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

China's Industrial Fund Management Co Ltd is planning to launch a fund investing in shares of "socially responsible" Chinese listed firms, the first mutual fund product of its kind in the country, state media said on Tuesday. The company, which earlier this month received regulatory approval to launch the fund, has not published a prospectus. But analysts expect it to target companies engaged in environmentally friendly projects. "What's different is that the fund will concentrate its investment on listed firms with decent performance in terms of social responsibility," the China Securities Journal said. It also shows Beijing is seeking to encourage product innovation in China's 10-year-old, 3.2 trillion yuan ($450 billion) mutual fund industry, the newspaper added. Socially responsible investments, which also tend to shun polluting industries and such businesses as casinos, tobacco and alcohol, have been growing in developed countries in recent years. ABN AMRO said in March last year it planned to launch certificates based on its new Climate Change and Environment Index on the Singapore and Hong Kong bourses. The index is composed of 30 stocks with exposure to sectors such as water, waste management, hydroelectric power and ethanol. Some analysts said the new offering from Industrial Fund Management could be a hard sell in China, in part due to a stock market slump that has hit overall mutual fund sales. "It remains unclear whether the fund would be successful in China because most domestic investors focus on returns but not social responsibility," said Zhou Liang, head of China research for Lipper, a Reuters company, which tracks more than 95,000 funds worldwide. The fund is expected to invest 65 to 95 percent of its proceeds in stocks and the rest in bonds, state media said. Officials at Shanghai-based Industrial Fund Management were not immediately available for comment. ($1=7.106 Yuan)

“All our 45 workers are jobless now. The men are driving taxis and women are back to being housewives,” said CEO Farzad Rashidi. Reuters interviews with dozens of business owners across Iran show hundreds of companies have suspended production and thousands of workers are being laid off because of a hostile business climate mainly caused by new US sanctions. The Iranian rial has fallen to record lows and economic activity has slowed dramatically since US President Donald Trump withdrew from the big powers’ nuclear deal with Tehran in May. He imposed sanctions directed at purchases of US dollars, gold trading, and the automotive industry in August. Iran’s vital oil and banking sectors were hit in November. “We have lost around five billion rials ($120,000 at the official rate) in the last few months, so the board decided to suspend all activities for as long as the fluctuations in the currency market continue. It is stupid to keep driving when you see it’s a dead end,” Rashidi said. The country has already experienced unrest this year, when young protesters angered by unemployment and high prices clashed with security forces. Official projections indicate unrest could flare up again as sanctions make the economic crisis worse. Four days before parliament fired him August for failing to do enough to protect the jobs market from sanctions, labor minister Ali Rabiei said Iran would lose a million jobs by the end of year as a direct result of the US measures. Unemployment is already running at 12.1 percent, with three million Iranians unable to find jobs. A parliamentary report in September warned that rising unemployment could threaten the stability of the Islamic Republic. “If we believe that the country’s economic situation was the main driver for the recent protests, and that an inflation rate of 10 percent and an unemployment rate of 12 percent caused the protests, we cannot imagine the intensity of reactions caused by the sharp rise of inflation rate and unemployment.” The report said if Iran’s economic growth remains below 5 percent in coming years, unemployment could hit 26 percent. The International Monetary Fund has forecast that Iran’s economy will contract by 1.5 percent this year and by 3.6 percent in 2019 due to dwindling oil revenues. Iran’s vice president has warned that under sanctions Iran faces two main dangers: unemployment and a reduction in purchasing power. “Job creation should be the top priority ... We should not allow productive firms to fall into stagnation because of sanctions,” Eshaq Jahangiri said, according to state media. But business owners told Reuters that the government’s sometimes contradictory monetary policies, alongside fluctuations in the foreign exchange market, price increases for raw materials, and high interest loans from banks have made it impossible for them to stay in business. Many have not been able to pay wages for months or had to shed significant numbers of workers. A manager at the Jolfakaran Aras Company, one of the biggest textile factories in Iran, told Reuters that the firm was considering halting its operations and hundreds of workers might lose their jobs. “Around 200 workers were laid off in August, and the situation has become worse since. There is a high possibility that the factory will shut down,” the manager said, asking not to be named. Ahmad Roosta, CEO of Takplast Nour, was hopeful that a drought in Iran would provide a boost for his newly launched factory, which produces plastic pipes used in agriculture. “I will wait one or two months, but I will have to shut down if the situation remains the same ... The farmers, who are the main consumers of our products, cannot afford them,” Roosta told Reuters. The sanctions have affected the Iranian car industry, which had experienced a boom after sanctions were lifted two years ago and it signed big contracts with French and German firms. French carmaker PSA Group (PEUP.PA) suspended its joint venture in Iran in June to avoid US sanctions, and German car and truck manufacturer Daimler has dropped plans to expand its Iran business. Maziar Beiglou, a board member of the Iran Auto Parts Makers Association, said in August that more than 300 auto parts makers have been forced to stop production, threatening tens of thousands of jobs in the sector. A spokesperson for Iran’s Tire Producers Association blamed the government’s “changing monetary policies over the last six months” for problems in the sector. “Fortunately tire factories have not slowed down, but the production growth that we had planned for was not achieved,” Mostafa Tanha said in a phone interview from Tehran. YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT Washington says economic pressures on Tehran are directed at the government and its malign proxies in the region, not at the Iranian people. But Iran’s young people, bearing the brunt of unemployment, stand to lose the most. Maryam, a public relations manager in a food import company, lost her job last month.  “The prices went so high that we lost many customers ... In the end the CEO decided to lay off people and started with our department.” She said the company had stopped importing, and people who still worked there were worried that it might shut down after selling off its inventory. Youth unemployment is already 25 percent in a country where 60 percent of the 80 million population is under 30. The unemployment rate among young people with higher education in some parts of the country is above 50 percent, according to official data. Armin, 29, has a mechanical engineering degree but lost his job in the housebuilding industry when the sector was hit by recession following the fall of rial. “The property market is slowing because high prices have made houses unaffordable ... It is getting worse day by day,” he told Reuters from the city of Rasht in northern Iran. Nima, a legal adviser for startups and computer firms, believes sanctions have already affected many companies in the sector that depended on an export-oriented model and hoped to expand in the region. He said even the gaming industry in Iran has felt the sanctions pinch: “The situation has become so severe that many of these teams decided to suspend development of their games and are waiting to see what will happen next. Without access to international markets, they see very little chance of making a profit.” Saeed Laylaz, a Tehran-based economist, was more sanguine. He said youth unemployment was a product of Iran’s demographics and government policies, and sanctions were only adding to an existing problem. “The sanctions, the uncertainty in the market and Rouhani’s zigzag policies have put pressures on the economy and the job market, but I predict that the market will find a balance soon,” Laylaz told Reuters. “We will defeat this round of sanctions as we have done in the past,” said Laylaz who met Rouhani last month with other economists to offer advice on economic policies.

The COP26 conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow opens a day after the G20 economies failed to commit to a 2050 target to halt net carbon emissions - a deadline widely cited as necessary to prevent the most extreme global warming. Instead, their talks in Rome only recognised "the key relevance" of halting net emissions "by or around mid-century", set no timetable for phasing out coal at home and watered-down promises to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg asked her millions of supporters to sign an open letter accusing leaders of betrayal. "As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency," she tweeted. "Not next year. Not next month. Now." Many of those leaders take to the stage in Glasgow on Monday to defend their climate change records and in some cases make new pledges at the start of two weeks of negotiations that conference host Britain is billing as make-or-break. "Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It's one minute to midnight and we need to act now," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell the opening ceremony, according to advance excerpts of his speech. "If we don't get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow." But discord among some of the world's biggest emitters about how to cut back on coal, oil and gas, and help poorer countries to adapt to global warming, will not make the task any easier. US President Joe Biden singled out China and Russia, neither of which is sending its leader to Glasgow, for not bringing proposals to the table. "Russia and ... China basically didn't show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change," Biden, who faces domestic resistance to his climate ambitions, told reporters at the G20. ABSENTEES Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country is by far the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, will address the conference on Monday in a written statement, according to an official schedule. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will also stay away from Glasgow. Two Turkish officials said Britain had failed to meet Ankara's demands on security arrangements and protocol. Delayed by a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, COP26 aims to keep alive a target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels - a level scientists say would avoid its most destructive consequences. To do that, the conference needs to secure more ambitious pledges to reduce emissions, lock in billions in climate-related financing for developing countries, and finish the rules for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by nearly 200 countries. Existing pledges to cut emissions would allow the planet's average surface temperature to rise 2.7C this century, which the United Nations says would supercharge the destruction that climate change is already causing by intensifying storms, exposing more people to deadly heat and floods, raising sea levels and destroying natural habitats. "Africa is responsible for only 3 percent of global emissions, but Africans are suffering the most violent consequences of the climate crisis," Ugandan activist Evelyn Acham told the Italian newspaper La Stampa. "They are not responsible for the crisis, but they are still paying the price of colonialism, which exploited Africa's wealth for centuries," she said. "We have to share responsibilities fairly." Two days of speeches by world leaders starting Monday will be followed by technical negotiations. Any deal may not be struck until close to or even after the event's Nov 12 finish date.

More than 150 passengers and crew escaped unhurt after their cruise ship hit ice in the Antarctic and started sinking on Friday, the ship's owner and coast guard officials said. A Norwegian passenger boat in the area picked up all the occupants of the Explorer from the lifeboats they used to flee the ship when it ran into problems off King George Island in Antarctica at 12:24 a.m. EST (0524 GMT), the Explorer's owners said. Hours later, the abandoned cruise ship sank in the icy Antarctic waters, the Chilean navy said in a statement. The vessel is owned by Canadian travel company G.A.P. Adventures and was carrying tourists on an Antarctic tour when it struck ice. "We were passing through ice as usual ... we do that every day. ... But this time something hit the hold and we got a little leakage downstairs," the Explorer's first officer, Peter Svensson, told Reuters Television by satellite phone from the Norwegian ship, the Nordnorge. Svensson said the rescue went smoothly. "No one was hysterical, they were just sitting there nice and quiet, because we knew there were ships coming." The passengers and crew were taken to Chile's Eduardo Frei base in the Antarctic and were later to be flown in Chilean air force planes to Punta Arenas, Chile, a Chilean navy commander told local television. ICY CONTINENT Television images of the boat before it sank showed the stricken vessel sitting at an angle in dark gray waters. A company statement said the passengers included Americans, British, Canadians, Australians, Dutch, Japanese and Argentines, and that the families of those on board were being contacted. G.A.P Adventures spokeswoman Susan Hayes told CNN the vessel "didn't hit an iceberg, it hit some ice. ... There are ice floes, but it didn't hit a huge iceberg." The Explorer usually made two-week cruises around the Antarctic at a cost of some $8,000 (4,000 pounds) a cabin. Smaller than most cruise ships, it was able to enter narrower bays off the continent and scientists were on board to brief passengers on the region's geology and climate change, the spokesman added. King George Island lies about 700 miles (1,127 km) south of Cape Horn, the tip of South America, and is the largest of the South Shetland islands. Cruise trip travel has grown in Antarctica in recent years and Pedro Tuhay, of the Argentine coast guard, told local radio that 52 cruises were expected at the southern port of Ushuaia during this year's peak season from October to April.

Burnout, the psychological term for an all-consuming exhaustion and detachment, floated around the popular lexicon in reference to work for years, but became even more of a buzzword as it seeped into all the corners of people’s lives during the pandemic. “When you’re dealing with long and unending uncertainty and trauma, there’s only so much you can handle,” said Thea Gallagher, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at NYU Langone Health. In the aftermath of natural and man-made disasters, Dr Gallagher said, acute stress often leads to exhaustion and hopelessness over time. Australia, for example, has experienced more and more climate-related natural disasters, but scientists identified a pervasive sense of “issue fatigue” about climate change in the population there from 2011 to 2016: The Australians surveyed became less likely to report that they had thought about climate change or talked about it with their friends. That kind of all-consuming exhaustion during extreme stress is normal and expected, said Dr Srijan Sen, director of the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center at the University of Michigan. In the first two months of the coronavirus pandemic, he personally observed an unexpected, significant drop in depression among health care workers, which he attributed to them having a sense of community and purpose. But as the pandemic has dragged on, he said, they have become more anguished and fatigued, as they wrestle with “a level of vigilance and concern that maybe was sustainable for two weeks or two months, but not for two years,” he said. We spoke to experts about the signals and symptoms of “worry burnout” — and ways to combat it. WHAT CAUSES WORRY BURNOUT? We experience emotions for a reason, said Jeffrey Cohen, a clinical psychologist and psychiatry professor at Columbia. Fear is an evolutionary tool to respond to threats; anxiety sends an alarm through our brains, alerting us that we need to get ourselves to safety. But at this stage of the pandemic, he said, we’ve dealt with the constant threat of Covid-19 for so long that we no longer trust our brains when they tell us we’re under attack. “It’s like, is this even a real alarm anymore?” Dr Cohen said. The physiological symptoms of stress wear on us, he added. Our nervous system reacts to worry: Cortisol levels shoot up, heart rates rise. We end up in a heightened, chronically exhausted state. “Your body can’t sustain high levels of anxiety for long periods of time without fatiguing,” said Michelle Newman, a psychology professor at Pennsylvania State University who researches depression and anxiety. That fatigue, and how it pushes us to detach from worry, might have a positive effect on people; it could signal radical acceptance of the new normal. Anxiety drives us to solve problems, Dr. Cohen said, but we cannot strategise or plan our way out of the pandemic, no matter how much mental energy we expend. “With radical acceptance, we’re just acknowledging the facts of the world are what they are,” he said, and we’re becoming more comfortable with the unending uncertainty. When does acceptance become complacency though? And is it still a positive condition if you’re exhausted and depleted? WHY YOU WANT TO BREAK THE ‘WORRY BURNOUT’ CYCLE. Refusing to worry might be a protective impulse, experts said, a coping mechanism to shield your mind from added stress. But when we’re so burned out we stop caring about measures that might beat back the virus, we put ourselves in danger. People in a state of chronic stress become despondent and defiant, said Angela Neal-Barnett, a psychology professor at Kent State University and the author of “Soothe Your Nerves: The Black Woman’s Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety, Panic and Fear.” “People say, ‘It just doesn’t matter to me anymore,’” she said. “When you’re at that level, that suggests you’re just overwhelmed, you feel helpless, you feel hopeless. You say, ‘Do what you may, I don’t care.’” This apathy could affect public health at a global scale. The World Health Organization released a policy framework last year citing “pandemic fatigue” as a key obstacle to getting people to comply with Covid precautions. In January of this year, researchers found that, as the pandemic wore on, people reported less adherence to social distancing measures. SPOT THE SIGNS OF ‘WORRY BURNOUT.’ — YOU AVOID THE NEWS: You might feel like you can’t handle another ominous headline or hear one more update on the virus, said Dr Gallagher. She herself felt this recently when she stumbled on a news broadcast and immediately changed the channel. “I was like, I’m going to find a ‘Seinfeld’ rerun instead,” she said. — YOU FEEL NUMB: Worry burnout might be associated with what psychologists call “learned helplessness,” a sense of overwhelming powerlessness after trauma, said Dr Judson Brewer, an associate professor at Brown University and the author of “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind.” Stress might have motivated us in the early days of the pandemic to scramble for solutions to make lockdown more tolerable; now, he said, many of us have learned that we cannot control much beyond our individual behaviour. “If we spend all of our time worrying, it’s like turning our engine on, putting our car in neutral, slamming on the gas and wondering why we don’t go anywhere,” he said. Grappling with that incessant uncertainty makes us wonder, consciously or subconsciously, what the point of caring is and why we should bother paying attention to the news at all. This emotional numbing has also appeared in victims of natural disasters and in health care workers. — YOU’RE TIRED ALL THE TIME: After an intense period of anxiety, people often feel depressed and depleted, Dr Newman said. Whether the source of the worry is a global disaster or the day-to-day stress over work or family, anxiety causes us to constantly scan for threats until we reach a point of exhaustion, she said. — YOU’RE HOPELESS: People can feel like they’ve done “everything right” in the pandemic, Dr Neal-Barnett said — they social distanced for months, they got vaccinated, they followed the official guidelines — and they’re still stuck in a slow-moving disaster. “You find yourself thinking more and more negatively,” she said. — YOU’RE ANGRIER THAN USUAL: Anger can also crop up when we’re emotionally expended, Dr Neal-Barnett said — we might lose our temper more quickly or find ourselves more impatient. Putting together an action plan — to speak with a therapist, to safely socialise with friends, to take moments for mindfulness — can help us feel rested and restored. “The days of trying to push through the tiredness are over,” Dr Neal-Barnett said. “That’s just not in our best interests anymore.” Experts suggested starting a meditation practice — even just a few minutes a day — to tap back into our emotions and feel present. Dr Brewer developed a simple, on-the-go breathing exercise; the Times also has a beginner’s guide to meditation. These techniques won’t make the pandemic go away, but they can help us back away from the edge. If you’re suffering from worry burnout, aim for the basic building blocks of a healthy daily routine, Dr Sen suggested — a full night’s sleep, a balanced meal plan, consistent exercise — and pay attention to the elements of your life that make you feel recharged. Do non-virus-related conversations with friends boosts your mood, or are social interactions more draining than healing? Is immersing yourself in a book a more effective distraction than spending time on social media? Recognise when you feel like you’re expending too much of your energy following the news, he said, especially when you find yourself focusing on events beyond your control. If you still gravitate back to worry, the best thing you can do, she said, is to try to cut off the cycle as soon as possible and look for activities and routines that help you relax. “A lot of people have this myth that worrying is helpful in some way, and it’s just not,” she said. ©2021 The New York Times Company

The high number of early voters, about 65% of the total turnout in 2016, reflects intense interest in the contest, with three days of campaigning left. Concerns about exposure to the coronavirus at busy Election Day voting places on Tuesday have also pushed up the numbers of people voting by mail or at early in-person polling sites. The Republican president is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticising public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States. Opinion polls show Trump trailing former Vice President Biden nationally, but with a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election. Voters say the coronavirus is their top concern. Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count. In a flurry of legal motions, his campaign has sought to restrict absentee balloting. "I don’t care how hard Donald Trump tries. There’s nothing – let me say that again – there’s nothing that he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy,” Biden said at a rally in Flint, Michigan, where he was joined by former President Barack Obama for their first 2020 campaign event together. Trump held four rallies on Saturday in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the campaigns are seeking to win over undecided voters in areas like the suburbs of Philadelphia and the "Rust Belt" west of the state. “If we win Pennsylvania, it’s over,” Trump told a large rally in Reading before moving to another big gathering in Butler. Officials in several states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, say it could take several days to count all of the mail ballots, possibly leading to days of uncertainty if the outcome hinges on those states. A federal judge in Texas has scheduled an emergency hearing for Monday on whether Houston officials unlawfully allowed drive-through voting and should toss more than 100,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Harris County. In Iowa, a new poll published on Saturday shows Trump has taken over the lead there just days before the election. A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll shows Trump now leads Biden by seven percentage points, 48 percent to 41 percent. The results, based on a poll of 814 Iowa voters, suggests Biden has lost support among independent voters in the Midwestern state. At a small, in-person rally in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Trump mocked his opponent for his criticism of the administration's record of fighting COVID-19, which has killed more people in the United States than in any other country. "I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday. All he talks about is COVID, COVID. He's got nothing else to say. COVID, COVID," Trump told the crowd, some of whom did not wear masks. He said the United States was "just weeks away" from mass distribution of a safe vaccine against COVID-19, which is pushing hospitals to capacity and killing up to 1,000 people in the United States each day. Trump gave no details to back up his remarks about an imminent vaccine. JOBS AND FRACKING In his closing arguments, Biden has accused Trump of being a bully, criticised his lack of a strategy to control the pandemic, which has killed nearly 229,000 Americans; his efforts to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law; and his disregard for science on climate change. He has offered his own made-in-America economic platform, a contrast with Trump's "America First" approach, saying he will get the wealthy to pay their fair share and make sure earnings are distributed more equitably. In an effort to highlight what he says is Biden's plan to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract fossil fuels, Trump signed an executive order on Saturday that calls on the US Department of Energy to commission a study about the potential harm caused by banning or restricting the practice. The order also reinforces a prior law, directing federal agencies to produce reports about decisions that are detrimental to the fracking industry. Fracking for natural gas is a major source of jobs in western Pennsylvania. Biden denies intending to ban fracking if he wins the White House. Stanford University economists on Saturday released an estimate that Trump rallies held from June to September led to more than 30,000 additional COVID-19 infections and possibly as many as 700 deaths. The study was based on a statistical model and not actual investigations of coronavirus cases. The paper, which did not cite disease experts among its authors, has not been peer-reviewed. Public health officials have repeatedly warned that Trump campaign events could hasten the spread of the virus, particularly those held in places where infection rates were already on the rise. Determining the actual impact of those rallies on infection rates has been difficult due to the lack of robust contact tracing in many US states. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, described the report as "suggestive." “I would just say it’s suggestive but hard to completely isolate the specific impact of one event without robust contact trace data from the cases,” Adalja said. Biden’s campaign, which has sharply limited crowd sizes at events or restricted supporters to their cars, quickly seized on the Stanford findings. "Trump doesn't even care about the very lives of his strongest supporters," Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. At one Biden rally in Detroit on Saturday, social distancing broke down as supporters crowded toward the stage to hear Obama speak.

Dhaka, Apr 8 (bdnews24.com)—The World Bank has warned that Bangladesh and most other South Asian countries will fall short of reaching millennium development goals due by 2015, the multilateral lending agency said in a statement Tuesday. MDGs are a set of eight globally agreed development goals. The statement was released on the eve of launching the Global Monitoring Report by the WB and IMF. The report says Bangladesh has more unequal outcomes in primary education than middle-income countries such as Brazil and Colombia and is affected more than three times as much as India on extreme weather events. The WB recommends that programmes combining microinsurance and adaptive infrastructure for Bangladesh to face increased risks of flooding as a result of climate change. The report also says that absenteeism by physicians in larger clinics was 40 percent, while the rate was much higher, 74 percent, in smaller sub-centres (upazila level) with a single doctor. Bangladesh offers scope to receive scaled-up aid in the form of budget support, investment projects and technical assistance, according to the report. Although much of the world, including South Asia, is set to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015, prospects are gravest for the goals of reducing child and maternal mortality, with serious shortfalls also likely in human development goals such as primary school completion, nutrition and sanitation. The report was simultaneously launched in Dhaka, New Delhi and Islamabad from Washington through a multi-country video conference on Tuesday. "The report's central message is that urgent actions are needed to help the world meet the MDGs and combat climate change that threatens all countries, especially poor ones and poor people," Dr Zia Quoreshi, WB's adviser and the author of the report, told the conference. He said the goals of development and environment sustainability are closely related and the paths to the goals have many synergies. "Assessment at the MDG midpoint shows significant progress on some goals but major shortfalls on most of the goals," said Quoreshi. Speaking on a worldwide price hike in foods, the WB adviser said: "It would create a political window opportunity to bring an end of the deadlock in agricultural trade liberalisation." WB president Robert Zoellick in the statement expressed his concerns about the risks of failing to meet the goal of reducing hunger and malnutrition. "As the report shows, reducing malnutrition has a 'multiplier' effect, contributing to success in other MDGs including maternal health, infant mortality, and education," said the WB chief. The Global Monitoring Report: MDGs and the Environment—Agenda for Inclusive and Sustainable Development stresses the link between environment and development and calls for urgent action on climate change. The report warns that developing countries stand to suffer the most from climate change and the degradation of natural resources. South Asia faces a large potential health risk from climate change through increased malnutrition, diarrhea, and malaria. Factoids of the report suggests that South Asia will likely meet the poverty reduction MDG and contribute the most to global poverty reduction in the next decade but said most human development MDGs are unlikely to be met at the global level while South Asia is off track in areas like nutrition, maternal health, child mortality and education. However, the region is on track to meet the access to clean water but off track to provide improved sanitation. The WB-IMF report said South Asia has the highest incidence of child malnutrition. The child malnutrition rate in India is double the African average. The risk of malnutrition increases with high food prices. The percentage of births attended by skilled personnel is 41 percent in South Asia, which is "very low". The report suggested strong and inclusive economic growth, pace on human development goals, integrating environmental sustainability into core development work, more and better aid, effective harnessing of trade for strong and inclusive growth, and leveraging IFI (international financial institutions) supports towards an inclusive and sustainable development.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard took delivery of an official report on carbon trading on Thursday, and media said it called on Canberra to introduce trading by 2011, rather than wait for a global system. The report, which will form the basis of the conservative government's response to climate change, came after Howard said for the first time he would consider setting a national target for carbon emissions, which are blamed for global warming. "This is one of the most eagerly awaited reports that's been presented to the government," Howard said on Thursday. With elections looming and his coalition's poll standing at record lows, the veteran prime minister is under pressure on the environment. Labor Party rival Kevin Rudd is promising to slash carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050 and to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Howard set up the inquiry into climate change and carbon trading six months ago to find ways of pricing carbon pollution without hurting the nation's economy. Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter. He has regularly said he would be willing to embrace carbon trading, but only as part of a global trading system. Carbon trading usually involves putting a price and strict limits on pollution, allowing companies that clean up their operations to sell any savings below their allocated level to other companies. Australia's Ten TV network said the prime minister's task force on carbon trading -- made up of top bureaucrats in liaison with business -- had recommended that Canberra set up its own carbon trading system by 2011, initially fixing the price of carbon at A$20 a tonne ($17/tonne). Australia's Climate Institute said on Monday the price would need to be above A$10/tonne to provide enough incentive for investment in clean energy. A Citigroup report said it expected Howard to commit to carbon trading before 2012, but said a price below A$20 would be too low to encourage clean energy and would lead to uncertainty for electricity generators, resulting in higher power prices. Green groups want Howard to commit to cut greenhouse emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050. With no domestic nuclear power, Australia relies on coal for about 85 percent of its electricity, with less than 4 percent produced from renewable energy sources. Howard, who along with the United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, said on Wednesday he could set an emissions target if the government introduced carbon trading. "If we move towards an emissions trading system, that will of necessity involve a long-term target of some kind," he told a mining industry dinner. Howard has yet to say when he will release the carbon report or announce the government's response. ($1=A$1.21)

BRUSSELS, Fri Dec 12, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - European leaders sealed a 200-billion-euro ($264 billion) pact to revive the bloc's battered economy on Friday and edged close to a climate deal amended to cushion industry and poorer EU states. Talks on the pact, which draws on existing national packages and provides support for sectors including construction and motors, had exposed differences between Britain and Germany. But the second day of a two-day Brussels summit brought evidence of a softening of positions. "We have agreed an ambitious stimulus package," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a news conference. The deal, announced after the collapse of a planned US auto sector aid programme sent a chill through world markets, amounted to 1.5 percent of the bloc's total gross domestic product. Leaders took a step towards salvaging the planned Lisbon Treaty of EU reforms by giving Ireland assurances that it will not affect key policy areas. The move is designed to enable Dublin to stage a new referendum by next November on a text which its voters rejected in June. After weeks of pressure by France and others to contribute more to EU-wide stimulus efforts, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Berlin would study possible new steps some time next year. A dispute on whether EU states should together cut value added tax (VAT) -- a move she had opposed -- was deferred. A draft summit text, obtained by Reuters before a final review by EU leaders, committed the bloc to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, despite concessions. However, diplomats say the final shape of the climate package was still uncertain, and ecology groups fear it could emerge from the talks in a much watered-down form. "This is a flagship EU policy with no captain, a mutinous crew and several gaping holes in it," said Sanjeev Kumar of environment pressure group WWF. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana acknowledged there had been concessions, cushioning some industrial sectors and easing the burden of east European countries with highly-polluting Soviet-era power stations. But, with an eye to U.N. sponsored global environment talks in Poznan, Poland, he added: 'The objectives, the dynamism the leadership of the EU is going to continue." The draft approved the headline goal of an EU-wide programme of measures aimed at wrenching the 27-nation bloc's economy out of recession, despite some differences between EU member states about how to handle the worst economic downturn in 80 years. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has argued against large cash injections, especially purchase tax cuts, warning that billowing budgetary deficits can only burden future generations. "Europe will act in a united, strong, rapid and decisive manner to avoid a recessionary spiral and sustain economic activity and employment,' the draft said of temporary support to the economy, including the auto and construction sectors. In wording which appeared to reflect the reluctance of countries such as Germany to cut value added tax (VAT), the text raised the possibility of reducing VAT on labour-intensive services only in those states that wished to do so. The climate discussions took on a special significance, six weeks before Barack Obama takes over the U.S. presidency holding out the prospect of closer transatlantic co-operation on global warming. COAL POWER According to the draft text, poorer east European nations will be offered two tiers of funding worth billions of euros to win their support for measures to tackle climate change that will ramp up costs for their highly-polluting power sectors. The nine former communist states are seen as the final blockage to a deal, having already threatened to veto the plan if nothing is done to temper measures aimed at making coal-fired power stations uneconomical and boosting cleaner alternatives. Their power sectors were also partially exempted from paying for emissions permits under the EU's flagship emissions trading scheme (ETS) between 2013 and 2020. However it was not clear whether eastern capitals would back the new proposals in a final planned session of talks on Friday, despite positive noises voiced earlier by Poland and others. Diplomats said leaders had agreed assurances to Ireland enabling Dublin to hold a second referendum by next November on the Lisbon treaty. The Lisbon Treaty -- successor to the defunct EU constitution -- aims to give the bloc more weight in the world by creating a long-term president and its own foreign policy supremo and needs to be ratified by all 27 EU states. Dublin will be offered guarantees that concerns such as military neutrality and national tax policy will not be touched, as long as it commits to ratifying it by November 2009 -- paving the way for a new referendum which it is far from sure to win.

China and the European Union vowed on Friday to seek balanced trade and foster cooperation in climate change in high-level meetings dogged by tension over Tibet protests and the Olympics. EU officials led by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso had intended meetings with senior Chinese officials in Beijing this week to help ease rifts over China's big trade deficit and to foster agreement on "sustainable" growth. Economic tensions have festered as China's trade surplus with the EU bloc surged to nearly 160 billion euros ($251 billion) last year, according to EU data. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the two sides had agreed to enhance cooperation on energy conservation and emissions reduction. "Our mutual benefits by far outweigh the conflicts. As long as we respect, trust and learn from each other, there will surely be a better future for the Sino-EU relationship," Wen told reporters. Barroso said the main focus of the talks was climate change and China had signalled its will to make domestic emissions part of a global agreement to tackle climate change after 2012. He said there were "major imbalances" in trade and both sides had agreed on the necessity for a rebalance. The long-prepared talks have been upstaged by anti-Chinese unrest across Tibetan areas last month, followed by Tibet protests that upset the Beijing Olympic torch relay in London and Paris, and then nationalist Chinese counter-protests. Barroso welcomed China's announcement that it would hold talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama. "While fully respecting the sovereignty of China, we have always advocated the need for dialogue because we believe this is the best way to achieve sustainable, substantive solution to the Tibet issue," Barroso told reporters. "As far as I understand the Chinese position, the Chinese say they are ready to discuss everything except sovereignty for Tibet." EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson on Thursday urged an end to mutual threats of boycotts. The European Parliament has asked EU leaders to boycott the opening ceremony at the Beijing Games in August unless China opens talks with the Dalai Lama. Such calls, and Chinese public counter-campaigns to boycott European companies, especially the French supermarket chain Carrefour, served neither side, Mandelson said on Thursday.

Major corporations are joining environmental groups to press US President George W Bush and Congress to address climate change more rapidly, news reports said on Friday. The coalition, including Alcoa Inc, General Electric, DuPont, and Duke Energy plans to publicize its recommendations on Monday, a day ahead of the president's annual State of the Union address, The Wall Street Journal reported. The group also includes Caterpillar, PG&E, the FPL Group, PNM Resources, BP and Lehman Brothers, The New York Times reported. The group, known as the United States Climate Action Partnership, will call for a firm nationwide limit on carbon dioxide emissions that would lead to reductions of 10 to 30 percent over the next 15 years, the NYT reported. The Journal said the coalition will discourage the construction of conventional coal-burning power plants and a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions. The coalition's diversity could send a signal that businesses want to get ahead of the increasing political momentum for federal emissions controls, in part to protect their long-term interests, the Times said. Officials from the companies were not immediately available for comment. Bush in his speech next week is likely to support a massive increase in US ethanol usage and tweak climate change policy, sources familiar with the White House plans said on Tuesday. The White House on Tuesday confirmed that the speech will outline a policy on global warming, but said Bush has not dropped his opposition to mandatory limits on the heat-trapping greenhouse-gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol is the only global pact obliging signatories to cut carbon dioxide emissions, but the United States is not a member, nor are China and India. The protocol expires in 2012. News of the coalition comes as different governments and groups devote more attention to global environmental policy. Global warming has moved to the heart of European foreign policy, the EU executive's top diplomat said on Thursday. On Monday, a summit of Asian leaders promised to encourage more efficient energy use to help stave off global warming. An EU-United States summit in April is expected to focus on energy security and a Group of Eight summit in early June will highlight energy and climate. Most scientists agree that temperatures will rise by 2 and 6 degrees Celsius this century, mainly because of increasing carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.

