We cannot tolerate the same old boom-and-bust economy of the past. We can't wait for a crisis to cooperate. That's why our new framework will allow each of us to assess the other's policies, to build consensus on reform, and to ensure that global demand supports growth for all." The Pittsburgh gathering was the third summit in a year for the G20, which said it would now be the "premier forum" for economic cooperation, supplanting the Western-dominated G7 and G8 that were the primary international forums for decades. "This is a symbolic act of inclusion of immense importance to international politics," said Colin Bradford, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "There is tremendous significance to the history being made today that this decision does not enlarge the G7 but replaces it." Others were more skeptical. "I think the G7 is something of a zombie -- very hard to kill," said Simon Johnson, a former IMF chief economist. "They have a lot of inter-connections ... but obviously at the summit level, they are gone." The move was a clear acknowledgment that fast-growing countries such as China and India now play a much more important part in world growth. "This movement to the G20 and away from the G7 is recognizing economic realities. You can't talk about the global economy without having the major dynamic emerging economies at the table," John Lipsky, the deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told Reuters Television. Disclosure of a second Iranian uranium enrichment plant gave Obama, with the leaders of Britain and France at his side, an opportunity to press for united action against Tehran over its disputed nuclear program. Obama said Iran was "on notice" that it must choose when it meets with world powers in Geneva on October 1 whether it would "continue down a path that is going to lead to confrontation". JOB NOT DONE Tough economic tasks remained for the group. The G20 vowed not to return to the "reckless behavior" blamed for triggering the financial crisis, which exploded two years ago when failing U.S. mortgage loans caused catastrophic losses at financial firms around the world. "A sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency," the G20 leaders said in their summit communique. "We want growth without cycles of boom and bust and markets that foster responsibility not recklessness." In addition to the regulatory reforms, which are supposed to be developed by the end of 2010 and put in place two years later, the G20 took aim at lavish pay packages for bankers. The leaders agreed that firms should be able to claw back or reclaim pay and bonuses in certain instances. The measure was aimed at making sure bankers don't get huge payouts for making risky bets that later go bad. The leaders agreed to shift some voting power at the International Monetary Fund to underrepresented countries such as China from rich ones, another sign that the developed world had accepted the changing balance of economic power. In the statement, the G20 endorsed a plan to phase out fossil fuel subsidies as a way to combat global warming, and to step up efforts to complete the Doha round of trade talks. REBALANCING GROWTH World leaders also backed a U.S.-led push for reshaping the global economy to smooth out huge surpluses in exporting powerhouses such as China and large deficits in big importing countries such as the United States. Obama wants to ditch the U.S. borrow-and-spend mold and embrace saving and investment but that means countries such as China that rely on exports for growth must also adjust. G20 leaders agreed to work together to assess how domestic policies mesh and to evaluate whether they are "collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced growth." Countries with sustained, significant surpluses -- a description that could fit China -- pledged to strengthen domestic sources of growth, according to the communique. By the same token, countries with big deficits -- such as the United States -- pledged to support private savings. Economists have warned for years that these large imbalances could destabilize the global economy, and previous attempts to correct them have fallen flat. The United States thinks the effort will succeed this time because China and other big exporters suffered severe slumps when global trade collapsed during the recession, showing their economies were vulnerable to outside shocks. CLIMATE CHANGE Despite the show of solidarity, there were some sources of friction. Many Europeans were frustrated that little was agreed on how to pay for fighting climate change, particularly with a December climate summit in Copenhagen fast approaching. "I do not hide my concern at the slow rate of progress...It's time to get serious now, not later," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a statement. Kept at a distance from the G20 convention center, about 10,000 protesters marched against capitalism and the G20's agenda, some of them chanting "You're sexy, you're cute, take off that riot suit" to the police. There was only one arrest on Friday and the mood was buoyant, in contrast to protests on Thursday when there were clashes with police and dozens of arrests.

The cancellation was a rare snub of Denmark’s head of state, Queen Margrethe II, who had extended the invitation to the president and would have hosted him and the first lady. Later in the day, Trump further strained ties, calling the Danish prime minister’s rejection of the idea “nasty.” News that Trump had called off his visit “came as a surprise,” the Royal House’s communications director told the state broadcaster, adding, “That’s all we have to say about that.” Others, however, had more to say. “Is this some sort of joke?” Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a former prime minister, wrote on Twitter. “Deeply insulting to the people of Greenland and Denmark.” It was not a joke. A day earlier, Trump said on Twitter that Denmark was “a very special country with incredible people” but added that he was abandoning plans to visit because of the country’s refusal to sell Greenland, a semiautonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had said she had no interest in discussing the sale of Greenland. “Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland,” Frederiksen told a Danish newspaper this week. “I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously.” Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said that she had been “nasty” to describe the suggestion as “an absurd discussion.” “All they had to do is say, ‘No, we’d rather not do that or we’d rather not talk about it,’” he said. “Don’t say what an absurd idea that is.” He added, “You don’t talk to the United States that way.” Frederiksen, asked about his remarks on Danish television, said, “I’m not going to enter a war of words with anybody, nor with the American president.” She said she found the Danish response to the president’s visit and its cancellation “good and wise.” On Sunday, Trump said the idea of buying Greenland has been discussed in his administration because of the strategic benefits and in part because of its natural resources, like coal and uranium. He also suggested that the territory was a financial burden to Denmark. “Essentially, it’s a large real estate deal,” Trump told reporters on Sunday of his interest in buying Greenland. “A lot of things can be done. It’s hurting Denmark very badly, because they’re losing almost $700 million a year carrying it. So they carry it at a great loss.” Greenland’s government is in charge of most aspects of its affairs except foreign policy and defence. Local governments have not managed to develop a sustainable economy and receive more than 50% of the island’s budget in direct subsidies topped with additional Danish spending on defence and enforcement of sovereignty. The total bill amounts to $740 million annually. The idea of buying Greenland, which came to light last week, had been immediately and flatly rejected by leaders in Greenland and Denmark, who found themselves in the odd position at the time of having to publicly state that “Greenland is not for sale.” On Wednesday, disbelief and condemnation echoed through the political landscape, as it began to sink in that Trump wasn’t kidding. “Please stop,” Martin Lidegaard, head of the foreign affairs committee in Parliament, wrote on Twitter, before citing several other areas of discussion that he said should be of interest to both countries: the Arctic, climate change and the Middle East. “Total chaos,” the former finance minister Kristian Jensen wrote. “This has gone from a great opportunity for a strengthened dialogue between allies to a diplomatic crisis.” Before Trump cancelled his visit, Frederiksen told a television reporter on Sunday in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland: “Thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over. Let’s leave it there.” She also added, “Jokes aside, we would naturally love to have an even closer strategic relationship with the US.” But on Wednesday, Frederiksen acknowledged that the cancellation had been a surprise and “unusual” and that she “regretted” it. Adding to the already considerable awkwardness, Trump’s announcement that he was cancelling his trip came not long after the American ambassador, Carla Sands, wrote on Twitter that Denmark was excited about the president’s visit. A headline in Berlingske, a conservative daily, read “The US and Denmark’s relationship has never been this ice-cold. It will have wide-ranging consequences.” A headline on the website of the state broadcaster read, “Trump sends Denmark and the US’s relationship to the freezing point.” Frederiksen, however, dismissed speculation that Danish-American relations had been damaged. “I don’t believe the relationship is in crisis,” she said Wednesday. “We are closely connected, and the United States is one of our most important allies. Our cooperation will only expand in strength and range.” She said that any upcoming decisions about Danish contributions to military missions in Syria or the Strait of Hormuz would be unaffected. She added that Trump was welcome to visit the country at another time. “The American president and the American people are always welcome in Denmark,” she said. Many Danes had seen Trump’s visit as a recognition of a special relationship with the United States built on decades of friendly relations, mutual interests in the Arctic, and Danish responsiveness to American calls to action. Danish troops took part in US-led missions in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, where 43 Danish troops were killed, a staggering number for a nation of 5.5 million not used to war. But the suggestion of a potential sale of Greenland by Denmark still stuck many as beyond the pale. “For no reason Trump assumes that (an autonomous) part of our country is for sale,” Rasmus Jarlov, a former minister of business, wrote on Twitter. “Then insultingly cancels visit that everybody was preparing for. Are parts of the US for sale? Alaska? Please show more respect.” Ole Spiermann, a former professor of international law and legal adviser to the government of Greenland, said that from the perspective of international law, “the Danish state has the sovereign right to sell or trade Greenland if it wishes.” But Greenland’s right to self-determination under international law and also the Danish Constitution demand that “Greenland’s status cannot be changed without acceptance from the Greenlandic people.” Any offer from Trump should be addressed to both Denmark and Greenland, Spiermann said. Should the people of Greenland want an association with the United States against the will of the Danish government, he added, they would first have to become independent from Denmark and then join the United States. But perhaps suggesting he was enjoying the outrage over his interest in Greenland, Trump tweeted a photograph of a gold skyscraper standing in the middle of a field and wrote, “I promise not to do this to Greenland!” Pernille Skipper, the speaker of Parliament’s leftist red-green alliance, said on Twitter that Trump “lives on another planet. Smug and disrespectful. Noting that the president’s tweet said the visit had been postponed, rather than abandoned, Soren Espersen, who speaks for the populist Danish People’s Party on foreign affairs, suggested there was little point in Trump coming. “Why not just cancel?” he said. “We are so busy here with other things.” c.2019 The New York Times Company

When President Barack Obama sits down with his Chinese counterpart next week to talk climate change, it is highly unlikely they will craft a definitive plan to tackle global warming. But the summit between the world's two biggest spewers of carbon dioxide will probably set the tone for next month's U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen. Any progress in bridging the North-South climate divide would help lift the shroud of pessimism enveloping Copenhagen and Obama told Reuters this week he was optimistic of progress. Conversely, a failure to advance, or any sign the big two could conspire to effectively let each other off the hook in Denmark, would probably condemn the talks to failure. "Everyone is very pessimistic about Copenhagen, so there's a need for a positive signal from China and the United States," said Zhang Haibin, a professor of environmental diplomacy at Peking University. "A joint statement that both countries are willing to cooperate and will not abandon this process would help lift hopes for Copenhagen. Without it, Copenhagen looks even bleaker, and the subsequent negotiations would also be damaged." TOP EMITTERS The United States has emitted more carbon into the atmosphere than any country on earth but China has since taken up the mantle as top producer of the gases blamed for warming the Earth's atmosphere. Together, they account for 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. So there can be little progress without cooperation between the two countries at the December 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen that is designed to succeed the Kyoto climate protocol. "You are not only talking about the two greatest emitters but the two emitters that are iconic of the whole divide between developed and developing countries," said Julian L. Wong, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress in Washington. Wong thinks the international climate talks are far too complicated for Obama and President Hu Jintao to hammer out a definitive agreement on climate change when they meet next week. But the two sides are expected to make announcements showing how they are engaging on renewable energy projects and research into things like electric cars and capturing carbon at power plants for storage underground. The two leaders will pledge greater cooperation on climate but specifics of any bilateral plan might be sparse. "There will also be discussion of how to achieve some sort of agreement in Copenhagen -- something to boost global confidence -- but no major breakthroughs," said Wang Ke, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing OBAMA'S OPTIMISM Obama told Reuters in an interview prior to the trip that it was key the two countries reach a framework agreement other nations could buy into. "I remain optimistic that between now and Copenhagen that we can arrive at that framework," he said, adding he would travel to Denmark next month if he saw a chance of progress. Jennifer Morgan, director of the World Resources Institute Climate and Energy Program, said the two leaders need to show they want to go to Copenhagen to seal the deal. "The signal President Obama and Hu Jintao sends is very vital for hopefully inspiring others to come to Copenhagen with a high level of ambition," she told a journalists' briefing. But both leaders will also be constrained by domestic issues and policies. Obama must be careful not to preempt Congress, or risk a backlash. "The Senate needs to feel like it's beginning to tackle climate change itself, not because Obama boxed them in after visiting Beijing," said Michael Levi, a director at the Council on Foreign Relations. A sweeping climate bill that would seek to reduce U.S. emissions is struggling through the congressional maze in Washington and it faces opposition across the political divide on concerns about costs for industry. But the Chinese could help Obama if they recognize Obama's domestic constraints. "Any progress on the part of the Chinese in accepting the political reality in the U.S. Congress would be very important," said Levi. For its part, China is making strides embracing renewable energy and has pledged to reduce its emissions intensity -- the amount of emissions from each unit of economic output -- by a "notable margin." But China is resisting pressure from the United States and other developed countries to agree to a specific emissions targets. "Developed countries must lead the way with transforming their unsustainable production and lifestyle, and lead the way with deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions," Xie Zhenhua, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a meeting in Beijing, according to an official Chinese climate news website. "As a responsible country, we will continue enhancing efforts to save energy and reduce emissions, but we will also resolutely oppose any effort to impose unreasonable demands on us," he said.

At the current rate of progress it will take 300 years to turn back China's advancing deserts, a senior official said on Tuesday, bemoaning the low level of investment in fighting a serious environmental problem. Over a quarter of China's land area is covered by desert, or land which is turning into desert in which soil loses its fertility, putting crops and water supplies at risk for the world's second-largest economy. "The area of land being desertified is enormous, and prevention work most hard," Liu Tuo, head of China's anti-desertification efforts, told a news conference. "There is about 1.73 million square km of desertified land in China, and about 530,000 square km of that can be treated. At our present rate of treating 1,717 square km a year, I've just calculated we'll need 300 years," he added. "Investment is seriously insufficient, with a huge gap existing for our needs at present," Liu said. In some parts of China, which he did not name, regional governments were not taking the problem seriously enough. "They say it is important, but their actions show that's not the case," Liu said. Climate change could exacerbate China's desertification problem, he added. "Climate change could cause extreme weather, such as drought, which will have a very serious impact upon desertification." Still, Zhu Lieke, deputy head of the State Forestry Administration, claimed a measure of success for managing to reduce overall the area of desertified land in the past five years, though by less than half a percentage point. "Generally speaking we have bought the situation under initial control," Zhu said.

London's Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone put climate at the core of his re-election campaign on Tuesday, trying for the first time in Britain to make the environment a key electoral issue. With Livingstone and his main opponent Conservative mayoral candidate Boris Johnson being actively backed by the leaders of their national parties, the campaign could have implications for the next general election due by mid-2010. London is seen as the jewel in the crown for both Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron. Losing the May 1 election would be a blow for Brown, trailing badly in opinion polls after just nine months in office, but a boost for Cameron. "Climate change and the environment is the big issue that confronts the world at the beginning of the 21st century," Livingstone said. "Protecting and improving London's environment is both about a higher quality of life for us all today and about the kind of city we leave for our children and grandchildren." But he faces an uphill struggle, dogged by accusations of nepotism and arrogance and with the gaffe-prone Johnson 12 points ahead in opinion polls. While Brown's predecessor Tony Blair managed to put global warming on the international agenda in 2005, and Brown made much of the greenness of his successive budgets as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the issue has not featured in national elections. Little in Livingstone's environmental manifesto is new after two consecutive terms in office, making it all the more difficult for his opponents to match or beat. He has already said he aims to cut the city's climate changing carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2025, a far more ambitious target than the government's plan to achieve the same national reduction by 2050. He pledged to go ahead with a 25 pounds a day tax on gas guzzling cars entering central London -- a policy rejected by Johnson and being legally challenged by luxury car maker Porsche -- and to extend the city's low emission zone to more vehicles. Livingstone, who has already put London at the forefront of the C40 international group of leading cities pooling their knowledge to fight climate change, also promised to press ahead with making civic buildings more environmentally friendly. He also vowed to oppose the planned expansion of Heathrow airport, make London more bicycle friendly, boost renewable energy -- particularly from recycling waste -- and bring in more hybrid buses. "I have made environmental policy a central focus of all I have done as Mayor," Livingstone said. "From the groundbreaking congestion charge, to the London Climate Change Action Plan ... and the London-wide clean air zone ... London now sets a global lead on green issues. "If I am re-elected I will embark upon an even more ambitious programme to improve London's environment and tackle climate change." Livingstone promised a major new green space programme with a huge new park around the Olympic stadium being built for the 2012 Games and a new grid of open areas to act as the city's green lungs and improve notoriously poor air quality.