But Paula Rogovin has a rule for teaching small children: Whenever you expose them to upsetting problems, remind them that they can look for solutions. So they decided on a goal: to ban pesticides in the city’s parks, playgrounds and open spaces. And they came up with a chant: “Ban toxic pesticides! Use only nature’s pesticides! Pass A Law!” Since then, through a sometimes contentious battle, the maturing students, their younger successors and an expanding circle of grown-up allies have shouted their demand in playground rallies, on the steps of City Hall and in City Council chambers, where Thursday their wish came true. Lawmakers voted unanimously to make New York the nation’s largest city to ban toxic pesticides from routine use by city agencies and to push its parks to control weeds, insects and vermin with nature-based techniques of organic gardening. As soon as the law goes into effect — in 30 days or when Mayor Bill de Blasio signs it, whichever comes first — the use of toxins is supposed to cease, with a few narrow exceptions for targeted use on invasive or harmful species. Although nature-based methods are cheaper in the long run, learning to use them takes time and training, potential challenges for a parks department that saw its budget severely cut during the COVID-19 downturn. Other jurisdictions have taken similar steps. Baltimore banned a narrower list of pesticides last year, and Chicago, through a voluntary program, has stopped using chemical weedkillers in 90% of its parks since 2014. In January, New York state banned the use of toxins by school districts. In New York City, residents will see far fewer red or yellow signs warning them to keep dogs and children away from recently treated areas in parks, public housing courtyards and other public areas. Even rat poison must now be put in special containers or inaccessible places, and the goal eventually is to control rats in safer ways, like by better securing the garbage they eat. “I won’t have to worry anymore, if I’m just running around, that there might be pesticides there,” said Jesse Balsam, 12, one of Rogovin’s original activist students. He is now a seventh grader at Robert F Wagner Middle School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and often plays with his dog, Pepper, in Central Park. The law’s supporters celebrated Thursday in Stanley Isaacs Playground at the intersection of the Upper East Side and East Harlem. They ripped up a poison warning placard and held up a mural of trees and animals that Rogovin’s students made back in 2014; she had laminated it with tape. The bill’s passage came on Earth Day amid a flurry of environmental initiatives. But Ben Kallos, the district’s council member, said “a bunch of kindergartners” persuaded him to propose a city ban on pesticides in 2014. “It went nowhere,” he said. Kallos said he tried everything as climate change pushed environmental issues higher on the agenda. He recalled holding “the best, cutest hearing ever” in 2017. Children mobbed the floor of the council chambers singing “This Land Is Your Land.” Still, he said, City Hall and the Parks Department were resistant. But as word of the bill spread, public housing residents and environmental groups teamed up with Rogovin’s students and their parents in a widening circle — and eventually signed up enough council sponsors for a veto-proof majority. Rogovin, 73, stuck with the mission even after she retired in 2018 after 44 years of teaching and as her original kindergarten activists were entering puberty. Ava Schwartz, 12, said she was surprised at how hard it was to prevail: “What I learned is that if you want to bring change, you have to be really passionate.” At the rally, they said the bill would remove dangers that have long been invisible, since toxins can spread through the ecosystem and linger. Another activist group mapped the hundreds of places where the chemicals have been used in New York City with the help of data gathered through Freedom of Information Act requests. Pesticides are used in places people might not think of, like on asphalt basketball courts and walkways to stop weeds from sprouting through cracks. “You put your blanket down — maybe you’re laying with the love of your life,” said Bertha Lewis, president of an advocacy and research group that pushed for the bill. “And while you’re kissing and smooching, you’re getting poison all over you. That’s nasty.” Her group, The Black Institute, found that toxic pesticides have been used disproportionately in majority-Black neighbourhoods in Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn, according to its 2020 report “Poison Parks.” The advocates also found that the parks workers who are most likely to be exposed to toxins are Black and Latino. The mostly asphalt playground where the rally took place, used by many Black residents from an adjacent public housing complex, was sprayed more often than the lush Carl Schurz Park just six blocks away in a wealthy, heavily white area, Kallos said. LaKeesha Taylor, at the rally with her children, said she decided to fight for the ban after learning that pesticides might have been used in the courtyard of the complex, where she grew up growing tomatoes and collards. “It wasn’t safe to be eating that,” she said, adding of city agencies, “They’re killing us.” City agencies’ use of glyphosate, the main ingredient in the weed killer Roundup, has dropped since 2014, when Kallos first introduced a version of the bill. Since then, it has been ruled a carcinogen; and Roundup’s manufacturer, Monsanto, later acquired by Bayer, has been ordered to pay $158 million, in separate lawsuits, to two California cancer patients, a school groundskeeper and a gardener who were sickened by it. Agencies can seek waivers to use toxins in specific cases, but input is required from the local community board, council member and borough president. Exceptions will include areas on median strips, where using organic products, which require more frequent applications, would more often expose workers to danger from vehicles. Still, local and national advocacy groups said the New York ban would have a significant impact. By banning a broad range of pesticides, the law effectively mandates that city parks go organic, adopting biological land management long used by organic gardeners and farmers to keep harmful or invasive plants and animals at bay. “The nation is moving away from toxic pesticides and fossil-fuel-based fertilisers,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, a national advocacy group that pushed for the bill, “and toward natural management that’s good for our health, the environment and the planet.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

OSLO, Tue Sep 2, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Atlantic hurricanes and floods in India are reminders of the risks of ever more extreme weather linked to a changing climate, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Monday. Achim Steiner said that more damaging weather extremes were in line with forecasts by the UN Climate Panel. He urged governments to stick to a timetable meant to end in December 2009 with a new UN pact to fight global warming. "These natural disasters do reflect a pattern of change that is in line with projections" by experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Geneva. "As you watch the hurricane season in the Atlantic, as we watch the cyclones and the flood events in India, clearly we have more reason than ever to be concerned about the unfolding of patterns that the IPCC has forecast," he said. He said it was impossible to link individual weather events, such as Hurricane Gustav battering the US Gulf Coast on Monday, to climate change stoked by human activities led by use of fossil fuels. But they match patterns forecast by the IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore. The IPCC is marking its 20th anniversary in Geneva this week. GUSTAV Gustav slammed ashore on the U.S. Gulf Coast just west of New Orleans on Monday, a new blow to the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Gustav weakened to a category 1, the lowest on a five-point scale. In India, three million people have been displaced from their homes and at least 90 killed by floods in India's eastern state of Bihar, officials say, after the Kosi river burst a dam in Nepal. The floods are the worst in Bihar in 50 years. In addition to the human suffering "we have an economic escalation from damage from natural disasters," Steiner said. Insurers Munich Re said that first-half losses from natural catastrophes totalled about $50 billion -- many linked to a rising number of extreme weather events. The main exception was $20 billion from China's Sichuan earthquake that killed at least 70,000 people. For all of 2007, losses totalled $82 billion, it said in a July report. "Growing populations and infrastructure means that we are going to face more and more events of this nature," Steiner said. Katrina was the costliest hurricane in US history, killing some 1,500 people and causing over $80 billion in damage. "Natural disasters are increasingly becoming a major risk to our economies," Steiner said. "Our societies cannot afford this, our insurance industry cannot afford an escalation of risks."

The government will distribute Al Gore's dramatic global warming film to all secondary schools in England in its fight to tackle the climate crisis, Environment Minister David Miliband said on Friday. The announcement came as a panel of the world's top scientists issued a new report blaming mankind for the crisis and predicting that average temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century as a result. "The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over, as demonstrated by the publication of today's report," Miliband said. "I was struck by the visual evidence the film provides, making clear that the changing climate is already having an impact on our world today, from Mount Kilimanjaro to the Himalayan mountains," he added. 'An Inconvenient Truth', a film of the former US vice president's lecture tour illustrating the dramatic change to the environment due to human activities, has already been a box office hit. The film will be part of a global warming information pack distributed to schools as the government strongly pushes the message that everyone has a role to play. Gore, a dedicated climate crusader, has begun a programme of training what he calls climate ambassadors to travel the world. "As the film shows, there's no reason to feel helpless in the face of this challenge. Everyone can play a part along with government and business in making a positive contribution in helping to prevent climate change," Miliband said. The government is drafting a Climate Change Bill to set in law its own self-imposed target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2050. But environmentalists have called for a far tougher target and on Friday the head of a cross-party parliamentary environment committee urged Miliband to raise the figure. "I will be asking David Miliband to scrap that target and instead introduce a formula which works towards a safe and sustainable concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which minimises the danger of catastrophic climate change," said Colin Challen.

BERLIN, Mon Dec 22, (bsnews24.com/Reuters) - The odds of a 'white Christmas' in temperate parts of the northern hemisphere have diminished in the last century due to climate change and will likely decline further by 2100, climate and meteorology experts said. Even though heavy snow this year will guarantee a white Christmas in many parts of Asia, Europe and North America, an 0.7-degree Celsius (1.3 Fahrenheit) rise in world temperatures since 1900 and projected bigger rises by 2100 suggest an inexorable trend. "The probability of snow on the ground at Christmas is already lower than it was even 50 years ago but it will become an even greater rarity many places by the latter half of the century," said Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengarber, climate researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. In the northern German city of Berlin, for instance, the chances of snow on the ground on December 24, 25 and 26 have fallen from 20 percent a century ago to approximately 15 percent in 2008, he said. By 2100 the odds will be less than 5 percent. Berlin last had snow on the ground at Christmas in 2001, and even though the German capital is due a festive snowfall, from a statistical point of view, meteorologists say it will not be white in 2008 either. In cities with more maritime climates, such as London, and mild continental climates like Paris, snow on Christmas is even now fairly rare and will only be a freak occurrence within 100 years, he said. No snow is expected in either city this year. "The yearning for snow at Christmas seems to grow stronger the rarer it becomes," Gerstengarber told Reuters, noting cities at low altitudes such as Berlin (30 meters above sea level) will probably almost never see snow surviving on the ground by 2100. Betting on the fabled "white Christmas" is a pastime in some countries, like Britain, and oddsmakers will increasingly have to factor in global warming's impact, climate researchers said. IRVING BERLIN SONG Evidence continues to mount that mankind is to blame for climate change, according to the U.N. Climate Panel. Drawing on the work of 2,500 experts, it says greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, are blanketing the planet. Emissions of the gases, led by carbon dioxide, have surged by about 70 percent since 1970 and could in the worst case more than double again by 2050, it says. Rising temperatures will bring more floods, heatwaves, stronger storms and rising seas. Paal Prestrud, director of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, said the sort of "white Christmas" in the 1940 Irving Berlin song made famous by Bing Crosby will be rare in the decades ahead -- even in Oslo. "The probability of snow on Christmas has declined even faster in places like Oslo, where average winter temperatures are closer to 1 degree warmer and the early part of the winter is especially warm," Prestrud told Reuters. "The conditions for cross-country skiing have deteriorated. There is now an average of 100 days (a year) with at least 25 cm snow. In 1900 that was 150," he said. Oslo's streets were clear of snow on Monday. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center has satellite data collected since 1978 showing northern hemisphere snow cover for the March-April period has declined by about 2 million square km (772,300 sq mile) to 36 million square km. But Gerhard Mueller-Westermeier, a climatologist at the German Weather Service, pointed out there will still be lots of snow in many temperate zones for decades to come -- and there are some areas where the probability has barely changed. Cities like Munich, to say nothing of Alpine areas, will have high probabilities of snow on December 25 beyond 2100. "Winters have become milder but at some weather stations, like Frankfurt, the already relatively low chance of snow on December 25 aren't much lower than before," he told Reuters. "There will still be the odd white Christmas for quite some time."

Those most threatened will be outdoor workers in already-hot countries where temperatures and humidity are rising fast, possibly threatening the economic lifeline of South Asian migrants seeking jobs in Gulf nations. A study published in Nature Communications found that the global economy already loses up to $311 billion per year as workers struggle in hot, humid weather. It warned that sum would grow more than five-fold if the planet gets 2C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than now, on top of the 1.1C of warming already seen since preindustrial times. Governments committed in 2015 to hold the increase in global average temperatures to "well below" 2C since preindustrial times, but are off track to meet that goal as humans continue to burn climate-heating fossil fuels. If global warming hits 3C, today's adaptation tactic of moving outdoor work earlier or later in the day would be far less effective, the study said, as all hours would become too hot. "More global labour will be lost in the coolest half of the day than is currently lost in the hottest half of the day," said study co-author Luke Parsons of North Carolina's Duke University. That level of warming would also expose workers to significantly higher risk of injuries, kidney problems - and even premature death. "To protect some of the people most vulnerable to climate change - outdoor workers in many low-latitude countries - we need to limit future warming," Parsons added. The riskiest regions include the Middle East, where humidity is rising especially fast and which hosts 35 million migrant workers, according to the International Labour Organisation. The new study found labourers in Qatar and Bahrain would suffer most with 3C of warming, losing more than 300 work hours per person annually, with even the day's coolest hour bringing significant heat exposure. Nick McGeehan, a founding director at labour rights consultancy FairSquare who was not involved in the study, said migrant workers would bear the brunt of both economic and health impacts. "The concern for me... is not that workers will lose money - it's that (employers) will maintain the status quo in the face of this very obvious risk, and severely damage more workers' health, and inevitably more workers will die," he said. He called for legally mandated and regulated work-to-rest ratios in the Gulf. WORK BANS Qatar already has some heat stress protections, with outdoor work banned between 10 am and 3.30 pm during summer and at any time if temperatures top 32.1C. Bahrain also bans outdoor work on summer afternoons. But Barrak Alahmad, a medical doctor from Kuwait who did not work on the study, said such measures may not be enough, as morning shifts in some Gulf states have been associated with the highest intensity of heat exposure. Instead, the doctoral candidate at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health urged more robust prevention and protection programmes, including acclimatisation for foreign workers and training to recognise symptoms of heat exposure. "The evidence is quite overwhelming that systematically disadvantaged groups like migrant workers in the Gulf are at a high risk of adverse health outcomes from extreme heat," Alahmad told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "How many more studies do we need before we take action?" Gulf migrants' countries of origin are also warming and will lose work hours, the study noted. On a hotter planet, India, China, Pakistan and Indonesia will face the largest labour losses among their working-age populations, it found. That could mean workers from those countries will struggle to find safe outdoor employment, both in their homelands and traditional Gulf destinations. "Ultimately this system will end at some point, and climate could be the catalyst for that," said McGeehan of FairSquare.

Samim Hoshmand said key programmes, including a $21.4 million rural solar energy project backed by the international Green Climate Fund (GFC), were in limbo after the Islamist militant group captured the capital Kabul on Aug 15. Hoshmand, who served as climate change director at the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) before the takeover, helped develop a national climate action plan and emissions inventory. "These are all activities which I worry could be jeopardised," he said by phone from a village outside Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe, where he fled after receiving death threats from Taliban-freed environmental offenders. Other green projects that could be affected include a $36 million effort backed by the Global Environment Facility and other funders to boost renewable energy, make agriculture and forestry more climate-resilient and safeguard ecosystems, Hoshmand said. He described winning the funds for the projects as a huge achievement since "these finance mechanisms are painfully slow and almost impossible (to access) for fragile countries like ours". Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the GFC, confirmed that continuing disbursement of money for the fund's Afghanistan project - created to provide rural areas with clean energy via solar mini-grids - had been "put on hold" pending a risk assessment. "Whenever you have a change in the political landscape, you have to take a hard look at what this means in terms of risks," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Hoshmand, an ex-negotiator at UN climate talks, said without foreign support Afghans could be pushed into more hunger, poverty and conflict in a country already battling extreme weather, from crippling droughts to flash floods. Afghanistan is "one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change impacts in the world", the World Bank has noted. Hoshmand said that if earning a living became more difficult as a result of extreme weather and help was unavailable, the country could see worsening losses. "When people are facing a natural threat and get hungry, they can do anything to survive. They can cut jungles, destroy ecosystems, deplete natural resources," he said. "That's what I'm really concerned about." COAL EXPANSION? Hoshmand, 30, was also in charge of enforcing an international ban on the use of ozone-depleting substances such as some refrigerants used in refrigerators and air conditioners. That has now made him a target among illegal traders, some of whom he helped put behind bars but who were released by the Taliban as they swept major Afghan cities. Facing threats, Hoshmand escaped to neighbouring Tajikistan carrying nothing but the clothes on his back and leaving behind years of hard work, including groundwork for the COP26 climate summit that starts from Oct 31 in Scotland. "I was fully prepared for COP26," he said. "But all of sudden everything has changed, and I've become like nothing." "I'm looking for a job just to survive, to get some food," he said. With Afghanistan's environmental agency now shut down, he said it was unlikely the country would be represented at the COP26 talks, where he had planned to submit updated climate pledges. Regardless of who is in charge, Afghanistan needs help to deal with climate threats, he said. He urged foreign donors to look beyond politics and engage the Taliban for the sake of more than 30 million Afghans, who face increasing risks of internal displacement due to wild weather. Without international aid to promote clean energy, he warned that the Taliban could resort to ramping up use of Afghanistan's highly-polluting coal reserves to save the cash-strapped economy. "The current government does not have cash to pay the salaries of their employees. How can they spare anything for climate change?," asked the former negotiator. Afghanistan imports most of its electricity from neighbouring countries including Iran, generating only a small portion domestically, according to its main power utility. With little industry of its own, Afghanistan accounts for far less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions but is suffering serious impacts from drought and other extreme weather. The international community needs to engage with the Taliban government and "provide them with some incentives to build renewable energy resources," he said. "If we leave them on their own, they will definitely (rely on coal)."

TOKYO Fri Nov 13, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US President Barack Obama arrives in Tokyo on Friday for a summit where the two allies will seek to put strained security ties on firmer footing as they adjust to a rising China set to overtake Japan as the world's No. 2 economy. Tokyo is the first stop in a nine-day Asian tour that will take Obama to Singapore for an Asia-Pacific summit, to China for talks on climate change and huge trade imbalances and to South Korea where Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions will be in focus. Washington's relations with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's new government, which has pledged to steer a diplomatic course less dependent on its long-time ally and forge closer ties with Asia, have been frayed by a feud over a US military base. Obama and Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party ousted its long-dominant rival in a historic August election, were expected to turn down the heat in the dispute over the US Marines' Futenma air base on Japan's southern Okinawa island, a key part of a realignment of the 47,000 US troops in Japan. "I want to make this a summit that shows the importance of Japan-US relations in a global context," Hatoyama told reporters on Friday morning ahead of Obama's arrival. But assuaging anxiety and beginning to define a new direction for the five-decade-old alliance will be a difficult task. No breakthroughs were likely in the feud over Futenma during Obama's visit, although Hatoyama said on Thursday he would tell the U.S. leader that he wants to resolve the issue soon. U.S. officials have made crystal clear they want Tokyo to implement a 2006 deal under which Futenma, located in a crowded part of Okinawa, would be closed and replaced with a facility in a remoter part of the island. Replacing Futenma is a prerequisite to shifting up to 8,000 Marines to the U.S. territory of Guam. REDEFINING THE ALLIANCE But Hatoyama said before the election that the base should be moved off Okinawa, fanning hopes of the island's residents, reluctant hosts to more than half the US forces in Japan. Entangled with the feud are deeper questions about whether Obama and Hatoyama can start to reframe the alliance in the face of changing regional and global dynamics. China is forecast to overtake Japan as the world's second-biggest economy as early as next year, raising concerns in Japan that Washington will cosy up to Beijing in a "Group of Two" (G2) and leave Tokyo out in the cold. While Obama begins his Asian trip in Tokyo, he will spend just 24 hours in the Japanese capital compared to three days in China, where he will discuss revaluing the yuan, encouraging Chinese consumers to spend and opening Chinese markets further. Some in Washington are equally worried by signs Japan is distancing itself from its closest ally by promoting an as yet ill-defined East Asian Community, despite Hatoyama's assurances the US-Japan alliance is at the core of Tokyo's diplomacy. Hatoyama has said he wants to begin a review of the alliance with an aim to broadening ties longer term, and the leaders could agree at the summit to begin that process. The two leaders will also call for an 80 percent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and issue a statement pledging to cooperate to promote nuclear disarmament, Japanese media said.

The International Monetary Fund's largest-ever distribution of monetary reserves will provide additional liquidity for the global economy, supplementing member countries’ foreign exchange reserves and reducing their reliance on more expensive domestic or external debt, Georgieva said in a statement. "The allocation is a significant shot in the arm for the world and, if used wisely, a unique opportunity to combat this unprecedented crisis," she said. Countries can use the SDR allocation to support their economies and step up their fight against the coronavirus crisis, but should not use the fiscal space to delay needed economic reforms or debt restructuring, the IMF said in separate guidance document. IMF member countries will receive SDRs -- the fund's unit of exchange backed by dollars, euros, yen, sterling and yuan -- in proportion with their existing quota shareholdings in the fund. Georgieva said about $275 billion of the allocation will go to emerging market and developing countries, with some $21 billion to flow to low-income countries. Georgieva said the IMF was encouraging rich countries that receive SDRs to channel them to poorer countries that need them more. One key option is for wealthier countries to contribute SDRs to the IMF's existing Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust for low-income countries, she said. The IMF was also continuing to work on a possible Resilience and Sustainability Trust that could use channeled SDRs to help the most vulnerable countries with structural transformation, including dealing with climate change, she said. Another possibility, she said, could be to channel SDRs to support lending by multilateral development banks. The IMF's last SDR distribution came in 2009 when member countries received $250 billion in SDR reserves to help ease the global financial crisis. To spend their SDRs, countries would first have to exchange them for underlying hard currencies, requiring them to find a willing exchange partner country.

Describing their model as "a major improvement in our understanding of the spread of diseases from animals to people", the researchers said it could help governments prepare for and respond to disease outbreaks, and to factor in their risk when making policies that might affect the environment. "Our model can help decision-makers assess the likely impact (on zoonotic disease) of any interventions or change in national or international government policies, such as the conversion of grasslands to agricultural lands," said Kate Jones, a professor who co-led the study at University College London's genetics, evolution and environment department. The model also has the potential to look at the impact of global change on many diseases at once, she said. Around 60 to 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases are so-called "zoonotic events", where animal diseases jump into people. Bats in particular are known to carry many zoonotic viruses. The Ebola and Zika viruses, now well known, both originated in wild animals, as did many others including Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever that affect thousands already and are predicted to spread with changing environmental factors. Jones' team used the locations of 408 known Lassa fever outbreaks in West Africa between 1967 and 2012 and the changes in land use and crop yields, temperature and rainfall, behavior and access to health care. They also identified the sub-species of the multimammate rat that transmits Lassa virus to humans, to map its location against ecological factors. The model was then developed using this information along with forecasts of climate change, future population density and land-use change. "Our approach successfully predicts outbreaks of individual diseases by pairing the changes in the host's distribution as the environment changes with the mechanics of how that disease spreads from animals to people," said David Redding, who co-led the study. "It allows us to calculate how often people are likely to come into contact with disease-carrying animals and their risk of the virus spilling over." The team tested their new model using Lassa fever, a disease that is endemic across West Africa and is caused by a virus passing to people from rats. Like Ebola, Lassa causes hemorrhagic fever and can be fatal. The study, published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, tested the model with Lassa and found the number of infected people will double to 406,000 by 2070 from some 195,000 due to climate change and a growing human population.

The world can reach a significant new climate change pact by the end of 2009 if current talks keep up their momentum, the head of the United Nations climate panel said on Sunday. The United Nations began negotiations on a sweeping new pact in March after governments agreed last year to work out a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year. "If this momentum continues you will get an agreement that is not too full of compromises," said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, during a seminar at the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in Madrid. Without a deal to cap greenhouse gas emissions around 2015, then halve them by 2050, the world will face ever more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising seas, according to the U.N. panel. The United Nations hopes to go beyond Kyoto by getting all countries to agree to curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Only 37 rich nations were bound to cut emissions under Kyoto. The United States, one of the world's biggest polluters, refused to join the agreement. The next talks, to be held in Germany in June, will address funding technology to mitigate climate change -- a key demand from developing countries who say rich countries should foot much of the bill. Getting the private sector on board with a well regulated carbon emissions trading system is key to long-term financing, according to delegates at the ADB seminar. "Investors need some certainty they will get some return," said Simon Brooks, vice president at the European Investment Bank. PRESTIGE AND POLITICS India's Pachauri said popular awareness of global warming had risen sharply over the last 12 months and put pressure on Washington and other governments for action. He said he believed it would be very difficult for any country to remain outside a climate change pact. "There's a question of national prestige involved," said Pachauri, head of the U.N. panel that last year shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former President Al Gore. President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, saying the pact would hurt the economy and was unfair since it excluded big developing nations from committing to emissions cuts. Key to a new agreement is Asia, notably China, said Odin Knudsen, a managing director for JP Morgan & Chase. "China is making tremendous progress," said Knudsen, a specialist in climate change. "It's in China's interests and they want to be energy efficient." In the last 3 decades Asia's energy consumption has grown 230 percent and the region has gone from producing one tenth of world greenhouse gas emissions, to a quarter, according to the Asian Development Bank. The United Nations calculates global warming will cause a 30 percent decline in crop yields in central and south Asia by 2050 and decrease freshwater availability for over a billion people. Faced with such threats, China is switching over to renewable energy sources which are expected to provide more than 30 percent of its power needs by 2050, according to the United Nations.

The ‘breakbone fever’ caused by the bite of the aedes aegypti mosquito had baffled doctors and was a cause of great concern when it first appeared in the early 2000s. But it subsequently became a seasonal fever with doctors having proper guidelines, and people coming to know about the disease. “There is nothing to panic. It’s very normal now, and everyone knows about this,” said Dr Md Tito Miah, an associate professor of medicine at the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital. But he cautioned inappropriate management can trigger fatal bleeding, advising people not to take medicines other than paracetamol without prescriptions during fever. The government’s disease monitoring agency, IEDCR, has been following the trend of dengue fever. Its director Prof Mahmudur Rahman said the trend was “normal” so far. “Many factors can influence the rise of dengue fever, such as climate change and the breeding of the vector mosquito,” he told bdnews24.com, citing 2013 as a critical year when there were cases every month. Usually June to September is the season of this fever, but it can be prolonged. The first case this year was reported in June, and the government’s control room has recorded 89 cases so far. “There may be some more patients. But our surveillance gives us a clear picture about the trend of the disease and it shows nothing to trigger panic,” Prof Rahman said. Dhaka South City Corporation on Sunday held a meeting on how they would generate awareness about the disease. Chief Health Officer Brig Gen Md Mahbubur Rahman told bdnews24.com that they had decided to campaign through folk songs and the media for awareness. Health Officer of Dhaka North City Corporation Dr Emdadul Haque told bdnews24.com that they would meet on Monday. “But we have already decided to monitor hospitals. We’ll collect dengue patients’ addresses from hospitals and strengthen our activities in the areas where they live,” he said. The city corporations have routine programmes for sanitising the breeding grounds of mosquitoes. General awareness is necessary as the dengue-causing aedes mosquito usually breeds in a small collection of clean water in and around houses, such as inside a flower vase. The symptoms of dengue are sudden high fever, severe headache, pains behind the eyes, muscle and joints. The severity of the joint pain has given dengue the name ‘breakbone fever’. “If the fever is accompanied or followed by cough and runny nose, it is unlikely to be dengue,” Dr Miah of DMCH said.

WASHINGTON, Feb 03(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Ten new species of amphibians -- including three kinds of poisonous frogs and three transparent-skinned glass frogs -- have been discovered in the mountains of Colombia, conservationists said Monday. With amphibians under threat around the globe, the discovery was an encouraging sign and reason to protect the area where they were found, said Robin Moore, an amphibian expert at the environmental group Conservation International. The nine frog species and one salamander species were found in the mountainous Tacarcuna area of the Darien region near Colombia's border with Panama. Because amphibians have permeable skin, they are exposed directly to the elements and can offer early warnings about the impact of environmental degradation and climate change, Moore said. As much as one-third of all amphibians in the world are threatened with extinction, he said. "Amphibians are very sensitive to changes ... in the environment," Moore said in a telephone interview. "Amphibians are kind of a barometer in terms of responding to those changes and are likely to be the first to respond, so climate change ... impacts on amphibians heavily." Amphibians also help control the spread of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, because they eat the insects that transmit these ailments to people. The new species discovered in Colombia include three poison frogs, three glass frogs, one harlequin frog, two kinds of rain frogs and one salamander. 'NOAH'S ARK' IN COLOMBIA The expedition that turned up the new amphibians also recorded the presence of large mammals like Baird's tapir, which is considered endangered in Colombia, four species of monkeys and a population of white-lipped peccary, a pig-like creature. "Without a doubt this region is a true Noah's Ark," said Jose Vicente Rodriguez-Mahecha, the conservation group's scientific director in Colombia. "The high number of new amphibian species found is a sign of hope, even with the serious threat of extinction that this animal group faces in many other regions of the country and the world," Rodriguez said in a statement. The area where the new species were found has traditionally served as a place where plants and animals move between North and South America. While the terrain is relatively undisturbed now, its landscape faces threats from selective logging, cattle ranching, hunting, mining and habitat fragmentation. Between 25 and 30 percent of the natural vegetation there is being deforested. Moore said protecting the Tacarcuna area where these amphibians were found could also benefit local people by preserving an important watershed. "We don't go in there and try and tell them to protect the forest for frogs," Moore said. "It's more a case of working with them to find more sustainable long-term solutions that will protect these resources that are ultimately benefiting them."

Barack Obama on Wednesday will mark the 100th day of his presidency after a whirlwind start in which he has signaled a new approach on policies from the economy to climate change to US relations with Iran. Some have used the milestone to assess Obama's policies, even as analysts cautioned it was too soon to say whether his long list of initiatives will yield success. While dismissing the 100-day milestone as an artificial gauge created by the media, the White House is nonetheless putting a spotlight on it with high-profile events. Those include a visit by Obama to Arnold, Missouri, near St. Louis, for a town-hall style event and a televised news conference at the White House at 8 p.m. EDT/0000 GMT. The popular U.S. president, whose approval ratings are above 60 percent, will likely use the events to push his agenda for overhauling health care, fixing the troubled banking sector, rescuing U.S. automobile companies, combating global warming and pursuing greater engagement abroad. Looming large as well for Obama is a flu outbreak that has presented him with his first public health emergency and a simmering controversy over his decision to release classified documents detailing harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration. The tradition of marking the first 100 days of U.S. presidencies dates back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who trumpeted his ability to push through 15 pieces of major legislation in that time period after taking office in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression. Though none of Roosevelt's successors have yet matched the activity of his first few months in the White House, there remains a fascination in the media with the gauge. "There is no magic to the first 100 days," said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. "I think people are always looking for a maker or some sort of guidepost." As an example of the measures' flaws as a leading indicator, many analysts cite the first 100 days of the presidency of George W. Bush. The Republican president's two terms in office came to be defined by decisions such as the launch of the Iraq war that occurred in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks -- nearly nine months after Bush took office. STIMULUS, WAR STRATEGIES, HEALTH CARE Still, Baker and other experts said Obama's early months have revealed much about his style of governing, including his calm demeanor and effectiveness at commanding the stage but also his penchant for piling a lot onto his policy plate. So far in his presidency, Obama has enacted a $787 billion stimulus program, launched a drive to overhaul the health care system, made overtures toward longtime U.S. foes Iran and Cuba and unveiled new strategies for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. William Galston, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, said he viewed the 100-day mark as "an entirely artificial benchmark." On the other hand, Galston said, "I think we've learned a fair amount about Obama the human being occupying the Oval Office." "But a lot of people are leaping from the fact that he's set an enormous number of things in motion to the conclusion that those things that are now in motion are necessarily going to reach the finish line," Galston said. "It's not a leap I'm prepared to take." On the domestic policy side, Obama has been criticized by some who contend the stimulus package and a proposed $3.55 trillion budget he laid out for 2010 will curb economic growth in the future by leading to a pileup of government debt. Some critics have also faulted Obama's handling of the banking crisis, saying he should have moved earlier and more aggressively to try to grapple with problem of bad debt hanging over the financial system. But Obama's supporters point to what they see as early signs his economic remedies may be working, including a steadier tone to the stock market and a stabilization of new claims for jobless benefits after their prior huge increases. The president also got some upbeat news on the political front this week with the defection of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter from the Republican Party. Specter's decision to join Obama's Democrats may put the president's party within reach of a crucial 60-seat majority in the Senate. That could make it easier for Obama to pass some of his top initiatives such as health care reform.