The prize has changed the lives of presidents, freedom fighters or humble human rights workers but some winners say it is hard to be put on a lifelong pedestal where actions, flaws and foibles can get judged against a yardstick of sainthood.This year that flip side of fame is more relevant than ever because Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head by the Taliban a year ago on Wednesday for demanding education for girls, is just 16.All other winners have made career choices as adults. She would be half the age of the youngest winner of the award since it was set up in 1901 - Tawakul Karman, a Yemeni peace activist, was 32 when she shared the prize in 2011.Geir Lundestad, who hosts and attends the meetings of the peace committee as director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, says there is no age limit."It will transform their lives," he said of new laureates."They will be flooded by invitations. They will be listened to, and some of them may even be considered saints," he said. "But I haven't met anyone yet who regrets being selected for the Nobel Peace Prize."This year there are a record 259 nominees but Yousafzai has been widely nominated. The committee of five, usually political appointees from Norway's top parties, whittles them down before picking a winner from a shortlist which is not made public.SAINTLY CREATUREJody Williams, who won a share of the prize as coordinator for the campaign to ban anti-personnel landmines in 1997, is outspoken about the downsides, writing in a 2013 autobiography that winning "hasn't been all joy and wonder".Some people seem to imagine a Nobel Prize transforms winners "into something resembling a saintly creature. It's rather frightening actually," she wrote, adding she was poles apart from Mother Teresa, the 1979 winner who was beatified in 2003.Any loose remark can be picked over and magnified, she said. On the day she won, for instance, she said it might have been a mistake to call then US President Bill Clinton a "weenie" for failing to sign up to the landmine treaty.Kristian Harpviken, head of the independent Peace Research Institute Oslo, said Yousafzai was his top pick for this year's $1.25 million prize. She is also the bookmakers' favorite and widely tipped by Norwegian media."The main question about Malala is her age," he said.He said he believed the prize would only marginally affect the risks that Yousafzai, who is now in England, might again be a target for the Taliban.But he added: "The other aspect is of course to burden somebody, who is still basically a child, with having to carry the weight of a Nobel Prize for the rest of her lifetime, and that, admittedly, is tough call."Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian chair of the UN's panel of climate scientists which shared the 2007 award with former US vice-president and climate campaigner Al Gore, said the prize had generally been a huge benefit despite the media microscope."You get an enormous amount of scrutiny from the public and the media. There are of course upside and downsides of that," he said. "In some senses it brought climate change scientists closer together."JAILEDLundestad, an authority on the prize because he has been the committee's secretary for 23 years, said the five members were acutely aware of candidates' desires and risks - especially Liu Xiaobo, a jailed Chinese dissident who won in 2010.The committee discussed "can you give the prize to Liu Xiaobo when you know that the short-term impact will most likely be negative for him personally? This is a very deep moral question. It was the committee's strong impression that he did want the prize," he said.Other candidates mentioned this year include Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist who helps survivors of sexual violence, and Bradley Manning, a US soldier convicted of leaking secret files to WikiLeaks.Thousands of people have the right to nominate people for the award - including members of every national parliament in the world and university professors of history, philosophy or law. "It's very easy to get nominated," Lundestad said.He said many people wrongly believed that getting nominated was a sign of endorsement by the committee - yet even Hitler once made it to the list."If someone outrageous is being nominated for the prize I will come to work the day after and find hundreds of e-mail messages," he said. "And they will all say: "you idiot".

Led by grassroots group Extinction Rebellion, the actions were timed to coincide with the closing of the COP25 summit, where negotiators have been unable to agree on how to implement the 2015 Paris climate agreement. "Just like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, this COP’s fiddling of carbon accounting and negotiating of Article 6 is not commensurate to the planetary emergency we face," Extinction Rebellion said in a statement. Twelve members of the group stood on melting blocks of ice, nooses drawn tight around their necks to symbolise the 12 months remaining until the next summit, when the Paris deal enters a make-or-break implementation phase. Attached to the pile of manure was a short message to leaders saying "the horseshit stops here." In contrast to a protest held last weekend, in which hundreds of demonstrators blocked one of Madrid's central shopping streets for a mass disco-dance, the mood at the gathering was subdued. "Even if they reach an agreement it's still not enough. This is the 25th COP they've had and nothing has really changed," protester Emma Deane told Reuters from her perch atop an ice block, holding her young daughter in her arms. "She's going to grow up in a world where there's no food on the shelves and that breaks my heart." Still, Extinction Rebellion spokesman Ronan McNern stressed the importance of humour in the face of the climate crisis. "Out of shit comes the best roses. We hope that the international community comes together to create a beautiful future," McNern said.

A report by the World Meteorological Organization showed that carbon dioxide levels surged to 413.2 parts per million in 2020, rising more than the average rate over the last decade despite a temporary dip in emissions during COVID-19 lockdowns. Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said that the current rate of increase in heat-trapping gases would result in temperature rises "far in excess" of the 2015 Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average this century. "We are way off track," he said. "We need to revisit our industrial, energy and transport systems and whole way of life," he added, calling for a "dramatic increase" in commitments at the COP26 conference beginning on Sunday. The Scottish city of Glasgow was putting on the final touches before hosting the climate talks, which may be the world's last best chance to cap global warming at the 1.5-2 degrees Celsius upper limit set out in the Paris Agreement. The stakes for the planet are huge - among them the impact on economic livelihoods the world over and the future stability of the global financial system. Saudi Arabia's crown prince said on Saturday that the world's top oil exporter aims to reach "net zero" emissions of greenhouse gases, mostly produced by burning fossil fuels, by 2060 - 10 years later than the United States. He also said it would double the emissions cuts it plans to achieve by 2030. Australia's cabinet was expected to formally adopt a target for net zero emissions by 2050 when it meets on Monday to review a deal reached between parties in Prime Minister Scott Morrison's coalition government, official sources told Reuters. The ruling coalition has been divided over how to tackle climate change, with the government maintaining that harder targets would damage the A$2-trillion ($1.5-trillion) economy. In Berlin, officials from Germany and Canada were set to present a plan about how rich countries can help poorer nations finance the overhaul needed to address climate change. Wealthy countries have so far failed to deliver their 2009 pledge to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance to poorer countries by 2020. A Reuters poll of economists found that hitting the Paris Agreement goal of net-zero carbon emissions will require investments in a green transition worth 2%-3% of world output each year until 2050, far less than the economic cost of inaction. In London, climate activists restarted their campaign of blockading major roads by disrupting traffic in the city's financial district.

This is an exaggeration, but not much of one. The price of gasoline was already rising before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24, and it has risen every day since then. As the most important measure of inflation that most Americans regularly see, this daily increase is a big problem in itself. But it’s more than that: It is a tax on working people, a drag on economic growth and a conspicuous emblem of the acute problems afflicting a range of financial assets, from stocks and bonds to commodities like gold, nickel and wheat. These issues are minor compared with the anguish that the Russian onslaught has inflicted on Ukrainians. But it’s worth noting that both Russia’s brutal invasion as well as Western efforts to counter it and aid Ukraine are spilling over into global financial markets, affecting, in ways big and small, virtually everyone in the United States and around the world. PRICES AT THE PUMP Consider that since the Russian invasion, the average price of regular gas in the United States had increased 17% through Wednesday. It was up 23% from the beginning of the year. On Tuesday alone, the average price of a gallon of regular rose 8 cents to $4.25, according to statistics compiled by the AAA motor club, and it is much higher in states like California, where a gallon of regular costs $5.57, on average. For a variety of reasons, the price in many communities is much steeper than that. More price increases, and big ones, are already inevitable. Gasoline prices are based on the cost of crude oil, which is jumping in response to the invasion and Western sanctions. With the announcement Tuesday that the United States and Britain would ban imports of Russian energy, the climb of world oil prices appeared to be far from over. Where oil prices go, wholesale and retail prices for gasoline eventually follow, as Paul Ashworth, chief US economist for Capital Economics, explained in an interview Monday. Even if the price of oil went no higher (although it already has), the average price of retail gas in the United States would reach $4.50 a gallon by April, he said. “That’s just the way the markets work,” he said. Further increases seem likely. In fact, after the US and British announcements, Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s analytics, said on Twitter on Tuesday that he expected world oil prices to rise to $150 a barrel — an increase in the 20% range — “at least for a few weeks until things begin to sort out.” That would translate to about $5 for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline, on average. Current gasoline prices already surpass the previous records, which were set in the summer of 2008, if you don’t account for inflation. If you do take inflation into account, the picture isn’t very comforting, either. In July 2008, a gallon of regular cost roughly $5.35 in today’s money. Remember what happened next? Two months later, Lehman Bros. collapsed, helping to set off a global financial crisis, a stock market crash and a severe recession. Gasoline and oil prices were not the immediate causes of those calamities but, as James D Hamilton, professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, concluded in a paper in 2009, they “made a material contribution” to the recession. A REGRESSIVE TAX ON WORKERS Price increases for gasoline and other basics are already hurting people with tight budgets who must drive to work or school — and who can’t cut back on food purchases. Yardeni Research, an independent economic and stock market consultant, estimated that the average US household would spend about $3,100 on gasoline in 2022, based on price levels in December 2021. The price increases since then mean that households would have to pay about $2,000 more. That’s not a big deal if you are wealthy or if you own an electric vehicle. But for many working people, it’s equivalent to a tax. “A lot of people have little choice,” Ashworth said. “They have to drive.” In addition, food prices have been increasing. Russia and Ukraine accounted for 28% of the global wheat trade and 18% of corn exports last year. The futures price of wheat has risen 37% this year and 28% since the war started Feb 24. The story is similar for corn, barley and sunflower oil, commodities for which Russia and Ukraine are major players. Shipments through Black Sea ports have been obstructed, financial sanctions are limiting trade — and futures prices are spiking. This is beginning to translate into food inflation in the United States — and quite possibly into a hunger crisis around the globe in the months ahead. In the United States, Yardeni Research estimates, the average household will have to spend $1,000 more on food this year, given the difference between price trends now and in December 2021. Combined, those increased costs for food and gas this year could amount to about $3,000. They have the effect of a hefty tax, one that is extremely regressive, in that it hits lower-income people much harder than the rich. HEADACHES FOR THE FED This creates additional challenges for the Federal Reserve, which already has plenty of them. Inflation has been running hot for a while. The consumer price index for February, which is to be released Thursday, is likely to be even higher than the 7.5% annual rate that was reported last month. The spillover effects of the war will probably result in a high inflation reading next month as well. After that, year-over-year comparisons with high inflation caused in large part by supply chain disruptions during the pandemic will start to make the inflation numbers look better. But if commodity prices keep rising, the inflation numbers won’t go down rapidly as I, and many economists, had thought only a month ago. So the Fed will remain under considerable pressure to begin raising interest rates at its meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday. Higher interest rates could slow the economy. At the same time, price increases and reductions in consumer spending imposed by the war are likely to be a drag on the economy. With the combination of rising interest rates and an oil shock, two unpleasant words are coming back into circulation: stagflation and recession. They are just possibilities, but worries about them are weighing on the markets. STOCKS AND BONDS IN DISARRAY Yields on long-term bonds have fluctuated, suggesting the markets have little conviction about where the economy is headed. If the Fed raises rates, it won’t take much for short-term interest rates to exceed the level of long-term ones — which would be another bad omen for the economy. Such a juxtaposition of interest rates, known as a yield curve inversion, has often preceded recessions. The broad stock market has gotten off to one of its worst starts since 1900, Bloomberg records show. The markets are swinging up and down. But already this year, the S&P 500 has sunk more than 10% from its peak, a drop known on Wall Street as a correction, while the Nasdaq composite has fallen more than 20% from its peak in November, putting it into what Wall Street calls bear market territory. Commodity bets have paid off. The iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust, an exchange-traded fund that tracks a diversified group of commodities, is up 51% this year. Energy stocks have soared, but little else has done well. For long-term investors with balanced, diversified portfolios containing stocks and bonds, declines like this occur periodically. They can be painful, but if history echoes itself, the stock market will recover and surpass its past highs. If the effective closing of Russian financial markets and rising commodity prices lead to a steeper stock market decline, or have other, unexpected consequences, the Fed will be in a tough place. It is moving toward tightening monetary conditions but might have to reverse itself and engage in another rescue operation, as it did in March 2020. This is a risky moment, as Liz Ann Sonders and Kevin Gordon of Charles Schwab said in a note Monday. It is conceivable that the war could end abruptly, and energy prices could sharply decline, but “betting on that in the near term seems a fool’s errand.” It is remarkable that in March 2022, decades after the oil shocks of the 1970s and the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are worrying about oil and gas prices and a renewed Cold War, and not focusing on combating climate change and ending the pandemic. But to return to those concerns, we will have to get past the Russian war. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Washington, Sep 5 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)— The head of the World Bank said on Thursday he is preparing broad reforms at the development lender to make it more effective in ending global poverty and will discuss the changes with member countries at meetings in Tokyo next week. The annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank from October 11-14 in Japan will be the first opportunity for Jim Yong Kim to put his mark on the institution since becoming president in July. Incidentally, the announcement from Kim comes barely a week after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called for reforms to the multinational donor agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the UN General Assembly. "We're not ready to ask for specific changes yet ... but if we are going to be really serious about ending poverty earlier than currently projected ... there are going to have to be some changes in the way we run the institution," Kim told reporters. He said he wants the poverty-fighting institution to be less focused on pushing development loans out of the door and more on making a difference on the ground. "Specifically, I am going to ask the governors to work with us so the organization can move to a model where we move more quickly, we can make mid-course corrections more easily and where our board and our governors focus much more on holding us accountable for results on the ground in countries, rather than focusing so much on approval of large loans," he added. Kim said he would be more specific about reforms at the next meetings of member countries in April. "The need for these changes have been clear for a very long time," he added. With the United States and European countries wrestling with weak growth and high debt burdens, Kim said now was not the time to ask big donors to pony up money for the World Bank. "At this point, I see really no appetite ... it is not the time for us to have a discussion about a capital increase, this is something I don't think the donor countries are ready for," he added. Kim, a Harvard-trained medical doctor and anthropologist, said the Tokyo meetings would also highlight growing concerns about rising food prices and the impact climate change is having on farmers around the globe. The worst drought in half a century in the United States and poor crops from the Black Sea bread basket have lifted world prices of staples such as corn, wheat and soybeans. While prices have not reached 2008 record levels, increased food price volatility is a worry. As the first scientist to head the World Bank, Kim said the increases have raised his concern over the impact on poor countries from climate change. "This is the first drought that scientists clearly attributed to man-made climate change," Kim said. "Climate change is real, the scientific community is overwhelming in agreement about the dimensions about man-made climate change and we simply must face it." Until now, the World Bank has been reluctant to speak out loudly on global climate change for fear of getting involved in the politics of combat ting global warming. Developing countries have blamed the European Union, the United States and other rich economies for trying to avoid deeper emissions cuts and dodging increases in finance to help poorer nations deal with climate change. Slowing global growth Kim said the euro zone debt crisis and its impact around the world would also loom large in the Tokyo meetings. Developing nations, which have so far weathered the global crisis well, are now seeing clear signs of slowing economic activity as a two-year debt crisis in the euro zone continues to stifle demand and financial markets are roiled by uncertainty over bailout prospects for Greece and Spain. Despite the slowdown, economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America are still likely to grow at rates above 5 percent thanks to more than a decade of solid policies and a growing interest by investors to tap into so-called frontier markets. "All of us are rooting for the Europeans to quickly find a path toward solidarity in a way to resolve their problems," Kim said, adding that the World Bank stood ready to offer its expertise to any country, include those in the euro zone. The bank has had decades of experience working with governments in developing countries to help improve the functioning of their economies through structural changes. Some analysts believe that expertise could help countries like Greece and Portugal. As Kim hones in on ways to make the World Bank more flexible, he said it should focus on helping governments create an environment where businesses can flourish and create jobs - one of the most pressing issues facing many countries. "One of the things we are trying to do is define more clearly what is the bottom line for the World Bank, what is it that we really do, and how we are going to organize ourselves so that every day we are working toward that bottom line," he said. "It seems clear that what we're best at and what people have the greatest passion for is to work to end poverty. The way we do that is by boosting prosperity," Kim added.

Palin, a former Alaska governor who was Republican Senator John McCain's running mate in the 2008 election won by Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden, appeared with Trump at a rally in Ames, Iowa, two weeks before the state's Feb. 1 caucus, the country's first nominating process ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Trump is in a close race in Iowa with fellow conservative Republican Ted Cruz. Palin's folksy, plain-speaking style has won her a loyal following among some conservatives, but she remains a polarizing figure, even among Republicans. It is unclear whether she can attract additional support to Trump, whose own blunt rhetoric has helped lift him to the top of the crowded Republican field. "He is from the private sector, not a politician," Palin said in an animated speech after joining the business mogul and former host of TV's "The Apprentice" onstage. "Can I get a hallelujah?" She described Trump as an anti-establishment candidate who would "kick ISIS' ass," referring to the Islamic State militant group. Just hours after Palin backed Trump, police in Alaska said they had arrested her eldest son, Track Palin, on suspicion of assaulting a woman and carrying a gun while intoxicated. Palin said there was nothing wrong with Trump being a multibillionaire and that it did not make him an elitist, citing all the time he had spent with construction workers as a real-estate developer. As Trump stood alongside, Palin said: "The status quo has got to go," adding that the political establishment had been "wearing political correctness kind of like a suicide vest." In a statement before the event, Trump said he was "greatly honored" by the endorsement. "She is a friend, and a high-quality person whom I have great respect for." Trump has led national opinion polls among Republicans for months but is in a tight contest with Cruz, a US senator from Texas, for the support of Iowa Republicans, who lean conservative and whose evangelical Christians comprise a major voting bloc. Palin, who often discusses her Christian faith, is popular among that group and endorsed Cruz when he ran for the US Senate in 2012. Cruz responded to her switch of allegiance with magnanimity. "Regardless of what she does in 2016," he tweeted, "I will always be a big fan." She devoted a large portion of her speech to deflecting criticism from Cruz and others that Trump, who did not oppose legal abortion at least for a time, was not a true conservative. CELEBRITY APPEAL? Despite the Democratic victory, Palin's 2008 vice presidential run made her a national celebrity. Suggesting there were no fiercer fighters for conservative values than a small-town "hockey mom," the former beauty-pageant winner professed a love of hunting with guns and thought it more important that the United States increase drilling for oil than fret about climate change. Since resigning her governorship in 2009, Palin has worked as a conservative political commentator and as the producer and star of lightly staged television shows about her large family enjoying Alaska's rugged landscapes. But even some former admirers have wondered if her moment had passed, particularly after a speech a year ago before conservative Iowa voters that at times was hard to transcribe and even harder to follow. Joe Brettell, a Republican strategist in Texas, said he thought Palin would not help Trump much "beyond a jolt in the news cycle." The crowd in Ames listened to Palin warmly but was divided afterward as to how valuable she would be. June Heidn, 62, said Palin was "inspiring" and might help Trump appeal to female voters. Mike Caruso, 40, said it did not help him as he weighs giving Trump his vote. "I think he's pretty solid without her," he said.