In a study, they said peat bogs, wetlands that contain large amounts of carbon in the form of decaying vegetation that has built up over centuries, could help the world achieve climate goals like the limit of 2 degrees Celsius of postindustrial warming that is part of the 2015 Paris agreement. But without protection and restoration efforts, some targets for greenhouse gas emissions “would be very difficult or nearly impossible to achieve,” said Alexander Popp, an author of the study, which was published in Environmental Research Letters. Popp is a senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, where he leads a group studying land-use issues. Peatlands exist around the world, in tropical as well as colder regions. They make up only about 3% of global land area, but their deep layers of peat are practically treasure chests of carbon, overall containing roughly twice as much as the world’s forests. In pristine bogs, that carbon remains soggy and intact. But when a bog is dried out, for agriculture or other reasons, the carbon starts to oxidize and is released to the atmosphere as planet-warming carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. That process potentially can continue for centuries. Current estimates are that drained peatlands worldwide emit as much carbon dioxide annually as global air travel. But dry peat is also a fire risk, and peat fires have the potential to release a lot of carbon very quickly. In September and October 2015, peat fires in Indonesia, where bogs have long been drained for palm oil plantations and other purposes, released more carbon dioxide per day than all the fossil fuels burned in the European Union. Dried peatlands could be restored by allowing them to become wet again, which would saturate the decaying vegetation and prevent further release of carbon dioxide, and also eliminate the fire hazard. “Rewetting them is really the core for reaching mitigation targets,” Popp said. Most pathways for countering climate change predict that by the end of this century, land use, which includes forests and agriculture, would be a net carbon sink, meaning it would store more carbon than the amount being released to the atmosphere. That would slow the process of global warming. But most of those pathways do not take emissions from degraded peatland into account, the researchers said. When they plugged peatland data into their own land-use model, they found that land use would be a net carbon source, releasing more carbon dioxide than was stored. The researchers then calculated that protecting pristine wetlands and rewetting about 60% of the degraded ones would reverse that, making land use a net sink again. Mike Waddington, a peat researcher at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who was not involved in the work, said the study “makes a very compelling case” in favour of restoring peatlands. “Despite covering a small area, they really pack a carbon punch when it comes to carbon storage in ecosystems,” Waddington said. “They are really important in global climate regulation.” He said the study made an important point: In current pathways for changing land use to aid the climate, through planting more trees or other measures, peatlands are often considered expendable. “When we think about storing carbon in ecosystems, it’s almost always about planting trees,” Waddington said. There’s often tremendous pressure to plant trees in drained peatlands, he said, but that’s the wrong choice given the carbon-storing ability of an intact bog. Peat bogs are usually dried by digging ditches through them, which allows the water to drain away. In addition to conversion to croplands, tree plantations or forests, some peatlands are drained so the peat can be extracted for use in horticulture or even, in some parts of the world, for fuel. “You only have to drain 10 to 15% of a peatland and start extracting peat to turn that entire system into a source,” Waddington said. Restoring them could be accomplished by blocking the ditches or building berms to keep the peat saturated, he said. In the study, the researchers found that there was considerable uncertainty in estimates of the costs of protecting and restoring peatlands. But even if the costs were at the high end, the basic finding of the research was unchanged, they said. “In a way it’s the low-hanging fruit,” Waddington said. © 2020 The New York Times Company

As of Friday, some 80 monkeypox cases have been confirmed and an additional 50 are under investigation in 11 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The following is what is known about the current outbreak and relative risk of monkeypox: HOW DANGEROUS IS IT? The risk to the general public is low at this time, a US public health official told reporters at a briefing on Friday. Monkeypox is a virus that can cause symptoms including fever, aches and presents with a distinctive bumpy rash. It is related to smallpox, but is usually milder, particularly the West African strain of the virus that was identified in a US case, which has a fatality rate of around 1%. Most people fully recover in two to four weeks, the official said. The virus is not as easily transmitted as the SARS-CoV-2 virus that spurred the global COVID-19 pandemic Experts believe the current monkeypox outbreak is being spread through close, intimate skin on skin contact with someone who has an active rash. That should make its spread easier to contain once infections are identified, experts said. "COVID is spread by respiratory route and is highly infectious. This doesn't appear to be the case with the monkeypox," said Dr. Martin Hirsch of Massachusetts General Hospital. Many - but not all - of the people who have been diagnosed in the current monkeypox outbreak are men who have sex with men, including cases in Spain linked to a sauna in the Madrid region. WHAT HAS HEALTH EXPERTS CONCERNED? The recent outbreaks reported so far are atypical, according to the WHO, as they are occurring in countries where the virus does not regularly circulate. Scientists are seeking to understand the origin of the current cases and whether anything about the virus has changed. Most of the cases reported so far have been detected in the UK, Spain and Portugal. There have also been cases in Canada and Australia, and a single case of monkeypox was confirmed in Boston, with public health officials saying more cases are likely to turn up in the United States. WHO officials have expressed concern that more infections could arise as people gather for festivals, parties and holidays during the coming summer months in Europe and elsewhere. HOW CAN PEOPLE PROTECT AGAINST INFECTION? The UK has begun to inoculate healthcare workers who may be at risk while caring for patients with the smallpox vaccine, which can also protect against monkeypox. The US government says it has enough smallpox vaccine stored in its Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to vaccinate the entire US population. There are antiviral drugs for smallpox that could also be used to treat monkeypox under certain circumstances, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. More broadly, health officials say that people should avoid close personal contact with someone who has a rash illness or who is otherwise unwell. People who suspect they have monkeypox should isolate and seek medical care. WHAT MIGHT BE BEHIND THE SPIKE IN CASES? "Viruses are nothing new and expected," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Rasmussen said a number of factors including increased global travel as well as climate change have accelerated the emergence and spread of viruses. The world is also more on alert to new outbreaks of any kind in the wake of the COVID pandemic, she said.

Rival Premier League managers Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger joined forces on Thursday to support Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley who resigned from their jobs two weeks ago on points of principle. Both men quit only three games into the season with Curbishley leaving West Ham claiming that the club's board had undermined him over transfers. Keegan left Newcastle citing interference from directors as the main reason for his resignation. "I admire Kevin Keegan and I admire Alan Curbishley because they went on a matter of principle and the principle being I am not in control of my team any longer," Manchester United manager Ferguson told Sky Sports News at a League Managers Association dinner at Wembley Stadium. "Players were being sold over their heads without even acknowledging them. That is not acceptable. It is not why you set out to be a manager, on the whims of a chairman. Arsenal manager Wenger said: "If you have no control, but are responsible for success or for failure, that is terrible. "The manager is the most important man at the club, if not why do you sack the manager if it isn't going well?" Ferguson, who has been in charge of Manchester United for nearly 22 years, and Wenger, who is coming up to 12 years at Arsenal, are the two longest-serving managers in the Premier League. "In the modern climate of young chairmen and very rich chairmen, you really need to be successful and you have to manage different things from when Arsene and I started," Ferguson said. MUTUAL RESPECT "Yes, there are financial constraints we are all aware of that but when you change halfway through from the start of the season, and the manager is subjected to these problems, it's no longer the same job. "And so therefore they walk because it's a matter of principle and I totally agree with it." The pair also discussed the amount of overseas money pouring into the Premier League, highlighted by the Abu Dhabi United Group's takeover of Manchester City. The group have said they will try and sign Cristiano Ronaldo from United and Cesc Fabregas from Arsenal in the January transfer window. Wenger said he thought big investment could destabilise the league. "New people are coming in for different reasons now," he said. "In England we had a generation of fans whose ambition was to buy the club of their dreams. Those days are gone. Now people are coming in for different reasons, maybe money or glory. "To have more money in the League is a good thing, but the inflationary pressure of having too much money is destabilising for other clubs, it puts a huge pressure on their resources." Although the two men are fierce rivals, they smiled and joked with each other. "There is a much better understanding and mutual respect now," said Wenger. Ferguson added: "We've sat and shared a glass of wine and a meal on many occasions on coaching conferences in Geneva. Of course there is respect. We've both got great teams and have had incredible competition over the last decade."

VIENNA (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Global use of nuclear energy could increase by as much as 100 percent in the next two decades on the back of growth in Asia, even though groundbreakings for new reactors fell last year after the Fukushima disaster, a UN report says. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has not yet been made public but has been seen by Reuters, said a somewhat slower capacity expansion than previously forecast is likely after the world's worst nuclear accident in a quarter of a century. But, it said: "Significant growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide is still anticipated - between 35 percent and 100 percent by 2030 - although the Agency projections for 2030 are 7-8 percent lower than projections made in 2010." Japan's reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant triggered by a deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11 last year shook the nuclear world and raised a question mark over whether atomic energy is safe. Germany, Switzerland and Belgium decided to move away from nuclear power to grow reliance on renewable energy instead. The IAEA document, obtained by Reuters on Friday, said the number of new reactor construction starts fell to only three last year - two in Pakistan and one in India - from 16 in 2010. Also last year, 13 reactors were officially declared as permanently shut down, including the four units at Fukushima as well as eight in Germany. "This represents the highest number of shutdowns since 1990, when the Chernobyl accident had a similar effect," the Vienna-based UN agency said in its annual Nuclear Technology Review. "As a comparison, 2010 saw only one shutdown and 2009 three." In 1986, a reactor exploded and caught fire at Chernobyl in the then Soviet Union, sending radiation billowing across Europe. TEMPORARY DELAYS? At Fukushima one year ago, fires and explosions caused a full meltdown in three reactors while a fourth was also damaged. Today, the four reactors are in a stable, cold shutdown state and clean-up of the site continues, but the final phase of decommissioning will not happen for 30 or 40 years. Almost all of Japan's 54 reactors sit idle, awaiting approvals to restart. "The 7-8 percent drop in projected growth for 2030 reflects an accelerated phase-out of nuclear power in Germany, some immediate shutdowns and a government review of the planned expansion in Japan, as well as temporary delays in expansion in several other countries," the IAEA report said. But many countries are still pushing ahead with nuclear energy, with 64 reactors under construction at the end of 2011, most of them in Asia, said the document prepared for a closed-door meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board last week. Factors that had contributed to growing interest in nuclear energy before Fukushima - increasing demand for energy, concerns about climate change, energy security and uncertainty about fossil fuel supplies - had not changed, it said. "In countries considering the introduction of nuclear power, interest remained strong. Although some countries indicated that they would delay decisions to start nuclear power programmes, others continued with their plans to introduce nuclear energy." China and India are expected to remain the main centres of expansion in Asia and Russia is also forecast to see strong growth, it said.

A powerful storm destroyed about half a billion trees in the Amazon in 2005, according to a study on Tuesday that shows how the world's forests may be vulnerable to more violent weather caused by climate change. Researchers at Tulane University in New Orleans used satellite data, on-site observations and computer models to calculate that between 441 million and 663 million trees were killed by the storm that swept through the region in January 2005. The destruction was equivalent to about 30 percent of the total deforestation caused by humans in the region around the city of Manaus that year, the study found. "In terms of deforestation in the Amazon they're not comparable. They are completely different processes," study co-author Jeff Chambers, who has been studying the Amazon for nearly 20 years, told Reuters. "That being said, it was a huge storm." Chambers said the results of the study showed a widespread drought in the Amazon that year, which had been blamed for the tree loss, was not the main culprit. The trees killed by the storm would have released carbon into the atmosphere equivalent to more than a fifth of the amount that is created each year as the world's largest forest grows, the study found. The destruction of the world's forests is believed to contribute up to 20 percent of the carbon emissions that cause global warming. The biggest drivers of destruction in the Amazon are cattle ranchers and small farmers who clear trees for pasture. The Tulane researchers said as more intense storms are likely to be one consequence of global warming, it is increasingly important to find out the effect of powerful winds on the world's forests. "It's really important that we start establishing some baselines here and understanding how frequently these storms occur," Chambers said. "What fraction of trees in the Amazon every year are being killed by wind? We don't even know that."

US President Barack Obama pledged on Friday to seek a "new beginning" in ties with communist-ruled Cuba as part of a new era of US partnership and engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean. Before addressing his counterparts in the hemisphere at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, Obama also initiated a handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, one of Washington's most virulent critics in the region. "We cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements," Obama told the opening session of the summit after entering the conference center to warm applause. Obama promised U.S. cooperation to help the region fight the effects of the global economic crisis and confront the challenges of climate change and insecurity posed by drug-trafficking and kidnapping. But he made a point of referring to Cuba, whose government has been at ideological odds with Washington for half a century following Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. "The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba. I know there is a longer journey that must be traveled in overcoming decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day," Obama said in his address. "Over the past two years, I have indicated -- and I repeat today -- that I am prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues -- from human rights, free speech and democratic reform to drugs, migration and economic issues," he added. His speech before 33 other leaders from the hemisphere came a day after Cuban President Raul Castro had said his government was ready to talk about "everything" with the United States, including political prisoners and press freedom. Earlier this week, Obama relaxed parts of the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, and the conciliatory signals from both sides have raised hopes across the hemisphere of a historic rapprochement between Washington and Havana. Cuba is excluded from the Trinidad meeting of 34 leaders, and in the past has angrily rejected any attempt to link an improvement in ties with Washington with internal reform. Regional heads of state, from Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, have called on Obama to end the long-standing U.S. embargo against Cuba. 'AN INTELLIGENT MAN' Obama's handshake with Chavez also heralded a possible improvement in ties with one of the most important oil suppliers to the United States. Under conservative President George W. Bush, Chavez emerged as a voluble leader of pro-Cuba left-wing presidents and critics of Washington's policies. "I want to be your friend," a beaming Chavez told the U.S. president, and photographs of the encounter were quickly distributed by the Venezuelan presidency. "We shook hands like gentlemen; it was obvious it was going to happen," Chavez told reporters later. "President Obama is an intelligent man, different from the previous one." A senior U.S. official said Obama went over to Chavez to introduce himself and they shook hands. Asked later by reporters what he had said to Chavez, Obama replied: "I said, 'Como estas?'" -- Spanish for "How are you?" Before he spoke at the opening session, Obama heard other speakers at the session, including Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, call forcefully for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba. In his rambling speech to the opening session, former guerrilla leader Ortega said he was "ashamed" to be attending a summit at which Cuba was not present. In response, Obama, who earlier also shook hands with Ortega, departed from his prepared remarks to say: "I think it is important to recognize, given the historic suspicions, that the United States policy should not be interference in other countries." "But that also means that we can't blame the United States for every problem that arises in the hemisphere ... That is the old way, we need a new way," he added. In his address, Obama also promised to work with countries in the hemisphere to help the region confront the recession, stimulate economic growth and create jobs. He also announced a new initiative to invest $30 million to strengthen cooperation on security in the Caribbean. Before Obama landed in Port of Spain, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called on Cuba to free political prisoners. Hours before the start of the Americas summit, Venezuela's Chavez and a group of like-minded leftist leaders, including Cuba's Raul Castro and Ortega, rejected the proposed draft declaration of the meeting. They said the meeting offered no solutions to the economic crisis and "unjustifiably excluded Cuba."

Global warming, which is threatening the viability of the drought-stricken wine industry in Australia, could be a boon for neighbouring New Zealand which has been enjoying a growing reputation for its quality wines. New Zealand's subtle flavoured wines, mostly whites such as Sauvignon Blanc but also reds such as Pinot Noir, are appearing on the tables of fine restaurants from London to Los Angeles and are winning medals at prestigious international wine shows. Yet despite success at producing quality wines, New Zealand has long had trouble producing wines in significant export quantities due to its weather. New Zealand is one of the world's most southern countries and frosts and biting winds from Antarctica make it hard to cultivate wine-worthy grapes. But that may change. Higher temperatures due to global warming are expected to make cold areas of New Zealand more temperate and better suited to grape cultivation. So it's no surprise that New Zealand wine-growers are upbeat about a future that includes climate change. "The big picture for New Zealand wine is very, very good," said Philip Gregan, chief executive of industry body New Zealand Winegrowers. Wine is only produced in the warmer, drier areas of the country, mainly Gisborne and Hawke's Bay on the east coast of the North Island, and Marlborough at the top of the South Island. But if temperatures in New Zealand rise by one or two degrees as predicted, then wine growing could spread to other regions of the country which are currently too cold or wet to support grapes, Gregan said. "That is going to expand the range of opportunities available to us, and in some ways it may be a positive for us," Gregan said. "We may be able to expand our range of wine styles or we may be able to grow grapes further up the hillsides." Meanwhile, Australia, New Zealand's biggest competitor in the international wine export market, is facing cuts in production and a drop in quality of its internationally renowned wines due to global warming which has helped bring the country's worst drought in a century and may make some areas too hot and dry for grape cultivation. FINE WINES As the summer sun beats down on his tree-lined vineyard, New Zealand winemaker Clive Paton believes the outlook for New Zealand's burgeoning wine industry looks better than ever as global demand for fine wine mushrooms. "Every year the vintages keep getting better and with that the winemakers are also getting better with age," said Paton, who bought a barren 5-hectare block (12.4 acres) and founded the Ata Rangi label 27 years ago. Ata Rangi is based at Martinborough, a wine growing region just over an hour from the capital Wellington. The small town, nestled in a valley, boasts its own unique microclimate which is hotter and drier than the surrounding regions. But the climate is slowly changing. Paton said he has noticed an increasing number of spring frosts. Cold night temperatures can have disastrous results for young fruit on the vine if they become encased in ice as this will kill the fruit. But these frosts are a double-edged sword, because a large swing between day and night temperatures also helps develop the compounds within grapes that produce richer flavours. As wine-growers navigate weather patterns to produce premium grapes, New Zealand wine is winning an international reputation for premium quality. Low volumes mean that wine-growers must focus on producing high quality wines to turn a good profit. A 2005 study by Rabobank, the Dutch-based bank which specialises in the food and agribusiness, found that New Zealand wines fetched the highest price of "New World" wines on the international export market at an average of $5.25 per litre, followed by $2.92 for Australian wines and $2.17 for wines from the United States. The amount of wine the country can produce is and always will be limited, a factor which adds to the premium image. New Zealand wines account for about 1 percent of the world's wine exports. But if grapes can be cultivated on more of the mountainous, volcanic country then New Zealand could cash in on its newfound reputation as a producer of some of the world's finest whites. Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region have been key in establishing New Zealand's reputation. Brands such as Montana and Kim Crawford and Tohu, which have picked up medals at London's International Wine Challenge, have helped reinforce the image. GROWING EXPORTS Wine-growing in New Zealand is almost as old as European settlement, with the first grapes planted by French Missionaries in the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island in the 1850's. The influence of European immigrants was strong in the early days, with settlers such as Josep Babich from Dalmatia and Nikola Delegat from Croatia planting vineyards and founding labels which still bear their names. For more than a century, wine was only drunk locally, with exports beginning in the 1970's and 1980's. In the last 10 years, the value of wine being exported has grown from NZ$75.9 million to NZ$698.3 million, and the industry predicts it will hit NZ$1 billion ($770 million) by 2010. The number of wineries in New Zealand has also expanded from 90 when Paton started in 1990 to almost 600. Paton's story is typical of the small wineries which dominate the industry. The top four winemakers account for more than 60 percent of production. Paton entered the industry out of a love of wine and a desire to have a go at producing his own. "I'm just as interested in it now than I was then. Perhaps more so with every vintage, because you know you're running out of vintages with age," he said. New Zealand wines are due to the climate, which creates unique flavours in the grapes, and the skill of local winemakers in capturing it in the bottle, Paton said. "New Zealand has carved out a niche for itself through its intensely fruity and vibrant dry whites, especially Sauvignon Blanc," said Tom Cannavan in his online wine review www.wine-pages.com. Sauvignon Blanc, still accounts for most of New Zealand's exports, but other varieties are making a name for themselves, such as the Pinot Noir which dominates Ata Rangi's production. Paton said the Martinborough climate is ideal for producing Pinot Noir, but a slight rise in the temperature would be enough to tip the balance. So Paton has been looking at Syrah, also known as Shiraz, getting to grips with the nuances of an alternative variety, in preparation for a potential shift. "Even if it does rise a half or one degree, it's still going to be a great place for growing grapes," said Paton.

The data, published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science, shows that the oceans have experienced consistent changes since the late 1950s and have gotten a lot warmer since the 1960s, CNN reported. The oceans are heating up much faster than scientists calculated in the UN assessment of climate change released in 2014, the study said. For the new study, scientists used data collected by a high-tech ocean observing system called Argo, an international network of more than 3,000 robotic floats that continuously measure the temperature and salinity of the water. Researchers used this data in combination with other historic temperature information and studies. "The ocean is the memory of climate change, along with melted ice, and 93 per cent of the Earth's energy imbalance ends up in the ocean," said study co-author Kevin Trenberth, part of the Climate Analysis Section at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research. "Global warming is close to ocean warming, and 2018 will be the warmest year on record, followed by 2017, then 2015. "Global warming is rearing its head," Trenberth said. A warmer ocean causes sea level to rise, bringing problems like dangerous coastal flooding. It leads to the loss of sea ice, heating the waters even further. It can affect the jet stream, allowing cold Arctic air to reach farther south, making winters more intense and endanger the lives of animals that depend on sea ice like penguins and polar bears. A warmer ocean also contributes to increases in rainfall and leads to stronger and longer-lasting storms like Hurricanes Florence and Harvey. Thursday's study fits within other reports like the UN warning in October that humanity has just over 10 years to act to avoid disastrous levels of global warming, CNN said. A US government report in November delivered a similar dire warning that the country could lose hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives by the end of the century due to climate change.

It warned the Socialist government that the European football tournament that opens in France on Jun 10 could be disrupted if it refused to back down. As tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, workers responded to the union call by stopping work at oil refineries, nuclear power plants and the railways, as well as erecting road blocks and burning wooden pallets and tyres at key ports like Le Havre and near key distribution hubs. Prime Minister Manuel Valls insisted the government would not withdraw the law and would break up refinery blockades, saying there could be some tweaks to the reforms but not on any of its key planks. He was backed by the country's other big trade union, the CFDT. After months of rolling protests sparked by a reform that aims to make hiring and firing easier, Thursday's stoppages and street marches were being watched closely as a test of whether the CGT-led opposition is solid or at risk of fizzling out. The street marches were joined by scores of marchers from a youth protest movement called Nuit Debout (Night Rising).  Police deployed to counter risks of the fringe violence in which 350 police and several protesters have been hurt and more than 1,300 arrested at similar rallies in recent weeks. CGT chief Philippe Martinez, asked by Reuters if his union was willing to disrupt the Euro 2016 football contest, said: "The government has the time to say 'let's stop the clock' and everything will be ok." Jean-Claude Mailly, leader of the smaller FO union that is also protesting, said as a Paris march began: "In football speak, it's time the prime minister took the red card back." No backing down "There is no question of changing tack, even if adjustments are always possible," said Valls, who flatly rejected calls to scrap the part of the law that put the CGT on the warpath. That section would let companies opt out of national obligations on labour protection if they adopt in-house deals on pay and conditions with the consent of a majority of employees. The SNCF state train company said that upwards of two-thirds of national, regional and local rail connections were operating, suggesting stoppages by railworkers were hurting less than last week when a similar strike halved the number of trains running. After police intervention in recent days to lift blockades at refineries and fuel distribution depots, Valls said 20-30 percent of fuel stations were dry or short of certain fuels. "The situation is less worrisome as of today," Transport Minister Alain Vidalies said. Deliveries of fuel from depots to the petrol pump were now improving, he said. The number of fuel stations short of petrol or diesel fell to 83 on Thursday from 140 on Wednesday in the Loire-Atlantique department of western France, the government office there said. French nuclear power capacity was cut by as much as five gigawatts due to stoppages. That is equivalent to just over six percent of the country's total production capacity. Even if power industry experts say the nuclear plant strike is unlikely to provoke major blackouts due to legal limits on strike action and power imports from abroad, the action usually raises running costs for the EDF power utility. With dockers striking at the southern port of Marseille, the number of ships waiting at sea to offload oil, gas and chemicals rose to 21 from what would normally be about five, the port authority said.  A protest over pension reform in 2010 died once police broke up pickets at supply depots and railworkers came under pressure by stoppages that hit their paycheck. Oil giant Total SA, said all but one of its fuel distribution depots were working. It warned, however, that two of its five refineries in France were at a standstill and two more set to halt in coming days. The CGT is waging a lonelier battle this time. Laurent Berger, head of the rival CFDT union and a backer of the planned labour reform, said: "The political and industrial relations climate has turned hysterical ... let's calm things down."

Yet even these prickly survivors may be reaching their limits as the planet grows hotter and drier over the coming decades, according to research published Thursday. The study estimates that, by midcentury, global warming could put 60% of cactus species at greater risk of extinction. That forecast does not take into account the poaching, habitat destruction and other human-caused threats that already make cactuses one of the world’s most endangered groups of organisms. Most cactus species “are in some way adapted to the climates and the environments that they live in,” said Michiel Pillet, a doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona who led the new study, which was published in the journal Nature Plants. “Even a slight change may be too much for them to adapt over shorter time scales.” For those who think of cactuses either as stoic masters of all-weather endurance or as cute, low-maintenance houseplants, the enormous variety within the cactus family might come as a jolt. For starters, not all cactuses are desert dwellers. Some live in rainforests or in cool climes at high altitudes. Some store little water in their stalks, relying instead on rainwater and dew. Some occupy highly specific environments: limestone cliffs in Mexico, hills of pink granite in Brazil, a sandy patch of less than 1 square mile in Peru. In the Amazon, the moonflower cactus spirals around a tree trunk, high above the ground, so that it is above the water line when the forest floods and the water can disperse its seeds. In part, it is this narrow taste for particular settings that makes certain cactuses vulnerable not only to climate change but to threats of all kinds. “If you only find it in a very small area, and someone comes and plows it out to grow whatever they want to grow, the whole population disappears,” said Bárbara Goettsch, another author of the new study and a chair of the Cactus and Succulent Plants Specialist Group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The study looks at 408 cactus species, or roughly one-quarter of all known cactus species, and how their geographic range could shift under three different trajectories for global warming in this century. To the researchers’ surprise, their results did not vary much between different pathways for climate change, Pillet said: Even if the planet heats up only modestly, many types of cactus could experience declines in the amount of territory where the climate is hospitable to them. Overall, 60% of cactus species are expected to suffer declines of any magnitude, the study found, and 14% could suffer steep declines. Only one species, the Xique-Xique in Brazil, is projected to experience a substantial increase in range. According to the study, the places where the largest numbers of species could become threatened are generally those with the richest diversity of species today, including Florida, central Mexico and large swaths of Brazil. Cactuses that live on trees seem to do especially poorly, perhaps because their lives are so intertwined with those of other plants. The outlook does not seem to be as bleak for the American Southwest, home to the iconic saguaro, Pillet said. But scientists still do not know enough about certain rarer cactuses to predict how they might respond to more punishing climates, he said. That means the study’s projections might not paint a complete picture for some parts of the world. Cactuses, by their nature, do not give up their secrets readily. Scientists examining other plants’ sensitivity to environmental changes might look, for instance, at the size and thickness of their leaves. “Most cacti don’t have leaves, so what would you be measuring?” Pillet said. The study’s predictions also do not account for extreme events such as droughts and wildfires, Pillet said. In the Sonoran Desert, rapid infestations of buffelgrass, a drought-resistant plant native to Africa, Asia and the Middle East, have made the landscape highly flammable. Wildfires there have killed thousands of saguaros in recent years. “It’s a popular image of cacti,” said David Williams, a professor of botany at the University of Wyoming who was not involved in the new research. “‘Ah, we don’t have to worry about cacti. Look at them, they’ve got spines, they grow in this terrible environment.’” But cactuses, like most plants, exist in delicate balance with the ecosystems around them, he said. “There are a lot of these tipping points and thresholds and interactions that are very fragile and responsive to changes in the environment, land use and climate change.” The new study is “pivotal,” Williams said, for showing how broadly such changes could affect cactus communities. Around a decade ago, when Goettsch was preparing a comprehensive global assessment of the threats to cactuses, there were only a few scientific studies looking at climate change’s potential impacts specifically on cactuses, she said. But, she said, other cactus experts kept telling her during their field visits, “You know, we go back now, and a lot of plants are dead. There’s no real reason, so we think it might be climate change.” The evidence has only piled up further since then, she said. Brazil is a hot spot for cactus diversity. As the country’s northeastern drylands experience hotter temperatures, more intense droughts and desertification, that plant wealth is in jeopardy, said Arnóbio de Mendonça, a climate and biodiversity researcher at the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil who did not work on the new study. “Species either adapt or they will go extinct,” he said. “As adaptation is a slow process and current climate change is occurring rapidly, it is likely that many species will be lost.”   ©2022 The New York Times Company

Nuclear power's claim to be the answer to global warming is being questioned by reports suggesting mining and processing of uranium is carbon intensive. While nuclear power produces only one 50th of the carbon produced by many fossil fuels, its carbon footprint is rising, making wind power and other renewable energies increasingly attractive, according to environmental groups and some official reports. The nuclear industry has come under fire over safety concerns for decades, but a growing recognition of the threat of climate change has put a renewed focus on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced throughout the energy chain. "Nuclear is a climate change red herring," said Ben Ayliffe, Senior Climate and Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace. "There are safer, more reliable alternatives, like energy efficiency and renewables as part of a super-efficient decentralised energy system." While the earth's crust still has large resources of uranium -- 600 times more than gold -- much of the highest grade orebodies are already being exploited, forcing miners to develop more technically challenging or lower grade resources. That means uranium mining requires much more energy. CARBON COST One example is Cameco's Cigar Lake project in Saskatchewan, which has been plagued with setbacks caused by floods at the underground mine, which may one day supply over 10 percent of the world's mined uranium. The problems have forced Cameco to push back the production start to 2011 from 2007, and analysts this week said further delays out to 2012 or 2013 were likely. "The potential is that nuclear will increase its carbon footprint due to the lower grade ores that remain," Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth said on the sidelines of a U.N. climate change conference in Bali. The carbon cost at Rio Tinto's Ranger uranium mine Australia has also risen. The mine produced 17.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per tonne of uranium oxide in 2006, from 13 tonnes in 2005, a Rio Tinto spokeswoman said. She added that part of the rise was due to bad weather which restricted access to high grade ore, as well as an expansion in capacity, and the company was trying to reduce emissions again. Uranium output at the mine was 4,748 tonnes last year, resulting in around 84,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Rio produced some 28.3 million tonnes of carbon across its business. Despite these industry figures, Clarence Hardy, secretary of the Australia Nuclear Association and president of the Pacific Nuclear Council, says the environmental groups are wrong in their assumptions and that nuclear power is relatively clean. "Carbon dioxide emissions from the nuclear cycle are very low. They are not zero, but they are low compared to fossil fuels and they are even low compared to hydro," he said. URGENT SOLUTIONS Over the life of a nuclear power plant, carbon emissions are between 10 and 25 grams of C02 per kilowatt, as little as one 100th of that of a coal-fired plant, Hardy added. "Even wind and solar have higher C02 emissions than the entire nuclear fuel cycle from mining through to waste management," Hardy said, arguing that large volumes of steel and concrete -- both energy-intensive products -- were required for those products. But UK data paints a different picture. A UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology document on carbon emissions puts nuclear's footprint was around 5 grams of CO2 per kilowatt, similar to the figure for offshore windpower at 5.25 grams and above onshore wind at 4.64 grams. Scientists at the conference in Bali said the world needed urgent solutions and emissions needed to peak within the next 10 to 15 years. But building a nuclear reactor typically takes decades. "Even if we started scaling up nuclear power tomorrow we couldn't do that because it would take longer than that to get a serious impact from new reactors," Juniper said. "The real answer is more renewable, sustainable energy and greater energy efficiency."