Nearly one in 10 people believe global warming is part of a natural cycle of events, and nothing to really worry about, an alarming increase on the figures from two years ago, according to a global poll. Although a third of respondents to the survey of more than 13,000 people this year said they were very concerned about climate change, 9 percent said they weren't, up from 4 percent when the same survey was conducted two years ago. "The issue of climate change has continued its rough ride," said Steve Garton of market research firm Synovate which, along with German media company Deutsche Welle, conducted the poll in 18 markets from the United States to Australia. "Global conferences that have been organised to tackle the challenges have struggled to reach a meaningful consensus whilst the underlying science has been questioned by some. "At the very least, the most important beliefs of the impacts relating to climate change have not been made simple and clear enough to people around the world," Garton said in a statement. Nearly two-thirds of those polled in China, Colombia and Ecuador said they were most concerned about global warming -- the highest numbers in the world -- and the vast majority of those surveyed, or almost 90 percent, feel that companies have a responsibility to help reduce climate change. Globally, nearly a third believe humans are to blame for what is happening to the environment, although aircraft and cars were cited among the factors contributing the least to climate change. Human waste, population increases, energy use and deforestation were listed as the worst contributors to global warming. For almost a third of respondents, the biggest danger from climate change was extreme weather conditions, followed by desertification and drought. And most people surveyed said they were personally doing something about global warming, with saving electricity the most popular activity, followed by reducing water consumption and recycling waste. Almost half of those surveyed said they would also be willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products. The survey was conducted from February to April this year.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks with Indonesia's president on Thursday on a trip aimed at building ties with the Islamic world, before heading to South Korea for talks on the North's military threat. Clinton said on Wednesday she wanted to deepen cooperation with the world's most populous Muslim nation on counterterrorism, climate change and security. "It is exactly the kind of comprehensive partnership that we believe will drive both democracy and development," she said, adding it was "no accident" Indonesia had been picked for her trip. Her talks also covered the global financial crisis and Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said Jakarta had discussed the possibility of assistance from the United States in the form of a currency swap agreement and possible contingency funding to support Southeast Asia's top economy. Indonesia is already seeking to extend a $6 billion currency swap arrangement with Japan and has similar deals, each worth $3 billion, with China and South Korea. Clinton, dressed in a navy-blue jacket, was greeted by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at his office in the white colonial-style presidential palace in Jakarta before the two headed inside for talks. Yudhoyono, seeking a second term this year, is keen to showcase Indonesia's stability since its transformation from an autocracy under former President Suharto -- who was forced to resign in 1998 -- to a vibrant democracy. Clinton has held up Indonesia as proof that modernity and Islam can coexist as she visited the country where US President Barack Obama spent four years as a boy. NEXT STOP SEOUL She was due to visit a USAID project in Jakarta before flying out to South Korea later on Thursday as tensions mount on the Korean peninsula. North Korea has repeatedly threatened in recent weeks to reduce the South to ashes and on Thursday said it was ready for war. Pyongyang is thought to be readying its longest-range missile for launch in what analysts say is a bid to grab the new US administration's attention and pressure Seoul to ease up on its hard line. Clinton said in Tokyo on Tuesday at the start of her first foreign trip since taking office that a North Korean missile launch would be "very unhelpful".

CANBERRA, Thu Jan 22, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd heads to India and the World Economic Forum in Davos nezt week aiming to win support for climate action, and a greater role for G-20 developing nations to fight the global financial crisis. Rudd, a former diplomat, popular with voters but derided also as a "nomad" for his frequent globetrotting, arrives in New Delhi ahead of the World Economic Forum talks and after attending Pacific crisis talks on military-ruled Fiji. But even as his government fights to avert near certain recession and rising job losses as financial shockwaves pound Australia, Rudd sees his India trip as too vital to delay, especially with difficult world climate talks late this year. "The defining feature of the Rudd government's emerging foreign policy is its ambition. It seeks for Australia a shaping role in addressing a number of urgent international challenges," says Allan Gyngell, a foreign analyst who leads the respected Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney. Rudd, a China expert, faces a tricky reception in India after his government overturned the previous conservative government's plans to sell uranium ore to India despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Rudd has tried to keep options and the promise of an Australian free trade deal with India alive by supporting U.S.-led efforts to win approval from nuclear supply countries to authorize sale of uranium and other nuclear goods to New Delhi. He hopes also to persuade India to cut its greenhouse emissions expected to treble by 2050 and play a role in getting developing country backing for a post-Kyoto climate deal at international talks in Copenhagen later this year. Australia, itself one of the world's major per-head polluters, is also one of the countries climate scientists expect to be most affected by climate warming and is anxious for a strong global deal that will also not harm vital coal exports. REGIONAL PLAYER Rudd has set ambitious goals for Australia to be a "regional power prosecuting global interests", including a non-permanent place on the United Nations Security Council in 2013-14. He hopes also to build support in Asia for an EU-style regional bloc minus the sensitive monetary, political and security union, yet still somehow bringing China, the United States, India, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pacific together. "Individually each of these objectives is a dauntingly difficult task for Australian diplomacy. (Rudd) genuinely wants to help shape the international system ... and he wants to play a part in this himself," says Gyngell. In Davos, Rudd will argue for a stronger role for the Group of 20 leading world economies, tying Brazil, China and India with major nations, in responding to still-unfolding global financial turmoil. Governments must "look at the rules that govern financial markets for the future and to change them and to say that the days of casino capitalism have gone", Rudd said on Thursday. Global reforms should include curbs on executive pay, stronger supervisory roles for governments and steeling the International Monetary Fund to give it authority to do prudential analysis and early warning, while recasting IMF governance, Rudd said.

India made its voice heard on global trade and climate change at a G8 summit in Italy this month, in a sign of growing diplomatic heft that can help it push for a bigger role in global governance. India's emergence is seen as a logical outgrowth of two of the world's biggest current challenges, the financial crisis and climate change, and its ability to help resolve those problems with a trillion dollar economy still growing at about 7 percent. While the slowdown spurred a shift towards economic inclusion, a landmark civilian nuclear deal with the U.S. last year also helped India's entry into the global order as it vies with a rising China for a say in international policymaking. Just two years ago Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned from a G8 summit in Germany complaining that India was a sideshow and attending such meetings as an invitee was a waste of time. Italy saw a far more strident India, speaking with authority on trade protectionism and climate change, which boosted hopes of Asia's third largest economy gaining a seat at the high table of global governance. "What has changed India's profile is the relative dynamism of its economy -- its estimated 7 percent growth -- vis-a-vis the global economy", said Siddharth Varadarajan, strategic affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper. "Any decision in the name of global community that leaves out China and India will not be seen as legitimate." U.S. President Barack Obama said there was a need to include the big emerging players in policymaking, which India can count as a victory for its own aspirations. At the end of the summit, Obama said tackling global challenges "in the absence of major powers like China, India and Brazil seems to be wrongheaded." TRADE AND CLIMATE At the summit, India stirred the pot with a firm stand on climate change, refusing to give in to pressure from rich nations to sign up to carbon emission targets. While India seeks a climate solution that does not impede growth and efforts to pull millions out of poverty, its position, along with other developing nations, underlined the difficulties of securing a new U.N. climate pact in Copenhagen in December. The European Union has already hinted its frustration at what it sees as developing countries' unwillingness to play ball, and said negotiations have slowed because too many countries were asking others to do something without acting themselves. On the other hand, global trade talks, locked for almost a decade, got a boost at the summit after developing countries led by India and rich nations agreed to conclude the Doha Round by 2010, in a possible end to squabbles over tariffs and subsidies. "It is the ability of India to bring some substance to the table which has put it in focus", said Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based strategic affairs expert and director of the National Maritime Foundation. But while such issues underscore India's growing relevance, the country's long-term goal is to find a place at the high table of global powers and be taken as seriously as China, government officials say. "India doesn't want to be a one-issue or a two-issue country, but an equal partner in global decision-making", said a senior Indian official. "I think this summit shows India has begun moving towards that goal ... India's voice has been bolstered." Singh -- not usually known to use tough diplomatic language -- called for reforming global institutions to recognise the relevance of major emerging economies. "It is clear to me that meaningful global action on all these issues requires a restructuring of the institutions of global governance, starting with the U.N. Security Council," Singh said at the end of the summit in the central Italian city of L'Aquila. To that end, India is participating in alternative fora like the G20 group of industrialised and developing economies and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) gathering of the world's biggest emerging markets.

“AZD1222 (AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate) contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein, and the changes to the genetic code seen in this new viral strain do not appear to change the structure of the spike protein,” an AstraZeneca representative said in an email. Drugmakers are scrambling to test their COVID-19 vaccines against the new fast-spreading variant of the virus that is raging in Britain, the latest challenge in the breakneck race to curb the pandemic. “Through vaccination with AZD1222, the body’s immune system is trained to recognise many different parts of the spike protein, so that it can eliminate the virus if it is later exposed,” the AstraZeneca representative added. The mutation known as the B.1.1.7 lineage may be up to 70% more infectious and more of a concern for children. It has sown chaos in Britain, prompting a wave of travel bans that are disrupting trade with Europe and threatening to further isolate the island country. The AstraZeneca-Oxford shot is considered vital for lower-income countries and those in hot climates because it is cheaper, easier to transport and can be stored for long periods at normal refrigerator temperatures. Data from AstraZeneca’s late-stage trials in the UK and Brazil released earlier this month showed the vaccine had efficacy of 62% for trial participants given two full doses, but 90% for a smaller sub-group given a half, then a full dose.

World temperatures could soar by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the 2060s in the worst case of global climate change and require an annual investment of $270 billion just to contain rising sea levels, studies suggested on Sunday. Such a rapid rise, within the lifetimes of many young people today, is double the 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) ceiling set by 140 governments at a UN climate summit in Copenhagen last year and would disrupt food and water supplies in many parts of the globe. Rising greenhouse gas emissions this decade meant the 2 degree goal was "extremely difficult, arguably impossible, raising the likelihood of global temperature rises of 3 or 4 degrees C within this century," an international team wrote. The studies, published to coincide with annual UN climate talks in Mexico starting on Monday, said few researchers had examined in detail the possible impact of a 4 degrees C rise above pre-industrial levels. "Across many sectors -- coastal cities, farming, water stress, ecosystems or migration, the impacts will be greater," than at 2 degrees, wrote Mark New of Oxford University in England, who led the international team. One study, published in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, said temperatures could rise by 4 degrees C in the worst case by the early 2060s. Other scenarios showed the threshold breached later in the century or not at all by 2100, raising risks of abrupt changes such as a loss of Arctic sea ice in summer, a thaw in permafrost or a drying out of the Amazon rainforest. MIGRATION One of the papers gave what it called a "pragmatic estimate" that sea levels might rise by between 0.5 and 2 meters (1.64 to 6.56 feet) by 2100 if temperatures rose 4 degrees Celsius. Containing a sea level rise of 2 meters, mostly building Dutch-style sea walls, would require annual investments of up to $270 billion a year by 2100. That sum might limit migration to perhaps 305,000 people from the most vulnerable areas, wrote Robert Nicholls of the University of Southampton. Lack of protective measures could mean the forced resettlement of 187 million people. People living on small islands, in Asia, Africa or river deltas were most at risk. The studies concluded that governments should do more both to cut greenhouse gas emissions and research back-up methods such as "geo-engineering" programs that could dim sunlight or seek to suck greenhouse gases from the air.

Tipped to win, the opposition Social Democrats scored 17.7 percent, while their eurosceptic Finns Party rivals were at 17.5 percent, according to final results from the justice ministry. The co-ruling Centre Party of Prime Minister Juha Sipila and centre-right National Coalition stood at 13.8 percent and 17.0 percent, respectively, marking the first time in a century that no party won more than 20 percent in a general election. With a fragmented parliament and deep divisions within the mainstream parties over how to tackle rising costs of expensive public services, coalition talks following the election could be protracted. But Social Democrat leader Antti Rinne, 56, a former union boss, was expected to have the first shot at forming a government, with most party leaders having ruled out cooperation with the populist Finns. "For the first time since 1999 we are the largest party in Finland ... SDP is the prime minister's party," Rinne told supporters and party members celebrating in central Helsinki. With the European Parliament election less than two months away, the Finnish ballot is being watched in Brussels. Underscoring a growing confidence among the far-right in Europe, anti-immigration parties, including the Finns, have announced plans to join forces after the May 26 EU election in a move that could give them a major say in how the continent is run. At stake in Finland is the future shape of the country's welfare system, a pillar of the social model across the Nordics, which the leftists want to preserve through tax hikes and the centre-right wants to see streamlined because of rising costs. Just as the Social Democrats are benefiting from a growing sense of insecurity among Finland's older and poorer voters, the Finns argue that the nation has gone too far in addressing issues such as climate change and migration at its own expense. MOST POPULAR POLITICIAN After losing some ground when hardliner Jussi Halla-aho took the party's reigns in 2017, the Finns have made rapid gains in recent months when a number of cases of sexual abuse of minors by foreign men stirred anti-immigration sentiments. But Halla-aho, who was fined by the Supreme Court in 2012 for blog comments linking Islam to paedophilia and Somalis to theft, emerged as Finland's most popular politician on Sunday, garnering the highest number of votes - more than 30,000. The Social Democrats' Rinne won roughly 12,000. "I could not expect a result like this, and no one could," Halla-aho told supporters on Sunday, referring to the party's overall result. The Finns Party's stance on environmental policies, which includes opposing a proposed tax on meat consumption, appeals to rural voters in particular who worry about soaring fuel costs and resent any efforts to change what they see as the traditional Finnish way of life. The party is the only group in Finland - a country that has the highest air quality in the world, according to the World Health Organisation - to argue the next government should not speed up cutting carbon emissions to combat climate change. Unlike Finland's Social Democrats as well as populists in the south of Europe who resonate with voters angry over slow economic growth in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, the Finns call for fiscal restraint. One area that has suffered most in the Nordics is the region's cherished welfare model. Healthcare systems across much of the developed world have come under increasing stress in recent years as treatment costs soar and people live longer, meaning fewer workers are supporting more pensioners. Reform has been controversial in Finland and plans to cut costs and boost efficiency have stalled for years, leaving older voters worried about the future. "It's good that we are the biggest party in Finland, but it's tough competition with other parties. Negotiations for a new government will be very tough and very difficult," Social Democrat supporter Mikko Heinikoski, 37, said.

COPENHAGEN, Dec 18,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - World leaders tried to rescue a global climate agreement on Friday but the failure of leading greenhouse gas emitters China and the United States to come up with new proposals blocked chances of an ambitious deal. US President Barack Obama and other leaders are trying to reach consensus on carbon emissions cuts, financial aid to poor nations, temperature caps and international scrutiny of emissions curbs. There has been progress in some areas, but gaps remain over emissions targets and monitoring, delegates said. "We are ready to get this done today but there has to be movement on all sides, to recognise that it is better for us to act than talk," Obama told the conference. "These international discussions have essentially taken place now for almost two decades and we have very little to show for it other than an increase, an acceleration of the climate change phenomenon. The time for talk is over." At stake is an agreement for coordinated global action to avert climate change including more floods and droughts. Two weeks of talks in Copenhagen have battled suspicion between rich and poor countries over how to share out emissions cuts. Developing countries, among them some of the most vulnerable to climate change, say rich nations have a historic responsibility to take the lead. The environment minister of EU president Sweden, Andreas Carlgren, said the United States and China held the key to a deal. The United States had come late to the table with commitments to tackle climate change, he said. China's resistance to monitoring was a serious obstacle. "And the great victims of this is the big group of developing countries. The EU really wanted to reach out to the big group of developing countries. That was made impossible because of the great powers," Carlgren said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Copenhagen on Thursday with a promise that the United States would join efforts to mobilise $100 billion (61 billion pounds) a year to help poor nations cope with climate change, provided there was a deal. But there were no such new gestures from Obama. He stuck to the target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. That works out at 3-4 percent versus 1990, compared with an EU target of 20 percent. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao also reiterated existing targets, although he said the world's top carbon emitter may exceed them. "We will honour our word with real action," Wen said. "Whatever outcome this conference may produce, we will be fully committed to achieving and even exceeding the target." Obama and Wen then met for nearly an hour in what a White House official described as a "step forward." "They had a constructive discussion that touched upon ... all of the key issues," the official told reporters. "They've now directed their negotiators to work on a bilateral basis as well as with other countries to see if an agreement can be reached." Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, urged China and the United States, which together account for 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, to act. "The U.S. and China account for almost half the world's emissions. They simply must do their part. If they don't, we will not be able to meet the 2 degree target," he told the conference. 'NOT GREAT' Speaking after Obama's speech a British official said: "The prospects for a deal are not great. A number of key countries are holding out against the overall package and time is now running short." Negotiators failed in overnight talks to agree on carbon cuts. Obama and other leaders failed to achieve a breakthrough in talks on Friday morning. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Chinese resistance to monitoring of emissions was a sticking point. "The good news is that the talks are continuing, the bad news is they haven't reached a conclusion," he said. A draft text seen by Reuters called for a "goal" of $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor nations cope with climate change. It also supported $30 billion for the least developed countries from 2010-2012, and said the world "ought to" limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius versus pre-industrial levels. Scientists say a 2 degrees limit is the minimum to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including several metres sea level rise, extinctions and crop failures. The aim of the two weeks of talks in Copenhagen is to agree a climate deal which countries will convert into a full legally binding treaty next year, to succeed the Kyoto Protocol whose present round ends in 2012. The United States never ratified Kyoto, and the pact doesn't bind developing nations. Friday's draft text foresees "continuing negotiations" to agree one or more new legal treaties no later than end 2010.

CHICAGO, Dec 21, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama underscored on Saturday his intent to push initiatives on climate change by naming John Holdren, an energy and climate specialist, as the new White House science adviser. Holdren is a Harvard University physicist who has focused on the causes and consequences of climate change and advocated policies aimed at sustainable development. He has also done extensive research on the dangers of nuclear weapons. Obama pledged to put a priority on encouraging scientific breakthroughs in areas such as alternative energy solutions and finding cures to diseases, as he announced the pick of Holdren and other top science advisers in the Democratic weekly radio and video address. "Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation," Obama said. "It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology." "From landing on the moon, to sequencing the human genome, to inventing the Internet, America has been the first to cross that new frontier," Obama said. Obama said that government has played an important role in encouraging those breakthroughs and could do so in the future. The Bush administration has had a rocky relationship with the scientific community and was at times accused by critics of ignoring scientific evidence in its efforts to make political points on issues such as global warming. Holdren, who teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, will head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Obama, who takes office on January 20, this week finished naming Cabinet secretaries for his incoming administration. On Friday, he introduced his choices of Illinois Republican congressman Ray LaHood to head the Transportation Department and California Democratic Rep. Hilda Solis to be secretary of labor. HAWAII VACATION After working for weeks in his hometown of Chicago to assemble his team, Obama leaves on Saturday morning for Hawaii for a Christmas vacation with his family. Obama has named Steven Chu, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics who was an early advocate for finding scientific solutions to climate change, to head the Energy Department. He has also tapped former Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner for a new post that will coordinate White House policy on energy and climate change. In addition to the pick of Holdren, Obama also announced that marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University would be his nominee for head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Obama also named two people to work with Holdren to lead the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, also known as PCAST. One of them, Eric Lander, is founding director of the Broad Institute, a collaboration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University that focuses mapping the human genome. The other is Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health who won a Nobel Prize for his studies on cancer and genetics. For the past nine years, Varmus has served as president and chief executive officer of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight. The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils. Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics. "(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he said. The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning. Girotti, in an interview headlined "New Forms of Social Sin," also listed "ecological" offences as modern evils. In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race. Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively "green". It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels. Girotti, who is number two in the Vatican "Apostolic Penitentiary," which deals with matter of conscience, also listed drug trafficking and social and economic injustices as modern sins. But Girotti also bemoaned that fewer and fewer Catholics go to confession at all. He pointed to a study by Milan's Catholic University that showed that up to 60 percent of Catholic faithful in Italy stopped going to confession. In the sacrament of Penance, Catholics confess their sins to a priest who absolves them in God's name. But the same study by the Catholic University showed that 30 percent of Italian Catholics believed that there was no need for a priest to be God's intermediary and 20 percent felt uncomfortable talking about their sins to another person.

Washington claimed progress on Monday in easing rifts with Beijing on ways to fight global warming as UN climate talks got under way in Mexico with warnings about the rising costs of inaction. The United States and China, the world's largest economies and top greenhouse gas emitters, have accused each other of doing little to combat global warming in 2010, contributing to deadlock in the UN talks among almost 200 nations. "We have spent a lot of energy in the past month working on those issues where we disagree and trying to resolve them," said Jonathan Pershing, heading the US delegation at the talks in Cancun. "My sense is that we have made progress ... It remains to be seen how this meeting comes out," he said. The talks, in a tightly guarded hotel complex by the Caribbean with warships visible off the coast, are seeking ways to revive negotiations after the UN Copenhagen summit failed to agree to a binding treaty in 2009. The United Nations wants agreement on a new "green fund" to help developing nations as well as ways to preserve rainforests and to help the poor adapt to climbing temperatures. The meeting will also seek to formalize existing targets to curb greenhouse gas emissions. China's chief delegate, Su Wei, was more guarded about progress. "We've had a very candid, very open dialogue with our US friends and I think both the U.S. and China would very much like to see a good outcome at Cancun," he told Reuters. Climate is one of several disputes between the two top economies, along with trade and exchange rates. Preparatory UN climate talks in China in October were dominated by US-Chinese disputes. Pershing said President Barack Obama was committed to a goal of cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 despite Republican gains in November elections. Earlier, the talks opened with calls for action to avoid rising damage from floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels. The talks will draw more than 100 environment ministers next week, and about 25 prime ministers and presidents. CRITICAL POINT "Our relation with nature is reaching a critical point," Mexican President Felipe Calderon said. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN panel of climate scientists, said: "Delays in action would only lead to impacts which would be much larger and in all likelihood more severe than we have had so far." He said costs of containing global warming, by switching from fossil fuels towards renewable energies such as wind or solar power, would rise the longer the world waited. The Alliance of Small Island States warned that that some low-lying countries, such as Tuvalu or the Maldives, were facing "the end of history" due to rising sea levels. It urged far tougher targets for limiting climate change. The talks are seeking to find a successor to the United Nations' existing Kyoto Protocol, which obliges rich nations except the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Kyoto backers say they will only deepen their cuts, shifting from fossil fuels to clean energies like wind and solar power, until 2020 if the United States and big emerging economies led by China and India take on binding curbs. Developing nations say they need to burn more energy, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, to fight poverty. Success would help get the talks back on track after the acrimonious Copenhagen summit agreed to a non-binding deal to limit a rise in world temperatures to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial times. Failure would raise questions about the future of Kyoto, which underpins prices in carbon markets. Unless a new round is negotiated, Kyoto will end in 2012, leaving a patchwork of national measures to combat climate change.

President Barack Obama told Turkish and Mexican leaders on Saturday that WikiLeaks' actions were "deplorable" as the US administration kept up damage control efforts over the website's embarrassing release of masses of secret US cables. In Obama's separate calls with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, the leaders all agreed that WikiLeaks' campaign would not harm their countries' ties with Washington, the White House said. The leaks touching on US relations in virtually every part of the world have threatened to increase tensions with allies, spurring US officials to seek to prevent foreign friends from reducing engagement on sensitive matters. Documents relating to Turkey showed US diplomats casting doubt on the reliability of their NATO ally and portraying its leadership as divided. In Obama's call to Erdogan on Saturday, the two discussed "the enduring importance of the US-Turkish partnership and affirmed their commitment to work together on a broad range of issues," the White House said. "The president expressed his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks and the two leaders agreed that it will not influence or disrupt the close cooperation between the United States and Turkey," it said. Obama made similar comments to Calderon, which the US leader used to praise his Mexican counterpart for the outcome of an international climate change conference in Cancun. "The presidents also underscored the importance of the US-Mexico partnership across a broad range of issues," the White House said. "The presidents discussed the deplorable actions by WikiLeaks and agreed its irresponsible acts should not distract our two countries from our important cooperation." According to State Department documents made public by WikiLeaks, a top Mexican official said the government was in danger of losing control of parts of the country to powerful drug cartels.

Developing countries and environmental groups accused the World Bank on Friday of trying to seize control of the billions of dollars of aid that will be used to tackle climate change in the next four decades. "The World Bank's foray into climate change has gone down like a lead balloon," Friends of the Earth campaigner Tom Picken said at the end of a major climate change conference in the Thai capital. "Many countries and civil society have expressed outrage at the World Bank's attempted hijacking of real efforts to fund climate change efforts," he said. Before they agree to any sort of restrictions on emissions of the greenhouse gases fuelling global warming, poor countries want firm commitments of billions of dollars in aid from their rich counterparts. The money will be used for everything from flood barriers against rising sea levels to "clean" but costly power stations, an example of the "technology transfer" developing countries say they need to curb emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide. As well as the obvious arguments about how much money will be needed -- some estimates run into the trillions of dollars by 2050 -- rich and poor countries are struggling even to agree on a bank manager. At the week-long Bangkok conference, the World Bank pushed its proposals for a $5-10 billion Clean Technology Fund, a $500 million "adaptation" fund and possibly a third fund dealing with forestry. However, developing countries want climate change cash to be administered through the existing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which they feel is much less under the control of the Group of 8 (G8) richest countries. "Generally we have been unpleasantly surprised by the funds," said Ana Maria Kleymeyer, Argentina's lead negotiator at the meeting. "This is a way for the World Bank and its donor members to get credit back home for putting money into climate change in a way that's not transparent, that doesn't involve developing countries and that ignores the UNFCC process," she said.

European Union leaders planned on Thursday to appease critics of the bloc's bold plans to fight climate change amid economic turmoil with concessions to heavy industry and former communist nations. But they were set to reaffirm a December deadline and stick to their ambitious targets of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by a fifth by 2020 at a summit overshadowed by tumbling stock markets and the threat of a punishing recession. "The European Council confirms its determination to honor the ambitious commitments it has made on climate and energy policy," said the draft final statement circulated to leaders at the final session of a two-day summit and obtained by Reuters. "In this connection, it reaffirms that its objective is to reach agreement in December," said the text, which could still be changed by leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged other leaders to push for a deal by December, and Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauaer warned of difficult negotiations ahead to win over the plan's critics. "We've got two months for intensive work," he said. "It's often that way in Europe -- that people yearn for national measures and then we agree on something on a European level." During combative discussions on Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk threatened to use his veto unless more was done to shield Poland's coal-based economy from the impact of the measures. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also dangled a veto threat to demand more time to negotiate the package and less burden on Italian industry, already plagued by a loss of competitiveness to emerging economies. CRISIS In deference to these critics, the draft called for quick work on "applying that package in a rigorously established cost- effective manner to all sectors of the European economy and all member states, having regard to each member state's specific situation." Rafal Grupinski, senior aide to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, said: "In the conclusions, we expect that either there is no December date for agreement or, if there is the date, that our proposals are accepted and the specificity of our country and other countries will be taken into account." The 27-nation bloc aims to lead the world in battling global warming, mindful of U.N. predictions of more extreme weather and rising sea levels. The economic crisis pushed climate change down the agenda of the summit, but some western European leaders argued fighting climate change could go hand in hand with efforts to rebuild economies while cutting risks from volatile energy imports. European companies could lead the world by exporting technologies from a new low-carbon economy -- such as electric cars and wind turbines -- while green jobs could replace all those lost in old economy industries like steel, they said. But environmentalists said that while EU leaders including French President Nicolas Sarkozy were busy making big promises to protect the environment in public, their ministers and advisers were busy creating loopholes in the legislation to protect industries at home. "Mr Sarkozy and others are showing that they are unwilling to walk the walk when it comes to decisive action," said Greenpeace spokesman Mark Breddy.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Thursday she would not push the accelerator on emissions trading after miner BHP Billiton called for her government to move ahead with a price on carbon. Gillard's is under subtle pressure from Greens, supporting her minority Labor government since indecisive elections last month, to curb greenhouse gas output in coal-reliant economy and lower the world's highest level of per capita emissions. Gillard has promised multi-party talks next year to build consensus on carbon pricing after the dead-heat Aug. 21 vote left Labor needing support from three independents and one Green member of parliament to pass laws in the lower house. "We'll work through (it) and I'm under no illusion about the complexity. So we'll take the time it needs," she told reporters. Gillard went to the election promising a 5 percent cut in 2000-level emissions by 2020, and to seek consensus for its carbon trading plan, currently shelved until at least 2013 and the end of the Kyoto global climate protocol. But under a deal with the Greens, who will wield sole balance of power in the upper house Senate from mid-2011, Labor has promised a new committee of lawmakers and experts to work on a policy to price carbon pollution and promote renewable energy. The Greens want the government to introduce a carbon tax as an interim step ahead of market-based carbon trading, although the government has previously ruled out a carbon tax. BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers said on Wednesday it was in Australia's long-term interest to move ahead with a carbon price even in the absence of a global agreement to succeed Kyoto. HOPE FOR CONSENSUS Kloppers said the company wanted a predictable and gradual transition to a carbon price, and favoured a combination of a carbon tax, land use actions and limited carbon trading. "The decisions we take now on power production will still be with us long after a global price for carbon is finally in place," Kloppers said in a speech in Sydney. His speech is a boost to Gillard's hopes of finding a political consensus on carbon pricing despite opposition from rival conservatives, who have promised to try and force a change of government before elections due in three years. BHP also called for the government to return any revenue raised from carbon pricing to individuals and businesses affected by the policy, possibly through tax cuts or lump sum grants, and said the government should rebate emissions costs for products exposed to trade competition. "We want to work through options," Gillard said in response. "Obviously, I believe climate change is real. I believe we've got to take steps to address climate change." Greens leader Bob Brown said Kloppers was talking common sense and BHP's view would help guide the committee in decisions on adopting either a carbon tax or cap-and-trade carbon scheme favoured by Gillard's Labor. "It recognises that we have to move on beyond the coal-burning, carbon-polluting age that we're in," he said.

Some were heading to job training, others to an environmental conference. Some were simply going home. All were passengers on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which crashed Sunday shortly after take off, killing the 157 on board and raising questions about the safety of the aircraft model, the Boeing 737 Max 8. On Monday, as the identities of more victims were revealed, heartache rippled through convention halls, classrooms and living rooms across the globe. Tributes flowed on social media. Colleagues observed moments of silence. The campus of Kenyatta University in Kenya mourned the death of Isaac Mwangi, a lecturer in the department of education, communication and technology, and Agnes Gathumbi, a director of teacher professional development. Mwangi wrote dissertations on using technology in secondary education and worked on projects related to integrating images and graphics into the teaching of poetry. He was “diligent and proactive,” Olive Mugenda, a former vice chancellor at the university who worked with Mwangi for more than a decade, wrote on Twitter. Gathumbi published dozens of papers, including one on how administrators react differently to graffiti scrawled by girls instead of boys. She had received certifications in French, African storybook writing, computer studies and other areas from across the world, including institutions in Britain and Slovakia. Hussein Swaleh, the 52-year-old former head of the governing body for Kenyan soccer, was also among those who died on the flight, according to Barry Otieno, the federation’s head of communications. “It’s a sad day for football in Kenya, very sad day,” said Otieno. “We were looking to roll out a youth development football tournament for the future of youth and football in the country, we had a lot planned.” Thirty-two Kenyans died on the flight, more than from any other country. James Macharia, the transport secretary, said the government was working to get the family members to Ethiopia so they could identify the bodies. Aid workers were also killed in the crash. Four were employees of Catholic Relief Services, all of them Ethiopian citizens travelling to Nairobi for training. Sintayehu Aymeku was a procurement manager who left behind a wife and three daughters. Sara Chalachew was a senior project officer for grants. Mulusew Alemu was a senior officer in the finance department. Getnet Alemayehu was a senior project officer for procurement and compliance. He had a wife and one daughter. “Although we are in mourning, we celebrate the lives of these colleagues and the selfless contributions they made to our mission, despite the risks and sacrifices that humanitarian work can often entail,” the organisation said in a statement. In Nigeria, the government confirmed the death of Abiodun Bashua, a former ambassador who had been working with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. He joined the Nigerian foreign service in 1976 and worked in several countries, including Austria, Ivory Coast and Iran, according to the Nigerian Foreign Ministry. He also worked with the United Nations on peacekeeping operations and climate change issues. Two Spaniards were on the flight. Jordi Dalmau Sayol, 46, was a Catalan chemical engineer who was on a business trip. He was working for a water infrastructure company that was awarded a water desalination project in Kenya, according to the Spanish daily La Vanguardia. Dalmau’s death was confirmed by his company. Pilar Martínez Docampo, 32, worked for an aid organization and was travelling to Kenya to give language classes to children, according to La Opinión, a newspaper in her home region of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Authorities in her hometown, Cangas do Morrazo, confirmed her death. A day after the crash, a sombre mood engulfed the UN headquarters in Nairobi, as politicians, environmentalists and government officials gathered for a major UN meeting on the environment — the United Nations Environment Assembly — a destination for many people on the flight. The meeting focused on sustainable development and environmental challenges related to poverty, natural resources and waste management. Among the passengers were at least 22 people who worked for UN-affiliated agencies. The crash — of a flight that had been nicknamed the “UN shuttle” because of how often UN staff members take it — has highlighted the organisation’s work in some of the world’s most troubled regions, from South Sudan to North Korea. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, offered “heartfelt condolences” to the loved ones of the UN staff members who died in the crash. He also said in an email to staff that flags at UN offices would fly at half-staff Monday to honour the victims. Among the passengers traveling to the meeting was Victor Tsang, a gender expert from Hong Kong who worked for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi. According to his biography on the agency’s website, Tsang had worked in Chad, Ethiopia, Panama and South Sudan. A Twitter account that appears to be Tsang’s says that while he worked in sustainable development, his passion was camping with his 2-year-old son in his family’s garden. “Victor was so dedicated, and a dear colleague,” one of his former colleagues in Nairobi, Oona Tully, wrote on Twitter. The World Food Programme said seven of its staff members had died in the crash, the most of any UN organisation. The program’s work focuses on widespread hunger caused by war or instability in Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, among other countries. “As we mourn, let us reflect that each of these WFP colleagues were willing to travel and work far from their homes and loved ones to help make the world a better place to live,” David Beasley, the head of the programme, said in a statement. “That was their calling.” The World Food Programme victims included Ekta Adhikari of Nepal, who had worked for the programme in Ethiopia; Michael Ryan of Ireland, who had helped Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh prepare for seasonal monsoons; and Zhen-Zhen Huang of China, who had worked in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. “I cannot imagine the loss felt by your loved ones, especially your son,” one of Huang’s colleagues, Faizza Tanggol, wrote on Twitter. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said three staff members had died: Nadia Adam Abaker Ali, 40, a Sudanese citizen; Jessica Hyba, 43, from Canada; and Jackson Musoni, 31, from Rwanda. Ali, who leaves a husband and 6-year-old daughter, was a health specialist who joined the agency in Sudan eight years ago, helping people who fled conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. Musoni also worked in Sudan helping to coordinate operations in East Darfur. He had worked for Rwanda’s Foreign Ministry before joining the UN agency in 2014; he had three children, aged 8, 5 and 4, the refugee agency said. Hyba, a mother of two daughters aged 9 and 12, had joined the refugee agency in 2013 and had started a new post as its senior external relations officer in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, only last month. Other victims of the crash had been traveling to UN events. One was Sebastiano Tusa, an underwater archaeologist from Italy who had been traveling to Kenya for a UNESCO conference about safeguarding underwater cultural heritage in Eastern Africa. Joanna Toole, a UN fisheries consultant from southwestern England, had planned to attend the conference to represent the aquaculture department of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Two days before the flight she tweeted that she was happy to be among an increasing number of women working for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Toole, 36, was from Exmouth, in the southwestern English region of Devon. The Exmouth Journal reported that she had attended a local community college before studying animal behaviour at a university. “Everybody was very proud of her and the work she did. We’re still in a state of shock,” her father, Adrian Toole, told the local news site Devon Live. “Joanna was genuinely one of those people who you never heard a bad word about.” Toole, who had kept homing pigeons and pet rats as a child, often posted on social media about initiatives to protect animals from marine pollution and make the fishing industry more environmentally friendly. Toole’s next retweet was of a post by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. “We won’t bring about peace in the world merely by praying for it; we have to take steps to tackle the violence and corruption that disrupt peace,” the Dalai Lama wrote. “We can’t expect change if we don’t take action.”   c.2019 New York Times News Service