In “Diet,” Lappé argued that Americans eat too much meat, especially beef, and that our meat-centred meals are an enormous waste of resources. Both our bodies and the planet would be healthier if we ate a plant-focused diet instead. Vegetarianism in those days was a strange if not heretical way of nourishing oneself. The center of the American dinner plate was reserved for a big pork chop or steak. In the introduction to one edition of “Diet,” she recalls promoting the book on a local Pittsburgh TV talk show in the mid-1970s. Lappé was booked alongside a UFO expert, and her only question from the host was: “What do you think they eat on UFOs?” Going veggie was also a logistical challenge back then. Mollie Katzen, who read “Diet” as a 20-year-old college student and later used it as a reference when she helped found the vegetarian Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York, in 1973, out of which came her own hugely influential “Moosewood Cookbook,” recalled that many ingredients were not easy to find in supermarkets at the time. “There were no fresh herbs anywhere,” Katzen, 71, said in a recent interview. “People didn’t cut onions. They just used onion powder. You couldn’t even find a bottle of olive oil — it was Wesson cooking oil.” Adopting a vegetarian regimen was, Katzen said, “definitely way off Main Street.” Flash forward a half century, and Lappé has not only lived to see “Diet” turn 50 — an updated anniversary edition was published in September — but to watch her ideas about food and nutrition get adopted by millions of Americans and even spawn marketing buzzwords for the wellness industry. (Lappé was “plant-based” long before the term existed.) On a recent afternoon, Lappé welcomed a reporter into her home in a leafy town outside Boston to talk about the way we eat, then and now. Despite her success — “Diet” has sold more than 3 million copies, and she was named a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, a kind of alternative Nobel Prize — Lappé, or Frankie to her friends, is a down-to-earth, cheerful woman of 77. She greeted her guest with a warm bowl of Comforting Carrot and Onion Soup, one of the recipes included in “Diet,” which she specially prepared that morning. “I made this soup for Betty Ballantine,” Lappé said brightly, referring to the book publisher so struck by Lappé’s message that she took a chance on commissioning a book by Lappé, a former community organizer. Until then, she hadn’t published so much as a letter to the editor; she has since written 19 more books, on topics including sustaining our democracy to raising children without TV. Over the years, many people have categorised Lappé as a cookbook author or chef, like another of her contemporaries, food activist Alice Waters. In fact, it was Ballantine who suggested that Lappé include recipes in “Diet,” to soften and make more salable what was essentially a political manifesto. Many of the dishes were crowdsourced from friends. Lappé said she has never thought of herself as leading a revolution strictly fought in the produce aisle. As she put it, “The reward isn’t how many vegetarians I created.” Rather, she is gratified when people come up to her and say, as many have over the years, “I read your book and it changed my life.” If you eat Tofurky this Thanksgiving rather than an actual bird, in a way you can thank Lappé. The inventor of the plant-based protein, Seth Tibbot, read “Diet” and, as he told the makers of a Vice documentary about the future of food, it changed his life. Ethan Brown, the founder of Beyond Meat, is another disciple. And, of course, you could count the author herself among those whose life was radically changed by the ideas within “Diet.” Lappé was 25 and attending graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, when she began to question her life’s purpose. Like many in her generation, she’d read “The Population Bomb,” the 1968 book by Paul Ehrlich that predicted (wrongly, it turned out) a coming famine because of overpopulation, and she was inspired by the ecological movement that led to the first Earth Day. Lappé was also being exposed to new and different foods, including bulgur and tofu. She started auditing courses on soil science and poring over academic reports in the agricultural library at Berkeley, to better understand the food system and global hunger. She was surprised by her findings; notably, that over half of the harvested acreage in the United States at the time went to feeding livestock, leaving more than enough food to go around if those resources were redirected. Lappé printed up a one-page handout and circulated it around Berkeley. Through a friend of hers, an expanded booklet found its way to Ballantine. “Diet” was an unlikely bestseller, a broadside against the good old hamburger with dry charts on U.S. crop yields and a homespun cover illustration of corn and wheat. But it was published during “a very idealistic time for American youth,” Katzen said, adding, “a lot of college students like me were searching for an alternative way to live that was less impactful on the earth. There was also this idea of the personal is political. Her book filled in the blanks.” Today, a similar desire for personal and planetary health pervades the culture. There’s been such a consciousness shift around food that fast-food restaurants are serving plant-based burgers, and climate change activists are once again calling for cutting consumption of beef, though for different reasons, including its outsize impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Surveying the current landscape, Lappé mentioned with approval the proliferation of community and school gardens and the thousands of farmers’ markets around the country. “These didn’t exist” 50 years ago, she said. But Lappé is troubled by the way healthy eating has become an elitist activity, saying of $12 green smoothies, “That’s not what I’m about at all.” She’s also ambivalent about plant-based meats made in a lab: While they contribute less to climate change, they are not a solution to fixing our broken food system, she said. “It keeps processed foods as our staple,” Lappé said. “The answer is healthy foods that come directly from the earth, or as close as possible.” Nowadays people seem to eat much better, and much worse. Processed foods loaded with sugar dominate the supermarket shelves, and nearly 1 in 7 Americans now have diabetes. “Food is life itself — and we’ve turned it into a killer,” Lappé said. “It’s jaw-dropping.” Her daughter, Anna Lappé, 47, who is carrying on her mother’s work as an author and sustainable food advocate, said that when she thinks of her childhood home, “I can picture tall glass Mason jars filled with beans and lentils.” The family shopped in bulk at a food co-op, and Lappé cooked simple, healthy dishes like the carrot soup, freezing the leftovers for quick weeknight meals. Fifty years later, Lappé still cooks that way. (And she still has the inner glow of a health food devotee.) But while the family lived in crunchy Berkeley, it must be said that Lappé was no hippie. She grew up in a literal cow town, Fort Worth, Texas, where she was a football cheerleader, and her activism took root at her small Quaker college, Earlham. Her stylish, put-together appearance on TV and in college auditoriums made it hard to dismiss her as a California kook or scold. As Lappé’s Twitter bio states, she has always viewed herself as “hope monger.” (“It gets more challenging every year,” she said with a laugh.) Sitting in her kitchen, with its same glass jars of grains and beans on the shelves, Lappé reflected on her long-ago conversion. “Not eating meat, I call it my act of rebel sanity,” she said. “It was like opening the door. The world of taste, color, texture is in the plant world. I tell people, it wasn’t a sacrifice. It was a discovery.” Which brings us around to her final hamburger, in 1971. Lappé was expecting her first child. As she put it, “women who are pregnant get certain cravings,” so she found her way to a joint called the Smokehouse. Munching on a charbroiled burger, Lappé looked up, and there, walking through the door, was the man who was helping her edit her book. “The most embarrassing moment of my life,” Lappé said laughing again. “I felt like such a fake. I was so humiliated. And that was my last meat.” © 2021The New York Times Company

The United States last week accused China of raising tensions in the South China Sea by its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island, a move China has neither confirmed nor denied. Asked whether the South China Sea, and the missiles, would come up when Wang is in the United States to meet Secretary of State John Kerry, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Washington should not use the issue of military facilities on the islands as a "pretext to make a fuss". "The US is not involved in the South China Sea dispute, and this is not and should not become a problem between China and the United States," Hua told a daily news briefing. US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States would "press China to deescalate and stop its militarization" in the South China Sea. Toner said China's "militarisation activity" only escalated tensions, and added: "There needs to be a diplomatic mechanism in place that allows these territorial claims to be settled in a peaceful way." Wang is due to meet Kerry on Tuesday. Their talks will also include the international response to North Korea's recent nuclear test and rocket launch, cyber security and climate change, Toner told a regular news briefing. China hopes the US abides by its promises not to take sides in the dispute and stop "hyping up" the issue and tensions, especially over China's "limited" military positions there, she said. "China's deploying necessary, limited defensive facilities on its own territory is not substantively different from the United States defending Hawaii," Hua added. US ships and aircraft carrying out frequent, close-in patrols and surveillance in recent years is what has increased regional tensions, she said. "It's this that is the biggest cause of the militarization of the South China Sea. We hope that the United States does not confuse right and wrong on this issue or practise double standards." Australia operations urged On Monday, a senior US naval officer was reported as saying Australia and other countries should follow the US lead and conduct "freedom-of-navigation" naval operations within 12 nautical miles (18 km) of contested islands in the South China Sea. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Beijing has rattled nerves with construction and reclamation activities on the islands it occupies, though it says these moves are mostly for civilian purposes. The state-owned China Southern Power Grid Company will set up a power grid management station in what China calls Sansha City, located on Woody Island in the Paracels, which will be able to access microgrids in 16 other islands, according to China's top regulator of state-owned assets. In the long term, the station will be able to remotely manage power for many islands there, the statement added, without specifying which islands it was referring to. Wang is scheduled to be in the United States from Tuesday until Thursday. Hua said the minister is also expected to discuss North Korea, and she repeated China's opposition to the possible US deployment of an advanced US missile defence system following North Korea's recent rocket launch.

Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane season forecaster with the climate prediction centre of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, delivered the forecast as part of the annual announcement of the agency’s hurricane season outlook. In the probabilistic language the agency uses to describe the season ahead, there is a 60% chance of an above-normal season, and just a 10% chance of a below-normal season. Agency scientists also estimated a 70% chance of between 13 to 19 named storms. Of those, NOAA predicted between three and six would be major hurricanes. In an average hurricane season there are 12 named storms (those with winds of 39 mph or higher) and three major hurricanes (when winds reach 111 mph or more). The Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1 and runs through Nov. 30, though the emergence of Tropical Storm Arthur this month made this the sixth year in a row in which a named storm has slipped in before the official beginning of the season. During the call with reporters to announce the forecast, Carlos Castillo, acting deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the coronavirus pandemic could add to the challenges of the season. In a document issued on Wednesday, FEMA said it would “minimize the number of personnel deploying to disaster-impacted areas” this hurricane season, relying instead on what the agency called virtual forms of assistance. FEMA advised state and local emergency managers to prepare for a range of new challenges, including “supporting health and medical systems that are already stressed, with an expectation that those emergency services will continue to be taxed into hurricane season.” One of the challenges facing disaster officials is how to protect people forced to leave their homes without exposing them to the coronavirus. In previous storm seasons, local officials and nonprofit groups have relied on what they call congregate shelters — rows of cots in high school gymnasiums, church basements or other crowded spaces. The American Red Cross, which manages most of the country’s shelters, is “prioritizing individual hotel rooms over congregate shelters,” according to Stephanie Rendon, a spokeswoman for the organisation. But she said individual rooms might not be an option in large-scale disasters like hurricanes, so the Red Cross would instead rely on “additional safety precautions” for group shelters, such as health screenings, masks, additional space between cots and extra cleaning and disinfecting. The coronavirus has also put new strain on FEMA, which as of Thursday was managing 103 major disasters around the country, according to agency records. Just 38% of FEMA staff members were available to be deployed to a disaster zone; for some of the agency’s specialized staff, such as field leaders and safety experts, less than one-quarter were available. “We have not taken our eye off the ball about handling other disasters,” said Peter Gaynor, the FEMA administrator, in a call with reporters this month. Factors contributing to this year’s prediction of above-normal activity include warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, along with reduced vertical wind shear, which can keep storms from forming or from becoming stronger. There is also an enhanced west African monsoon. A study published on Monday suggested that climate change has been making hurricanes around the world stronger over the past four decades. This makes intuitive sense, and is expected to grow worse over time, because warmer ocean water tends to strengthen storms. Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, said in a statement, “If we want to keep these dangerous patterns from accelerating, we need urgent action by government and private sector leaders to shift us away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.” However, Bell said in Thursday’s call, other factors have, at least so far, had a far greater effect on hurricane strength in the North Atlantic than climate change. Those include a decadeslong cycle of rising and falling sea-surface temperatures known as the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, and the phenomenon of El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific El Niño tends to suppress hurricane activity in the Atlantic; La Niña promotes storm activity there. The Atlantic has been in a “high-activity era” since 1995, Bell said. This year, El Niño is currently in a neutral state, which neither suppresses nor enhances storm activity. If La Niña should develop during this season, then the high end of today’s forecast becomes more probable. Bell added that other elements of climate change were contributing to the destructiveness of storms, including rising sea levels and the increased moisture content of warmer air, which can mean more rainfall and flooding from storms. In addition to climate issues, “our coastlines have built up enormously,” he noted, which has put more people in harm’s way whenever any storm approaches. For all of the attention that NOAA’s annual announcement receives, though, it doesn’t offer a definitive verdict on the hurricane season, said Andrew Dessler, an expert in climate change at Texas A&M University. He called the forecasts “an interesting scientific problem” but said, “I don’t think they tell us much about how to prepare.” They cannot predict landfall, for example. And, even in a year with very few storms forecast, “it just takes one to be a true disaster.” Therefore, he said, for people near the Gulf of Mexico or on the East Coast, “you should be ready for a big storm, regardless of the forecast.” c.2020 The New York Times Company

More than 1,000 residents scrambled up 32 feet (9.75 m) of slippery soil and limestone to take refuge inside the Tinabanan Cave, known for providing shelter since colonial times. Lorna dela Pena, 66, was alone when the super-typhoon landed on Nov 8, killing more than 6,000 people nationwide and forcing about 4 million from their homes. She remembered how everything was "washed out" by the storm, but despite being "lost in a daze", she managed to evacuate. "There still weren't stairs to comfortably climb up to the cave. My grandfather's dream was for it to have stairs," she said, noting they were finally put in after the Haiyan disaster. While serving hot porridge to evacuees, dela Pena grasped how important local organisations are to helping communities become more resilient to fiercer weather, as the planet warms. “It’s stronger when more people unite to help. What one can’t do is possible when everyone unites,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Following that experience, she worked with others in Marabut to build up women's groups focused on different issues. Now they take the lead in organising workshops on organic farming, hold discussions on violence against women, and educate and encourage other women to adopt renewable energy. Azucena Bagunas, 47, and dela Pena are among “solar scholars” trained by the Philippines-based Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), an international nonprofit that promotes low-carbon development and climate resilience. In an effort to prepare better for disasters after Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda, the women learned to operate portable solar-powered generators called TekPaks, which they use during evacuations. LIFE-SAVING TECHNOLOGY The TekPaks light up the dark Tinabanan cave, making it easier to count the number of people seeking shelter there, and charge mobile devices to keep communication lines open. For Bagunas, the most memorable use of the technology was when it helped save a life. “We were able to use this TekPak to power a nebuliser when someone had an asthma attack,” she recalled. Bagunas and dela Pena share their knowledge by teaching other women to operate TekPaks and making them aware of the benefits of renewable energy. Now, whenever a storm is coming, women in Marabut ensure their solar-powered equipment is charged so they are ready to move their communities to safety. Bagunas said harnessing solar energy was also cheaper than relying on coal-fired electricity from the grid. “If we use (solar) as our main source of power in our homes, then we don’t even have to pay for electricity," she said. "As long as you have a panel, you’ll have affordable and reliable power." Bagunas also prefers solar as a safer option. In June, her brother's house next-door went up in flames when a live electricity wire hit his roof, with the fire reaching some parts of her own house. WOMEN'S WORK According to 2020 data from the Department of Energy, about 60% of the Philippines' energy still comes from coal and oil, with only about 34% from renewable sources. But under a 2020-2040 plan, the government aims to shift the country onto a larger share of renewable energy such as solar, rising to half of power generation by the end of that period. Chuck Baclagon, Asia regional campaigner for 350.org, an international group that backs grassroots climate action, said the ICSC's efforts to bring solar power to communities would help expand clean energy at the local level. Today's model of a centralised power system reliant on fossil fuels does little to address energy poverty in remote island areas far from commercial centres, he added. “The shift to solar energy dispels the myth that we can’t afford to transition," he said. "The reason why fossil fuel is expensive is that it’s imported so it’s volatile in the market." Renewable energy sources like solar, however, are easier to build locally because they harness what is available and has the highest potential in particular locations, he added. Leah Payud, resilience portfolio manager at Oxfam Philippines, said her aid agency supported initiatives to introduce solar energy in poor rural communities, especially because it helps women and children who are among the most vulnerable to climate change. "During disasters, the unpaid care work and domestic work of women doubles," she said, adding their burden is made heavier by having to find an energy source to carry out those jobs. "Women don’t have access to a clean kitchen to cook their meals, and there is no electricity to lighten their tasks, for example when breastfeeding or sanitising equipment,” she said. The direct benefits women can gain from clean, cheap and easily available energy mean they should be involved in expanding its adoption, she added. “They are the mainstream users and energy producers - and without their involvement, renewable energy initiatives can become inappropriate," she added. “There is no climate justice without gender justice." One good way to introduce women to renewable energy is by asking them to draw a 24-hour clock of their chores at home and identifying the energy they use to do them, Payud said. They then consult with Oxfam staff on how switching energy sources could lighten their responsibilities, making it "very relatable", she added. The exercise has revealed that many women spend at least 13 hours a day doing unpaid family care work, a load that has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic due to home-schooling. QUICK AND SAFE On Suluan Island, a three to four-hour boat ride from the mainland, women are tasked with collecting water in energy-deprived areas, putting them at risk when they have to go out after dark. They have found solar lights more reliable than oil lamps because they do not have to cross the sea to buy fuel for them. Payud said solar was the best energy source during a disaster, especially when the mains power supply is cut and it is impossible to travel between islands. After Haiyan, it took half a year to restore grid power in far-flung communities, but that would not have been the case had women had access to alternative energy such as solar, she said. For dela Pena and Bagunas, women should be at the forefront of tackling climate change and energy poverty because they act as "shock absorbers". "Women oversee the whole family, and whenever there are problems, they are the ones who try to address it first,” said Bagunas.

A new global deal on climate change should be achieved at a meeting in Copenhagen next year despite disagreement at talks this week, the head of the UN climate change secretariat said on Tuesday. "I really am confident that at the end of the day, the deal will be struck," Yvo de Boer said in a speech at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. His comments came a day after the European Union and environmentalists at U.N.-led talks in Bonn called for action on climate change but were met by reluctance from the United States, which said it was too early for substantial steps. The Copenhagen meeting at the end of next year is intended to agree a new treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that would come into force after the first round of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. De Boer said growing public awareness of the cost of failure to take action on global warming would push governments into taking action, particularly after the agreement reached at the Bali summit on climate change last year. "I think that the world is expecting an agreed outcome in Copenhagen," he said. "Just as no self-respecting politician could leave the conference in Bali without negotiations being launched, I believe that no self respecting politician can leave Copenhagen without the deal having been concluded." He said the new pact should be tight and focused and should leave national governments as free as possible to shape and implement their own policies. "For the Copenhagen agreement to be really successful, it should be as short as possible and focus on the main issues that you can only make effective through an international agreement," he said. "I hope that not all kinds of stuff will be loaded on that doesn't really belong in that agreement." Speaking to reporters earlier, De Boer said that concrete action from the United States had been hindered by the presidential election but he believed that all main candidates in the race had shown real awareness of the need for action. He refused to criticize the U.S. stance, saying Washington had acted responsibly in declining to lay down commitments that would concern a future administration. He said he hoped for an advance next year.

Xi, in a recorded video message to a CEO forum on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit hosted by New Zealand, said attempts to draw ideological lines or form small circles on geopolitical grounds were bound to fail. "The Asia-Pacific region cannot and should not relapse into the confrontation and division of the Cold War era," Xi said. Xi's remarks were an apparent reference to US efforts with regional allies and partners including the Quad grouping with India, Japan and Australia, to blunt what they see as China's growing coercive economic and military influence. China's military said on Tuesday it conducted a combat readiness patrol in the direction of the Taiwan Strait, after its Defence Ministry condemned a visit by a US congressional delegation to Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by Beijing. Combative U.S. diplomatic exchanges with China early in the Biden administration unnerved allies, and U.S. officials believe direct engagement with Xi is the best way to prevent the relationship between the world's two biggest economies from spiralling toward conflict. A date has not been announced for the Xi-Biden meeting, but a person briefed on the matter said it was expected to be as soon as next week. The week-long annual forum, culminating in a meeting of leaders from all 21 APEC economies on Friday, is being conducted entirely online by hosts New Zealand, a country with hardline pandemic control measures that has kept its borders closed to almost all travellers for 18 months. Xi has only appeared by video, and has not left China in about 21 months as the country pursues a zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19. The Chinese president is also participating this week in a meeting of the ruling Communist Party that is expected to further cement his authority. Xi said emerging from the shadow of the pandemic and achieving steady economic recovery was the most pressing task for the region, and that countries must close the COVID-19 immunisation gap. "We should translate the consensus that vaccines are a global public good into concrete actions to ensure their fair and equitable distribution," Xi said. APEC members pledged at a special meeting in June to expand sharing and manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines and lift trade barriers for medicines. Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at a meeting commemorating the 110th anniversary of Xinhai Revolution at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China October 9, 2021. REUTERS TRADE DEALS Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at a meeting commemorating the 110th anniversary of Xinhai Revolution at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China October 9, 2021. REUTERS Taiwan's bid to join a regional trade pact, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), is expected raise tensions at the APEC leaders' meeting later in the week. China, which has also applied to join CPTPP, opposes Taiwan's membership and has increased military activities near the island which Beijing claims. The United States pulled out of CPTPP under former President Donald Trump. A 15-nation regional trade pact backed by China, the Regional Comprehensive Partnership Agreement (RCEP), will also take effect from Jan 1. Xi said in the lead-up to RCEP implementation and CPTPP negotiations that China would "shorten the negative list on foreign investment, promote all-round opening up of its agricultural and manufacturing sectors, expand the opening of the service sector and treat domestic and foreign businesses as equals in accordance with law." The United States has offered to host APEC in 2023 for the first time in over a decade as President Joe Biden turns resources and attention to the Asia-Pacific following the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. However, no consensus has yet been reached among APEC members on the offer. CLIMATE CHANGE Climate change has been a key item on the agenda at the summit, which is taking place in parallel with the United Nations' COP26 meeting in Glasgow. Xi said China would achieve its carbon neutrality targets within the time frame it has set and its carbon reduction action would require massive investment. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in her opening address that APEC had taken steps to wean the region's industries off fossil-fuel subsidies.

This summer has been tough for Baher, a father of two. Iraq's 2020-2021 rainfall season was the second driest in 40 years, according to the United Nations, causing the salinity of the wetlands to rise to dangerous levels. Animals fell sick and died, and Baher was forced to buy fresh drinking water for his own herd of around 20 buffaloes, his only source of income. Another drought is predicted for 2023 as climate change, pollution and upstream damming keep Iraq trapped in a cycle of recurring water crises. "The marshes are our life. If droughts persist, we will stop to exist, because our whole life depends on water and raising water buffaloes," said 37-year-old Baher. Baher and his family are Marsh Arabs, the wetlands' indigenous population that was displaced in the 1990s when Saddam Hussein dammed and drained the marshes to flush out rebels hiding in the reeds. Children play at the Chebayesh marsh, Dhi Qar province, Iraq, August 25, 2021. REUTERS After his overthrow in 2003, the marshes were partly reflooded and many Marsh Arabs returned, including Baher's family. Children play at the Chebayesh marsh, Dhi Qar province, Iraq, August 25, 2021. REUTERS However, conditions have pushed the wetlands' fragile ecosystem off balance, endangering biodiversity and livelihoods, said Jassim al-Asadi, an environmentalist born in the marshes. "The less water, the saltier it is," Christophe Chauveau, a French veterinarian who surveyed the marshes for Agronomists and Veterinarians Without Borders said, adding that buffalos drink less and produce less milk when the water quality drops. According to the Max Planck Institute, the temperature rise in the Middle East during summer has been more than 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade - about twice as high as the global average. Iraq's neighbours are also suffering from droughts and rising temperatures, which has led to regional water disputes. The water ministry said earlier this year that water flows from Iran and Turkey were reduced by 50 percent throughout the summer. PRIORITIES Then there is the matter of pollution coming from upstream. In 2019, the government said that 5 million cubic metres a day of raw sewage water were being pumped directly into the Tigris, one of the rivers that feed Iraq's marshes. Men pray at the Chebayesh marsh in Dhi Qar province, Iraq, August 14, 2021. REUTERS Environmentalist Azzam Alwash said there was an urgent need for Iraq to commit to a long-term water management strategy as its fast-growing population of nearly 40 million is estimated to double by 2050. Men pray at the Chebayesh marsh in Dhi Qar province, Iraq, August 14, 2021. REUTERS Aoun Dhiab, spokesperson for the water ministry, said the government's strategy was to preserve the deeper, permanent water bodies of the marshes across a minimum of 2,800 square kilometres (1080 square miles). "This is what we are planning, to preserve the permanent water bodies to protect the ecological resources and fish stock," he said. Dhiab said water levels in the marshes had partially improved since the summer, with less evaporation due to falling temperatures and that the wetlands shrink and expand naturally depending on the season. He also said the government could not allocate more water to the marshes when there were shortages of drinking water in summer. "Of course people in the marshes want more water, but we need to prioritise. The priority goes to drinking water, to the municipalities and to preserving the Shatt al-Arab river," he said. Drought and pollution of the Shatt al-Arab river caused a crisis in southern Iraq in 2018, when thousands were hospitalised with water-borne diseases. A man paddles his boat at the Chebayesh marsh, Dhi Qar province, Iraq, August 13, 2021. REUTERS The consequences are nonetheless punishing for the Marsh Arabs. With his youngest daughter nestled in his arms and drinking buffalo milk out of her feeder, Baher watches his nephews tend to a sick buffalo. A man paddles his boat at the Chebayesh marsh, Dhi Qar province, Iraq, August 13, 2021. REUTERS In summer, some of Baher's relatives moved their herds altogether to deeper parts of the marshes, where salinity levels were lower, but fighting over the best spots as families were forced to share shrinking spaces.Estimates on the marshes' current population vary widely. Once 400,000 in the 1950s, around 250,000 people returned when the marshes were reflooded. While diminishing water supplies pushed farmers this year to move to the cities, where a lack of jobs and services have led to protests in the past, Baher, like many other young herders, hopes that he will be able to remain here. "I felt like a stranger in the city," he said, remembering when the marshes were drained. "When the water came back to the marshes, we regained our freedom."

But on Monday, in a remarkable turnabout, an international collaboration of researchers produced a series of analyses concluding that the advice, a bedrock of almost all dietary guidelines, is not backed by good scientific evidence. If there are health benefits from eating less beef and pork, they are small, the researchers concluded. Indeed, the advantages are so faint that they can be discerned only when looking at large populations, the scientists said, and are not sufficient to tell individuals to change their meat-eating habits. “The certainty of evidence for these risk reductions was low to very low,” said Bradley Johnston, an epidemiologist at Dalhousie University in Canada and leader of the group publishing the new research in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The new analyses are among the largest such evaluations ever attempted and may influence future dietary recommendations. In many ways, they raise uncomfortable questions about dietary advice and nutritional research, and what sort of standards these studies should be held to. Already they have been met with fierce criticism by public health researchers. The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health and other groups have savaged the findings and the journal that published item. Some called for the journal’s editors to delay publication altogether. In a statement, scientists at Harvard warned that the conclusions “harm the credibility of nutrition science and erode public trust in scientific research.” Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group advocating a plant-based diet, on Wednesday filed a petition against the journal with the Federal Trade Commission. Dr Frank Sacks, past chair of the American Heart Association’s nutrition committee, called the research “fatally flawed.” While the new findings are likely to please proponents of popular high-protein diets, they seem certain to add to public consternation over dietary advice that seems to change every few years. The conclusions represent another in a series of jarring dietary reversals involving salt, fats, carbohydrates and more. The prospect of a renewed appetite for red meat also runs counter to two other important trends: a growing awareness of the environmental degradation caused by livestock production and long-standing concern about the welfare of animals employed in industrial farming. Beef in particular is not just another foodstuff: It was a treasured symbol of post-World War II prosperity, set firmly in the center of America’s dinner plate. But as concerns about its health effects have risen, consumption of beef has fallen steadily since the mid-1970s, largely replaced by poultry. “Red meat used to be a symbol of high social class, but that’s changing,” said Dr Frank Hu, chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Today, the more highly educated Americans are, the less red meat they eat, he noted. Still, the average American eats about 4 1/2 servings of red meat a week, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Some 10% of the population eats at least two servings a day. The new reports are based on three years of work by a group of 14 researchers in seven countries, along with three community representatives, directed by Johnston. The investigators reported no conflicts of interest and did the studies without outside funding. In three reviews, the group looked at studies asking whether eating red meat or processed meats affected the risk of cardiovascular disease or cancer. To assess deaths from any cause, the group reviewed 61 articles reporting on 55 populations, with more than 4 million participants. The researchers also looked at randomised trials linking red meat to cancer and heart disease (there are very few), as well as 73 articles that examined links between red meat and cancer incidence and mortality. In each study, the scientists concluded that the links between eating red meat and disease and death were small, and the quality of the evidence was low to very low. That is not to say that those links don’t exist. But they are mostly in studies that observe groups of people, a weak form of evidence. Even then, the health effects of red meat consumption are detectable only in the largest groups, the team concluded, and an individual cannot conclude that he or she will be better off not eating red meat. A fourth study asked why people like red meat, and whether they were interested in eating less to improve their health. If Americans were highly motivated by even modest heath hazards, then it might be worth continuing to advise them to eat less red meat. But the conclusion? The evidence even for this is weak, but the researchers found that “omnivores are attached to meat and are unwilling to change this behaviour when faced with potentially undesirable health effects.” Taken together, the analyses raise questions about the long-standing dietary guidelines urging people to eat less red meat, experts said. “The guidelines are based on papers that presumably say there is evidence for what they say, and there isn’t,” said Dr Dennis Bier, director of the Children’s Nutrition Research Centre at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and past editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. David Allison, dean of the Indiana University School of Public Health—Bloomington, cited “a difference between a decision to act and making a scientific conclusion.” It is one thing for an individual to believe eating less red meat and processed meat will improve health. But he said, “if you want to say the evidence shows that eating red meat or processed meats has these effects, that’s more objective,” adding “the evidence does not support it.” Allison has received research funding from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a lobbying group for meat producers. The new studies were met with indignation by nutrition researchers who have long said that red meat and processed meats contribute to the risk of heart disease and cancer. “Irresponsible and unethical,” said Hu, of Harvard, in a commentary published online with his colleagues. Studies of red meat as a health hazard may have been problematic, he said, but the consistency of the conclusions over years gives them credibility. Nutrition studies, he added, should not be held to the same rigid standards as studies of experimental drugs. Evidence of red meat’s hazards still persuaded the American Cancer Society, said Marjorie McCullough, a senior scientific director of the group. “It is important to recognize that this group reviewed the evidence and found the same risk from red and processed meat as have other experts,” she said in a statement. “So they’re not saying meat is less risky; they’re saying the risk that everyone agrees on is acceptable for individuals.” At the heart of the debate is a dispute over nutritional research itself, and whether it’s possible to ascertain the effects of just one component of the diet. The gold standard for medical evidence is the randomised clinical trial, in which one group of participants is assigned one drug or diet, and another is assigned a different intervention or a placebo. But asking people to stick to a diet assigned by a flip of a coin, and to stay with it long enough to know if it affects the risk for heart attack or cancer risk is nearly impossible. The alternative is an observational study: Investigators ask people what they eat and look for links to health. But it can be hard to know what people really are eating, and people who eat a lot of meat are different in many other ways from those who eat little or none. “Do individuals who habitually consume burgers for lunch typically also consume fries and a Coke, rather than yogurt or a salad and a piece of fruit?” asked Alice Lichtenstein, a nutritionist at Tufts University. “I don’t think an evidence-based position can be taken unless we know and adjust for the replacement food.” The findings are a time to reconsider how nutritional research is done in the country, some researchers said, and whether the results really help to inform an individual’s decisions. “I would not run any more observational studies,” said Dr John Ioannidis, a Stanford professor who studies health research and policy. “We have had enough of them. It is extremely unlikely that we are missing a large signal,” referring to a large effect of any particular dietary change on health. Despite flaws in the evidence, health officials still must give advice and offer guidelines, said Dr Meir Stampfer, also of the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health. He believes that the data in favour of eating less meat, although imperfect, indicate there are likely to be health benefits. One way to give advice would be to say “reduce your red meat intake,” Stampfer said. But then, “People would say, ‘Well, what does that mean?’” Officials making recommendations feel they have to suggest a number of servings. Yet when they do, “that gives it an aura of having greater accuracy than exists,” he added. Questions of personal health do not even begin to address the environmental degradation caused worldwide by intensive meat production. Meat and dairy are big contributors to climate change, with livestock production accounting for about 14.5% of the greenhouse gases that humans emit worldwide each year. Beef in particular tends to have an outsized climate footprint, partly because of all the land needed to raise cattle and grow feed, and partly because cows belch up methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Researchers have estimated that, on average, beef has about five times the climate impact of chicken or pork, per gram of protein. Plant-based foods tend to have an even smaller impact. Perhaps there is no way to make policies that can be conveyed to the public and simultaneously communicate the breadth of scientific evidence concerning diet. Or maybe, said Bier, policymakers should try something more straightforward: “When you don’t have the highest-quality evidence, the correct conclusion is ‘maybe.’” c.2019 The New York Times Company

Now, in part because of the war in Ukraine, Qatar’s clout is set to grow even more. As the United States and its European allies seek to deprive Russia of its oil and gas income, the West has looked to Qatar as an alternative source of fuel to warm European homes, cook food and generate electricity. And although Qatar cannot immediately ship much extra gas to Europe because most of its production is under contract to go elsewhere, it is investing tens of billions of dollars to increase production by about two-thirds by 2027. About half of that gas could go to Europe, Saad Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs and the head of the state-owned QatarEnergy petroleum company, said in an interview. “The stars are all aligned for Qatar to become a very significant LNG exporter to Europe,” said Cinzia Bianco, a Gulf research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, referring to liquefied natural gas, a shippable form of the commodity. The uptick in interest in Qatar’s gas is a sharp turnaround for a country that in recent years got used to Western leaders bashing fossil fuels for their contribution to climate change. Now, those leaders are scrambling for gas. Countries that were saying, “‘We don’t need oil and gas companies, and these guys are demonized, bad guys,’” Al-Kaabi said, are now saying, “‘Help us, produce more, you are not producing enough,’ and so on.” That shift was driven by President Vladimir Putin of Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine in February. Suddenly, European countries, which received nearly half of their gas imports from Russia last year, were scrambling to find other fuel sources in order to defund Putin’s war machine. That has given Qatar, which vies with the United States and Australia for the spot of the world’s top LNG exporter, a bump in popularity. In January, as fears rose of a Russian invasion, President Joe Biden declared Qatar a “major non-NATO ally” and hosted Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Qatar’s emir, at the White House, the first Gulf head of state given such a welcome by Biden. Energy issues were high on the agenda. After the war began, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain called Sheikh Tamim to discuss “ensuring sustainable gas supplies” and other issues, and senior European leaders flew to Qatar to discuss energy, including Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat. So did Robert Habeck, Germany’s minister for the economy and climate change, to sound out a gas deal with Qatar. But Qatar’s ability to ease Europe’s gas woes in the near term are limited. About 85% of its current production is locked in to long-term agreements, mostly in Asia, Al-Kaabi said. Skyscrapers in Doha, Qatar, Aug. 26, 2021. The New York Times “These hard-wired contracts I can’t do anything with,” he said. “Sanctity of contracts and our reputation is paramount, so I can’t go to a customer and say, ‘Sorry, I need to help Europeans.’” Skyscrapers in Doha, Qatar, Aug. 26, 2021. The New York Times But in the coming years, Qatar’s investments in LNG are likely to combine with the energy upheaval caused by the war in Ukraine to bind the tiny desert state more closely to Europe, and win plaudits from Washington along the way, analysts said. Years before the war began, Qatar started a project with an estimated cost of $45 billion to build two new gas plants and increase annual output capacity by 64%, Al-Kaabi said. That gas will start entering the market in 2026 and will most likely be split between buyers in Europe and Asia. In the meantime, Qatar has invested in terminals to receive LNG in Belgium, Britain and France. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, had no LNG facilities before the war but has allocated more than $3 billion to acquire four floating terminals. France and Italy are exploring similar options. That natural gas would make Qatar, a wind-swept peninsula in the Persian Gulf about the size of Delaware, one of the world’s richest countries per capita was not always obvious. When it discovered natural gas in its territorial waters in the early 1970s, officials were disappointed it was not oil, which was transforming the economies of nearby Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, said David Roberts, an associate professor of international relations at King’s College London. “For the first 20 years, no one wanted it because no one envisioned a market for it,” Roberts said. So they mostly left it in the ground. Then technological advances provided an opening. In the 1990s, Qatar and international partners poured billions of dollars into creating a LNG industry. Previously, natural gas was transported by pipeline, limiting how far away it could be sold. But when it was cooled to 260 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the gas liquefied and shrank in volume, meaning large quantities could be transported around the globe on ships and converted back into gas at the destination. LNG was seen as a costly, risky bet at the time, but the market for the new fuel, which releases fewer emissions than other fossil fuels, grew, and Qatar hit it big. “You see Qatari dominance in the market just going up and up and up,” Roberts said, “and they built the best and cheapest LNG operation going.” That sent cash gushing into Qatar’s economy, giving its 2.5 million people, only 300,000 of whom are citizens, one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. The capital, Doha, boomed, sprouting crops of steel and glass skyscrapers and an array of luxury hotels and shopping malls. The country’s sovereign wealth fund swelled, snapping up stakes in major companies and key properties in London, New York and other global cities. This year, Qatar will host the soccer World Cup, allowing it to show itself off to an expected 1.5 million soccer fans from around the world. Qatar has used its wealth to play an outsize role in regional politics. It bankrolls Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite network, which has criticised Qatar’s rivals and cheered on protest movements and rebel groups across the region during the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. It maintains diplomatic relations with groups and countries that hate one another, allowing it to work as a mediator. In addition to numerous Western energy companies, Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East but also maintains close ties with Iran, with whom it shares its offshore gas field. Last week, Sheikh Tamim met with Iranian officials in Tehran to push forward negotiations about reviving the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, a priority for the Biden administration. Qatar hosts top officials from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, and the Taliban. Last year, it won praise from the Biden administration for helping with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan by welcoming Americans and American partners exiting Afghanistan. “The Qataris have gotten way more influence than anybody would have imagined,” said Jim Krane, who researches energy politics at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “They have parlayed natural gas into all sorts of soft power.” How Qatar will wield its clout in the future is an open question, but for the moment, it is basking in the international attention earned by its gas. During a visit to Ras Laffan Industrial City in the country’s northeast, QatarEnergy officials proudly pointed out the two plants that had been processing gas for sale since the 1990s and described future expansion plans. On vast plots of empty sand there would be two new plants, they said, and a petrochemical factory. Inside the port, six huge gas tanker ships were docked to load LNG. Many more were waiting out at sea for their turn, said Mohammed Al-Mohannadi, a cargo administration supervisor at the port. “All the magic happens here,” he said. Al-Kaabi, too, was clearly pleased that gas is back in fashion. For years before the war in Ukraine, he said, he had been in talks with major German companies about building terminals to receive LNG in Germany, but the German government had not provided the necessary approvals. After the war started, however, Germany’s energy minister flew into Doha with the companies’ chief executives and said the government would push the projects forward. “The government now has changed 180 degrees,” Al-Kaabi said. If Germany was ready to approve the projects, he recalled telling the minister, “we are ready to tango.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

US Senator John Kerry ratchets up the fight to pass his well-telegraphed bill to combat global warming on Wednesday, unveiling legislation just as the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster complicates the measure's already slim chances of passage. Kerry, a Democrat, and Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent, are to unveil the bill at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT). Most of the details of the bill, which aims to cut planet-warming emissions in the United States by 17 percent in the next decade, already have been leaked. Crucially, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who helped write the bill but withdrew from talks over the immigration reform debate, will not attend the ceremony. The bill still has provisions to encourage offshore drilling but would allow US states to prohibit offshore oil activity within 75 miles of their coasts. But analysts said that may not be enough to win drilling opponents from coastal states as concerns mounts over the growing the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Backers of the bill had hoped to bring in wavering Democratic lawmakers, and Graham had been expected to help bring in other Republicans to reach the 60 votes needed to pass the bill. The White House on Wednesday promised to work to pass the bill into law. President Barack Obama's top energy and climate advisor, Carol Browner, told reporters in a conference call that the administration would review details of the bill. But it is unclear if Obama is willing put the same kind of political capital behind the climate bill as he did for healthcare legislation earlier this year, as some advocates have been seeking. Without a big White House push, the bill faces slim chances this year with the already clogged Congressional schedule, such as dealing with financial industry reform and a Supreme court nomination. Mid-term elections later this year also will distract many lawmakers from focusing on legislation that could boost prices for gasoline and electricity in coming years as the country struggles out of recession. "Everyone knows this is Congress's last, best chance to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation," Kerry said late Tuesday. If it fails, he added, "Congress will be rendered incapable of solving this issue." POLITICAL TOXIN The bill includes provisions for boosting nuclear power and offshore drilling in order to help win votes from states where the economies depend on energy production. Earlier versions of the legislation relied more on boosting alternative energy such as wind and solar. Analysts said measures for drilling may hurt the chances of the bill. "The Gulf of Mexico spill has turned offshore drilling -- an issue that once greased the wheels of the grand bargain -- into a political toxin," said Kevin Book, analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, who until a month ago had been optimistic about the bill's chances. Still, environmentalists said the bill must be passed this year to give businesses confidence to move forward with clean energy sources. Many utilities with big investments in low-carbon nuclear power, natural gas or wind and solar power hope to benefit from a crackdown on greenhouse gases. Utilities such as FPL Group, Duke Energy and Exelon have lobbied alongside environmental groups for the climate bill as has General Electric, a manufacturer of clean coal and natural gas systems for power plants and wind turbines. "Enacting a strong federal clean energy and climate program will give business the certainty it needs to unleash significant investments that will create jobs and grow our economy," said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change.