The agreement, which included few specific commitments, was announced Saturday night, Washington time, after President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, visited China for three days of talks in which the negotiators managed not to be sidetracked by those disputes. “It’s very important for us to try to keep those other things away, because climate is a life-or-death issue in so many different parts of the world,” Kerry said in an interview Sunday morning in Seoul, where he met with South Korean officials to discuss global warming. “What we need to do is prove we can actually get together, sit down and work on some things constructively.” The agreement comes only days before Biden is scheduled to hold a virtual climate summit with world leaders, hoping to prod countries to do more to reduce emissions and limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Many scientists now argue that warming must be kept below that threshold to avert catastrophic disruptions to life on the planet. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is among those who have been invited to the virtual summit. While he has yet to publicly accept the invitation, the agreement with Washington appeared to make his participation more likely. On Friday, Xi said that China remained committed to climate goals he had announced last fall, including a promise that its carbon emissions would peak before 2030. At the same time, Xi suggested that the world’s most advanced nations had a responsibility to take the lead in making deeper cuts. In what seemed to be a retort to the United States, he warned that the climate issue should not be “a bargaining chip for geopolitics” or “an excuse for trade barriers.” “This is undoubtedly a tough battle,” Xi said in a conference call with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, according to an account of the meeting issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “China is sure to act on its words, and its actions are sure to produce results,” he went on. “We hope that the advanced economies will set an example in momentum for emissions reductions and also lead the way in fulfilling commitments for climate funding.” The White House has signalled that Biden will announce more ambitious plans for reducing emissions domestically, after four years in which his predecessor, Donald Trump, disparaged the issue. “We’ve seen commitments before where everybody falls short,” Kerry said. “I mean, frankly, we’re all falling short. The entire world right now is falling short. This is not a finger-pointing exercise of one nation alone.” Kerry met in Shanghai with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, over three days, in talks that at one point went late into the night. Kerry said they stayed focused on climate change and did not touch on increasingly rancorous disputes over issues like China’s political crackdown in Hong Kong and its threats toward Taiwan. On Friday, even as the two envoys met, the State Department sharply criticised prison sentences handed down in Hong Kong to prominent pro-democracy leaders, including Jimmy Lai, a 72-year-old newspaper tycoon. On the same day, China warned the United States and Japan against “collusion” as Biden met at the White House with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, with China’s rising ambitions one of the major issues on the table. Chinese officials and the state news media noted Kerry’s visit but markedly played it down, focusing instead on Xi’s meetings. But in the joint statement with the United States, the Chinese government pledged to do more on climate, although without detailing any specific steps. The statement said that both countries would develop “long-term strategies” to reach carbon neutrality — the point when a country emits no more carbon than it removes from the atmosphere — before the next international climate conference in November, in Glasgow, Scotland. In a joint statement after the White House meetings between Biden and Suga, the United States and Japan said they intended to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 by promoting renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and storage, and through innovations in capturing and recycling carbon from the atmosphere. Despite Biden’s renewed focus on global warming after Trump’s term, Chinese officials have in recent weeks chided the United States for demanding that other countries do more. They noted that Trump had pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, in which most countries committed to targets for reducing emissions. China has since presented itself as the more responsible leader on the issue, even though it is now the world’s worst emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for 28% of the world’s total. The United States is second, at 15%. Xi pledged last year that China would reach carbon neutrality by 2060 and that its emissions would peak before 2030. Environmentalists have welcomed those promises but pressed for more details about the steps China would take to reach them. Kerry said China was effectively pledging to move more quickly than Xi had initially promised by “taking enhanced climate actions that raise ambition in the 2020s,” as the statement put it. The two countries will continue to meet to discuss the issue, Kerry added. China’s new five-year economic plan, unveiled in March, offered few new specifics for reaching Xi’s stated emissions goals, raising concerns that they might be more aspirational than actual. China has continued, for example, to approve new coal plants, one of the leading sources of carbon emissions, prioritising social stability and the development of an important domestic industry. “For a big country with 1.4 billion people, these goals are not easily delivered,” Le Yucheng, the vice minister of foreign affairs, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. “Some counties are asking China to do more on climate change. I’m afraid that is not very realistic.” © 2021 New York Times News Service

Lyall beckoned me up an old chairlift ramp. He swept his ski pole across the panorama and pointed to the snow-covered summits of Okemo and Killington, ski resorts that lie within a 30-mile radius. The White Mountains of New Hampshire felt close enough to touch. “There would be many times that I would stand up here and watch storms dump snow on those ski areas and just bypass Ascutney. We couldn’t win,” said Lyall, an avid backcountry skier. In its heyday, the Ascutney ski resort boasted 1,800 vertical feet of skiing on more than 50 trails and included a high-speed quad chairlift, three triple chairlifts and a double chairlift. But when it closed in 2010 because of scant snow and mismanagement (twin killers of small ski resorts), it threatened to take with it the nearby community of West Windsor, Vermont, population 1,099. “Property values plummeted, condos on the mountain saw their value decrease by more than half, and taxes went up,” recalled Glenn Seward, who worked at the resort for 18 years, once as the director of mountain operations. The town’s general store, the gathering place of the community, also went broke and closed. “We were desperate,” said Seward, who at the time was chair of the West Windsor Selectboard, a Vermont town’s equivalent of a city council. That desperation led the community to hitch its fortune to the mountain, becoming a model for how a small ski area and its community can thrive in the era of climate change. Working with the state of Vermont as well as the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, the town bought the failed ski area in 2015. But instead of allowing a private company to run the mountain, contracting out its operations, the local residents themselves would chart a sustainable, volunteer-driven path for the ski area. Seven years later, Mount Ascutney and West Windsor are magnets for families and outdoor enthusiasts. Between 2010 and 2020, the town’s population jumped more than 20%, and median single-family home sale prices more than doubled, to $329,750. A bustling new general store featuring local products has opened in the village of Brownsville, reinvigorating the centre of the West Windsor community. The town and mountain draw people year-round, from endurance runners and mountain bikers in the warm months to skiers in winter. At the heart of this revival is Ascutney Outdoors, a nonprofit with more than 100 volunteers that now runs recreation on the mountain. Instead of high-speed quads and snow-making, skiers take a rope tow or T-bar that accesses 435-vertical feet of skiing, found on 10 natural-snow trails that are groomed. There is also a lift for snow tubing. A lift ticket costs $20, or $100 for a season pass. The lifts run on Saturday and Sunday when there is enough snow, and it takes about 40 volunteers to staff a busy weekend. The upper 1,300 vertical feet of the mountain, maintained by Ascutney Trails Association, is reserved for backcountry skiers to skin up and ski down for free — although donations are appreciated. Thursday night ski races take place under lights, and an after-school program brings children to the mountain every afternoon. The mountain is also home to 45 miles of renowned mountain bike trails, numerous hiking trails and Mount Ascutney State Park. It is one of the top hang-gliding sites in New England. “When there’s snow, we ski, and when there’s not, we do other things,” said Seward, who is now executive director of Ascutney Outdoors. “That’s a pretty easy model to sustain.” “WE LOST OUR IDENTITY AS A SKI TOWN” Mount Ascutney (elevation 3,144 feet), Vermont’s most famous volcano, has lured skiers for decades. Skiing began on Ascutney in the winter of 1935-36 on the 5,400-foot-long Mount Ascutney Trail, opened by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Windsor Outing Club. The first skiers skinned up the mountain under their own power, just like backcountry skiers today. The Mount Ascutney ski area opened in 1946 with rope tows. In a harbinger of the struggles to come, the ski area endured several poor winters and went bankrupt four years after opening. New owners periodically came and went, and Ascutney remade itself as a destination resort, attracting tourists and second-home owners from New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. It was described in a 2005 New York Times article as “less fashionable than some of its competitors” with a base lodge that was “small and utilitarian.” Local skiers continued to be its loyal mainstay. Ascutney Resort was bedeviled by years of erratic snow levels. In the 1980s, a new ownership group, Summit Ventures, poured $55 million into lifts, condos and snow-making. A hotel was built at the foot of the mountain. (It is now a Holiday Inn Club Vacations.) By 1991, the ski area was forced into liquidation. The ski resort closed for the final time in 2010 and sold off its lifts. It was a crushing blow for the community. “We lost our identity as a ski town,” said Seward, who grew up in the community and married his wife, Shelley, on the mountain. Lyall added, “You saw everyone at the school, the general store, the post office and at the ski area. We were in jeopardy of losing all four and becoming just a bedroom community.” Visitors go snow tubing at Ascutney Outdoors in Brownsville, Vt, in January 2022. The New York Times SKIING IN A WARMING WORLD Visitors go snow tubing at Ascutney Outdoors in Brownsville, Vt, in January 2022. The New York Times Climate change poses an existential threat to New England ski areas, which now number 89 in six states. A 2019 study showed that in northeastern states besides Vermont, at least half of ski areas will close by the mid 2050s if high greenhouse gas emissions continue. A study published in 2021 in the journal Climate showed that New England is warming significantly faster than the rest of the planet. From 1900 to 2020, winter temperatures in Vermont rose 5.26 degrees Fahrenheit. “That means more of our winter precipitation is falling as rain instead of snow, less of it is accumulating on the ground, and there is more midwinter melt,” said Elizabeth Burakowski, research assistant professor at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire. New England is littered with the ghosts of abandoned ski areas: According to the New England Lost Ski Areas Project, more than 600 ski areas have closed in the region. Ski industry leaders warn that the survival of ski areas depends on political action. “It’s absolutely critical that the business leaders in the outdoor and ski industries come together to strongly advocate for bipartisan climate action at the federal and state levels,” said Adrienne Saia Isaac, director of marketing and communications for the National Ski Areas Association. West Windsor was determined to re-imagine a future that did not rely on the vagaries of winter. In 2014, the West Windsor Selectboard asked the Trust for Public Land to help it purchase and conserve 469 acres of the former ski area to be used for backcountry skiing, mountain biking and other human-powered recreation. The ski area would be added to the existing town forest and protected by a 1,581-acre conservation easement safeguarding the land from development. A special town meeting was held in October 2014 asking West Windsor voters to approve the town spending $105,000 toward the $640,000 purchase of the former ski area, part of the $905,000 project price to return the land to recreational use. The purchase was approved by a 3-1 margin. In 2015, a group of townspeople gathered at Lyall’s house to start Ascutney Outdoors. A new rope tow was installed that same year, followed by the tubing lift in 2017 and a T-bar in 2020. The community raised funds to build the Ascutney Outdoor Center, a 3,000-square-foot base lodge, at the foot of the mountain. REVIVING A COMMUNITY HUB Brownsville Butcher and Pantry is minutes from Ascutney Outdoors, and their fates are tightly bound. Peter Varkonyi and Lauren Stevens opened the store in November 2018, and on a recent weekday, cheerily greeted a steady stream of customers and regulars. This is not your typical general store. It has a wall of Vermont craft beer, and a butcher was carving a side of pork hung from a meat hook in front of refrigerator cases that include Vermont wagyu beef, fresh goat and all the makings for sushi. In the cafe nearby, customers can choose from homemade bagels and housemade hot pastrami to a vegetarian smoked-beet Reuben and three varieties of burgers. In 2018, a community group, Friends of the Brownsville General Store, bought the foreclosed building from the bank for $95,000 and invested $250,000 to renovate it. The group then leased the building to Varkonyi and Stevens for $1 per year, with an option that the couple could purchase it at any time for cost. Chris Nesbitt, an organiser of the Friends group, urged his neighbours to “think of this like the common good. You are investing in the community.” Buying local “is the basis to what we do every day,” said Stevens, proudly itemising $35,000 in purchases of organic produce from Edgewater Farm in Plainfield, New Hampshire, and $30,000 in lamb, goat and pork from Yates Farm just down the road. In 2021, she tallied, “our tiny business put $500,000 back into local businesses.” In December, the couple bought the store from the Friends. A lifelong resident of the community and teacher at the local elementary school, Amanda Yates, was sitting with her young son enjoying burger night at the general store. Yates motioned to the bustling cafe and store. “I credit the store and Ascutney Outdoors with bringing the town back,” she said. “They brought places where you could meet, get good food, where you could see people again around town. “They really brought back that community hub.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Companies seeking oil in the Arctic will need better technology to clean up spills onto ice and could new face hazards such as rougher seas caused by climate change, experts said on Friday. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated this week that 22 percent of the world's undiscovered, technically recoverable reserves of oil and gas were in the Arctic, raising environmentalists' worries about possible impact on wildlife. "The Exxon Valdez showed what a catastrophe can be caused by oil in the Arctic," said Ilan Kelman, a scientist at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. "The environment is remote, harsh and vulnerable." The Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground off Alaska in 1989, spilling 11 million U.S. gallons of oil off Alaska and killing thousands of birds and marine mammals. Commercial Arctic oil exploitation began in Canada in the 1920s at Norman Wells but oil companies still lack full technology to handle spills, for instance, if oil seeps into or below ice floating on the sea. "Responding to major oil spills remains a major challenge in remote, icy environments. This is especially true for spills in waters where ice is present," according to a 2007 report by the Arctic Council, grouping all governments with Arctic territory. New cleanup technologies "have yet to be fully tested...spill prevention should be the first priority for all petroleum activities," according to the study for the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. Governments and oil companies are developing stringent safety standards to minimize risks of spills. The WWF environmental group urged a moratorium on all oil and gas exploration until there was proper anti-spill technology and an ability to deploy clean-up equipment quickly to remote sites hit by winter darkness. DARKNESS "We still lack technology to clean up spills in the ice and we can't do it in the dark," said Neil Hamilton, head of the WWF's Arctic Programme. "We need a moratorium until the oil spill response gap is filled." Chill temperatures mean that any spilt oil breaks down slowly, lingering longer in the environment and posing a threat to creatures such as seabirds or polar bears. Global warming is set to make the Arctic region more accessible to oil firms as ice recedes. Arctic summer ice shrank in 2007 to a record low since satellite measurements began. Kelman said that easier access to the Arctic could have unexpected side-effects -- the seas might become rougher if a blanket of sea ice recedes. "Ice on the sea prevents storms from causing big waves," he said. He said that oil or gas facilities around the Arctic need to be built especially strong since climate change could cause shifts in sea currents, storms and higher waves. Paul Johnson, principal scientist at the research laboratories of environmental group Greenpeace in Exeter, England, said the world should not look to the Arctic for oil even with prices at almost $130 a barrel. "We are dealing with ecosystems that may not recover once they are disturbed," he said.

Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman said on Monday the Generalised System of Preferences was going through its own process in Washington. “It will be finalised sometime in June. And that is all I can say about that.”The US diplomat currently in Dhaka as co-chair of the second US-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue said the working groups had covered a wide range of issues.The extent of progress made in such short time, according to her, was rather impressive. “I could not have had a better partner,” Sherman said near the beginning of her short brief to the press at the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel.Regarding the Trade and Investment Cooperation Framework Agreement that the US has been pushing for over several years, Sherman said both parties were working towards it. “We hope to finalise it soon,” she said without giving out further details or a concrete timeline when asked when this deal might be signed.The partnership dialogue has covered a number of areas including development, governance, security, climate change, trade and regional integration with promises and potential of further cooperation in almost all the areas.The textile sector has been in focus since the building collapse killing over 1100 people in Savar last month and it featured prominently on Monday too. In fact, Sherman took a moment to remember some of the victims, whose ‘haunting’ images she said were ‘seared in memory’.As regards US reaction to such a tragedy, Sherman refrained from issuing any caution or warning but said she hoped that this tragedy one that triggers transformation.She recalled the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York on Mar 25, 1911 where over 100 people died triggering a sea of change including a new building code, greater freedom of association besides other things that have gone on to ensure a safer workplace.Sherman hoped that the Rana Plaza collapse would also work in a similar manner for Bangladesh.

Those are hot topics in the news industry right now, and so the program at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy drew an impressive roster of executives at CNN, NBC News, The Associated Press, Axios and other major US outlets. A couple of them, though, told me they were puzzled by the reading package for the first session. It consisted of a Harvard case study, which a participant shared with me, examining the coverage of Hunter Biden’s lost laptop in the final days of the 2020 campaign. The story had been pushed by aides and allies of then-President Donald Trump who tried to persuade journalists that the hard drive’s contents would reveal the corruption of the father. The news media’s handling of that narrative provides “an instructive case study on the power of social media and news organisations to mitigate media manipulation campaigns,” according to the Shorenstein Center summary. The Hunter Biden laptop saga sure is instructive about something. As you may recall, panicked Trump allies frantically dumped its contents onto the internet and into reporters’ inboxes, a trove that apparently included embarrassing images and emails purportedly from the candidate’s son showing that he had tried to trade on the family name. The big social media platforms, primed for a repeat of the WikiLeaks 2016 election shenanigans, reacted forcefully: Twitter blocked links to a New York Post story that tied Joe Biden to the emails without strong evidence (though Twitter quickly reversed that decision) and Facebook limited the spread of the Post story under its own “misinformation” policy. But as it now appears, the story about the laptop was an old-fashioned, politically motivated dirty tricks campaign, and describing it with the word “misinformation” doesn’t add much to our understanding of what happened. While some of the emails purportedly on the laptop have since been called genuine by at least one recipient, the younger Biden has said he doesn’t know if the laptop in question was his. And the “media manipulation campaign” was a threadbare, 11th-hour effort to produce a late-campaign scandal, an attempt at an October Surprise that has been part of nearly every presidential campaign I’ve covered. The Wall Street Journal, as I reported at the time, looked hard at the story. Unable to prove that Joe Biden had tried, as vice president, to change US policy to enrich a family member, the Journal refused to tell it the way the Trump aides wanted, leaving that spin to the right-wing tabloids. What remained was a murky situation that is hard to call “misinformation,” even if some journalists and academics like the clarity of that label. The Journal’s role was, in fact, a pretty standard journalistic exercise, a blend of fact-finding and the sort of news judgment that has fallen a bit out of favour as journalists have found themselves chasing social media. While some academics use the term carefully, “misinformation” in the case of the lost laptop was more or less synonymous with “material passed along by Trump aides.” And in that context, the phrase “media manipulation” refers to any attempt to shape news coverage by people whose politics you dislike. (Emily Dreyfuss, a fellow at the Technology and Social Change Project at the Shorenstein Center, told me that “media manipulation,” despite its sinister ring, is “not necessarily nefarious.”) The focus on who’s saying something, and how they’re spreading their claims, can pretty quickly lead Silicon Valley engineers to slap the “misinformation” label on something that is, in plainer English, true. Shorenstein’s research director, Joan Donovan, who is leading the program and raised its funding from the John S and James L Knight Foundation, said that the Hunter Biden case study was “designed to cause conversation — it’s not supposed to leave you resolved as a reader.” Donovan, a force on Twitter and a longtime student of the shadiest corners of the internet, said she defines “misinformation” as “false information that’s being spread.” She strongly objected to my suggestion that the term lacks a precise meaning. She added that, appearances aside, she doesn’t believe the word is merely a left-wing label for things that Democrats don’t like. Instead, she traces the modern practice of “disinformation” (that is, deliberate misinformation) to the anti-corporate activists the Yes Men, famous for hoaxed corporate announcements and other stunts, and the “culture jamming” of Adbusters. But their tools, she wrote, have been adopted by “foreign operatives, partisan pundits, white supremacists, violent misogynists, grifters and scammers.” Donovan is among the scholars who have tried to unravel the knotty information tangle of contemporary politics. She’s currently a compulsive consumer of Steve Bannon’s influential podcast, “War Room.” Like many of the journalists and academics who study our chaotic media environment, she has zeroed in on the way that trolls and pranksters developed tactics for angering and tricking people online over the first half of the last decade, and how those people brought their tactics to the right-wing reactionary politics in the decade’s second half. To the people paying close attention, this new world was riveting and dangerous — and it was maddening that outsiders couldn’t see what was happening. For these information scholars, widespread media manipulation seemed like the main event of recent years, the main driver of millions of people’s beliefs, and the main reason Trump and people like him won elections all over the world. But this perspective, while sometimes revelatory, may leave little space for other causes of political action, or for other types of political lies, like the US government’s long deception on its progress in the war in Afghanistan. What had been a niche preoccupation has now been adopted by people who have spent somewhat less time on 4chan than Donovan. Broadcaster Katie Couric recently led the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder. I moderated a panel at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum with a different, somewhat dental, label for the same set of issues, “truth decay.” (The Rand Corp seems to have coined that one, though T Bone Burnett did release an album by that name in 1980.) There, an Australian senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, said she thought the biggest culprit in misleading her fellow citizens about climate change had been Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp — hardly a new issue, or one that needs a new name. The New York Post’s insistence that the emails prove Joe Biden’s corruption, and not just his son’s influence peddling, are part of the same partisan genre. This hints at a weakness of the new focus on misinformation: It’s a technocratic solution to a problem that’s as much about politics as technology. The new social media-fuelled right-wing populists lie a lot, and stretch the truth more. But as American reporters quizzing Trump’s fans on camera discovered, his audience was often in on the joke. And many of the most offensive things he said weren’t necessarily lies — they were just deeply ugly to half the country, including most of the people running news organizations and universities. It’s more comfortable to reckon with an information crisis — if there’s anything we’re good at, it’s information — than a political one. If only responsible journalists and technologists could explain how misguided Trump’s statements were, surely the citizenry would come around. But these well-meaning communications experts never quite understood that the people who liked him knew what was going on, laughed about it and voted for him despite, or perhaps even because of, the times he went “too far.” Harper’s Magazine recently published a broadside against “Big Disinfo,” contending that the think tanks raising money to focus on the topic were offering a simple solution to a political crisis that defies easy explanation and exaggerating the power of Facebook in a way that, ultimately, served Facebook most of all. The author, Joseph Bernstein, argued that the journalists and academics who specialise in exposing instances of disinformation seem to believe they have a particular claim on truth. “However well-intentioned these professionals are, they don’t have special access to the fabric of reality,” he wrote. In fact, I’ve found many of the people worrying about our information diets are reassuringly modest about how far the new field of misinformation studies is going to take us. Donovan calls it “a new field of data journalism,” but said she agreed that “this part of the field needs to get better at figuring out what’s true or false.” The Aspen report acknowledged “that in a free society there are no ‘arbiters of truth.’” They’re putting healthy new pressure on tech platforms to be transparent in how claims — true and false — spread. The editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, Sewell Chan, one of the Harvard course’s participants, said he didn’t think the program had a political slant, adding that it “helped me understand the new forms of mischief making and lie peddling that have emerged.” “That said, like the term ‘fake news,’ misinformation is a loaded and somewhat subjective term,” he said. “I’m more comfortable with precise descriptions.” I also feel the push and pull of the information ecosystem in my own journalism, as well as the temptation to evaluate a claim by its formal qualities — who is saying it and why — rather than its substance. Last April, for instance, I tweeted about what I saw as the sneaky way that anti-China Republicans around Trump were pushing the idea that COVID-19 had leaked from a lab. There were informational red flags galore. But media criticism (and I’m sorry you’ve gotten this far into a media column to read this) is skin-deep. Below the partisan shouting match was a more interesting scientific shouting match (which also made liberal use of the word “misinformation”). And the state of that story now is that scientists’ understanding of the origins of COVID-19 is evolving and hotly debated, and we’re not going to be able to resolve it on Twitter. The story of tech platforms helping to spread falsehoods is still incredibly important, as is the work of identifying stealthy social media campaigns from Washington to, as my colleague Davey Alba recently reported, Nairobi. And the COVID-19 pandemic also gave everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to my colleagues at The New York Times a new sense of urgency about, for instance, communicating the seriousness of the pandemic and the safety of vaccines in a media landscape littered with false reports. But politics isn’t a science. We don’t need to mystify the old-fashioned practice of news judgment with a new terminology. There’s a danger in adopting jargony new frameworks we haven’t really thought through. The job of reporters isn’t, ultimately, to put neat labels on the news. It’s to report out what’s actually happening, as messy and unsatisfying as that can be. © 2021 The New York Times Company

Tradeable credits from saving forests, wetlands and endangered species is set to be a growth area for investors seeking to fight climate change, the head of a New Zealand-based carbon trading market says. The world's growing carbon market, worth more than $60 billion a year, lets firms or nations buy and sell greenhouse gas emissions offsets to meet both voluntary and mandatory targets. But demand is growing for projects that preserve or restore forests and their biodiversity and save rivers and water flows. In return for protecting such environmental assets, developers sell credits, potentially a major growth area for emissions trading markets looking to sell new products. "It's not just about the biodiversity credits in terms of plants," Mark Franklin, chief executive officer of TZ1, said on Thursday. "Even species biodiversity and water will be big issues in the future, so we're looking at products in all of these areas." TZ1 is closely linked with New Zealand stock exchange operator NZX Ltd. It plans to formally launch its own carbon exchange using NZX's infrastructure by the first quarter of next year for trading and settlement of carbon credits. TZ1 also runs one of only four global registries for the voluntary carbon standard (VCS), set by international and environmental bodies to measure carbon emissions and convert them into tradeable units. "A biodiversity credit is a little bit like an emissions offset but it's something somebody is willing to invest in for the purposes for the next generation," Franklin said. "It's amazing how much of this stuff is actually happening right now with goodwill and giving money to good causes as opposed to being a commercial venture that has a pay back," he told Reuters from Auckland. Conservation credit schemes should last for about 50 years to be attractive, Franklin added. BIODIVERSITY REGISTRY TZ1 has also launched a biodiversity registry and in August listed 1.36 million biodiversity conservation credits from a forest project in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island. The Malua BioBank scheme involves the protection and restoration of 34,000 hectares (80,000 acres) of orangutan habitat and a U.S.-backed fund has pledged $10 million to the project, which is to be preserved and managed for 50 years. In return, investors can buy credits listed by TZ1, with each credit covering 100 square meters of forest. So far, 21,500 credits have been sold at US$10 each. Franklin said there had been a jump in global interest since TZ1's involvement with the Malua BioBank and New Forests, one of the Sabah project's main backers. "People are looking at wetlands conservation, moving of water rights, species conservation," he said. "These are things that may have sounded pretty weird about 10 to 20 years ago but there's a real momentum forming." He said TZ1 was discussing projects with several developers. "Over time, there will be more and more products than carbon on the registry but I don't think it will get up to 50 percent in the intermediate period. Carbon will be the major product listed on the registry," Franklin added. Asked about the impact of the financial crisis and a looming global recession on carbon markets, he said players remained focused because carbon trading was simply the way of the world. But he also pointed to the need for developing emissions trading schemes, such as Europe's, New Zealand's from next year and Australia's from 2010, to be open. "My view is if most of the countries had open systems then there would be trading and offsetting where people could do it better. That was the whole point of having a global mechanism."

The UN climate chief Yvo de Boer has resigned to join a consultancy group as an adviser, the UN climate secretariat said on Thursday, two months after a disappointing Copenhagen summit. De Boer will step down on July 1 to join KPMG, the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) said in a statement. He has led the agency since 2006. "It was a difficult decision to make, but I believe the time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, working on climate and sustainability with the private sector and academia," de Boer said in the statement. "Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming. This calls for new partnerships with the business sector and I now have the chance to help make this happen," he added.

Chinese President Hu Jintao gave qualified support on Thursday to an Australian initiative on climate change, saying the "Sydney Declaration" is fine as long as it is in line with a UN framework. Hu made the comments in a rare news conference after meeting Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "We very much hope that this Sydney Declaration will give full expression to the position that the UN framework convention on climate change would remain the main channel for international efforts to tackle climate change," he said. The declaration should also reflect UN principles of "common but differentiated responsibilities" toward lowering harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Australia, as host of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, has put climate change at the top of the agenda. Its draft declaration calls for a new global framework that would include "aspirational" targets for all APEC members on lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists say is causing the climate to change. Australia, backed by the United States, says the Kyoto protocol, the main climate change treaty, is flawed because it does not commit big polluters in the developing world, such as India and China, to the same kind of targets as industrialised nations. That approach is getting a decidedly lukewarm response at the APEC meeting from developing countries, which prefer to see the whole issue handled at a U.N. meeting later this month in New York. "As one of our ministers, (Malaysia Trade Minister) Rafidah said, that E (in APEC) stands for economic, not environment," Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu told reporters, adding ministers should look at how climate change affects business. APEC ministers were grappling with the issue behind closed doors at a two-day meeting ending on Thursday, trying to agree on the wording of the declaration to be issued at a weekend summit. Kyoto's first phase runs out in 2012 and the APEC summit is one of a growing number of efforts to find a formula that brings rich and developing countries together on climate change. Hu has had a warm reception since his arrival in Australia on Monday when he visited the mining-rich state of Western Australia before heading to Canberra and a tour of a sheep farm. But in Sydney, three rallies were scheduled on Thursday to protest against China's human rights record, including one by the religious group Falun Gong that attracted up to 2,000 people in Sydney's Hyde Park. Australia has launched its biggest ever security operation in Sydney to welcome the 21 leaders attending this week's APEC meetings. Newspapers have dubbed the city of more than 4 million people "Fortress Sydney". Bush meets Hu later on Thursday and says he expects to have robust discussions on everything from product safety and trade to climate change, jailed dissidents, Beijing's support for Myanamar's junta, the Dalai Lama and Iran. The two men are only scheduled to meet for 20 minutes. At his news conference, Hu said China took international concerns over product safety very seriously. "The Chinese side is willing and ready to work together with the international community to step up cooperation in quality inspections and examinations and further deepen mutually beneficial economic cooperation and trade," he said. On climate change, Bush said China has "to be a part of defining the goals". "Once we can get people to define the goals, then we can encourage people to define the tactics necessary to achieve the goals," he said at a news conference on Wednesday. "I believe this strategy is going to be a lot more effective than trying ... to say, this is what you've got to do." Bush started his day on Thursday meeting Australia's opposition leader Kevin Rudd, who has vowed to bring back Australian frontline troops from the Iraq war, calling it the biggest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. Rudd holds a commanding lead in opinion poll over Howard -- a staunch supporter of the war -- ahead of a general election expected in the coming weeks, and soon could be in a position to reverse Howard's policies on the war.