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

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged the Group of 20, which meets from Thursday, to make a stand against protectionism and called for a greater role for emerging nations in the running of multilateral lenders. The global economy and financial markets have shown an improvement since G20 summits earlier this year, but the world economy was "still not out of woods," Singh said in a statement on Wednesday. "We would also like to see a strong message to emerge from Pittsburgh against protectionism in all its forms, whether trade in goods, services, investment or financial flows," Singh said before leaving for the summit in the United States. He said the Pittsburgh summit is expected to focus on medium- and long-term goals such as a framework for sustainable and balanced growth and strengthening the international financial regulatory system. It is also expected to focus on reforms at the International Monetary Fund and development banks, support for the poor, an open global economy, energy and climate change. "It is necessary for India to engage in the management of the world economy because we have a lot at stake, and a lot to contribute," he said. India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday that the country's economic growth, which stood at an annual 6.1 percent in the quarter ended in June, would be better in coming quarters. India's economic growth slowed to 6.7 percent in the year that ended in March after three straight years of expansion of at least 9 percent, and Singh said the economy showed signs of reviving growth. "Our growth is primarily driven by domestic demand, our savings rate is robust and the external sector has exhibited resilence," he said. Emerging economies have been flexing their growing economic clout to call for a stronger voice in the running of multilateral agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The World Bank on Tuesday approved $4.3 billion in loans for India to help finance infrastructure building and to shore up the capital of some state banks as the economy recovers from the global financial crisis. Singh said on Tuesday that past G20 meetings have been followed by increased lending from the World Bank to India. "We would like to see a continuous increase in the capital base of multilateral development banks to finance the massive infrastructure needs of emerging markets," Singh said. "There is a need to carry the process of governance reforms of international financial institutions further to give greater voice and representation to under-represented countries," he said. On the sidelines of summit, Singh is set to meet other leaders including Yukio Hatoyama, new prime minister of Japan.

US President Barack Obama will go ahead with plans to meet the Dalai Lama despite warnings from China not to, White House confirmed on Tuesday . The White House confirmed that, Obama would meet the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader reviled by Beijing as a separatist for seeking self-rule for his mountain homeland. China warned US President Barack Obama on Wednesday that a meeting between him and the Dalai Lama would further erode ties between the two powers, already troubled by Washington's arms sales to Taiwan. China's angry response reflected deepening tension between the world's biggest and third-biggest economies, with Beijing noting that President Hu Jintao himself urged Obama not to meet the exiled Tibetan leader. Ma Zhaoxu, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said his government "resolutely opposes the leader of the United States having contact with the Dalai under any pretext or in any form". During Hu's summit with Obama in Beijing last November, the Chinese leader "explained China's stern position of resolutely opposing any government leaders and officials meeting the Dalai", said Ma. "We urge the U.S. to fully grasp the high sensitivity of the Tibetan issues, to prudently and appropriately deal with related matters, and avoid bringing further damage to China-U.S. relations," said Ma. China's ire at the White House announcement was predictable, as was the White House's confirmation of the meeting, which has long been flagged. But the flare-up comes soon after Beijing lashed Washington over a $6.4 billion U.S. weapons package for Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing deems an illegitimate breakaway province. It also comes during Sino-U.S. tensions over the value of China's currency, trade protectionism and Internet freedoms. BEIJING GETS PUSHY Beijing has become increasingly assertive about opposing the Dalai Lama's meetings with foreign leaders, and the issue is a volatile theme among patriotic Chinese, who see Western criticism of Chinese policy in Tibet as meddling. Protests over Chinese rule in Tibet that upset the London and Paris legs of the torch relay for the 2008 Beijing Olympics drew angry counter-protests by Chinese abroad and demonstrations in China urging boycotts of French goods. When French President Nicolas Sarkozy would not pull out of meeting the Dalai Lama while his country held the rotating presidency of the European Union in late 2008, China cancelled a summit with the EU and there were Chinese calls for boycotts of French goods. On Tuesday, a Chinese Communist Party official said any meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama "would seriously undermine the political basis of Sino-U.S. relations". The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese Communist Party forces who entered the region from 1950. He says he wants true autonomy for Tibet under Chinese sovereignty, but Beijing says his demands amount to seeking outright independence. Previous US presidents, including Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, have met the Dalai Lama, drawing angry words from Beijing but no substantive reprisals. China's latest statement did not mention any specific retaliation over Obama's planned meeting. "I think it indicates their nervousness in the issue of Tibet ... the wider world recognising that there is problem in Tibet and China should do something about it," said Thubten Samphel, spokesman of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala, northern India. The White House shrugged off Beijing's earlier warnings about the meeting, which may happen as early as this month. "The president told China's leaders during his trip last year that he would meet with the Dalai Lama and he intends to do so," White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters. "We expect that our relationship with China is mature enough where we can work on areas of mutual concern such as climate, the global economy and non-proliferation and discuss frankly and candidly those areas where we disagree." The United States says it accepts that Tibet is a part of China and wants Beijing to open up dialogue with the Dalai Lama about the future of the region. But a Chinese foreign policy analyst said the response from Beijing, increasingly assertive on what it sees as core concerns, would be tougher than Washington anticipates. "China wants to change the rules of the game," Yuan Peng, head of US studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper. "Though the US has previously sold weapons to Taiwan and met the Dalai Lama, and we've then railed at the United States, this time there'll be true cursing and retaliation."

At the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland, scientists still delight in describing the diverse array of peoples — Israelis and Iranians; Hindus, Muslims, atheists and Catholics — who worked side by side a decade ago to discover the Higgs boson, the key to mass in the universe. Astronauts take pride in the fellowship of the cosmos symbolised by ceremonial exchanges of bread and salt when crews arrive at the International Space Station. These ties are now being threatened as opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to grow in scientific circles — even in Russia, where use of the word “invasion” in regard to Ukraine is now a crime. Conferences and academic exchanges have been cancelled. Open letters from winners of the Nobel Prize and other groups have proliferated. The Russian and American space programs, which have been intertwined for 30 years, now seem destined to go their separate ways. Last week the waves of condemnation reached CERN, long an avatar of the dream of international collaboration. In a meeting of its governing body, the CERN Council, last Tuesday, the lab said it would not engage in any new collaborations with the Russian Federation “until further notice” and suspended it from its observer status at the lab. “CERN was established in the aftermath of World War II to bring nations and people together for the peaceful pursuit of science,” read a statement released by the council March 8. “This aggression runs against everything for which the Organisation stands.” This followed an announcement in late February that the International Congress of Mathematicians, scheduled for St Petersburg, Russia, in July, would instead be held virtually. The Congress, which occurs every four years, is the biggest gathering in math. An in-person assembly and awards ceremony will happen at a place to be determined outside Russia. Protests have not been confined to the West. On Feb 24, Russian scientists and science journalists posted an open letter to the website Troitskiy Variant, an independent science publication in Russia, calling the invasion of Ukraine “unfair and frankly senseless.” “Having unleashed the war, Russia doomed itself to international isolation, to the position of a pariah country,” the letter noted. “This means that we, scientists, will no longer be able to do our job normally: After all, conducting scientific research is unthinkable without full cooperation with colleagues from other countries.” Some 7,750 Russians have signed the letter, according to Andrei Linde, a Stanford cosmologist from Russia and one of the signatories. After the Russian parliament made it a criminal offence worth as much as 15 years in prison to call the invasion of Ukraine anything but a “special military operation,” the letter disappeared from that website, but it can still be found on the Wayback Machine. A subsequent post, which Linde steered me to and translated, listed the signers of the letter but not the letter itself. “There is nothing criminal in the text of the letter,” the new post read. “However, due to the new legislation, which actually introduces the most severe censorship, we remove the text of the letter, leaving signatures, believing that it is important for the signatories to let people know that they have not kept silent.” That post, too, has disappeared. “It’s so depressing,” Linde said. Another embarrassment for Russia came when Oleg Anisimov, a climatologist at the State Hydrological Institute in St Petersburg who headed the Russian delegation to a Feb 27 meeting of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, interrupted his talk before the representatives from 195 nations to apologise to the citizens of Ukraine for the attack. “Let me present an apology on behalf of all Russians who were not able to prevent this conflict,” Anisimov said at the meeting. “Those who know what is happening fail to find any justification for the attack.” The condemnation from CERN was particularly stinging in its symbolism. The laboratory was formed in 1954 to help bind a war-torn Europe, and the effort has been splendidly spectacular. Its Large Hadron Collider rules the roost in particle physics; the collider’s discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson a decade ago resonated globally. And the World Wide Web was invented at CERN, to allow physicists to easily share their data. In all, scientists from 100 nations and territories participate in the lab’s operations. The laboratory is governed by a council of 23 member states, each of which sends two delegates, a scientist and a diplomat. Each state has one vote. Russia is not a member but, like the United States and Japan, it has held observer status, meaning it could send delegations to meetings but not vote. Ukraine is among seven associate members. Expelling a member or observer state requires a two-thirds vote; the count is confidential. Eliezer Rabinovici, a theoretical physicist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who is the president of the CERN Council, called its meeting “extraordinary.” “I am overwhelmed by decisions to be taken,” he said in an email in the days before the meeting occurred. “I think what happened now took many many by surprise,” Rabinovici recalled afterward. “They could not believe that some atrocities could happen in 21st-century Europe.” He described “some tension” with delegates wanting “to express their sympathy and their anger” but concerned about harming the collaborative ethos of CERN in the long run. Fabiola Gianotti, director-general of CERN, recalled in a statement that CERN’s mission was to build bridges between countries. “In times of aggression, war and political divide,” she said, “science and the arts can play the role of keeping communication channels open. Such channels will be essential to building back when the time comes.” The decision elicited support from a sample of physicists contacted by phone and email. “In comparison to what is going on in Ukraine, suspension of the observer status of the Russian Federation at CERN is a relatively minor issue,” Linde said. Pierre Ramond, a physicist at the University of Florida and one of the innovators of string theory, wrote: “CERN’s decision was necessary. The lack of any would have been a black mark: CERN is more than a scientific marvel, it was and remains the first symbol of the post-WW2 new Europe.” Kip Thorne, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology who won a Nobel Prize in 2017 for the discovery of gravitational waves, has working relationships with Russian astrophysicists that date from the 1960s. “I believed then and I believe now that those contacts are of high importance,” he said in an email. “However, what Putin and the Russian military have done in the name of the Russian Federation is so egregious that I strongly support the CERN Council’s decision.” But Lisa Randall, a theoretical physicist at Harvard, said in an email: “Unless the scientists are responsible for the actions of their country, it is unfair and contrary to the international collaborative spirit of CERN to make this move.” What all this means for individual scientists at CERN is unclear. In a note to the lab, Gianotti insisted that nobody was being sent home and that ongoing collaborations were being maintained, at least for now. Joseph Incandela, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who led one of the teams that discovered the Higgs boson, elaborated. “Those who are here can continue to come to the lab and do their work,” he said. “Those who come in from Russia can still get here via somewhat more circuitous flight paths if they are allowed to do so by Russian authorities. They are not restricted from entering CERN.” Thus far, CERN’s plans to restart the Large Hadron Collider in April, following three years of repairs and improvements, remain on track, according to Mike Lamont, CERN’s director for accelerators and technology. So the promise of a narrow bridge of communication survives. In an email, Michael Turner, a physicist with the Kavli Foundation in Los Angeles and past president of the American Physical Society, stressed the value of these informal working relationships. “Scientists are often very influential members of their societies,” he noted, and their interactions are a reminder “of the humanity of all individuals, even those in countries whose leaders are doing outrageous things.” “That being said,” he added, with regard to Russia’s actions, “I think the entire world is trying to figure out what to do.” ©2022 The New York Times Company

Global warming could devastate China's development, the nation's first official survey of climate change warns, while insisting economic growth must come before greenhouse gas cuts. Hotter average global temperatures fuelled by greenhouse gases mean that different regions of China are likely to suffer spreading deserts, worsening droughts and floods, shrinking glaciers and rising seas, the National Climate Change Assessment states. This environmental upheaval could derail the ruling Communist Party's plans for sustainable development, a copy of the report obtained by Reuters says. "Climatic warming may have serious consequences for our environment of survival as China's economic sectors, such as agriculture and coastal regions, suffer grave negative effects," the report states. Fast-industrialising China could overtake the United States as the world's top emitter of human-generated greenhouse gases as early as this year, and Beijing faces rising international calls to accept mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions from factories, fields and vehicles. But underscoring China's commitment to achieving prosperity even as it braces for climate change, the report rejects emissions limits as unfair and economically dangerous, citing what it says are uncertainties about global warming. "If we prematurely assume responsibilities for mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the direct consequence will be to constrain China's current energy and manufacturing industries and weaken the competitiveness of Chinese products in international and even domestic markets," it says. The 400-page report was written over several years by experts and officials from dozens of ministries and agencies, representing China's first official response to global warming. With its mixture of dire warnings and caveats, it bears the markings of bureaucratic bargaining. China was one of a few countries that challenged claims about global warming presented in a draft report at a U.N. climate change meeting in Brussels earlier this month. That report was approved after some claims were softened and passages removed. China's own national report says "uncertainties over climate change issues" justify rejecting international limits on greenhouse gas emissions. But other parts of the report assert that the country's brittle environment will be severely tested by climate change. By the end of the century, glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet highlands that feed the Yangtze river could shrink by two thirds. Further downstream, increasingly intense rainfall could "spark mud and landslides and other geological disasters" around the massive Three Gorges Dam. Coastal cities will need to build or strengthen barriers to ward off rising sea levels. Unless steps are taken, water scarcity and increasingly extreme weather could reduce nationwide crop production by up to 10 percent by 2030. Wheat, rice and corn growing capacity could fall by up to 37 percent in the second half of the century. "If we do not take any actions, climate change will seriously damage China's long-term grain security," the report states. China has repeatedly ruled out accepting mandatory international emissions limits, saying that rich countries are responsible for the accumulation of greenhouse gases and should not look to poorer countries for a way out. "For a considerable time to come, developing the economy and improving people's lives remains the country's primary task," the report says.

COPENHAGEN/OSLO (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US President Barack Obama urged world leaders on Thursday to break the deadlock at climate change talks in Copenhagen, although many nations accused the United States of lacking ambition. In a move that could boost Obama's position when world leaders join the UN talks next week, three US senators outlined a compromise climate bill on Thursday that aims to win the votes needed for passage next year. Accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in neighbouring Norway, Obama warned of dire consequences if the world did nothing to curb rising carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation which scientists say are heating up the atmosphere. "The world must come together to confront climate change," Obama said in his acceptance speech. "There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades," he added. Obama will propose cuts in US emissions in Copenhagen but has yet to get the backing of Congress. While a climate bill passed narrowly in the House of Representatives in June, the Senate has yet to approve legislation. In Washington the senators did not offer details of their compromise but said a target to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 was "achievable and reasonable." The December 7-18 Copenhagen talks are meant to agree on the outlines of a tougher climate pact to expand or replace the existing Kyoto Protocol from 2013. But they have become bogged down over who should curb their emissions, who is most responsible and who should pay. The talks are expected to deliver agreement on an initial fund of around $10 billion (6.1 billion pounds) a year until 2012 to help poor nations to fight climate change and make their economies greener. But developing countries believe emissions cuts promised by rich nations, especially the United States, are far too low. Tiny Tuvalu, a cluster of low-lying Pacific islands, brought part of the talks to a standstill on Thursday. The main plenary sessions were suspended for consultations, although delegates continued holding side-meetings. RISING SEAS Tuvalu, which fears being washed off the map by rising seas, insisted the conference must consider its proposal for a legally binding treaty on far deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than the United States and other rich nations are offering, Tuvalu's stance exposed rifts between developing nations, many of which would be required to do much more under its proposal to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Nations including India and China spoke out against Tuvalu's plan. Most other nations reckon Copenhagen can agree only a political text with legal texts to be worked out next year. Rich nations' emissions cuts targets remain a major sticking point in the talks. Poorer nations blame industrialised countries for most of the greenhouse gas pollution in the air and say they must make deep cuts. The United States has offered a provisional target of 17 percent below 2005 levels -- equal to a 3 percent cut from 1990 levels while the European Union has pledged a cut of 20 percent below 1990 levels that could be raised to 30 percent if others also act. China, Brazil and small island states all say the pledge is far too modest. The UN's top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, said developed countries would have to deepen planned emission cuts to a range of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels, as outlined by a UN climate panel. "That for me is the goal," de Boer told Reuters. Offers so far from rich nations total about 14 to 18 percent below 1990 levels. "Many countries have come here with initial offers for targets indicating there is flexibility in the numbers," he said. "Whether that is achieved or not depends first of all on a discussion within the group of major developed countries." GREEN LOANS In a bid to break the impasse on longer-term climate finance, Hungarian-born financier George Soros said green loans to poor nations backed by International Monetary Fund gold reserves could total $100 billion. "I've found a way for someone else to pay ... to mobilise reserves that are lying idle," Soros told Reuters on the sidelines of the talks that will end with the summit of 110 world leaders meant to agree a new climate pact. "This $100-billion fund I think could just turn this conference from failure to success," he said, admitting there were several legal and practical hurdles to unlocking the cash. Poor nations want rich countries to spend 1 percent or more of their national wealth on emissions cuts in the developing world, or at least $300 billion annually, and about double the highest estimates by industrialised countries. The UN climate panel says global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 and then start to decline to avoid run-away climate change through rising temperatures.

Brazil's interim President Michel Temer declared open the first Games ever in South America. But in a display of the deep political divisions plaguing Brazil, he was jeered by some in the crowd at the famed Maracana soccer stadium. The opening ceremony was decidedly simple and low-tech, a reflection of Brazil's tough economic times. In one of the world's most unequal societies, the spectacle celebrated the culture of the favelas, the slums that hang vertiginously above the renowned beaches of Rio and ring the Maracana. There was no glossing over history either: from the arrival of the Portuguese and their conquest of the indigenous populations to the use of African slave labour for 400 years. The clash of cultures, as the ceremony showed, is what makes Brazil the complex mosaic that it is. Home to the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, Brazil used the ceremony to call on the 3 billion people watching the opening of the world's premiere sporting event to take care of the planet, plant seeds and protect the verdant land that Europeans found here five centuries ago. Unlike the opening ceremonies in Beijing in 2008 and London 2012, a financially constrained Brazil had little choice but to put on a more "analogue" show, with minimal high-tech and a heavy dependence on the vast talent of Brazil and its Carnival party traditions. While the Rio 2016 organising committee has not said how much the ceremony cost, it is believed to be about half of the $42 million spent by London in 2012. The show drew homegrown stars, like supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who walked across the stadium to the sound of bossa nova hit "Girl from Ipanema" and Paulinho da Viola, a samba songwriter who sang the national anthem with a string orchestra. Everyone performed for free. Loud cheers erupted when Brazil's beloved pioneer of aviation Alberto Santos-Dumont was depicted taking off from the stadium and flying over modern-day Rio. The joyful opening contrasted with months of turmoil and chaos, not only in the organisation of the Olympics but across Brazil as it endures its worst economic recession in decades and a deep political crisis. Temer, flanked by dozens of heads of state, played a minor role in the ceremony, speaking just a few words. The leader who was supposed to preside over the Games, President Dilma Rousseff, was suspended last May to face an impeachment trial and tweeted that she was "sad to not be at the party." The $12 billion price tag to organise the Games has aggrieved many in the nation of 200 million and in Rio, where few can see the benefits of the spectacle or even afford to attend the Games. Due to Brazil's most intense security operation ever, some among the 50,000 attendees faced two-hour-long lines as Brazil staged its most intense security operation ever. People on the periphery The creative minds behind the opening ceremony were determined to put on a show that would not offend a country in dire economic straits but would showcase the famously upbeat nature of Brazilians. It started with the beginning of life itself in Brazil, and the population that formed in the vast forests and built their communal huts, the ocas. The Portuguese bobbed to shore in boats, the African slaves rolled in on wheels and together they ploughed through the forests and planted the seeds of modern Brazil. "They're talking about slavery? Wow," said Bryan Hossy, a black Brazilian who watched the ceremony in a bar in Copacabana. "They have to talk about that. It's our story." The mega-cities of Brazil formed in a dizzying video display as acrobats jumped from roof to roof of emerging buildings and then on to the steep favela that served as the front stage for the ceremony. From the favela came Brazilian funk, a contemporary mash-up of 20th century rhythms, sung by stars Karol Conka and 12-year-old MC Soffia. "This is a conquest. The people on the periphery are having an influence, it's a recognition of their art," said Eduardo Alves, director of social watchdog Observatorio de Favelas. Before the entry of a few thousand of the 11,000 athletes that will be competing in the Games, the playful rhythms of the ceremony gave way to a sober message about climate change and rampant deforestation of the Amazon. Actresses Judi Dench and Fernanda Montenegro lent their voices for a classic poem about hope for the future. Each athlete will be asked to plant seeds that will eventually grow into trees and be planted in the Athletes Forest in Rio in a few years. Brazilian runner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony.

Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), said he expects the newly-developed high-zinc wheat to make up at least 80% of varieties distributed worldwide over the next ten years, up from about 9% currently. The Mexico-based institute's research focuses on boosting yields, and livelihoods, of the world's poorest farmers while also addressing specific challenges posed by climate change, including higher temperatures, less rainfall and constantly mutating plant diseases. The improved varieties of so-called biofortified wheat are being rolled out with the help of seed company partners in countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico and Bolivia. Kropff said Asian giant China may also begin adopting the fortified wheat varieties this year. Over the next decade, he said he expects nearly all newly deployed wheat varieties to be nutritionally improved, noting that the high-zinc varieties were developed by traditional breeding techniques instead of research based on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). "This is something that is really starting in a big way this year," said Kropff, who also pointed to CIMMYT-developed zinc-enhanced corn that was introduced in Colombia over the past two years. "I'm super proud of this," he added, touting the seeds ability to dent malnutrition via one of the world's grains staples. The dramatic expansion of the new wheat varieties, which has not been previously reported, holds the promise of improving diets that lack essential minerals like zinc and iron, used to fight off viruses and move oxygen throughout the body. Zinc deficiency, in particular, is one of the main causes of malnutrition globally and estimated to afflict more than 2 billion people. CIMMYT scientists, with a research budget last year of $120 million, have developed about 70% of wheat varieties currently planted globally as well as about half of the world's corn, or maize, varieties. The vast majority of CIMMYT's research is non-GMO. The institute was founded by 1970 Nobel peace prize winner Norman Borlaug and runs research projects in some 50 countries. It has attracted funding from the US and British governments, among others, as well as billionaires like Bill Gates and Carlos Slim. 'FIRST OF ITS KIND' CORN Kropff also cited three recently-developed CIMMYT corn varieties that are resistant to Fall Armyworm (FAW), an insect that has caused major damage to crops in both Africa and Asia, that were bred in Kenya with the help of CIMMYT's maize seed bank in Mexico, the world's largest. "Like people, (the worms) like maize as well, but they eat the leaves and also the grains and it's really terrible," said Kropff. The new varieties will be distributed over the next few months for performance trials in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to CIMMYT officials. Kropff, a 64-year-old Dutch scientist, said the FAW-resistant corn varieties are the first of their kind and have already been picked for trials in east African nations ahead of similar trails expected in southern Africa later in the year. He said CIMMYT, which in a typical year develops and deploys some 35 improved wheat varieties globally, fills a space that the biggest profit-maximising seed companies like Germany's Bayer AG or US-based Corteva Inc tend to avoid. "We specifically breed varieties for those environments where the private sector cannot make much money," he said, explaining that the poorest farmers must also regularly adopt new varieties that can thrive in a world where pests and disease are constantly evolving too. "The small-holder farmers rely on us."

The government has initiated a programme to provide input assistance to some 50,000 small and marginal farmers for boosting maize cultivation. Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury announced the assistance, which includes providing seeds and fertilisers worth Tk 65 million free of cost, at a press conference at the ministry's conference room on Wednesday. Under the programme, the government will provide the seeds and fertilisers to the farmers for cultivating maize over 16,500 acres of land in 62 upazilas under 11 districts. The programme starts from the current winter season. A farmer will get 3 kilograms of hybrid maize seeds and 50 kgs of fertilisers, including 25kgs of diamonium phosphate (DAP) and muriate of potash (MoP), as incentives for maize cultivation on each bigha [0.33 acre] of land, the minister said. The programme will help increase maize production by 31,000 tonnes, said the minister, adding that the market price of the additional maize would be at least Tk 62 crore. The programme will be implemented at Nilphamari, Kurigram, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Lalmonirhat, Pirojpur, Barisal, Barguna, Patuakhali, Bhola and Jhalokhati districts. Narrating objectives of the incentive programme, the agriculture minister said: "We're trying to motivate the farmers to grow maize because of its high demand and less irrigation and other cost for its cultivation than that of other crops like rice and wheat." She mentioned that the overall production of wheat had already declined in the northern region due to climate changes. The minister said maize cultivation is now generating interest among the farmers as there is huge demand for the produce both for human and poultry consumption. The country's annual maize production is around 1.55 million tonnes and it needs to import another 422,000 tonnes a year.

Authorities in Baghdad, including the Education Ministry, declared a day off for local government institutions, with the exception of health services. Hundreds of people across the capital and southern cities went to hospitals with breathing difficulties, medical officials said. Baghdad International Airport said in a statement it was closing its airspace and halting all flights until further notice because of low visibility. At least one sandstorm a week has hit Iraq in the past few weeks in what Iraqis say is the worst such spate in living memory. "It's every three or four days now," said taxi driver Ahmed Zaman, 23. "It's clearly a result of climate change and lack of rain, whenever there's wind it just kicks up dust and sand." In Baghdad and southern Iraqi cities, a red haze of dust and sand reduced visibility to just a few hundred feet. "We've had 75 cases of people with respiratory problems," said Ihsan Mawlood, an accident and emergency doctor in a Baghdad hospital. "We're treating patients with oxygen machines if necessary." Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to the climate crisis, according to the United Nations. Drought and extreme temperatures are drying up farmland and making large parts of Iraq barely habitable during the summer months. The country posted record temperatures of at least 52 degrees Celsius in recent years.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Fiji in a meeting of Pacific foreign ministers in Samoa on Saturday to ensure the country's military rulers held elections as promised in March 2009. Rice arrived in Samoa from Auckland for a three-hour stop-over where she joined more than a dozen ministers from the Pacific Forum to discuss Fiji, maritime security and climate change, among other issues, said a senior U.S. official. A Pacific diplomat who attended the talks but asked not to be named, said Rice raised the issue of elections with Fiji's interim foreign minister Brigadier General Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, who arrived late for the meeting at a holiday resort near the airport. Rice had said beforehand she would use the occasion to deliver a strong message to Fiji. "There is especially hard work to do concerning Fiji where a return to democracy is an absolute necessity," Rice said in Auckland late on Saturday before leaving for Apia. "Those elections should not be based on any other conditions but the ability to hold an election, something that the government of Fiji has promised to do and has promised to do next year and should do forthright," added Rice, who also visited Singapore and Australia on an eight-day trip that ends on Monday. It was the first visit to Samoa by a U.S. Secretary of State for 20 years and Rice was joined on her plane by New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who has taken a leading role among Pacific countries to get Fiji's military to restore democracy. Fiji's military strongman Frank Bainimarama originally promised elections for March 2009, but he said in June this was now unlikely because reforms were needed to the electoral system. Bainimarama staged a bloodless coup in December 2006, claiming the then government of Laisenia Qarase was corrupt and soft on those behind an earlier 2000 coup. Fiji has been hit by four coups and a military mutiny since 1987. Sanctions have been applied by Australia, New Zealand and the European Union on Fiji, including the suspension of aid and travel bans on Fijian military and political officials. The United States also canceled military aid to Fiji after the coup. The senior U.S. official traveling with Rice said she did not plan to meet separately with the Fijian minister, who went to Apia along with more than a dozen other ministers from the Pacific. Ministers and officials from Australia, Fiji, Samoa, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Tonga, Tuvalu, Guam, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Palau and Papua New Guinea were among those at the meeting, hosted by Samoa's prime minister.

China aims to save 75 terawatt hours of power per year, the equivalent of 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, by promoting energy-efficient air-conditioners and other home appliances. The government plans to raise the market shares of such appliances to over 30 percent by 2012 by subsidizing sales, the National Development and Reform Commission said. The appliances include air-conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, flat screen television sets, microwave ovens, rice cookers, electromagnetic ovens, water heaters, computer screens and electrical motors. China is widely believed to be the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the gas from fossil fuels, industry, farming and land clearance that is accumulating in the air, trapping more solar radiation and threatening to overheat the globe. It is drafting a long-term plan for climate change that will focus on raising energy efficiency, developing clean-coal technology and expanding carbon-absorbing forests. The commission has detailed the first batch of makers and types of air conditioners whose sales would be subsidized by 300 yuan ($44) to 850 yuan each by Beijing, a move which would alone save up to 6 terawatt hours of power a year if their market share rises to more than 30 percent from the current 5 percent. A terawatt equals one trillion watts. China has yet to detail subsidies for other household goods. Air conditioning consumes 20 percent of China's power and accounts for nearly 40 percent of power use during peak demand time in summer in cities, according to the commission. China produced more than 70 million air conditioners in 2008 and over 40 percent of them were exported. It also produced nearly 200 gigawatts in electrical motor power last year and over a quarter were shipped abroad. Electrical motors and the systems they drive consume 60 percent of China's power production but less than 2 percent of the motors sold on the domestic market are energy efficient.