"Demand will take a long time to recover if it recovers at all," he told reporters after the Anglo-Dutch energy company reported a sharp drop in second-quarter profit. Van Beurden wasn't alone in his gloomy view. Like much else during the pandemic, what was happening in fuel markets was unprecedented. Demand had fallen so sharply as people stopped travelling, the oil industry simply couldn't cut production fast enough to match it. Worse, the fall in demand came as Russia and Saudi Arabia - the two most powerful members of the OPEC+ group - were locked in a supply war that flooded markets. There was so much oil there was nowhere to put it, and in mid-April 2020 the price of a barrel of West Texas crude went below $0 as sellers had to pay to get rid of it. But less than two years later, the predictions of Van Beurden and others about oil's demise look premature. Benchmark Brent crude futures hit $100 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since 2014 as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military operations in Ukraine. The potential for conflict to interrupt supply added more pace to a rally underpinned by a recovery in demand that has been faster than oil producers can match. Worldwide oil consumption last year outstripped supply by about 2.1 million bpd, according to the International Energy Agency, and will surpass 2019-levels this year. Oil suppliers had to drain inventories to meet demand, and consumer nations are pleading for companies like Shell to drill more. BOOM AND BUST Such a cycle has replayed often throughout the history of oil. "If you go back to the days of whale oil, oil has been a story of boom and bust," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. "It’s a peak-to-valley cycle and usually when you hit the valley, get ready because the peak isn’t that far ahead." The trough in oil prices in early 2020 triggered political moves that might have otherwise been unimaginable. Donald Trump, the US president at the time, became so concerned about the potential collapse of domestic oil drillers that he delivered Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman an ultimatum in an April phone call: cut production or risk the withdrawal of US troops from the kingdom. Investor and governmental pressure for oil producers to cut emissions was also on the rise. In mid-May 2021, the International Energy Agency said there should be no new funding of major oil-and-gas projects if world governments hoped to prevent the worst effects of global warming. It was an about-face for an organisation long seen as a major fossil fuel cheerleader. POLICY POWER The politics of the transition have made European oil majors reluctant to invest in increasing production, so their typical reaction to higher prices - to pump more - has been slower than it might otherwise have been. Several OPEC+ members simply didn't have the cash to maintain oilfields during the pandemic as their economies crashed, and now cannot increase output until costly and time-consuming work is completed. Those with spare capacity such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are reluctant to overstep their OPEC+ supply share agreements. Even the US shale industry - the world's most critical swing producer from 2009 through 2014 - has been slow to restore output amid pressure from investors to increase their financial returns rather than spending. All of this sowed the seeds for the current boom. The Biden Administration, which wants to fight climate change but also protect consumers from high pump prices, is now encouraging drillers to boost activity and calling for OPEC+ to produce more oil. So is the IEA. That could be a struggle, according to Scott Sheffield, CEO of US shale producer Pioneer Natural Resources. He told investors last week that OPEC+ does not have enough spare capacity to handle rising world demand, and that his own company would limit production growth to between zero and 5%. RBC Capital's Mike Tran said it will be high prices, not new supply, that ultimately balances the market. "It simply does not get more bullish than that," he wrote in a note this month. But others think the supply will come eventually. After all, a boom always comes before a bust. "We think $100 crude brings in all the wrong things - too much supply, too fast," said Bob Phillips, CEO of Crestwood Equity, a midstream operator based in Houston. "We don’t think it’s sustainable."

Growing speculation that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard could be dumped by her party before the end of the year forced senior ministers to rally behind her Friday after a disastrous start to 2012. Defense Minister Stephen Smith joined a string of cabinet ministers to offer support for Gillard despite media suggestions that she could face a leadership challenge this year from Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who she replaced in June 2010. Some political analysts now believe Gillard is unlikely to lead the party to the next election, due in the second half of 2013, with a move against her most likely in the latter part of the year. "MPs are starting to think the boat is going down, and they're starting to panic," Monash University political analyst Nick Economou told Reuters. "I don't think she'll lead the Labor Party to the next election." The first major opinion polls for 2012 found government support stalled near record lows, while online bookmakers Sportsbet Friday said odds on Rudd returning as leader by the end of the year have shortened to just $1.20 for a $1.00 bet. "I'm a strong supporter of the Prime Minister. I think she's doing a very good job in very tough circumstances," Smith told Australian television from Brussels. He joined Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, and Regional Affairs Minister Simon Crean, who have all called for an end to party dissent, with Crean saying Rudd was not a team player. Rudd is seen as a lone operator by his Labor colleagues and was toppled as prime minister in a party room coup after his government struggled to pass reforms, but polls show he remains popular with voters. Adding to the government's dilemma is the fact Gillard governs with support from two independents and the Greens, and any leadership change could force a change of government or an early election if a new leader can't negotiate similar support. That means a leadership spill could trigger a change of government, with the conservative opposition promising to scrap a new 30 percent mining tax and a carbon tax, both due to start on July 1 this year. Gillard dismissed the latest rumblings Friday, saying she was focused on delivering good policy. "I don't worry about chatter in the media, I get on with the job," she said. DISASTROUS NEW YEAR Gillard finished 2011 strengthened after a disaffected opposition lawmaker became parliamentary speaker, effectively bolstering her majority from one vote to three. But she has had a poor start to 2012. She lost the support of one independent in January after she reneged on a promise to change gambling laws, and then lost a staffer who quit over his role in promoting a rowdy protest against Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that turned into a security scare. That means the government is back to square one, commanding only a one seat majority in parliament and with one lawmaker under a cloud, due to an ongoing police investigation over the use of union money to pay for prostitutes. At the same time, house prices are falling and manufacturers continue to cut jobs, although Gillard may get a reprieve if the central bank cuts interest rates next week as economists expect. Australian Financial Review political editor Laura Tingle said the past week had seem a shift in support away from Gillard, although most Labor lawmakers were still deeply hostile about Rudd. "The tide has turned with a sharp but silent menace against Julia Gillard," Tingle wrote Friday. Economou said any move against Gillard would be unlikely before July, when the carbon tax and mining tax both start. That would allow Labor to deliver its budget in May, and to campaign for the March 24 Queensland state election, where polls suggest Labor will be thrown from office. "The dangerous time is after the carbon tax comes in," Economou said. "If things don't improve by then, she'll have to go."

The investor, which manages in excess of $100 billion, plans to seek opinions from consultants on whether HSBC Asset Management should help manage its sustainability funds in the wake of the controversial comments, said the person with direct knowledge of the matter. Staff inside the bank 0005.HK have also sought reassurances about its policies amid concerns about how HSBC will be perceived by clients, two other sources said. The sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. A spokesperson for HSBC declined to comment. Earlier this month, Stuart Kirk, who is the global head of responsible investing at HSBC Asset Management, told a conference in London that "climate change is not a financial risk we need to worry about", comments that prompted the bank to suspend him and conduct an internal investigation. Kirk declined to comment when reached by Reuters. Kirk's presentation was met with criticism from campaigners who have been pressuring the bank and its peers in the financial services industry to play a bigger role in the fight against climate change. It also prompted The Pensions Regulator in the UK to warn that any pension scheme failing to consider the impacts of climate change was "ignoring a major risk to pension savings". HSBC is a leading provider of investment services to such schemes. HSBC Chief Executive Noel Quinn has said that Kirk's comments were "inconsistent with HSBC’s strategy and do not reflect the views of the senior leadership". Nicolas Moreau, who heads the asset management division, also distanced the bank from Kirk's remarks. HSBC Asset Management has received a number of inquiries from institutional clients about Kirk's comments, one of the sources said. Some of the institutions said they felt obligated to seek more clarity and understand HSBC's official stance, the source added. The possibility of HSBC Asset Management, a division that oversees some $640 billion, losing business comes as the company invests in the unit as part of a broader push to grow fee income. Over the last year, HSBC has bought businesses in Singapore and India as it seeks to expand in Asia in particular. The unease has also rippled through the bank’s internal meetings. Employees feeling concerned raised questions to senior management during a recent town hall, two of the sources said. Still, several industry experts have defended Kirk, saying that he had sparked a legitimate debate and that there should be room for dissenting voices in finance. The impact of climate risk on portfolios can indeed be exaggerated as Kirk claimed, Tariq Fancy, a former head of sustainable investing at BlackRock Inc., told Financial News in an interview on Monday.

They are necessary precautions, said Rachel Reeves, the Labour candidate who has represented this area of Leeds in Parliament since 2010 and uses the space as both her constituency office and now as her campaign headquarters. The death threats, abuse on social media and graffiti calling for ‘traitor’ lawmakers to be hanged have changed her approach before Britain’s upcoming general election. This is the new reality, she and other lawmakers say, in a campaign environment that has become remarkably nasty, particularly for women, who face a torrent of abuse and threats often laced with misogyny. And it is happening across the political spectrum. “I do think it’s a very different atmosphere and environment now compared to the first two times I stood,” Reeves said. “People are a lot angrier and there’s a lot more polarisation, particularly around the Brexit issue.” In the dwindling days before Britain heads to the polls, candidates, particularly women, are finding themselves campaigning in a climate where they say abuse, threats and a culture of intimidation have become the norm. With the Labour and Conservative parties hurling blame and allegations of racism and wrongdoing at each other, and anger and exhaustion over the still unresolved issue of Brexit, the country is divided like never before. Where once candidates might try to be as visible as possible, many are proceeding with caution, heeding warnings from the police. The abuse is not directed entirely at women. Men have come in for their share as well. But a study conducted during the most recent election showed that female lawmakers receive disproportionately more abuse on social media, with women of colour receiving an even larger share. And when more than a dozen female lawmakers cited threats and online abuse last month as part of their rationale for not running in the upcoming election, a discomforting spotlight was again thrust on the treatment of women in British politics. In a system where women are already underrepresented, making up just 32% of Parliament, some feared the abuse would drive away potential new candidates. Despite the charged atmosphere heading into the campaign, a record number of women — 1,124 of 3,322 registered candidates — are running in the election, the BBC reported. But many say they are having to adjust to a new reality where threats and intimidation are the norm. “I think that we are a little bit more reticent in advertising where we are going to be,” Reeves said, so she instead shares photos of campaign appearances after the fact. It is a precaution the police have suggested since the murder of her close friend Jo Cox, she said. In Leeds, the 2016 murder of Cox, a Labour lawmaker who represented the nearby area of Batley and Spen, is never far from people’s minds. Cox was shot by a man shouting “Britain first!” and “death to traitors” while she campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union before the Brexit referendum. “We really needed to learn the lessons from that, and yet here we are, 3 1/2 years later, and I think the environment is much more toxic,” Reeves said. She believes Brexit divisions and the language used by leaders in Parliament have fuelled the anger. “The language of betrayal, of traitor, of treachery, of surrender,” she said, repeating words that she and many of her female Labour colleagues have criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson for using against his opponents in the past. But, she said, the misogyny is not limited to one side of the political spectrum. A man was jailed last month for sending a threatening letter to Anna Soubry, a onetime Conservative who now heads an upstart party, Change UK. Two Labour activists were injured in separate attacks last week while canvassing door to door. Six people have been convicted recently of criminal offenses for abuse and threats directed at Luciana Berger, a former Labour lawmaker and now Liberal Democrat candidate. Both the far right and far left went after her for her Jewish religion or her stance on Brexit. Andrea Jenkyns, a Conservative lawmaker who is running to retain her seat in the constituency of Morley and Outwood, 5 miles south of Reeves’ area in Leeds, detailed a barrage of abuse after she won her district in the 2015 election, ending an 85-year reign by Labour. Jenkyns — ardently pro-Brexit and an outspoken supporter of Johnson’s withdrawal deal — has received emails at her office threatening sexual violence, and detractors on social media have called her a bad mother. Six weeks ago, her staff arrived at their office on Morley’s main street to find graffiti scrawled in the entryway: “Andrea just kill yourself pls.” Many of her campaign signs, which depict a smiling Jenkyns standing alongside Johnson, have been defaced. In one, a hole was punched through her face. Jenkyns believes the current climate is a departure from the “grown-up politics” of her first two campaigns, and blames heightened tensions on Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, for driving that party further to the left. But, she conceded, Brexit has also played a role. “The sad thing is, you deal with it on a daily basis so you are probably not shocked anymore and you accept it,” Jenkyns said. “And what kind of society is that?” For the first time, Britain’s National Police Chiefs’ Council, which coordinates law enforcement across the country, and the Electoral Commission issued a nationwide set of safety guidelines for candidates and activists. It advises canvassing in groups and encourages candidates and their supporters to report threats, including those made online. The decision to hold an election in December, when daylight is in short supply across Britain, has also forced many candidates to rethink their strategy, with some, including Jenkyns, swearing off knocking on doors in the dark because of safety concerns. Before previous elections, much of Reeves’ canvassing would take place after the workday ended. Now, it’s dark by 4:30pm. On Tuesday, she set out at 4pm, knocking on doors with a small team of volunteers who folded leaflets through mail slots in the Fairfield Estate, a mixture of public housing projects and privately owned homes spread out over a steep hillside. The streetlights came on as she made her way along the densely packed terraced houses, her red Labour candidate badge visible in the darkness. Few answered the door. But those who happened to be home were mostly positive, mixed with a few curt responses from those not supporting Labour. “I think we are certainly a little more vigilant,” Reeves said, describing a few confrontations. “We would never have someone go door knocking by themselves.” Cox’s younger sister, Kim Leadbetter, believes that the conversation around Brexit has grown increasingly vitriolic in the years since her sister’s death. She worries it could prove damaging to the democratic process and discourage young people, particularly women, from politics. “When Jo was murdered, there was a short period of time when politicians said all the right things about how politics needed to take a step back,” she said. But it didn’t last. Instead, she said, anger, frustration, and violent language seem to dominate the conversation. Leadbetter, an ambassador for the Jo Cox Foundation, a nonpartisan, community-building charity that was created after her sister’s death, said that while her sister was an advocate of robust debate, “we have to be able to disagree agreeably.” While there is undoubtedly an issue with threats of violence on social media — due in part to the anonymity the platforms can provide — Leadbetter warned against dismissing them as just an online problem. “It only takes one individual who cannot see the difference between violent, aggressive and abusive language and an act of violence that can change people’s lives forever,” she said. © 2019 New York Times News Service

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Mon May 4, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The global downturn could lead to unrest, more poverty and environmental challenges in Asia, regional leaders were warned on Monday, after they agreed on a $120 billion emergency fund to counter the crisis. Asia has been hard hit by the collapse in global demand largely because of the region's heavy reliance on exports. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan are in recession and growth elsewhere is the weakest in years. "Poverty is worsening in many countries. Businesses are struggling. The extremely urgent climate change agenda could be affected," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank. "If all this goes unchecked, down the road we could see social and political unrest in many countries," he told representatives of the ADB's 67-member countries, including finance ministers and central bank governors. To counter the downturn, the ADB said it will raise lending by half and Asian governments agreed at the weekend to launch a $120 billion fund countries can tap to avert a balance of payments crisis. Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano warned that private capital flows into Asian developing nations could turn negative in 2009 after falling below $100 billion in 2008 from over $300 billion in 2007. "ADB should play a leading role to cushion the impact of such a brutal reversal in capital flows," he told the meeting, adding though that a resurgence in Asia could trigger a global recovery. Longer term, it was vital for emerging Asian economies to build domestic demand to counter the reliance on export earnings, ADB delegates said. Many Asian exporters have seen demand for their products halve from a year earlier as the deepest global downturn in decades hammered world trade. "The Chinese government's basic approach is to expand domestic demand, particularly consumer demand, to promote growth," Finance Minister Xie Xuren said. Karen Mathiasen, the chief U.S. delegate, said the shift to rely more on domestic demand would be profound. "Such a fundamental economic transformation will not be easily or rapidly attainable, but ultimately will be key to underpinning a healthy, global and balanced recovery." MORE SPENDING To achieve this goal, ADB Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said Asia needed to channel more savings into investments and consumption. "They need to spend more on health, education and social security to reduce household needs for precautionary savings. They need strategies to transfer more corporate savings to households to encourage greater consumer spending." The ADB has forecast that the region's economies are likely to grow just 3.4 percent in 2009, the slowest pace since the Asian financial crisis a decade ago. It sees growth recovering to 6.3 percent next year if demand rebounds. But transforming household savings into consumer spending and investments has been a difficult task for Asian policymakers. In the 10 Southeast Asian or ASEAN nations -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- savings exceed investments by at least 10 percent, ratings agency Standard and Poor's says. The ADB is meeting on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, where finance ministers from China, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN on Sunday set up a $120 billion emergency fund aimed at countering the sort of capital flight seen during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. It is Asia's first independently managed multilateral liquidity facility and will be launched by the end of the year. Japan, the region's biggest economy, also announced a plan to supply up to 6 trillion yen ($61.54 billion) to support its neighbors in an economic downturn. Several Asian policy makers have flagged the risk of social unrest if governments fail to deal with the crisis. Chinese officials have warned economic discontent could threaten social stability as the giant economy's growth dropped below double digits for the first time in years. And during the last crisis a decade ago, Indonesia's long-term president, Suharto, stepped down after street protests. Governments also changed in South Korea and Thailand. To counter the current crisis, the ADB plans to ramp up lending to its developing members to about $33 billion in 2009 and 2010, almost a 50 percent increase over 2007-2008. Most of the new loans will be for infrastructure. If approved, the bank will also create a $3 billion fast-disbursing facility to meet "urgent needs," Kuroda said.