Ending imports of fresh food from Africa under the pretext of combating climate change risks destroying entire communities that have become dependent on the trade, Ghana's High Commissioner to Britain said on Wednesday. So-called food miles -- the distance food travels from producer to consumer -- have become a highly divisive issue as environmentalists try to persuade people to reduce the amount of climate warming carbon gases their lifestyle emits. "We do understand, of course, that our friends here are anxious to make a difference. However, the figures simply do not add up," said Annan Cato, noting that less than 0.1 percent of Britain's carbon emissions relate to airfreighted food. "At what cost to global justice do we shut the door on the economic prospects of small farmers in Africa by refusing to buy their produce," he told a meeting of artists, musicians and scientists to discuss global warming's impact on Africa. Environmentalists recommend that as much food as possible should be produced and consumed locally, ending airfreighted imports of fruit and vegetables from around the world. But development specialists note that much of the produce comes from the poorer parts of Africa and that whole communities have become dependent on the lucrative lifeline. "There are many other ways for the British shopper to reduce their carbon footprint without damaging the livelihoods of thousands of poor African farming families," said Cato. Scientists say global average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to carbon gas emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport. This will bring floods, famines and extreme weather putting millions of lives at risk, with Africa expected to bear the brunt despite the fact that per capita carbon emissions on the continent are among the lowest in the world. "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be done in a fair, scientific and rational way -- making cuts at the expense of the world's poorest is not only unjust, it is a bad basis for building the international consensus needed for a global deal on climate change," Cato said. UN environment ministers meet next month on the Indonesian island of Bali amid growing international pressure for them to agree to open urgent talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon emissions that expires in 2012. Europe is pushing for a deal by the end of 2009 at the latest -- a very tight deadline given the time it took to negotiate Kyoto in the first place let alone ratify it. But the world's biggest polluter, the United States which rejected Kyoto and is still dragging its heels despite a sharp change of public mood, and China which is building a coal-fired power station each week say they are not the cause of the crisis. "It is imperative that the post-Kyoto agreement must advance cogent proposals to promote adaptation to climate change with an acceptable regime for implementation," said Cato. "This is an issue not only of global justice but of survival." "The damage has been done by some of the world's most powerful countries but the worst affects are felt by many of the world's most vulnerable countries," he added.

"Micronesia asks our American and Chinese friends to reinforce their cooperation and friendship with each other ... to achieve what is best for our global community," the Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo told the UN General Assembly in a video address. Micronesia - with a population of about 113,000 - and its Pacific Island neighbours have long been stuck in a diplomatic tug-of-war between the world's biggest economic powers as China takes on US influence in a region Washington has considered its backyard since World War Two. During his Friday address to the gathering of world leaders - pre-recorded due to the pandemic - Panuelo acknowledged that competition had been beneficial for some people in the Pacific. But he warned that the efforts "also potentially threaten to fracture long-standing alliances within our Pacific community, and could become counterproductive to our collective desire for regional solidarity, security, and stability." The US-Chinese showdown is now playing out at the 193-member United Nations, where Beijing has pushed for greater multilateral influence in a challenge to traditional US leadership. Tensions between the two superpowers have hit boiling point at the world body over the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Micronesia's plea stood out during the annual - yet virtual - gathering of world leaders at the United Nations this week because while most countries called for unity to combat COVID-19, other references to US and Chinese frictions were generally oblique. International Crisis Group UN director Richard Gowan said most leaders want to avoid getting entangled in the tensions. "A lot of the UN's members think the US is destructive and China is power-hungry. They don't find either very appealing," he said. "Ambitious Europeans like (French President Emmanuel) Macron see a chance to fill the leadership gap, so they are willing to challenge Beijing and Washington." RIVALRY Macron addressed the General Assembly on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump demanded that China be held accountable for having "unleashed" COVID-19 on the world, prompting Beijing to accuse him of "lies" and abusing the UN platform to provoke a confrontation. "The world as it is today cannot come down to simple rivalry between China and the United States, no matter the global weight of these two great powers, no matter the history that binds us together," Macron said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also warned the world is heading in a dangerous direction and "cannot afford a future where the two largest economies split the globe in a Great Fracture — each with its own trade and financial rules and internet and artificial intelligence capacities." In the Pacific, China has been forging stronger economic ties with small island nations, and drawing countries out of their long-term alliances with Taiwan, winning over Kiribati and the Solomon Islands in the past year. China considers Taiwan its own territory with no right to state-to-state ties. Four of Taiwan's remaining 15 diplomatic allies are in the Pacific - Palau, Nauru, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. All four states spoke in support of Taiwan during their leaders' addresses to the United Nations. Though tiny in land mass, Pacific nations control vast swaths of highly strategic waters, forming a boundary between the Americas and Asia. As oceans warm and sea level rises, they are also on the frontlines of the global climate crisis. "It is my hope ... that the United States of America and the People's Republic of China jointly champion global causes for global solidarity and cooperation, from climate change to COVID-19," Panuelo said.

European Union leaders committed themselves on Friday to adopt ambitious legislation within one year to fight climate change and promote green energy sources, EU president Slovenia said. "We adopted the timeframe and the principles for the climate change and energy package," Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa told a news conference after a summit at which leaders pledged to enact laws by March 2009 to meet goals of slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

The US Embassy’s warning that Americans should stay away from the airport added a new level of uncertainty to the volatile situation — which includes reports of growing hunger around the country — just a day after President Joe Biden vowed to get all US citizens to safety. Assaulted by tear gas and by Taliban gunmen who have beaten people with clubs and whips, throngs of Afghans and their families continued to swarm the airport in hopes of getting aboard US military transport planes evacuating Americans and their Afghan allies. But the hopes of those who pressed against the airport blast walls faded as word spread that Biden had warned that his effort to evacuate Afghans likely would not “be without risk or loss.” The security alert instructed Americans still marooned in Kabul not to travel to the airport “unless you receive individual instructions from a US government representative to do so.” U.S. officials said the most serious current threat was that Afghanistan’s Islamic State branch would attempt an attack that would both hurt the Americans and damage the Taliban’s sense of control. Pentagon officials said airport gates had been temporarily closed but were open intermittently to allow Americans with proper credentials to enter. While the Taliban control Kabul and the area around the airport up to the entry gates, US and British troops control direct access through the gates. Maj Gen William Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff told reporters Saturday that military commanders at the airport were “metering” the flow of Americans, Afghan allies and other foreigners with proper credentials to ensure everyone was thoroughly screened and vetted. Taylor said that in the past 24 hours, 3,800 passengers, roughly half of them Americans, had been flown out. That figure was down from 6,000 evacuated two days ago. US officials had estimated Tuesday that there were 10,000 to 15,000 US citizens in Afghanistan, but they have not provided updated numbers. Scrambling to cope with the flood of people trying to leave the country, the Biden administration is making plans to enlist commercial airlines from outside Afghanistan to bring refugees to more bases. The effort could involve 20 airlines and would transport thousands of Afghan refugees arriving at US bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and fly them to other countries for resettlement, officials said. The Taliban’s actions and history of brutality cast doubt on their promises of amnesty, and many Afghans are afraid to venture out of their homes. The New York Times John F Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, said Saturday there had been no additional helicopter rescues of Americans in Kabul seeking to flee the Afghan capital since Thursday’s mission, but he did not rule out the possibility of similar operations in the future if local commanders believed they were warranted. The Taliban’s actions and history of brutality cast doubt on their promises of amnesty, and many Afghans are afraid to venture out of their homes. The New York Times American security officials said they were concerned about the threat of an ISIS attempt to attack military or commercial aircraft. The security alert came as a 2-year-old girl was trampled to death in a stampede outside an airport gate at about 10 a.m. Saturday, according to her mother, a former employee of a US organisation in Kabul. The child was crushed when the crowd surged toward the gate, knocking over the woman and several members of her family, she said. “My heart is bleeding,” the woman said. “It was like drowning and trying to hold your baby above the water.” Nearby, several young Afghan men who tried to leap over a Taliban security barrier were savagely beaten by Taliban gunman, a witness said. Haroun, 29, an Afghan who lives in France but arrived in Kabul to visit relatives before the Taliban takeover, watched the beating in horror. He had tried and failed to squeeze inside the airport to secure a flight for himself, his wife and two small children. “How can I risk a beating like that?” Haroun said as he and his family gave up and rushed back to their temporary Kabul home. A Taliban official said Saturday that the group’s co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had arrived in Kabul for talks aimed a forming a new government. On Tuesday, Baradar, who oversaw the signing of a troop withdrawal agreement with the US in Qatar in February 2020, arrived to a hero’s welcome in Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace. Baradar was expected to begin talks with former President Hamid Karzai and other politicians. “The negotiations are going on right now,” said Ahmadullah Waseq, deputy of the Taliban’s cultural affairs committee, who confirmed Baradar’s arrival. For now, he said, Taliban officials are largely talking among themselves in preparation for the negotiations. Taliban leaders have not provided details on the type of government they envision, beyond saying that it would adhere to Islamic values, a clear indication the militants intend to impose their strict interpretation of Shariah law. The embassy alert underscored the deteriorating security situation in the capital amid reports that Taliban gunmen were going door-to-door, searching for Afghans who had worked for the US government or military, or for the US-backed government. The militants are threatening to arrest or punish family members if they can’t find the people they are seeking, according to former members of the Afghan government, a confidential report prepared for the United Nations and US veterans who have been contacted by desperate Afghans who served alongside them. A 31-year-old Afghan who worked for four years as an interpreter for the U.S. military said he had managed to get out of the country earlier this month. But he said the Taliban destroyed his home in Kabul and threatened his parents, who fled and were now living on the street in Kabul. The International Rescue Committee estimates that more than 300,000 Afghan civilians have been affiliated with the US since 2001, but only a minority qualify for evacuation. Biden said Friday that he would commit to airlifting Afghans who had helped the US war effort, but that Americans were his priority. “Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home,” he said. The president said that he was unaware of any Americans who had been prevented by Taliban gunmen or other obstacles from reaching the airport. But two resettlement agencies in the US reported that they had received panicked calls from Afghan American clients holding US passports or green cards who had been unable to reach the airport. In an interview Saturday morning, a 39-year-old Afghan, who said he worked as an interpreter for the US military and the US government, said an Afghan American friend holding a green card was unable to penetrate the crowds outside the airport gates and went back home in frustration. The Afghan, who asked to be identified as Mike — the name assigned to him by his US military colleagues — said the green card holder was turned away at an airport gate manned by British soldiers even after presenting the document. Biden administration officials have said they do not have an accurate count of the number of US citizens still stranded in Kabul and seeking to leave the country. Biden has aimed to quell a global furore over the chaotic evacuation that has followed the Taliban’s return to power. But with just 10 days until his deadline to withdraw all US troops, Biden conceded that for many Afghans desperate to escape the Taliban and their history of brutality, “I cannot promise what the final outcome will be.” The administration last week put out a call for volunteers across the government to help get visas processed for people from Afghanistan. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services sent out an email describing the chance to help an “extraordinary initiative,” urging any employee in any position to apply. About 22,000 people have been evacuated by the United States since the end of July, the Pentagon said. Roughly 17,000 of those people have been taken out since Aug 14, the day before the Taliban seized Kabul. Life in Afghanistan has been thrown into turmoil by the Taliban’s swift and shocking takeover of the country. Taliban fighters swept into Kabul a week ago, toppling the US-backed government and there are signs they are reprising some of the same brutal elements of the Taliban government of the late 1990s. Some women in Kabul have been beaten or threatened by Taliban gunmen for not properly covering themselves, according to residents of the capital. Afghan and international journalists have said they had been beaten or manhandled while trying to report or photograph in the capital, and demonstrators waving the black, red and green flag of Afghanistan have been assaulted by Taliban fighters. US troops prevent the entry of Afghan citizens into Kabul airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 17 and 18, 2021, in this still image obtained from a social media video. Rise to Peace via REUTERS On Saturday, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, wrote on Twitter that the Taliban had set up a three-member committee to “address media problems in Kabul.” He did not elaborate. US troops prevent the entry of Afghan citizens into Kabul airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 17 and 18, 2021, in this still image obtained from a social media video. Rise to Peace via REUTERS Witnesses at the airport described continued scenes of chaos and panic. Mike, the former translator, said he helped Taliban fighters carry two Afghan women who had fainted in the morning heat. “The women and children were screaming to the Taliban, ‘We’re going to die!'” Mike said. “They brought us a water hose.” One young family in Kabul said they were growing increasingly frightened after camping for three days outside an airport compound. The crush of people was so great that they had not been able to reach the gate to submit their names. They had been cleared for evacuation and told by British officials to come to the compound, they said, but had ended up sleeping in the open with small children — with no idea whether they would be admitted. The airport bottleneck threatened to trigger another humanitarian crisis for the beleaguered country. Relief agencies are struggling to bring food, medicine and other urgently needed supplies into Afghanistan, according to officials. Decades of war, an extended drought linked to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to widespread suffering. At least 14 million Afghans — one-third of the country’s population — are going hungry, according to the United Nations food agency. The World Food Program said this week that 2 million Afghan children were among the malnourished. Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the agency’s country director for Afghanistan, said this week that the second devastating drought in three years had destroyed crops and livestock. She said fighting this spring and summer had displaced thousands of Afghans and that a harsh winter could make things worse. In northern Afghanistan, the Taliban faced the first armed challenge to their rule, as former Afghan soldiers, aided by villagers, drove the militants out of three districts in the mountains north of Kabul, according to former Afghan officials. The fighting took place in remote valleys Friday, and details of the clashes were still trickling out. But video posted on social media showed fighters and civilians tearing down the white flag of the Taliban and raising the red, green and black Afghan national flag. The former acting defence minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, called the fighters “popular resistance forces,” in a tweet. “The resistance” he wrote, “is still alive.” ©2021 The New York Times Company

The European Commission is debating whether to push for a carbon tariff on imports from countries that do not tackle their greenhouse gas emissions, as part of climate change proposals due out this month. Supporters of the measure say it would level the playing field for European companies facing tougher domestic emissions penalties. The new rules would be part of a raft of post-2012 proposals covering issues including national emissions targets and clean energy subsidies. Unlike the European Union, neither China, India nor the United States have yet agreed to binding emissions reductions. The idea of imposing some kind of tariff on goods imported from countries with less strict controls on greenhouse gases was first put forward by former French President Jacques Chirac. But the plan has run into opposition from European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson who has said it would be hard to implement and could lead to trade disputes. A preliminary draft, seen by Reuters, says companies importing goods into the 27-nation European Union from countries that do not similarly restrict greenhouse gas emissions would have to buy EU emissions permits. A Commission official confirmed that the carbon charge issue was still under consideration, despite opposition. "It's very much debated," the official said. "It's not solved yet." The measure, which needs the backing of EU governments, would be equivalent to a carbon tariff, taxing imports based on the price of emissions permits in Europe and the amount of greenhouse gases produced in the manufacture of the goods outside the EU. UNILATERAL TARGETS The European Union says it is a leader on climate change and is alone in pushing for tough, unilateral emissions-cutting targets, saying it will cut greenhouse gases by a fifth by 2020 versus 1990 levels. France, other EU countries and energy-intensive industries in Europe, such as its steel sector, want to avoid further losses of competitiveness against producers in China and other emerging economies as well as rivals in the United States. European companies will face tougher penalties from 2013 under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme. Participants already have to buy emissions permits above a certain quota that they get for free, and the Commission will cut that quota from 2013. The preliminary draft seen by Reuters said that from 2013 electricity generators would get for free half the permits that they receive now and other companies would get 90 percent. German financial newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Friday that overall the European Commission would auction 60 percent of all emissions permits from 2013, compared with a maximum of 10 percent now and the rest given out free. The final draft may yet be changed, the Commission official said. It is due to be discussed by senior officials over the next two weeks leading up to publication on Jan. 23. After that it is up to Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, to set a timetable for discussion by EU leaders.

Created with 24 million satellite images, along with 800 curated videos and interactive guides, the feature allows users to see a timelapse of any place on the planet, using inputs from the NASA, US Geological Survey's Landsat programme and the European Union's Copernicus programme. Climate change is causing more frequent and severe flooding, droughts, storms and heatwaves as average global temperatures rise to new records. Google Earth's timelapse tool shows the change in coastlines, sprawling expansion of cityscapes and agricultural lands, as well as simultaneous recession of glaciers, forests and rivers. One video shows rapid transition of forests near Bolivia into villages and farms, a major cause for deforestation in the Amazon rainforest; while another shows the recession of the Columbia Glacier in Alaska by 20 kilometers due to global warming. Scientists have warned that a rise in global emissions of greenhouse gases may lead to extreme weather conditions and higher risks from natural disasters.

US President Barack Obama told the United Nations on Wednesday there was no short cut to Middle East peace but Palestinians said they would press on with a request for UN recognition of their nascent state. Amid frantic efforts to avert a diplomatic disaster, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the United Nations to grant the Palestinians the status of observer state, like the Vatican, while outlining a one-year roadmap to peace. A year after telling the General Assembly he hoped to see a Palestinian state born by now, the US president said creating such a state alongside Israel remained his goal. "But the question isn't the goal we seek -- the question is how to reach it. And I am convinced that there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades," he told the assembly. With US sway in the Middle East at stake, Obama had hoped to dissuade the Palestinians from asking the Security Council for statehood despite Israeli wrath and a US veto threat. But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seems determined to pursue his plan to hand an application for statehood to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday. Obama told Abbas in a meeting that UN action would not lead to a Palestinian state and that the United States would veto such a move in the Security Council, the White House said. Asked if Abbas had given any sign he might change course, Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said: "He has been very clear what his intent is ... which is to go to the Council and to begin the process of securing membership there." Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said the two leaders had reiterated their positions, without any apparent result. Obama, echoing Israel's position, told the United Nations that only negotiations can lead to a Palestinian state. "Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN," he said. "Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians -- not us -- who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem." However, it is the failure of 20 years of US-brokered negotiations that has driven Abbas to take his quest for a state to the United Nations -- a ploy that could embarrass the United States by forcing it to protect its Israeli ally against the tide of world opinion. Obama earlier met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and assured him of unwavering US support. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to hold separate talks with Abbas and Netanyahu in the evening. BLEAK PROSPECTS Although Obama said he had set out a new basis for negotiations in May, chances of reviving peace talks look bleak. The two sides are far apart. The Palestinians are divided internally and Obama will not want to risk alienating Israel's powerful US support base by pressing for Israeli concessions as he enters a tough battle for re-election next year. In more evidence of Obama's domestic constraints, a US Senate committee voted to prohibit aid to the Palestinians if they joined the United Nations. France has grown frustrated at the lack of progress, saying negotiations should be widened to include a more hands-on role for Europe given the impasse in US-led efforts. "Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters and begin negotiations," Sarkozy said. "The moment has come to build peace for Palestinian and Israeli children." Sarkozy said negotiations should begin within one month, an agreement on borders and security should be clinched within six months and a definitive agreement be reached within a year. Rhodes said there was some "overlap" between Obama and Sarkozy on their Middle East peace ideas, but they differed on Palestinian membership of the United Nations. The Palestinians see statehood as opening the way for negotiations between equals. Israel says the Palestinian move aims at delegitimizing the Jewish state. Flag-waving Palestinians rallied in West Bank city squares to back the recourse to the United Nations. The drama at the United Nations is playing out as Arab uprisings are transforming the Middle Eastern landscape. Obama pledged support for Arab democratic change, called for more UN sanctions against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and urged Iran and North Korea to meet their nuclear obligations -- twin standoffs that have eluded his efforts at resolution. Iran freed two Americans held for spying, in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a compassionate gesture before he addresses the United Nations on Thursday. DELAYING ACTION The Security Council could delay action on Abbas' request, giving the mediating "Quartet" -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- more time to craft a declaration that could coax both sides back to the table. A French presidential source said the Quartet was unlikely to issue such a declaration within the next three days. A senior Palestinian official, Nabil Shaath, said the Palestinians would give the Security Council "some time" to consider the statehood claim before they took it to the General Assembly, where Washington has no veto. Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, said Obama's speech was a disappointment, accusing him of being selective when upholding principles of freedom and self-determination. "When it comes to Palestinians suffering from an oppressive foreign military occupation, somehow ... these principles do not apply. They only apply when Arabs rebel against their own oppressive regime." Whatever happens at the United Nations, Palestinians will remain under Israeli occupation and any nominal state would lack recognized borders or real independence and sovereignty. It is a measure of their desperation that they are persisting with an initiative that could incur financial retribution from Israel and the United States. In his speech to the General Assembly, Ban asked governments to show solidarity in meeting "extraordinary challenges" for the world body, ranging from climate change to peacekeeping. "Without resources, we cannot deliver," he declared, pledging to streamline UN budgets to "do more with less."

Rich nations must come up with billions in new money to help poor countries fight global warming and not just repackage development aid to score diplomatic points, environmentalists at a meeting of top polluters said on Friday. The three-day Japan meeting gathers 20 of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases and includes rich nations the United States and other G8 states as well as rapidly developing China, India and Brazil. Funding schemes for clean energy projects and helping poor nations adapt to droughts, rising seas and more intense storms will be a major theme. But even as the talks were about to start, environmentalists spoke about poor nations' disillusionment about the management and lack of consultation about the funds, a key element in the global fight against climate change. "What seems to be happening is that you have three announcements from Japan, Britain and the U.S. that have now been combined into a World Bank special strategic climate fund," said Jennifer Morgan of environmental institute E3G. But she said the multi-billion dollar scheme did not appear to have much new money, had left developing countries out of negotiations on how the money would be used until very recently, and had quite a number of conditions attached. "It's been used by the Bush administration to promote their own major emitters' meeting process," Morgan said, referring to separate U.S. talks with big polluters outside U.N. discussions seeking a global pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol. "It is not creating a very good mood going into the G20," said Morgan. U.N.-led talks in Bali in December launched two years of negotiations on a successor to Kyoto, whose first phase ends in 2012 and so far binds only rich nations to make emissions cuts. Bali's final draft called for more financial resources and investment for developing nations, which demand rich countries cut their own emissions and pay for costly clean energy projects. "RECYCLED AID" Japan announced this year a $10 billion package to support developing countries' fight against climate change. U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged $2 billion for a clean technology fund, while Britain has pledged 800 million pounds ($1.6 billion) for a separate scheme. Britain has since asked the World Bank to administer its money and has teamed up with Japan and the United States. It is not clear how much of the Japanese and U.S. money would eventually go towards the World Bank clean technology fund. But Morgan said only the money from Britain appeared to be new and she described the Japanese money as recycled development aid. Congress has not yet approved Bush's $2 billion. The U.N. said in a report last year that the cost of returning greenhouse gas emissions to present levels by 2030 would be about $200 billion annually, through measures such as investing in energy efficiency and low-carbon renewable energy. "Even if these funds by the Japanese, the U.S. and Britain represented real, new money that totals about $14 billion over the next five years, or about one percent of the need," Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists told the briefing. Ailun Yang of Greenpeace China said Beijing needed to do more to tackle global warming and that rich countries should cooperate. "Climate change requires developing countries and developed countries to work in ways we have never done before," she said, adding China must balance development and protection for the environment. "If China fails, we will see the biggest environmental disaster in human history."

At the end of two-week talks on global warming in Marrakesh, which were extended an extra day, many nations appealed to Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, to reconsider his threat to tear up the Paris Agreement for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Showing determination to keep the Paris Agreement on track, the conference agreed to work out a rule book at the latest by December 2018. A rule book is needed because the Paris Agreement left many details vague, such as how countries will report and monitor their national pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Two years may sounds like a long time, but it took four to work out detailed rules for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement's predecessor, which obliged only developed countries to cut their emissions. Paris requires commitments by all. The final text also urged rich nations to keep building towards a goal of providing $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020. Moroccan Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar told a news conference that Marrakesh had been the start of turning promises made in Paris into action. "We will continue on the path," he said, urging Trump to join other nations in acting to limit emissions. Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who will host next year's climate meeting in Germany, invited Trump to drop his scepticism about climate change and visit the South Pacific nation to see the effects of stronger storms and rising seas. Trump plans to favour fossil fuels over renewable energies and has threatened to halt any US taxpayer funds for UN climate programmes. UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa (second from left), Morocco's Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar (centre), and Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador Bianca Jagger (second from right) celebrate after the proclamation of Marrakech, at the UN World Climate Change Conference 2016 (COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco. Reuters. On Thursday, governments reaffirmed their commitment to "full implementation" of the Paris accord which seeks to phase out greenhouse gas emissions this century and to limit a global average rise in temperature to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius. UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa (second from left), Morocco's Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar (centre), and Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador Bianca Jagger (second from right) celebrate after the proclamation of Marrakech, at the UN World Climate Change Conference 2016 (COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco. Reuters. "Not one country has said that if President Trump pulls the United States out of Paris, they will follow him," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Environmental groups said the outcome in Marrakesh was a step in the right direction, but many issues needed to be resolved over the next two years, including funds for developing nations. "Rich countries have been trying to wriggle out of their pledges to help poorer countries meet the costs of coping with impacts and greening their economies," said Harjeet Singh at ActionAid. Also on Friday, a group of 48 developing countries most at risk from climate change said they would strive to make their energy production 100 percent renewable "as rapidly as possible", as part of efforts to limit global warming.

SHANGHAI, Aug 15, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - China's carbon emissions will start to fall by 2050, its top climate change policymaker said, the first time the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases has given a timeframe for a decline, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. The comments by Su Wei did not indicate at what level emissions would top out. He restated Beijing's view that because China still needs to expand its economy to pull people out of poverty, it was too soon to discuss emissions caps, the Financial Times said. At a G8 meeting in July, China and India resisted calls to agree to a 50 percent cut in global emissions by 2050, posing a major obstacle for a new United Nations pact due to be agreed upon in Copenhagen in mid-December. "China's emissions will not continue to rise beyond 2050," the Financial Times quoted Su, director-general of the climate change department at the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top planning body, as saying in an interview. "China will not continue growing emissions without limit or insist that all nations must have the same per-capita emissions. If we did that, this earth would be ruined."

Shrinking ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is reflecting ever less sunshine back into space in a previously underestimated mechanism that could add to global warming, a study showed. Satellite data indicated that Arctic sea ice, glaciers, winter snow and Greenland's ice were bouncing less energy back to space from 1979 to 2008. The dwindling white sunshade exposes ground or water, both of which are darker and absorb more heat. The study estimated that ice and snow in the Northern Hemisphere were now reflecting on average 3.3 watts per square meter of solar energy back to the upper atmosphere, a reduction of 0.45 watt per square meter since the late 1970s. "The cooling effect is reduced and this is increasing the amount of solar energy that the planet absorbs," Mark Flanner, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan and lead author of the study, told Reuters. "This reduction in reflected solar energy through warming is greater than simulated by the current crop of climate models," he said of the findings by a team of US-based researchers and published in the journal Nature Geoscience Sunday. "The conclusion is that the cryosphere (areas of ice and snow) is both responding more sensitively to, and also driving, stronger climate change than thought," he said. As ever more ground and water is exposed to sunlight, the absorbed heat in turn speeds the melting of snow and ice nearby. Arctic sea ice, for instance, has shrunk in recent decades in a trend that the United Nations panel of climate scientists blames mainly on greenhouse gases from mankind's burning of fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars. Many studies project that Arctic sea ice could vanish in summers later this century in a trend that would undermine the hunting cultures of indigenous peoples and threaten polar bears and other animals, as well as adding to global climate change. ICE SHRINKS But Flanner said that it was impossible to draw conclusions from the study about the rate of future melting, for instance of Arctic sea ice, since it was based on only 30 years of data. "There are a lot of other things that determine climate ... this is just one of them," he said. Other factors include whether there will be more clouds in a warmer world -- whose white tops also reflect sunlight. Or there could be more water vapor that traps heat in the atmosphere. The study estimated that each degree Celsius (1.8 degree Fahrenheit) rise in temperatures would mean a decline in solar energy reflected out to space of between 0.3 and 1.1 watts per square meter from the Northern Hemisphere's snow and ice. Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere have risen by about 0.75 degree Celsius in the past three decades. The study did not look at the Southern Hemisphere, where Antarctica has far more ice but is much colder and shows fewer signs of warming. "On a global scale, the planet absorbs solar energy at a rate of about 240 watts per square meter averaged over a year. The planet would be darker and absorb an additional 3.3 watts without the Northern Hemisphere cryosphere," Flanner said.

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao got an earful from US lawmakers on North Korea and human rights on Thursday, but tried to assure the United States that China's military and trade policies were not a threat. Hu wrapped up the Washington leg of a four-day state visit with a call on leaders of the US Congress and a speech to businessmen that stressed China-US collaboration and played down disputes between the world's top two economies. "We do not engage in an arms race or pose a military threat to any country. China will never seek hegemony or pursue an expansionist policy," he told a gathering hosted by the US-China Business Council. On trade, Hu highlighted figures that showed that cheap Chinese exports had saved American consumers $600 billion over the past decade and said his country has become the biggest source of profits for many US firms. "Even in 2008 and 2009, when the international financial crisis was most severe, over 70 percent of American companies in China remained profitable," he said a day after the two countries signed deals they said were worth $45 billion. Hu did not address the currency issue that has exercised many U.S. lawmakers, who argue that China keeps its yuan weak to boost exports -- costing millions of U.S. jobs and increasing a trade gap that Washington puts at $270 billion. President Barack Obama urged Hu during their White House summit on Wednesday to let the value of the yuan [CNY/] rise against the dollar. Vice President Joe Biden said "significant discussions" in private about the yuan with Hu's delegation showed him that the Chinese understand they must work on the currency dispute that is a major irritant between the United States and China. "They indicate that they understand that -- that they have to work on it," he said. Asked whether Hu made any commitments, Biden replied: "Nothing specific." Hu arrived in Chicago on Thursday evening, where he attended a dinner hosted by Mayor Richard Daley. Leaders of some of America's biggest companies, including Caterpillar, Boeing, JP Morgan Chase, Motorola Solutions and Hyatt Hotels, were among the 500 dinner guests. In a speech focusing on the growing trade relationship, Hu urged the United States to "relax its control on technological exports" to China and called for a "level playing field" for Chinese companies competing in the U.S. market. Chicago was Hu's only stop stop outside Washington. Over 300 Chicago-area businesses have a presence in China, while China is a big buyer of Midwest crops, automobiles, steel, aerospace equipment and pharmaceuticals. DO BETTER ON RIGHTS In morning meetings with Hu in Washington, members of Congress zeroed in on human rights and trade to underscore the huge gaps between Beijing and Washington. "Chinese leaders have a responsibility to do better and the United States has a responsibility to hold them to account," John Boehner, the new Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said in a statement after meeting Hu. Analysts have called Hu's state visit the most significant by a Chinese leader in 30 years given China's growing military and diplomatic clout. But it comes at a time of strains over everything from economic policy and climate change to the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran. Two weeks before Hu's visit, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that advances by China's military in cyber and anti-satellite warfare technology could challenge U.S. forces in the Pacific. China also ran a test flight of a new stealth fighter and unveiled advances in anti-ship ballistic missiles. Underlining China's importance to the global economy, data on Thursday showed its annual growth quickened in the fourth quarter of last year to 9.8 percent, defying expectations of a slowdown. U.S. lawmakers said they urged Hu to take a stronger line on North Korea, hoping to use Beijing's influence over Pyongyang to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and resume aid-for-disarmament talks. Obama persuaded Hu to take a harder stance by warning that Washington would redeploy its forces in Asia if China did not step up pressure on North Korea, the New York Times reported, quoting a senior U.S. official. YUAN "SUBSTANTIALLY UNDERVALUED" As U.S. voter anger simmers with unemployment riding above 9 percent, lawmakers have threatened new tariffs to punish Beijing for policies that critics say undervalue the yuan by up to 40 percent against the dollar. In the past week, China's central bank has repeatedly set the mid-point for the yuan at record highs in keeping with a policy of strengthening it during important diplomatic events. But China has resisted demands for faster appreciation. While House lawmakers skipped the currency question in their meeting with Hu, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid did raise it with the Chinese leader, an aide said. And the U.S. Treasury maintained the pressure, with Assistant Treasury Secretary Charles Collyns saying Beijing has kept the yuan "substantially undervalued." Rick Larsen, the Democratic co-chairman of the bipartisan U.S.-China Working Group in the House, said China must get serious about improving U.S. access to its huge domestic market and allowing the yuan to rise. "This puts U.S. companies at a disadvantage and unfairly tilts the playing field toward domestic Chinese companies," he said in a statement. NEW CHAPTER State media in China lapped up the pomp of the visit but largely avoided mention of Wednesday's rare news conference by the two presidents, where Hu was peppered with questions about the yuan and human rights. Newspapers splashed photos of Hu with Obama across their front pages, with headlines touting a "new chapter in relations" after the $45 billion in deals that seemed aimed at quelling anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States. The Washington Post in its lead editorial lambasted Obama for what it said was his lack of candor when asked about human rights by reporters at the joint press conference. Obama, not Hu, "responded in a perfunctory manner, offered excuses for Beijing and concluded that disagreement on human rights 'doesn't prevent us from cooperating in these other critical areas,'" the Post said. Neither Boehner nor Reid attended Wednesday's White House dinner for Hu, who was called "a dictator" by the Senate majority leader in an interview this week. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell skipped the Hu visit entirely. Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, and former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi led the effort to put pressure on Hu over human rights in their meetings, congressional aides said, illustrating the bipartisan nature of concern over China's record.

This particular giant cork, formerly at 24265 Ocean Drive, was Pham’s. He had purchased the four-bedroom place in November 2020 for $275,000. “It’s definitely a feeling that you can’t explain,” said Pham, 30, a Knoxville, Tennessee, real estate agent. “Just to see something that once was there, and it’s not there anymore.” The feeling, he added, “is pretty empty.” Three prime beachfront lots are now empty on Ocean Drive, a small stretch of a charmingly scruffy Outer Banks subdivision called Trade Winds Beaches that has, to the chagrin of its property owners, become a sort of poster neighbourhood for sea-level rise — particularly since the video of Pham’s house, which collapsed Tuesday, was shared widely on social media. The once-generous stretch of beach in front of the houses has largely vanished in recent months, leaving them vulnerable to the destructive power of the Atlantic Ocean. It was Feb 9 when the first house on the street floated away. A second house, a girthy two-story place with double wraparound porches owned by Ralph Patricelli of California, was claimed by the ocean just hours before Pham’s. “I talked to a contractor who is helping us with the cleanup; he said there is nothing left of our house,” Patricelli said. “We don’t know where it’s gone. But it’s just completely gone.” The gradual nature of sea-level rise means that for many coastal communities, it can feel like a distant threat. That is not the case on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the delicate chain of barrier islands fronting the Atlantic. Federal officials say that sea levels in the area have risen roughly 1 inch every five years, with climate change being one key reason. State officials say that some Outer Banks beaches are shrinking more than 14 feet per year in some areas. “The water’s already high and the waves are coming that much further inland, eating away at sand in a way that it wouldn’t if the seas were lower,” said William Sweet, an expert on sea-level rise at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Experts and locals note that on places like Hatteras Island, a thin strip of land where Trade Winds Beaches is one of numerous imperiled neighbourhoods, beach erosion is a natural and inevitable process. Barrier islands get battered by storms on the ocean side, with the sands shifting westward, building up on the bay side. David Hallac, superintendent of the National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said that rising seas, and the increased frequency and intensity of storms, are likely intensifying the erosion on Ocean Drive, which abuts the Hatteras Island National Seashore. Patricelli, who was never a climate-change doubter, said the disappearance of his house brought the issue out of the realm of abstraction. “I think I have been naive that it’s not going to affect me on the level that it just did,” he said. “Having experienced this, I have a whole new level, in my head, of how severe climate change is.” North Carolina Highway 12, an essential two-lane route onto Hatteras Island, on May 12, 2022, was closed for more than a day this week after a storm. The New York Times The last two houses were destroyed amid a multiday nor’easter that pushed sand and wind onto North Carolina Highway 12, closing the essential two-lane route onto Hatteras Island for more than a day. On Thursday, Ocean Drive was a post-storm mess. The pavement was buried under several feet of sand, as if in a snowstorm. Splintered wood and other debris from the two houses were scattered around, spreading southward along the coast. Beach rentals with happy names (“Kai Surf House”) were mostly unoccupied. TV news crews trudged around. Mark Gray, a worker with a cleanup company, was scraping remnants of Patricelli’s house with an excavator. North Carolina Highway 12, an essential two-lane route onto Hatteras Island, on May 12, 2022, was closed for more than a day this week after a storm. The New York Times “Mother Nature’s pissed off,” he said, “or something.” Hallac stood in front of the place where Patricelli’s house used to be, wrinkling his nose as the stench from the broken septic system wafted toward him. None of this, he said, was surprising. Around the time the first house collapsed, he said, officials in Dare County, North Carolina, informed his office that eight homes on the street had been ruled unsafe for habitation. “So I reached out to homeowners and said, ‘Hey, can you move your house, or remove it?’” Hallac said. Both these options proved problematic for Ocean Drive homeowners in ways that many more property owners may experience in the next 30 years, a time period in which sea levels along US coastlines are likely to rise by 1 foot, on average, resulting in more coastal flooding, according to a multiagency federal report released in February. Robert Coleman, the owner of the house that fell in February, had considered moving or tearing down the place. He discovered that insurance companies would pay him for the house if it was destroyed by the ocean, but not if he tore it down himself. Coleman said he got in touch with a company that would move his house 35 feet inland, at a cost of $185,000. It was too much for him to stomach. So the tide took it away. “I got a call from the park service saying, ‘Your house just fell. Come get it cleaned up,’” Coleman said. The debris washed down the coast for miles. The total cleanup, he said, cost him $57,000. Patricelli said that two of his neighbours have moved their houses inland. But he said that only seemed to be buying a little time. “Moving the house doesn’t mean you’re not going to have problems,” he said. “We can see what the ocean can do.” Elsewhere on Hatteras Island, some communities have embraced a solution called beach nourishment, which involves replenishing the beach with sand pumped from offshore. But that is expensive work, and Danny Couch, a member of the Dare County Commission, said he was sceptical that he could convince the park service that such a project was necessary to protect vital infrastructure, in part because a new elevated road will soon open up next to a flood-prone stretch of Highway 12 near Ocean Drive. For now, Patricelli’s dream of having a rental investment property — one where his bicoastal family could also gather and make memories — is lost. But some beachfront houses are still attracting visitors. Just up the beach from Patricelli’s lot, Stephanie Weyer, a truck dispatcher from Pennsylvania, was enjoying a vacation with her family as best as she could, given the weather and the drama. She said she planned to come back to the same house next year — but 20 years on, she wondered if the neighbourhood would be gone. A few houses away, Matt Storey was pacing on the outdoor deck of the beachfront home he had bought in November and christened “Mermaid’s Dream.” He estimated there were roughly 70 feet of sand between the house and the beach when he closed on the property. On Thursday, the waves were lapping by the pilings of the house. Storey, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, said that he felt somewhat confident buying the house, particularly because it had been moved back from the ocean in 2018 at a cost of $200,000. He owns another place nearby, and while he expected potential erosion problems eventually, he did not anticipate them coming so fast. For now, he said, he planned to keep renting the place. But he said he worried about losing his investment. “We’re stressed out,” he said. “The worst thing that can happen is I can’t sell it, I can’t move it, I can’t get rid of it, and I can’t rent it.” Storey said his “nuclear option” was moving to Ocean Drive and living in his house full time, but that, too, came with obvious risks. “I don’t have a plan,” he said. “My plan is to ride it out.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Lars Sorensen is certain of one thing: the number of potential customers for his products is going to keep on rising as a global obesity epidemic tips more people into type 2 diabetes in the West and many developing nations.But he has a mounting fight on his hands when it comes to securing a good price for insulin and other diabetes treatments from cost-conscious reimbursement authorities around the world."Pricing is going to be challenging," Sorensen said in an interview at the drugmaker's headquarters in Bagsvaerd on the outskirts of Copenhagen, where a new spiral office complex inspired by the insulin molecule is under construction."In Europe, it is already a challenge and pricing in the United States is likely to be challenging in the future as well, with healthcare reform and concentration in the distribution chain."It has been a torrid year for the 59-year-old, who has been in the job since 2000 and acknowledges that the group is starting to think about succession planning for when he steps down, sometime before his 65th birthday.Last week he reported the group's 46th quarter of double-digit percentage sales growth in local currency terms, a record most rival drugmakers can only dream of.But the results fell short of market expectations - and a warning that sales and operating profits might only grow by high single digits in 2014 unnerved investors who have bought into the Novo story because of its long-term growth visibility. Lars Sorensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk, gestures during an interview at the company's headquarter in Bagsvaerd near Copenhagen, Credit: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer Sorensen insists the aspiration of double-digit sales growth is "still there, alive and kicking" and Novo has not given up on its long-term financial target of 15 percent operating profit growth, adding that forecasts for the following year given at this stage are "always conservative".But he admits that growing the Nordic region's biggest company by value is getting tougher, especially after a decision by the US Food and Drug Administration earlier this year to delay approval of its new long-acting insulin Tresiba.That setback opens the door to competition from Sanofi's new insulin U300, just as Eli Lilly threatens Novo's popular non-insulin diabetes drug Victoza with a potential rival called dulaglutide that may be superior.On top of all this, Novo is now encountering growing pushback on prices from healthcare insurers and governments, challenging its strategy of increasing prices and charging a premium for innovative medicines.Pricing BalanceGetting the pricing mix right is a balancing act for Novo, whose giant factory at Kalundborg, 100 km west of Copenhagen, supplies half the world's insulin, making both modern products for rich markets and cheap generics for the developing world.Up until now, the West - particularly the United States - has accepted higher prices for more convenient and effective treatments. But the climate is changing, with Novo losing a major US managed care contract with Express Scripts in the face of cheaper competition to Victoza, while austerity-hit Europe is reluctant to pay up for Novo's new drugs.It is a battle in which Sorensen believes he cannot afford to give ground."We need to price innovation at a premium, otherwise we will not be able to fund innovation going forward," he said."We could have priced ourselves into the (Express Scripts) contract had we wanted to, but we believe Victoza is a better product and therefore demands a premium."In Europe, Novo is facing resistance to the 60-70 percent price premium it is asking for Tresiba but Sorensen said he had no plans to reduce the price, even though this may mean the new medicine is never launched in Germany.For Sorensen, fighting for a fair reward for innovation is a matter of principle and he believes Europe will have to find extra funding beyond taxation - via insurance or patient co-payments - to deal with its rising healthcare burden.The stand-off, however, is unnerving for investors anxious about Novo's long-term growth story.Even after this year's setbacks, its B shares, the class of stock open to outside investors, still trade on 18 times expected earnings, against a sector average of about 14.The stock is underpinned by the knowledge that more than half a billion people are expected to be living with diabetes by 2030, up from 370 million today, according to the International Diabetes Federation.Sorensen hopes to stay around long enough to see the company well on the way to the next stage of technological breakthrough - oral pills, rather than injections, for delivering insulin and so-called GLP-1 medicines like Victoza.He thinks a GLP-1 pill could hit the market in five years, with a 50/50 chance of an insulin tablet in 6-8 years time.Novo is trailing Israel's Oramed Pharmaceuticals in clinical testing of an insulin pill, sparking speculation of a possible deal. But Sorensen said this was not on the cards since Novo doubted Oramed's approach.At a personal level, the Danish company's boss shows no signs of flagging, having recently extended his mandatory retirement age from 62 to 65. He cycles to work most days and is a keen cross-country skier, preparing to take part again in the 90-km Vasa race in Sweden this winter.Whoever takes over will have a hard act to follow but Sorensen sees good internal candidates for the job."We've bought a little time to work on diligent succession planning and we are doing that at the moment," he said. Lars Sorensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk, gestures during an interview at the company's headquarter in Bagsvaerd near Copenhagen, Credit: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Friday revived a controversial plan to hand over a swathe of rainforest to a local company to be destroyed and replaced with a sugarcane plantation. In an address to his party published in newspapers, Museveni called those who oppose his plan to give 7,100 hectares or about a quarter of Mabira Forest reserve to the private Mehta group's sugar estate "criminals and charlatans." Uganda's government scrapped the original plan in October after a public outcry and violent street protests in which three people died, including an ethnic Indian man who was stoned to death by rioters. Mehta is owned by an ethnic Indian Ugandan family. "Mehta wants to expand his factory ... in the under-utilised part of Mabira ... criminals and charlatans kicked up lies and caused death. We suppressed the thugs," Museveni said. Critics said destroying part of Mabira would threaten rare species of birds and monkeys, dry up a watershed for streams that feed Lake Victoria and remove a buffer against pollution of the lake from Uganda's two biggest industrial towns, nearby. "This issue should be resolved," Museveni said. "If we do not industrialise, where shall we get employment for the youth? I will mobilise the youth to smash ... these cliques obstructing the future of the country." Analysts say the plan to lift protection from Mabira is so unpopular that even parliament, which is hugely dominated by Museveni's supporters, would oppose it. Stopping deforestation was high on the agenda at this month's global conference on climate change in Bali. Scientists estimate some 20 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change, results from deforestation. Trees suck carbon from the air and experts say Mabira sinks millions of tons of it. Foresters estimate the value of the wood in the part of Mabira Mehta wants to axe at around $170 million and say it can be logged in a sustainable way. This compares with about $11 million per year from what Mehta expects to be 35,000 tons of sugar.

The world's rich nations must make immediate and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions or the steeply rising cost of climate change will fall disproportionately on poor countries, the World Bank said on Tuesday. In a major report on the threat of climate change, the Bank's "World Development Report" said developing countries will bear 75 to 80 percent of the costs of damage caused by climate change and rich countries, the biggest CO2 emitters in the past, have a "moral" obligation to pay for them to adapt. It said tackling climate change in developing countries need not compromise poverty-fighting measures and economic growth, but stressed that funding and technical support from rich countries will be essential. The report comes amid tough global negotiations ahead of a meeting in Copenhagen in December on a new global climate accord to combat man-made climate change, to succeed the current Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Unlike in the Kyoto talks when frictions were between Europe and the United States, current talks have focused on differences between rich and rapidly developing countries. "The countries of the world must act now, act together and act differently on climate change," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said. "Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change -- a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. For that reason, an equitable deal in Copenhagen is vitally important," he added. While the report did not take a specific position on Copenhagen, it said a deal will take a "credible commitment" by high-income countries to drastically cut their emissions. It also said developing nations must do their part and keep down the overall costs of climate change by adopting policies that reduce emissions or their growth rate. "Unless developing countries also start transforming their energy system as they grow, limiting warming to close to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels will not be achievable," it said. It said annual energy-related CO2 emissions in middle-income economies have caught up with those of the rich, and the largest share of current emissions from deforestation and other land-use change comes from tropical countries. The report said countries in Africa and South Asia could permanently lose as much as 4 to 5 percent of their gross domestic product if the earth's temperature increases 2 degrees Celsius as opposed to minimal losses in rich countries. IMPACTING POVERTY GOALS Rosina Bierbaum, one of the report's authors and Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, said climate change could disrupt U.N. goals to halve global poverty and hunger by 2015 because of the impact to agriculture and food prices. The report estimated that by 2050 the world will need to feed 3 billion more people at a time when countries are dealing with a harsher climate, with more storms, droughts and floods. Bierbaum told a news conference in Washington the cost of addressing climate change will be high but was still manageable if countries act now. The longer the delays, the harder it will be to alter infrastructures, economies and lifestyles. The report said mitigation measures in developing countries to curb emissions could cost around $400 billion a year by 2030. Currently, mitigation finance averages around $8 billion a year. In addition, annual investments that will help developing countries figure out how to live with climate change could cost around $75 billion. This compares to less than $1 billion a year currently available, the Bank said. The World Bank said the global financial crisis should not be used as an excuse to delay action to address climate change because the future climate crisis is likely to be more damaging to the world economy. "The economic downturn may delay the business-as-usual growth in emissions by a few years, but it is unlikely to fundamentally change that path over the long term," it said.

Many of Indonesia's islands may be swallowed up by the sea if world leaders fail to find a way to halt rising sea levels at this week's climate change conference on the resort island of Bali. Doomsters take this dire warning by Indonesian scientists a step further and predict that by 2035, the Indonesian capital's airport will be flooded by sea water and rendered useless; and by 2080, the tide will be lapping at the steps of Jakarta's imposing Dutch-era Presidential palace which sits 10 km inland (about 6 miles). The Bali conference is aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, on cutting climate warming carbon emissions. With over 17,000 islands, many at risk of being washed away, Indonesians are anxious to see an agreement reached and quickly implemented that will keep rising seas at bay. Just last week, tides burst through sea walls, cutting a key road to Jakarta's international airport until officials were able to reinforce coastal barricades. "Island states are very vulnerable to sea level rise and very vulnerable to storms. Indonesia ... is particularly vulnerable," Nicholas Stern, author of an acclaimed report on climate change, said on a visit to Jakarta earlier this year. Even large islands are at risk as global warming might shrink their land mass, forcing coastal communities out of their homes and depriving millions of a livelihood. The island worst hit would be Java, which accounts for more than half of Indonesia's 226 million people. Here rising sea levels would swamp three of the island's biggest cities near the coast -- Jakarta, Surabaya and Semarang -- destroying industrial plants and infrastructure. "Tens of millions of people would have to move out of their homes. There is no way this will happen without conflict," Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said recently. "The cost would be very high. Imagine, it's not just about building better infrastructure, but we'd have to relocate people and change the way people live," added Witoelar, who has said that Indonesia could lose 2,000 of its islands by 2030 if sea levels continue to rise. CRUNCH TIME AT BALI Environmentalists say this week's climate change meeting in Bali will be crunch time for threatened coastlines and islands as delegates from nearly 190 countries meet to hammer out a new treaty on global warming. Several small island nations including Singapore, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Caribbean countries have raised the alarm over rising sea levels which could wipe them off the map. The Maldives, a cluster of 1,200 islands renowned for its luxury resorts, has asked the international community to address climate change so it does not sink into a watery grave. According to a U.N. climate report, temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cm and 59 cm (seven and 23 inches) this century. Under current greenhouse gas emission levels, Indonesia could lose about 400,000 sq km of land mass by 2080, including about 10 percent of Papua, and 5 percent of both Java and Sumatra on the northern coastlines, Armi Susandi, a meteorologist at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told Reuters. Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country, has faced intense pressure over agricultural land for decades. Susandi, who has researched the impact of climate change on Indonesia, estimated sea levels would rise by an average of 0.5 cm a year until 2080, while the submersion rate in Jakarta, which lies just above sea level, would be higher at 0.87 cm a year. A study by the UK-based International Institute for Economy and Development (IIED) said at least 8 out of 92 of the outermost small islands that make up the country's borders are vulnerable. TOO MANY ISLANDS TO COUNT Less than half of Indonesia's islands are inhabited and many are not even named. Now, the authorities are hastily counting the coral-fringed islands that span a distance of 5,000 km, the equivalent of going from Ireland to Iran, before it is too late. Disappearing islands and coastlines would not only change the Indonesian map, but could also restrict access to mineral resources situated in the most vulnerable spots, Susandi said. He estimates that land loss alone would cost Indonesia 5 percent of its GDP without taking into account the loss of property and livelihood as millions migrate from low-lying coastlines to cities and towns on higher ground. There are 42 million people in Indonesia living in areas less than 10 meters above the average sea level, who could be acutely affected by rising sea levels, the IIED study showed. A separate study by the United Nations Environment Programme in 1992 showed in two districts in Java alone, rising waters could deprive more than 81,000 farmers of their rice fields or prawn and fish ponds, while 43,000 farm labourers would lose their job. One solution is to cover Indonesia's fragile beaches with mangroves, the first line of defence against sea level rise, which can break big waves and hold back soil and silt that damage coral reefs. A more expensive alternative is to erect multiple concrete walls on the coastlines, as the United States has done to break the tropical storms that hit its coast, Susandi said. Some areas, including the northern shores of Jakarta, are already fitted with concrete sea barriers, but they are often damaged or too low to block rising waters and big waves such as the ones that hit Jakarta in November. "It will be like permanent flooding," Susandi said. "By 2050, about 24 percent of Jakarta will disappear," possibly even forcing the capital to move to Bandung, a hill city 180 km east of Jakarta.

As they prepare to welcome President Joe Biden, the simple fact that he regards Europe as an ally and NATO as a vital element of Western security is almost a revelation. Yet the wrenching experience of the last presidential administration has left scars that some experts say will not soon heal. “Don’t underestimate the Trump years as a shock to the [European Union],” said Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe. “There is the shadow of his return and the EU will be left in the cold again. So the EU is more cautious in embracing US demands.” And there are serious issues to discuss, ranging from the Afghanistan pullout to military spending, Russia and China, from trade disputes and tariff issues to climate and vaccine diplomacy. Yet as much as the Europeans appreciate Biden’s vows of constancy and affection, they have just witnessed how 75 years of US foreign policy can vanish overnight with a change in the presidency. And they fear that it can happen again — that America has changed, and that Biden is “an intermezzo” between more populist, nationalist presidents, said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, vice president of the German Marshall Fund. They know that Biden’s policies will have price tags discreetly attached. They are not sure, for example, how his commitment to a “foreign policy for the middle class” differs from Trump’s “America first.” They also know that the electoral clock is ticking, with Germany set to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel in September, May’s French presidential election and the US midterms only 17 months away, which could limit Biden’s room to maneuver. Still, Biden’s visits to NATO on June 14 and then the EU for brief summits, after his attendance at the Group of 7 in Britain, will be more than symbolic. The meetings are synchronised so that he can arrive in Geneva on June 16 with allied consultation and support for his first meeting as president with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. “The hopeful, optimistic view is that Biden is kicking off a new relationship, showing faith in Brussels and NATO, saying the right words and kicking off the key strategic process” of renovating the alliance for the next decade, said Jana Puglierin, Berlin director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “But Biden also wants to see bang for the buck, and we need to show tangible results. This is not unconditional love, but friends with benefits.” François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst, sees only positives from the Biden trip. “The US is back, Biden’s back; there’s nothing cynical here,” said Heisbourg, a special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. “Biden has some strong views, and he is determined to implement them. International affairs are not his priority, but his basic positioning is ‘Let’s be friends again, to reestablish comity and civility with allies.’” But eventually, Heisbourg said, “policy reviews have to become policy.” Ivo Daalder, who was US ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama, sees the whole trip as “part of ‘We’re back,’ and important to show that alliances and partners matter, that we want to work with other countries and be nice to our friends. Even the G-7 will be like that.” But he and others note that Biden has not yet named ambassadors to either NATO or the EU — or to most European countries, for that matter — let alone had them confirmed. For now, officials insist, that absence is not vital, and many of the most likely candidates are well known. Daalder said allies, at some point, need ambassadors who they know can get on the phone immediately with the secretaries of state and defense and, if necessary, Biden. The NATO summit meeting of 30 leaders will be short, with one 2 1/2-hour session after an opening ceremony, which would leave just five minutes for each leader to speak. The leaders will agree on a communique now being negotiated, discuss the Afghanistan withdrawal and sign off on an important yearlong study on how to remodel NATO’s strategic concept to meet new challenges in cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence, antimissile defense, disinformation, “emerging disruptive technologies” and numerous other issues. In 2010, when the strategic concept was last revised, NATO assumed that Russia could be a partner and China was barely mentioned. The new one will begin with very different assumptions. NATO officials and ambassadors say there is much to discuss down the road, questions such as how much and where a regional trans-Atlantic alliance should try to counter China, and what capabilities NATO needs and how many of them should come from common funding or remain the responsibility of member countries. How to adapt to the EU’s still vague desire for “strategic autonomy” while encouraging European military spending and efficiency and avoiding duplication with NATO is another concern. So is the question of how to make NATO a more politically savvy institution, as French President Emmanuel Macron has demanded, perhaps by establishing new meetings of member states' key officials, including state national security advisers and political directors. More quietly, leaders will begin to talk in bilateral sessions about replacing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, whose term was extended for two years to keep matters calm during the Trump presidency. His term ends in September 2022. The other main issues for this brief NATO summit meeting will be topical: how to manage Afghanistan during and after withdrawal, Putin’s Russia, Xi Jinping’s China and Aleksandr Lukashenko’s Belarus. Anyone interested in trains running on time will find the NATO summit compelling, said the ambassador of a NATO country. Those who are more interested in trains that collide will be disappointed. The same will be true of Biden’s June 15 meeting, which is grandly called a summit with the European Union. Biden is scheduled to meet with two of the EU's presidents, Charles Michel of the European Council, who represents the leaders of the 27-member states, and Ursula von der Leyen, who runs the European Commission, the bloc’s powerful bureaucracy. Biden will have met 21 of the 27 EU leaders the previous day at NATO, since there is considerable overlap in the two organizations. Key exceptions are Turkey, a NATO member that is troublesome in its effort to balance relations with Russia and its enmity toward Greece, and Cyprus, an EU member that blocks most coordination with NATO because of its enmity toward Turkey. The bloc has a wide range of issues to discuss, including tariff and trade disputes stemming from Airbus and Boeing, and steel and aluminium; and new issues such as how to enforce a new a minimum global corporate tax rate under an important agreement reached Saturday by the G-7 finance ministers. Other issues include data transfer; military spending and procurement; military mobility; transition to a carbon-neutral economy, including carbon pricing; how to regulate global technology giants and social media companies; how to reform key multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and the World Health Organisation; and, of course, how best to deal with a rising China and an aggressive Russia. There is wariness, too, and not just about the possibility that another Trump-like president could follow Biden. Despite warm words of consultation, German officials in particular believe that Biden’s decision to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan by Sept 11 was made unilaterally in the old pattern, with Washington deciding and the allies following along, Puglierin said. Similarly, European leaders were angered and embarrassed by Biden’s decision to support the waiver of intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines. That move, after mounting domestic criticism, was done without warning to allies, let alone consultation. Europeans do not see China as the peer rival that Washington does and remain more dependent than the United States on both China and Russia for trade and energy. And some worry that Biden’s effort to define the world as a competition between democracy and authoritarianism is too black-and-white. “Touching base with allies before the Putin summit is important and goes beyond symbolism,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s International Affairs Institute. “But Europeans are deluding themselves that things can go back the way they were.” Europeans need to step up, she said, and work with Biden to get agreements on key issues such as climate, vaccines and trade “that can create a Western critical mass that spills into a broader, global multilateral agreement.” That is the best way, she said, to show that “democracy delivers.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Dhaka, Mar 15 (bdnews24.com)—The government is optimistic over fair distribution of Teesta waters between Bangladesh and India, said a minister on Sunday, though co-speakers at a conference highlighted the challenges for managing the country's water resources. Discussion with India is continuing over distribution of waters, said food and disaster management minister Abdur Razzaque at the international conference on water and flood management. He said he hoped the successful resolution in Ganges water sharing would be duplicated in the case of the Teesta. Though 57 rivers of India enter Bangladesh, he said, a water-sharing agreement had been reached for only the Ganges. He said Dhaka and New Delhi would discuss the Tipai Mukh dam project in the Indian state of Manipur, addressing its impact on the Surma, Kushaira and Meghna rivers. The dam has already been given the go-ahead by the Indian government. A.M.M. Shafiullah, vice chancellor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said three major rivers of the sub-continent fall into Bangladesh making the water resources system extremely complex and its management a big challenge. Fritz Meijndert, Dutch deputy ambassador and head of development cooperation at the mission, said long term vision and commitment was required to manage water resources. He said it could not be managed without addressing climate change. Bangladesh had a strategy to face climate change, but lacked the broader vision over the next 10 to 50 years, he said. He pledged the Netherlands' support for Bangladesh's water management. The three-day conference, to end Monday, was being held by the BUET Institute of Water and Flood Management at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Centre. A total 135 experts from 13 countries, including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, UK, USA, Nepal, Australia, Japan and France, are participating.

While the bill stopped short of realising his full-scale ambitions for overhauling America’s transportation and energy systems, Biden pointed to it as evidence that lawmakers could work across party lines to solve problems in Washington and said it would better position the United States against China and other nations seeking to dominate the emerging industries of the 21st century economy. Hours before a virtual summit with President Xi Jinping of China, whose infrastructure initiatives have helped vault China to global leadership in advanced manufacturing and other areas, Biden said the bill showed democratic governments can deliver for their citizens. “My message for the American people is this: America’s moving again, and your life’s going to change for the better,” Biden said during remarks at the White House. But it will not address the nation’s entire backlog of needed infrastructure investments, and it is not as ambitious as Biden’s initial $2.3 trillion proposal. The compromises that were needed to win over a large group of Senate Republicans pared back the president’s ambitions for investing in “human infrastructure” like home health care and fortifying the nation’s physical infrastructure to fight and adapt to climate change. Still, administration officials and a wide range of outside economists and business groups largely agree that the measure is the most important step in a generation toward upgrading critical infrastructure — and that it could soon begin to pay dividends for a wide range of businesses and people, from electric vehicle manufacturers to rural web surfers. Some of the first bursts of spending will go toward areas that Biden prioritized in negotiations, like tens of billions of dollars to improve access to broadband internet and to replace hazardous lead drinking pipes nationwide. Spending has already been announced to help clear backlogs at the nation’s ports, which are contributing to shipping delays and price increases as the United States sees a pandemic surge in demand for consumer goods, many of which are imported. The infrastructure spending will not jolt the American economy like a traditional economic stimulus plan, nor is it meant to. Officials say the administration will focus as much on “shovel-worthy” projects — meaning those that make the most of federal dollars — as they will on “shovel-ready” ones that would dump money into the economy more quickly. The package was designed to deliver money over several years, in part to avoid fuelling more price increases across an economy that is experiencing its highest inflation rate in decades. Biden and his advisers say they expect the package to deliver a variety of benefits that will power economic growth over time, including leaner supply chains, faster and more equitably distributed internet access and improved educational outcomes for children who will no longer be exposed to water-based lead that stunts brain development. The challenge for Biden is to convince an increasingly uneasy American public that the bill will lead to improvements in their lives. Soaring prices for food, gas and household items have chipped away at the president’s approval ratings. “This is not designed to be stimulus,” Cecilia Rouse, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. “It’s designed to be the most strategic, effective investments so that we can continue to compete against China and other countries that are making bigger investments in their infrastructure.” “We will see investments starting next year,” she added, “beginning with our ports, and beginning with other areas where we know we are far behind.” Other core components of the bill include money meant to build as many as 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations and improve the nation’s electric grids, as part of an effort to speed the transition to energy and transportation systems that burn fewer of the fossil fuels that are warming the planet. “With the combination of this investment and where we know the industry is going,” said Brian Deese, who heads Biden’s National Economic Council, “we believe this will be the beginning of a real transformation in our vehicle infrastructure.” It also features tens of billions each for rebuilding roads and bridges, upgrading freight and passenger rail systems and cleaning up environmental pollution. The legislation was the product of intense negotiations spanning much of the first year of Biden’s presidency, and of the backslapping, coalition-building politics the president has relished in a government career stretching back to the 1970s. Biden brokered agreements first with Senate Republicans, 18 of whom ultimately voted for the bill, and then with progressive Democrats in the House, who held up its final passage in order to raise pressure on centrists in Biden’s party to support a larger spending bill focused on climate change, early childhood and a wide range of social policy. About $550 billion of the bill represents an increase over current spending levels. Researchers at the nonpartisan Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution estimate that money will increase federal infrastructure spending as a share of the economy by half over the next five years, putting it nearly on par with the infrastructure provisions of the New Deal under President Franklin D Roosevelt. If Biden’s $1.85 trillion spending bill — including more spending on climate — also passes the House and Senate, they estimate, the increased infrastructure spending will eclipse the New Deal. That increase will challenge the government’s ability to spend money on time and effectively. On Sunday, Biden appointed Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, to oversee that effort. “Implementing a historic bill like this will test all of our management facilities,” said Adie Tomer, who leads the Metropolitan Policy Programme’s infrastructure work. The challenges, he said, include “hiring federal, state, and local officials to direct programming; finding enough skilled tradespeople to execute the work; and securing equipment and materials during a major supply chain crunch.” Liberal economists fault the package for not spending enough, particularly on climate. “Overall, the bill is a step in the right direction,” said Mark Paul, an economist at the New College of Florida. “But we need far, far more investment in infrastructure — from the care economy to the green economy — if we are to build a strong and resilient economy for the 21st century.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Global energy demand is expected to soar 44 percent over the next two decades with most of the demand coming from developing countries such as China and Russia, the U.S. government's top energy forecasting agency said on Wednesday. The worldwide economic downturn has hit energy consumption, but an expected recovery next year could respark demand and boost prices, the Energy Information Administration said in its new forecast. U.S. oil prices are forecast to rise from an average $61 barrel this year to $110 in 2015 and $130 in 2030. Oil prices "begin to rise in 2010-2011 period as the economy rebounds and global demand once again grows more rapidly than non-OPEC liquid supply," EIA acting administrator Howard Gruenspecht told a news conference. Global oil demand is expected to rise to 107 million barrels per day over the next two decades from nearly 84 million bpd this year. Oil will account for 32 percent of the world's energy supply by 2030 from about 36 percent in 2006. Almost 75 percent of the rise in global energy demand through 2030 will occur in developing countries, particularly China, India, Russia and Brazil, the agency said. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will continue to provide 40 percent of the world's oil supplies during the period. Renewable energy, like wind and solar power, will be the fastest growing energy source, making up 11 percent of global supplies. Biofuels, including ethanol and biodiesel, are expected to reach 5.9 million bpd by 2030. The EIA said its long-term forecast does not reflect efforts the United States may take to cut greenhouse gas emissions or an expected international agreement to curb greenhouse gases. Gruenspecht said the agency will analyze the possible impact of climate change legislation approved last week by the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. But he said the bill may not change energy use initially, citing carbon dioxide emission limits and the allowed transfer of carbon cuts to developing countries. "One could imagine that one could comply at least with the 2020 part of this proposal calling for a 17 percent reduction (from 2005 levels) just using the offsets and not having a significant change in our consumption or the way we use energy at all," Gruenspecht said. If global climate change laws and policies don't change, world energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will rise by a third to 40 billion metric tons a year, the agency said. The EIA's report also found that global natural gas demand will increase by almost 50 percent to 153 trillion cubic feet. The agency said that unconventional natural gas production, particularly from gas shale, will make the United States "virtually self sufficient in natural gas supply in 2030." To see the forecast growth for OPEC oil production, please click here: here The EIA's forecast also predicts that in 2030: * World production of unconventional petroleum resources, including oil sands, extra-heavy oil and coal-to-liquids, will quadruple to 13.4 million bpd, representing 13 percent of total global petroleum supplies. * Iraq's crude oil production will jump from 2 million bpd to 5 million bpd. * China's electricity generation from coal-fired power plants will triple.