At first glance, it seems to adopt much of the Trump administration’s conviction that the world’s two biggest powers are veering dangerously toward confrontation, a clear change in tone from the Obama years. But the emerging strategy more directly repudiates the prevailing view of the last quarter century that deep economic interdependence could be counted on to temper fundamental conflicts on issues like China’s military buildup, its territorial ambitions and human rights. It focuses anew on competing more aggressively with Beijing on technologies vital to long-term economic and military power, after concluding that President Donald Trump’s approach — a mix of expensive tariffs, efforts to ban Huawei and TikTok, and accusations about sending the “China virus” to American shores — had failed to change President Xi Jinping’s course. The result, as Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, put it during the campaign last year, is an approach that “should put less focus on trying to slow China down and more emphasis on trying to run faster ourselves” through increased government investment in research and technologies like semiconductors, artificial intelligence and energy. Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will road-test the new approach in what promises to be a tense first encounter Thursday with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage, Alaska. It is a meeting they delayed until they could reach the outlines of a common strategy with allies — notably Japan, South Korea, India and Australia — and one they insisted had to take place on American soil. But it will also be a first demonstration of Beijing’s determination to stand up to the new administration, and a chance for its diplomats to deliver a litany of complaints about Washington’s “evil” interference in China’s affairs, as a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman put it Wednesday. The United States imposed sanctions on 24 Chinese officials Wednesday for undermining Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms, an action whose timing was pointed and clearly intentional. Blinken said in Tokyo this week that “we will push back if necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to get its way.” And that is happening almost daily, he conceded, including Beijing’s efforts to terminate Hong Kong’s autonomy, intimidate Australia and Taiwan, and move ahead, despite international condemnation, with what Blinken has said is a “genocide” aimed at China’s Uyghur minority. It is all part of the initial resetting of the relationship that has marked Biden’s renewed, if now far more tense, encounters with Xi. Back when Biden was vice president and Xi was consolidating power on his way to becoming China’s most powerful leader in decades, the two men met in China and the United States and offered public assurances that confrontation was not inevitable. The intelligence assessment inside the American government at the time was that Xi would proceed cautiously, focus on economic development at home and avoid direct confrontation with the United States. But in their years out of power, the aides who are now managing Biden’s new approach concluded that the earlier assessment badly misjudged Xi’s intentions and aggressiveness. And the new approach — a mix of promises to cooperate in areas of mutual concern like climate change while taking China on more directly in technology and military competition in space and cyberspace — is gradually becoming clear. Its outlines were reflected, aides said, during a two-hour telephone conversation last month between Biden and Xi whose contents have been tightly held by both sides. Biden, the aides reported, warned Xi not to believe China’s own narrative that the United States is a declining power, consumed by the political divisions that were on full display in the Jan 6 riot at the Capitol. Shortly after the conversation, though, Xi reportedly told local officials in northwest China that “the biggest source of chaos in the present-day world is the United States,” which he also described as “the biggest threat to our country’s development and security.” Sullivan and Blinken are betting that Xi’s declaration reveals a pang of Chinese insecurity, a fear that, for all the country’s bluster about new weapons systems and advances in artificial intelligence, it is vulnerable to “choke points” where the United States remains in control of foundational technology. The result is that both nations are racing to secure their own supply chains and to reduce dependency on each other — a reversal of 40 years of economic integration. But more broadly it reflects the end of a post-Cold War construct that assumed the interests of the two powers were inextricably intertwined. “There’s no doubt that the trajectory has shifted in a dramatic way,” said Elizabeth C Economy, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the author of a biography of Xi. “I think fundamentally there’s a lack of trust that will be extremely difficult to overcome.” For a Democratic president, the Biden approach represents a full reversal from the days of Bill Clinton’s assurances, in his talks with Chinese university students more than 20 years ago, that a wealthier, internet-connected China would become a more democratic and pluralistic one. President Barack Obama’s talk of managing China’s “peaceful rise” is also gone. Today, there seems to be broad agreement that US-China relations have not only reached one of their lowest points since the country’s 1949 communist revolution, but that they threaten to grow even worse. Henry Kissinger, the man who cleared the way for America’s opening to China nearly 50 years ago, said shortly after Biden was elected that the United States and China were increasingly drifting toward confrontation. “The danger,” he said at a Bloomberg conference in November, “is that some crisis will occur that will go beyond rhetoric into actual military conflict.” Chinese authorities have read and reread an article published three years ago in Foreign Affairs that said the world had to acknowledge “the end of a post-Cold War construct that assumed these two great powers had to learn to get along — and thus would.” America, Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner wrote, “underestimated China’s willingness to directly take on the United States, or use its economic might to rewrite the rules of trade and technology in its favour” and failed “to detect Mr. Xi’s authoritarian-nationalist instincts.” Today Campbell is the White House Asia policy coordinator, with new authorities over a range of government departments. And Ratner, recently installed as the Pentagon’s top official for Asia, is in charge of a four-month rush project to reassess the military competition between the two countries. Ratner’s review is expected to encompass everything from Beijing’s slow-but-steady embrace of a more sophisticated nuclear arsenal to its growing capabilities in space and hypersonic weaponry, much of it intended to keep American carrier groups at bay — and prevent the United States from taking the risk of mounting a defense of Taiwan. U.S. officials warn that a Taiwan crisis could be brewing, as Xi, emboldened by his success in suppressing dissent in Hong Kong, turns to the intimidation of an island it regards as a breakaway province. Last week, the chief of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Adm Philip Davidson, warned that China could try to take control of Taiwan within the next six years. An American destroyer sailed through the Taiwan Strait the next day, the traditional reminder that an overt move to take over the island would provoke a response from the United States. Nonetheless, many in the Pentagon believe that Chinese strategists increasingly regard such shows of force as empty gestures, convincing themselves that an America already tired of failed wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere would not take the risk of direct military confrontation. Sullivan holds a more nuanced view. Before taking office he cautioned against assuming China’s plan was to attain power through territorial gains in the Pacific. Instead, he suggested, Xi may be banking on expanding Chinese influence through “increasing emphasis on shaping the world’s economic rules, technology standards and political institutions.” The risk, he conceded, is that it could be pursuing both strategies simultaneously. At the heart of the Biden administration’s critique of the Trump administration’s approach to China was the absence of a competitive strategy. Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, threatened allies that were negotiating to install Huawei’s 5G communications network, telling them they could be cut off from US intelligence because Washington could not risk having critical data diverted to the Chinese. But there was no American alternative to offer them, since US companies had largely exited the field. Biden’s team promises a different approach — one that is exploring, for example, ways of organising Western democracies to draw on American open-source software and European-made switching gear from Nokia and Ericsson to offer a more secure, Western-made alternative to Huawei. But putting together such combinations requires a level of government and private-sector cooperation that is rare in peacetime, and can take years to assemble. It is far from clear that other nations will hold off on their purchases, especially as China uses its leverage — most recently in providing coronavirus vaccines — to bolster Huawei’s chances in nations where only months ago it was blocked. Similarly, the Biden administration regards Trump’s effort last year to block TikTok, the Chinese social media operation, and force a de facto takeover of its American operations, as such a hastily assembled deal that it will never survive legal challenge. It promises a different strategy that focuses on the key issue: how to monitor the software that is pumped into the phones of over 100 million users in the United States. “The Cold War was primarily a military competition,” Campbell said. But “the modern ramparts of competition will be in technology,” he said, such as 5G networks, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics and human sciences. Competing in those areas, Sullivan said recently, would require “making progressive, ambitious public investment here in the United States so that we stay on the cutting edge.” Elements of Trump’s approach remain, of course, including punishing tariffs on Chinese imports, which one Biden official briefing reporters last month called a source of “leverage.” But Biden has walked away from Pompeo’s declaration that with enough pressure, the Communist Party in China will collapse. Last month Graham Allison, a political scientist at Harvard, and Fred Hu, a prominent investor, argued that for now there is no choice but to deal with China as it is. “Preventing military crises, combating climate change, containing future pandemics, preventing nuclear proliferation, fighting terrorism, managing financial crises,” they wrote, “none of this can be done without accepting the reality that the autocratic regime in Beijing runs China now and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Global climate talks may have to continue into 2011 after failing last month to agree on a Kyoto successor, the UN's climate chief Yvo de Boer, told Reuters on Friday. A lack of trust and the economic crisis complicated prospects for a global climate deal in Mexico at a December meeting, said President Felipe Calderon, the prospective host of those talks. The world failed to commit in Copenhagen last month to succeed or extend the existing Kyoto Protocol from 2013. De Boer could not guarantee a deal in Mexico, the next scheduled ministerial meeting. "Whether we can achieve that in Mexico or need a bit more time remains to be seen and will become clearer in the course of the year," he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where business executives said they would invest in low-carbon technologies regardless of a global UN climate deal. "It's very difficult to pin down. One of the lessons from Copenhagen was don't rush it, take the time you need to get full engagement of all countries and make sure people are confident about what is being agreed." Deadlock last month centred on how far big emerging economies should follow the industrialised world and enforce binding actions to fight climate change. "We will do our best," said Calderon. "My perception is that the lack of consensus is related to the economic problems in each nation, because there are economic costs associated with the task to tackle climate change." "We want in Cancun a robust, comprehensive and substantial agreement," by all 193 signatories of the UN's climate convention, he said. "We need to try to learn from our mistakes ... we need to return trust and confidence between the parties." The UN's de Boer said countries must arrange additional meetings this year, in addition to the two already timetabled in Bonn in June, and then in Mexico if they wanted agreement. De Boer said he was "very happy" to receive confirmation yesterday from the United States that it had beaten a Jan. 31 deadline to submit formally its planned carbon cuts, to be written into a non-binding "Copenhagen Accord".

Rich and poor nations alike criticised a new blueprint for a UN climate treaty on Friday as two weeks of talks among 185 countries ended with small steps towards an elusive deal. A streamlined climate draft, meant to help talks on a new pact, cut out some of the most draconian options for greenhouse gas and dropped all references to "Copenhagen" -- where a UN summit in December fell short of agreeing a treaty. "The group is dismayed that the ... text is unbalanced," developing nations in the Group of 77 and China said in a statement. Several of them said the 22-page text wrongly put emphasis on greenhouse gas curbs by the poor, not the rich. Among rich nations, the United States said it would study the text but that some elements were "unacceptable". The European Union also expressed "concerns" about the text, which updates a previous 42-page draft rejected last week. The new text outlines a goal of cutting world emissions of greenhouse gases by "at least 50-85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050" and for developed nations to reduce emissions by at least 80-95 percent from 1990 levels by mid-century. It drops far more radical options, some championed by Bolivia, for a cut of at least 95 percent in world emissions by 2050 as part of a fight to slow droughts, floods, a spread of disease and rising sea levels. Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe of Zimbabwe, who chairs the UN talks on action by all nations to slow global warming, said the text would be updated for a next meeting in Bonn in August. SHORTCOMINGS Yvo de Boer, the departing head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said he felt the main reaction to the text was that, "yes, it has shortcomings...but that people are willing to take it as the basis for future work." Many delegates say that a new legally binding deal is out of reach for 2010 and now more likely in 2011. Apart from deep splits over negotiating texts, US legislation on cutting emissions is stalled in the Senate. The May 31-June 11 session was the biggest since Copenhagen, where more than 120 nations agreed a non-binding deal to limit a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times. But it lacked details of how to reach this goal. "This session has made important progress...Countries have been talking to each other rather than at each other," de Boer said of the Bonn talks. De Boer said there was progress on climate funds, sharing green technology and issues such as slowing deforestation. He said an extra meeting of negotiators was likely in China before an annual meeting in Mexico from Nov. 29-Dec. 10. The new draft text keeps some elements of the Copenhagen Accord, including a plan for aid to developing nations of $10 billion a year from 2010 to 2012, rising to more than $100 billion from 2020. Australian delegate Robert Owen-Jones announced in Bonn that Canberra was contributing 559 million Australian dollars ($469 million) to the 2010-12 funds.

Australia won an ovation at the start of UN-led climate change talks in Bali on Monday by agreeing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, isolating the United States as the only developed nation outside the pact. Soon after an Australian delegate promised immediate action on Kyoto, new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took the oath of office and signed documents to ratify, ending his country's long-held opposition to the global climate agreement. "I think I can speak for all present here by expressing a sigh of relief," conference host and Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told the conference opening session. About 190 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009 to avert droughts, heatwaves and rising seas that will hit the poor hardest. "The world is watching closely," Witoelar told delegates at the Dec. 3-14 meeting trying to bind outsiders led by the United States and China into a long-term U.N.-led fight against warming. "Climate change is unequivocal and accelerating," he told the opening ceremony in a luxury beach resort on the Indonesian island. "It is becoming increasingly evident that the most severe impacts of climate change will be felt by poor nations." A new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States and developing nations have no caps under Kyoto. The United States, as the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, has been feeling the heat from developing nations demanding the rich make stronger commitments to curb emissions. Australia, the world's top coal exporter and among the world's highest per-capita greenhouse gas polluters, has been criticised for years for refusing the ratify Kyoto. "It was an emotional and spontaneous reaction to a very significant decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Secretariat, said of the ovation. The United States was unfazed. "NO ROAD BLOCKS" "We respect Australia's decision," Harlan Watson, head of the U.S. delegation, told reporters. "We're not here to be a roadblock. We're committed to a successful conclusion here." De Boer told delegates rich nations had to agree to axe emissions from burning fossil fuels to encourage poor countries to start braking their own rising emissions. "Bold action in the north can fuel clean growth in the south," he said, urging a sharing of clean energy technologies such as solar or wind power. "I fervently hope you will make a breakthrough here in Bali by adopting a negotiating agenda." Others urged caution. "At the opening ceremonies for the climate talks in Bali, there was lots of good will and optimism, but there is clearly a challenging road ahead," said Angela Anderson, vice president for climate programs at the Washington-based National Environmental Trust. "Agreements on adaptation, deforestation and technology cooperation must be reached before the high-level officials arrive next week. While all the governments agree in principle, there is significant disagreement on the details." Climate change talks have been bogged down by arguments over who will pay the bill for cleaner technology and how to share out the burden of emissions curbs between rich and poor nations. China and India, among the world's top polluters and comprising more than a third of humanity, say it's unfair and unrealistic for them to agree to targets, particularly as they try to lift millions out of poverty. The European Union, which has pledged to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, said that countries should start to look at hard new commitments in Bali.

BANGKOK, Oct 7, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The United States came under pressure to show leadership in UN climate talks on Wednesday with Mexico saying its neighbor is a stumbling block in efforts to try to craft a tough global climate agreement by December. The United States has been criticized by developing countries and green groups in talks in the Thai capital for not being able to put a tough emissions reduction target for 2020 on the table, instead focusing on a 2050 target. Developing nations also worry over Washington's position that any new climate pact should set legally binding domestic steps to cut emissions as a benchmark for global action to fight climate change. "I think that they are in an uncomfortable position since they cannot put on the table any figures unless the Congress process is clearer," Fernando Tudela, head of the Mexican climate delegation in Bangkok, told Reuters in an interview. "They are increasingly identified as a stumbling block for the negotiations and it's up to them to dispel this perception and to show the real leadership we're expecting from them." A climate bill drafted by U.S. Senate Democrats aims for a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels. But President Barack Obama's administration says he is unlikely to sign the legislation before a major December conference in Copenhagen aimed at sealing a new climate pact. The Senate bill target equates to a 7 percent cut on 1990 levels by 2020, far below the 25-40 percent cuts by then that the U.N. climate panel and developing countries say rich nations should support to avoid dangerous climate change. "Whenever Congress delivers legislation then once again the U.S. will not be in a process to negotiate because (its) hands will be tied by whatever comes out of the Congress," Tudela said. "They still have to prove that, in whatever legal form, they are able to deliver the abatement that would be conducive to a fair share toward meeting the climate targets." Delegates from about 180 nations are in Bangkok to try to narrow differences on sharing the burden of slowing climate change through a tougher agreement that from 2013 would replace the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto only binds 37 rich nations, not including the United States, to emissions targets between 2008-12. The Bangkok talks are the last major negotiation round before the Dec 7-18 Copenhagen meeting. TRANSPARENT Tudela worried about efforts by the U.S. and other rich nations to shift away from Kyoto to a new framework. "Our preference would be to keep Kyoto as it is, and build a compliment to Kyoto, involving enhanced participation from developing countries with support from developed countries and a much enhanced participation of the US" The head of the U.S. delegation, Jonathan Pershing, called on developing nations to be more transparent in what actions they take to curb emissions growth. Many poorer nations have resisted this unless they receive money and technology to adapt to the impacts of climate change and green their economies. Big developing nations such as China, India and Indonesia are among the world's top greenhouse gas emitters. "The United States is of the view that there are two pieces to what's binding," Pershing told reporters. "The first piece is what every country does at home. Our view is that the strongest part of a legal instrument is what we each commit to in our countries. So what we're looking for is for countries to pass laws to move forward on this issue," he said. "An international agreement is strong because it supports that national action. We do think it should be binding internationally. We think that countries should take their actions and make them publicly visible, transparent."

The United States might have earned global ire for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but not every American is a climate villain, US lawmakers and activists at climate talks in Bali say. Rep. Edward J. Markey and 10 House committee chairmen, in a letter to a top UN figure at the Bali talks, highlighted what they said was the willingness of the US Congress and voters to act against a policy of delay adopted by the administration of George W Bush. "As world leaders and the United Nations meet in Bali to plan a future without global warming, the world must know that President Bush's avoidance of action is not the status quo here in America," said Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "With Congress, the states, cities, and Americans from coast to coast looking to act immediately on global warming, the international community must know they have significant support here in the United States," he said in the letter to Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat. "In total, 55 percent of the US population lives in a state that has already established rigorous mandatory greenhouse gas reduction targets," the Massachusetts Democrat added. Among the House committee leaders supporting the letter were Tom Lantos of the Foreign Relations Committee; Henry A Waxman, Oversight and Government Reform Committee; and George Miller, Education and Labor Committee. A US youth delegation met their government's negotiating team in Bali on Wednesday to demand tougher action against global warming. The United States is the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases and says Kyoto is a failure because it doesn't commit big developing nations such as China and India to emissions targets. The meeting in Bali, involving about 190 nations, aims to initiate a two-year dialogue leading to a broader climate pact by 2009 to replace or upgrade Kyoto. US youth delegation member Richard Graves said the State Department team did not offer much hope for the negotiations in Bali. "The best we could get from them was that nothing is off the table," he told a small gathering at the conference. "The youth represent the future of the United States and not the past and this delegation doesn't have very long left and represents the past." A report released on Tuesday by the US-based National Environmental Trust says many individual US states release more greenhouse gas emissions than entire groups of developing countries. Wyoming, the most sparsely populated state in the US with only 510,000 people, emits more carbon dioxide than 69 developing countries that are home to 357 million, it said.