Forensic police sifted through ash and the twisted remains of houses on Wednesday to identify those killed in the nation's deadliest bushfires, but some are so badly burnt they may never be identified. "In some of these cases it will be weeks before positive identification can be made," Victoria state premier John Brumby said, as the official toll was put at 181 but media said could reach as high as 300. One razed town, Marysville, may have an additional 100 dead, said local media. Fire authorities fear that up to 100 of its 519 residents may have perished in the blaze that left only a dozen homes standing. The town has been sealed off to the public because of the horrific scenes, Brumby said. "The toll is going to be massive," said firefighter John Munday, who was in Marysville 10 minutes before the firefront swept through the town on Saturday night. "We had people banging on the sides of our tanker begging us to go back to houses where they knew there were people trapped, but we couldn't because if we had, we'd all be dead too." The fires tore through rural towns north of Melbourne on Saturday night, fanned by strong winds and heatwave temperatures. Melbourne's temperature on Saturday hit 46.4 degrees Celsius, a record for the city. The disaster area, more than twice the size of London and encompassing more than 20 towns north of Melbourne, has been declared a crime zone. More than 750 homes have been destroyed. FIRES STILL RAGE More than 4,000 firefighters are still battling some 33 fires in Victoria state, with 23 of those still out of control. Victoria state police have launched the nation's biggest arson investigation, dubbed "Operation Phoenix", and have posted a A$100,000 reward for the conviction of anyone for deliberately starting the fire. The tragedy is the worst natural disaster in Australia in 110 years. The previous worst bushfire was the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 which killed 75 people. The fires have increased pressure on the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to take firm action on climate change as scientists blamed global warming for conditions that fuelled the disaster. Australia is particularly vulnerable to climate change because of its hot, dry environment, but dependent on coal-fired power, Rudd has set a target to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by only 5 percent by 2020. Australia is the most fire-prone country on earth, say scientists, and most of its bushfires are ignited by lightning. Fire officials monitor lightning strikes and any fire that does not correspond with a strike is assumed to be started by people, either accidentally or deliberately. Victoria has ordered a Royal Commission of Inquiry to probe all aspects of the bushfires, including safety guidelines. Officials say the golden rule of surviving forest fires is to evacuate early or stay and defend their homes, but experts say that it appears many victims panicked and fled at the worst time. Some were incinerated in cars as they tried to outrun the flames.

He took office promising cautious reforms but almost halfway through his term, critics say Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's real agenda may be different -- to keep the Kremlin seat warm for a return by Vladimir Putin. Nearly two years after his election, analysts say there is scant evidence that Medvedev is implementing promises to open Russia's controlled political system, modernise its oil-fuelled economy, fight corruption and establish the rule of law. Local elections in October were dubbed Russia's dirtiest ever by opposition leaders. NGOs and business chiefs say corruption is as bad or worse. Kremlin-friendly regional bosses accused of unethical behaviour have been re-appointed. And abuses of police and court power are reported each day. "Medvedev has shown he doesn't want to reform," said Vladimir Ryzhkov, who served as the last independent deputy in the State Duma (Russian parliament) until changes to election law prevented him running again in 2007. "He keeps doing a few very small cosmetic things to pretend to reform but in fact there are no real reforms." Asked to list Medvedev's achievements since his March 2008 election, the Kremlin said it was preparing detailed information for the press to mark his two years in office in May this year but did not have such information available now. Medvedev's spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said the president would focus this year on more reforms to the political system, improving the investment climate, pacifying the troubled North Caucasus and agreeing a nuclear arms pact with Washington. State-run media has tried to boost the president's image -- an analysis by the Interfax news agency said references to Medvedev in Russian media last year outweighed those to Putin. But pollsters say rising prosperity and greater stability during Putin's 2000-2008 presidency has made him much more popular among ordinary people than Medvedev. This popularity continues now in Putin's role as prime minister. Russia's elite also respects Putin more. A typical example -- Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov referred to Putin several times in a Reuters interview last month, terming him a "very strong leader of world stature". He did not mention Medvedev. Hopes among Western powers that Medvedev would prove a more pliable and accommodating partner than Putin quickly evaporated, as Medvedev led Russia into a brief war with Georgia in 2008. Last year, Moscow raised hopes it would finally enter the World Trade Organisation, ink a nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States and agree to tough sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme -- only to disappoint on all three so far. In each case, officials say privately, Putin had the final say, not his formal superior Medvedev. This shows where power lies in Russia's ruling "tandem". Officials at the Kremlin and at the White House (Putin's prime ministerial offices) insist publicly that the "tandem" is a close and productive working relationship of two equals who respect each other's constitutional areas of competence. An example: Medvedev convened a meeting last week to discuss reforms to Russia's political system, so dominated by the Kremlin's United Russia bloc that critics compare it to the Soviet-era Communist Party. But Putin had the last word: "We should continually think about perfecting Russia's political system. But we must act...in this area with extreme caution," he said. "The political system must not wobble like runny jelly with every touch". "Putin's message was clear," said one senior diplomat. "There will be no serious political reform in Russia". Investors are also clear about where power lies. Asked how Russian markets would react to a Medvedev departure, one chief strategist replied at a Moscow bank replied: "Not a blip." When asked the same question about Putin, the answer was "mayhem". Nonetheless, the frequent differences in public tone between Putin and Medvedev have led some Russia-watchers to speculate about arguments between them, or even to suggest a power struggle might be taking place inside the elite. Promoters of Medvedev are especially keen on spreading that message to burnish his reformist credentials, diplomats say. In this version of events, Medvedev's lack of reform achievements is explained because he is moving cautiously so as not to upset Putin. Boosters of the president insist that at some unspecified future time Medvedev will move more boldly. But many close to the circles of power dismiss such talk. Opposition journalist Yulia Latynina has argued that it is impossible to have a struggle between a man who holds all the power (Putin) and a man who has none (Medvedev). Sceptics also argue that Medvedev, a consummate insider who has worked closely with Putin for 19 years, is highly unlikely to have a reform agenda which he has kept secret for so long from his boss -- a very well-informed former KGB spy. Many informed commentators believe that barring an upset such as a major financial crisis, Putin is likely to return in 2012 to the presidency, taking advantage of a constitutional reform extending the next Kremlin chief's term to six years _ the most significant political reform Medvedev has enacted. Re-election could take Putin, now 57, through to 2024 before he would be obliged by the constitution to leave office. Putin is more popular and more trusted than Medvedev, said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, an expert on the Russian elite and member of United Russia. "I'm just back from a trip to the provinces and everyone believes Putin will come back in 2012, that's the popular view. I share this view...Putin has more resources and more support".

The top US environmental official was to visit the Gulf Coast on Sunday as energy giant BP Plc scrambled to contain a widening oil spill. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson planned to return to the Gulf to monitor the EPA's response, while Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was to travel to the BP Command Center in Houston to get an update from the federal science team working on the problem. The two Cabinet members' missions underscore the rising political and economic stakes for the Obama administration in dealing with the environmental disaster, which grows worse as oil gushes from a ruptured well on the sea floor. Salazar was also to address the media the day after US President Barack Obama blamed the spill on "a breakdown of responsibility" at BP. Obama also unveiled a commission to investigate the disaster. The Democratic president, in his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, said offshore drilling could go forward only if there were assurances that such accidents would not happen again. The spill has raised major questions about Obama's earlier proposal to expand offshore drilling as part of strategy to win Republican support for climate change legislation. Analysts say mounting ecological and economic damage could also become a political liability for Obama before November's congressional elections. POLITICAL PRESSURE While also promising to hold Washington accountable for proper oversight of the industry, Obama ramped up pressure on companies linked to the spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd "First and foremost, what led to this disaster was a breakdown of responsibility on the part of BP and perhaps others, including Transocean and Halliburton," Obama said in his toughest remarks yet on companies linked to the spill. "And we will continue to hold the relevant companies accountable," he said. BP stocks have taken a beating in the markets in the month since the well blowout and rig explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off the spill. Its share price shed another 4 percent on Friday in London, extending recent sharp losses. Sheets of rust-colored heavy oil are clogging fragile marshlands on the fringes of the Mississippi Delta, damaging fishing grounds and wildlife. Many believe it has already become the worst US oil spill, eclipsing the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska. In his executive order announcing former Democratic Senator Bob Graham and and former EPA chief William Reilly would co-chair the commission, Obama also made his first reference to the possibility of a criminal probe. BP made no immediate comment on Obama's suggestion that it was to blame for the deep-sea disaster. But the company's chief executive, Tony Hayward, said he welcomed the establishment of the commission and pledged to work with its co-chairmen. BP and the EPA are locking horns over the dispersants the company is using to try to contain the spill. The spill has hurt fishermen because federal authorities have closed a wide slew of Gulf waters to fishing. Wildlife and migrating birds have also suffered. So far, 86 birds, including brown pelicans, have been found dead across four states, and 34 are being treated for oil damage, said the US Fish and Wildlife Service. But this is probably a fraction of the total, since most birds affected by the spill would likely not be found, said Sharon Taylor, a vet and contaminant expert with the Service. "If you look at the vast ocean of where the spill has been and the time frame, most of us realize there are many wildlife affected that we will never know or get to," she said. BP on Friday revised downward an earlier estimate that one of its containment solutions, a 1-mile (1.6 km)-long siphon tube inserted into the larger of two seabed leaks, was catching 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) of oil per day. Its latest figures show 2,200 barrels a day. The company's next planned step is a "top kill" -- pumping heavy fluids and then cement into the gushing well to plug it. Many scientists dismiss an original 5,000 bpd estimate of the total leaking oil -- often defended by BP executives -- as ridiculously low and say it could be 70,000 barrels (2.9 million gallons/11 million litres) per day or more.

She promised that the project would be implemented without any adverse impact on the Sundarbans. The issue was raised by former US vice president Al Gore at a plenary session titled ‘Leading the Fight Against Climate Change’ at the Davos Congress Centre on Wednesday. The prime minister highlighted that location of the proposed power plant as being 14km away from the extreme boundary of the Sundarbans and 70 km away from the World Heritage Site. "She also pointed out that the power plant would be using clean coal and modern technology to reduce the impact on the surrounding environment,” said Deputy Press Secretary to the PM Nazrul Islam. The prime minister also invited Gore to come to Bangladesh and see for himself the location, he said. Bangladesh has signed a deal with India to set up the 1,320-megawatt thermal power plant in Bagerhat's Rampal, 14 kilometres off the Sundarbans. Environmentalists and leftist parties have been opposing it saying that the coal-fired power plant will threaten the ecological balance of the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest of the world. The government, however, maintains that proper measures will be taken to protect the environment from pollution. "The prime minister told the plenary session in Davos that some people are unnecessarily creating an issue out of it," said Deputy Press Secretary to the PM Islam. He said Hasina assured the session that she herself will not clear any project if it posed any threat to the environment. Apart from the former US vice president, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, HSBC Group CEO Stuart Gulliver and Cofco Agri CEO Jingtao Chi attended the session.

A controversial European Union policy called the Renewable Energy Directive drove this transition by counting biomass — organic material like wood, burned as fuel — as renewable energy and subsidising its use. A trans-Atlantic industry developed, logging American forests and processing the material into pellets, which are then shipped to Europe. But critics have long argued that the subsidies actually have few climate benefits and should be scrapped. Late Tuesday in Brussels, a committee of the European Parliament voted to make substantial changes to how the union subsidises biomass and how it counts emissions from burning it — policies with major consequences if passed by the full Parliament. It’s part of a broad package of climate policies that would alter not only the way Europe generates electricity in coming years, but also for how the EU meets its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “This vote is a historic breakthrough,” said Martin Pigeon, a forests and climate campaigner with Fern, a nonprofit group focused on European forests. “For the first time, a major EU regulatory body makes clear that one of the EU’s most climate-wrecking policies of the last decade, incentivizing the burning of forests in the name of renewable energy, has to stop.” Wood, of course, is unlike oil or coal because trees can be regrown, pulling planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the air. But it takes a century, on average, for the carbon dioxide emissions from burned wood to be reabsorbed in a growing forest, during which time the released carbon dioxide is contributing to global warming. Burning wood to generate electricity also releases more carbon dioxide than fossil fuels to produce the same amount of energy. But under the previous EU rules, emissions from biomass weren’t counted toward the bloc’s pledges to reduce greenhouse gases. Other changes proposed this week would eliminate most public financial support for biomass, including direct subsidies and indirect measures like rebates or tax credits. The rules also begin to count emissions from biomass and restrict access to certain kinds of “green” financing. Bas Eickhout, a Dutch politician and member of the European Parliament who advocated for the revisions, said they would take the important step of defining “primary woody biomass,” which is essentially wood harvested directly from forests. (The definition agreed to this week offers exceptions for wood sourced from trees damaged by fires, pests and disease.) “This would reduce the incentives for burning wood for energy,” Eickhout said, encouraging the use of industrial waste, like scraps or sawdust, rather than unprocessed wood, as well as shifting the focus to other forms of renewable energy altogether. But not everyone is happy with the proposed changes. A coalition of 10 EU member states, led by Sweden, issued a statement this past winter saying that the amendments risked Europe’s ability to achieve its pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. “These frequent changes of the legislative framework undermine the stability of the market and hamper the will to invest in renewable energy,” said Khashayar Farmanbar, the Swedish energy minister, who was one of the letter’s authors. He added that reducing biomass availability would make Europe’s energy transition “more difficult, including to rapidly phase out fossil fuels from Russia.” Representatives of the wood pellet industry also raised objections. “Excluding primary biomass would set back efforts to achieve European energy security, raise energy prices for consumers and put the EU’s climate goals far out of reach,” the US Industrial Pellet Association, an industry group, wrote in a statement. Biomass has seen tremendous growth over the past decade. Before the 2009 passage of the Renewable Energy Directive, which categorised it as renewable, essentially almost no European energy came from biomass. Since then, it has boomed into a $10-billion-a-year industry, and now produces around 60% of what the EU considers renewable energy. These wood-burning plants would be allowed to continue operating under the revised policy, although they would no longer be eligible for subsidies. Last year was the first time biomass in Europe was profitable without government support. This has sparked worries about the continued burning of wood, said Mary S. Booth, an ecologist and director of the Partnership for Policy Integrity, a nonprofit group that promotes data-driven policy. “Burning wood emits carbon,” she said. “It’s basic physics.” The effects of Tuesday’s changes could stretch across the Atlantic to the southeastern United States, where much of Europe’s biomass is harvested. More than 1 million acres of American forest have been cut for biomass, amplifying climate risks like flooding and landslides. Yet this week’s vote is just the first step in a long process. After leaving the Environment Committee, the proposed changes will still need to be adopted by the European Parliament this summer, leaving time for lobbying and further amendments. If the measure passes, national governments would still need to enact the changes into law. In addition to forest products, changes to food and feed-crop biofuel standards were also passed by the committee. Eickhout also argued for changes to limit the use of biofuels in transportation, citing the current food price spikes. This week the committee called for a phase-out of products like palm and soy by as early as next year. These are crops that often lead to land use changes, including deforestation. ©2022 The New York Times Company

Cape Town Apr 25 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A group of developing countries, among the world's fastest-growing carbon emitters, said on Sunday a legally binding global agreement to limit climate change needed to be completed by 2011 at the latest. Environment ministers of the so-called BASIC bloc -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- met in Cape Town to look at how to fast-track such a deal to curb global warming. "Ministers felt that a legally binding outcome should be concluded at Cancun, Mexico in 2010, or at the latest in South Africa by 2011," the ministers said in a joint statement, referring to U.N. climate talks. Jairam Ramesh, India's environment and forestry minister, told reporters: "Right now it looks as if we will have to come back to Cape Town in 2011. There is no breakthrough in sight ... we have a long way to go." The Kyoto Protocol, which the United States did not ratify, binds about 40 developed nations to cutting emissions by 2008-12. U.N. climate meetings have failed to reach a legally binding agreement on what happens post-2012. More than 100 countries have backed a non-binding accord, agreed in Copenhagen last year, to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, but it did not spell out how this should be achieved. It included a goal of $100 billion (65.08 billion pounds) in aid for developing nations from 2020. The United States supports the Copenhagen Accord but many emerging economies do not want it to supplant the 1992 U.N. Climate Convention, which more clearly spells out that rich nations have to take the lead in cutting emissions and combating climate change. The BASIC ministers on Sunday proposed to use $10 billion of "fast-start funding" this year to test and demonstrate ways of adapting to and mitigating climate change. They said the world could not wait indefinitely for the United States, the second-biggest carbon emitter after China, to pass domestic legislation needed to conclude negotiations. A bipartisan working group on Saturday delayed a compromise climate change bill, a top priority of President Barack Obama that has been closely watched by other nations sceptical of U.S. commitment to fight global warming. "Of course there is no way to fight climate change without the United States and we believe that we can be able to build an agreement that (would enable) the United States to come on board," Izabella Teixeira, Brazil's environment minister, told journalists. Her South Africa counterpart, Buyelwa Sonjica, said if the United States did not soon pass necessary domestic climate laws, "that would impact on vulnerable countries, making them remain at risk." Emissions from industrial countries fell by 2.2 percent in 2008 as the world fell into recession, the sharpest fall since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Experts say there is no basis for believing the decline was the result of a coordinated effort to tackle emissions. Industrialised nations have been unwilling to take on new commitments beyond 2012 unless major emerging nations, such as India and China, also sign up.

US President Joe Biden will attend a meeting of the G7 advanced economies in person in Britain in June, where he is expected to focus on what he sees as a strategic rivalry between democracies and autocratic states, particularly China. Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser to Biden and deputy director of the National Economic Council, said the G7 meeting in Cornwall would focus on health security, a synchronised economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, concrete actions on climate change, and "elevating shared democratic values within the G7." "These are like-minded allies, and we want to take tangible and concrete actions that show our willingness to coordinate on non-market economies, such as China," Singh, who is helping to coordinate the meeting, told Reuters in an interview. "The galvanising challenge for the G7 is to show that open societies, democratic societies still have the best chance of solving the biggest problems in our world, and that top-down autocracies are not the best path," he said. Singh said Washington has already taken strong actions against China over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, but would seek to expand the effort with G7 allies. Joint sanctions against Chinese officials accused of abuses in the province were announced last month by the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada. China denies all accusations of abuse and has responded with punitive measures of its own against the EU. Singh said details were still being worked out ahead of the meeting, but the summit offered an opportunity for US allies to show solidarity on the issue. "We've made our views clear that our consumers deserve to know when that the goods they're importing are made with forced labour," he said. "Our values need to be infused in our trading relationships." Washington, he said, would be looking for the G7 to take clear steps "to elevate our shared values, as democracies and, and those certainly apply to what's going on Xinjiang." Activists and UN rights experts say at least 1 million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang. The activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labour and sterilisations. China says its camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism. The White House said on Friday that Biden will travel to the United Kingdom and Belgium in June for his first overseas trip since taking office, including a stop at the G7 Summit in Cornwall, UK, from June 11-13.

The Liberals had won or were leading in 156 out of 338 seats in Monday's vote, according to Elections Canada. That put the Liberals far short of the 170 seats needed for a second straight majority government. "You did it, my friends. Congratulations," Trudeau told supporters in Montreal early on Tuesday. Trudeau, who took power in 2015 as a charismatic figure promising "sunny ways," saw his popularity drop over old photos of him in blackface and his handling of a corporate corruption case. He will now have to rely on the New Democratic Party (NDP) to push through key legislation. Although the NDP had a disappointing night, as the number of seats it was projected to win was down sharply from the 2015 election, the party could exercise significant influence over Trudeau's next government. "I think a Liberal government supported by the NDP is likely going to lean farther left," said John Manley, a former Liberal finance minister who now works in the private sector. "It raises a series of issues about what are the demands that an NDP party would make. What's the price of governing going to be? And I think businesses are going to be reluctant to make any moves until they get some satisfaction around that." Minority governments in Canada rarely last more than 2-1/2 years. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he had spoken with Trudeau and vowed to "work hard to deliver on the country's priorities." Ahead of the vote, polls showed a tight race between Trudeau and his main rival, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. The Conservatives, who trailed on Monday with 121 seats, actually won the national popular vote, according to preliminary results. Trudeau, 47, who has championed diversity as prime minister, was endorsed by former U.S. President Barack Obama in the final stretch of the campaign and is viewed as one of the last remaining progressive leaders among the world's major democracies. But the son of the late Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau also had to overcome a sense of fatigue with his government. U.S. President Donald Trump, whose relationship with Trudeau has been testy at times, congratulated him "on a wonderful and hard fought victory" via Twitter. The Bloc Quebecois saw its support jump in the mainly French-speaking province of Quebec, the only place where the separatist party contests elections. It was elected or ahead in 32 seats, more than three times what the party won in 2015. The Greens, who have assailed Trudeau for not doing enough to combat climate change, also made gains on Monday. The Canadian dollar was little changed after the Liberal win, holding at near three-month highs. "Markets don't like uncertainty so it will all depend on what coalition they can come up with and how sustainable that will become," said Greg Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments in Toronto. "The bigger problem is it seems that Canadians have never been more divided and the next government really needs to work to correct that. Alberta is at risk of a broader separatist movement and that would be a major negative for Canada." WESTERN ANGER Two Liberal Cabinet ministers lost their seats in western Canada, including veteran Ralph Goodale, the public safety minister. Anger at Trudeau has mounted in the oil-producing region over federal environmental policies that the energy industry says will harm output. The oil industry’s top lobbying group has blamed Trudeau’s policies for throttling investment in the sector, and some global energy companies have shed assets in the oil sands region of Alberta, the country's main oil-producing province. Canada's economy, however, has been on a general upswing in 2019. The Canadian dollar has been the best-performing G10 currency this year, rising more than 4% against its U.S. counterpart, as the economy added jobs at a robust pace and inflation stayed closed to the Bank of Canada's 2% target. The six-week official campaign period was a rough and meandering ride with dirty tactics on both sides in the G7 country. The liberal image of Trudeau, whose father opened the country to mass immigration, took a severe blow when pictures emerged early in the campaign of him wearing blackface in the early 1990s and in 2001. Trudeau had already been wrestling with the fallout from accusations he pressured his justice minister to help shield engineering firm SNC-Lavalin Group Inc from corruption charges. In August, a top watchdog said Trudeau breached ethics rules. Scheer also proved to be a determined opponent, although his hopes for a major breakthrough were dashed. Scheer, 40, promised to balance the federal budget and eliminate a "carbon tax" on fossil fuels. He was running his first campaign as party leader after winning a bitter leadership fight in 2017. "The Tories made a fundamental mistake by being opposed to the carbon tax," said Hugh Segal, who was chief of staff to former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. "I've often heard it said the worst mistake a party can make is to get sucked into its own low expectations of the population," he said.

Seizing on Trump's favourite mode of discourse, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other bureaus have privately launched Twitter accounts - borrowing names and logos of their agencies - to protest restrictions they view as censorship and provide unfettered platforms for information the new administration has curtailed. "Can't wait for President Trump to call us FAKE NEWS," one anonymous National Park Service employee posted on the newly opened Twitter account @AltNatParkService. "You can take our official twitter, but you'll never take our free time!" The @RogueNASA account displayed an introductory disclaimer describing it as "The unofficial 'Resistance' team of NASA. Not an official NASA account." It beckoned readers to follow its feed "for science and climate news and facts. REAL NEWS, REAL FACTS." The swift proliferation of such tweets by government rank-and-file followed internal directives several agencies involved in environmental issues have received since Trump's inauguration requiring them to curb their dissemination of information to the public. Last week, Interior Department staff were told to stop posting on Twitter after an employee re-tweeted posts about relatively low attendance at Trump's swearing-in, and about how material on climate change and civil rights had disappeared from the official White House website. Employees at the EPA and the departments of Interior, Agriculture and Health and Human Services have since confirmed seeing notices from the new administration either instructing them to remove web pages or limit how they communicate to the public, including through social media. The restrictions have reinforced concerns that Trump, a climate change sceptic, is out to squelch federally backed research showing that emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other human activities are contributing to global warming. The resistance movement gained steam on Tuesday when a series of climate change-related tweets were posted to the official Twitter account of Badlands National Park in South Dakota, administered under the Interior Department, but were soon deleted. A Park Service official later said those tweets came from a former employee no longer authorized to use the official account and that the agency was being encouraged to use Twitter to post public safety and park information only, and to avoid national policy issues. Within hours, unofficial "resistance" or "rogue" Twitter accounts began sprouting up, emblazoned with the government logos of the agencies where they worked, the list growing to at least 14 such sites by Wednesday afternoon. An account dubbed @ungaggedEPA invited followers to visit its feeds of "ungagged news, links, tips and conversation that the US Environmental Protection Agency is unable to tell you," adding that it was "Not directly affiliated with @EPA." US environmental employees were soon joined by similar "alternative" Twitter accounts originating from various science and health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Weather Service. Many of their messages carried Twitter hashtags #resist or #resistance. An unofficial Badlands National Park account called @BadHombreNPS also emerged (a reference to one of Trump's more memorable campaign remarks about Mexican immigrants) to post material that had been scrubbed from the official site earlier. Because the Twitter feeds were set up and posted to anonymously as private accounts, they are beyond the control of the government.

The United Nations' top climate official on Monday warned scientists and government officials from some 130 countries that failure to act on climate change while there was time would be "criminally irresponsible." Addressing the UN's climate panel, joint winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with former US Vice President Al Gore, Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the message to world leaders was clear. "Failure to recognise the urgency of this message and to act on it would be nothing less than criminally irresponsible," said de Boer. Scientists and government officials from the 130-state Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are meeting in this Spanish port city until Nov. 17. They aim to condense the findings of three reports they have issued this year on the causes, consequences and possible remedies for climate change into a brief summary that policy-makers can use to take decisions. A draft circulated ahead of the conference blames human activities for rising temperatures and says cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, are needed to avert more heat waves, melting glaciers and rising seas. Global warming is already under way and its effects will be negative overall. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level," it says. POORER COUNTRIES SUFFER MOST The world's poorest communities in Africa and Asia could suffer the most from climate change, the draft adds. Such is the importance of the Valencia meeting that a previously scheduled conference of world environment ministers, now set to start in Bali, Indonesia, on Dec. 10, was delayed 10 days to give the climate panel time to finish its work. Ministers will try to approve a two-year timetable to work out a successor to the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, the main U.N. plan to curb warming until 2012. The treaty obliges 36 industrial nations to cut emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. A new deal would aim to involve outsiders led by the United States and China, the world's top two emitters which have no Kyoto goals. There is still time to slow warming, the IPCC draft says, and it need not cost too much. Even the toughest targets for curbing emissions would cost less than 0.12 percent per year of world economic output. De Boer said that earlier work of the nearly 20-year-old IPCC had been vital in preparing the way for the Kyoto treaty and now it needed to come up with a "Bali roadmap". Politically, the signs seemed promising, with the European Union and the G8 group calling for progress and several leading developing countries announcing ambitious national plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "The lights seem to be on green ... inertia is disappearing," de Boer said. But environmentalists warn that there have already been attempts by some countries to dilute some of the findings to be included in the policy-making summary, which could in turn lead to the Bali meeting being less ground-breaking than hoped.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits the United States next week looking to reinforce cooperation over Iran and Afghanistan and lay the groundwork for G20 meetings that Paris will lead next year. The two-day trip to New York and Washington follows a rocky period in trans-atlantic relations when many in Europe felt US President Barack Obama was overly focussed on domestic affairs. Freshly boosted by passage of the healthcare reform bill, Obama is expected to step up his diplomatic action and on Friday he sealed a landmark nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia. Sarkozy, whose popularity in France has hit record lows as the economy struggles, will arrive with a package of issues to discuss, ranging from security to climate change and he will also try to restart a drive for global financial reform. "Nicolas Sarkozy will push for the financial regulation agenda agreed at past G20 meetings to be respected because although a lot has been achieved, a lot still remains to be done," an official at the Elysee palace said. Many European leaders and policy makers fear that the pressure to regulate financial markets which built up in the wake of the Lehman Brothers crash in 2008 has dissipated as the immediate crisis has eased. Beyond the policy issues, Sarkozy's visit also provides an opportunity to dispel a persistent impression that relations between the two countries have not quite lived up to the hopes of the early days of Obama's administration. The U.S. president has visited France twice since his election, but was widely perceived to have snubbed Sarkozy last year when he turned down the offer of a state dinner, preferring instead to dine alone with his wife, Michelle in a restaurant. Perhaps hoping to end talk of friction, Sarkozy and his wife Carla will dine privately with the Obamas at the White House. French officials say it is the first time such a dinner has been arranged for a head of state and Sarkozy will no doubt hope that the high profile visit will lift his standing back home a week after his centre-right party slumped in local elections. FINANCIAL REFORM Sarkozy's visit coincides with a push by Obama on financial reform but there remains big differences between the United States and Europe over regulation of banks, derivatives markets and hedge funds. Foreign exchange imbalances between the dollar, the yuan and the euro, which Sarkozy has long seen as a major source of instability in the global economy will also be a key subject with France due to take over the G8 and G20 chairs next year. While Sarkozy's comments in the past have focussed on the strength of the euro against the dollar, America's growing impatience with China over the yuan could bring the two sides closer together on the forex issue. Both countries have also stepped up pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions, which they say are aimed at developing a bomb, despite denials by Tehran, and both are working towards introducing a new raft of new United Nations sanctions. But there have been plenty of disagreements as well, ranging from the disputed air refuelling tanker deal that European aerospace group EADS pulled out of, to French resistance to boosting its troop presence in Afghanistan. However, France has pledged more staff to train Afghan forces and might face pressure to offer additional help. The U.S. president's National Security Adviser James Jones told French newspapers Sarkozy was regarded as "an important counsellor" and "someone our president likes a lot" but he suggested as well that their relationship could be forthright. "Mr Obama respects communication which is clear and without ambiguity," he said. "There's no time wasted trying to be too polite and not trying to offend anyone."

Biden also chose Tom Vilsack, who served as the secretary of agriculture for eight years under former President Barack Obama, to lead that department again, according to two people familiar with the president-elect’s deliberations. Vilsack, 69, a former governor of Iowa, is the seventh member of his Cabinet Biden has now chosen. If Fudge, 68, is confirmed by the Senate, she would join retired Gen. Lloyd Austin of the Army, who would be the first Black defense secretary, and Xavier Becerra, a son of Mexican immigrants and nominee for secretary of health and human services, as the embodiment of Biden's campaign pledge to assemble an administration that will “look like America.” But even as he rolls out his picks for the Cabinet and key White House jobs, Biden is under increasing pressure from a variety of interest groups, liberal activists and Democratic lawmakers who have different opinions on what it means to make good on that promise. For Biden and his transition team, the selection of key jobs has become a constantly shifting puzzle as they search for candidates who are qualified, get along with the president-elect, and help create the ethnic and gender mosaic that would be a striking contrast with President Donald Trump’s administration. Allies of Fudge, including Rep. James Clyburn, D-SC, one of Biden’s most prominent Black supporters during the 2020 campaign, had urged the president-elect to put Fudge at the Agriculture Department, where she had hoped to shift the agency’s focus away from farming and toward hunger, including in urban areas. Instead, Biden settled on Vilsack, who is white and from an important rural farming state. But the decision to instead put Fudge at HUD, which is viewed by some advocacy groups as a more traditional place for a Black secretary, has the potential to disappoint those pushing for her, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, of which she is a former chairwoman. The current housing secretary, Ben Carson, is Black. Just hours after Biden made official his historic choice of Austin for defence secretary, a group of Black civil rights activists urged Biden to nominate a Black attorney general and to make civil rights a higher priority. “He said if he won, he would do something about criminal justice, police reform and specifically mass incarceration,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader and talk show host, said in an interview on Tuesday before a meeting with Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “He flew to Houston to meet before I did the eulogy for George Floyd. He made specific commitments. I’m saying, promises made, let’s see if promises are kept.” Biden has not said whom he will pick to lead the Justice Department, though he is considering Sen. Doug Jones, who lost his bid for reelection in Alabama; Sally Yates, a former deputy attorney general; and Judge Merrick Garland, whom Obama unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court. But Jeh Johnson, who served as Obama’s secretary of homeland security, and is Black, took himself out of consideration to be attorney general on Tuesday, according to people familiar with his discussions. In an interview with CNN last week, Biden noted that “every advocacy group out there is pushing for more and more and more of what they want. That’s their job.” He defended his picks as “the most diverse Cabinet anyone in American history has ever announced.” But advocates are not leaving anything to chance. The meeting that the president-elect and vice president-elect held with Sharpton and other civil rights leaders lasted close to two hours and was an opportunity to make their case. In a news conference following the meeting, Sharpton said he told the president-elect that the only way to respond to the “most racist, bigoted administration in memory” was to appoint an attorney general “that has a background in civil rights.” He added, “My preference is to have a Black attorney general.” And during the meeting, Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, pressed Biden to create a civil rights envoy position in the West Wing that would report directly to the president. “He appointed John Kerry to be the climate envoy, reporting directly to him,” Johnson said in an interview before the meeting. “We believe a national adviser on racial justice should be something equivalent.” During the Democratic primary season, Biden benefited from Sharpton’s decision to stay neutral rather than endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. During the general election campaign, Harris was aided by Sharpton’s decision to advocate more generally a Black woman on the ticket, rather than to publicly endorse Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader, as he had been set to do. That has given Sharpton some leverage with the Biden-Harris transition team as it fills out the administration. Also on Tuesday, a group of more than 1,000 high-profile Black women signed a letter to Biden saying they were “deeply troubled” by the small number of Black women mentioned as possible candidates for top jobs in his administration. They urged him to do better. “It is long past time that the effective, accomplished leadership of Black women currently serving in areas of significant policy that impacts our nation are recognised and given full consideration for the statutory positions in your administration’s Cabinet,” the women wrote in the letter. Fudge, who has been in the House since winning a special election in 2008, was among the officials the women recommended and had openly campaigned to become Biden’s agriculture secretary, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer she would put her experience working on farm bills “against almost anybody’s.” But Fudge, a former mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, told reporters after news of her selection at HUD leaked out, that “if I can help this president in any way possible, I am more than happy to do it. It’s a great honour and a privilege to be a part of something so good.” In 2018, Fudge mulled a challenge to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, before ultimately dropping the idea and endorsing her. Fudge said she had changed her mind after Pelosi gave her the opportunity to play a key role in safeguarding voting rights and assured her that Black women would “have a seat at the decision-making table” in Congress. Now, she will leave to lead the nation’s sprawling housing agency instead. Her departure will add to another puzzle: how to maintain the Democratic Party’s slim majority in the House, which has shrunk to just a handful of seats since the elections in November. Biden’s decision to pick Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Black Democrat from Louisiana, to be a senior adviser in the White House, already meant the party would have to defend that seat. Biden’s decision to pluck Fudge for his Cabinet means Democrats must win another special election to fill her seat.   © 2020 New York Times News Service

by Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Climate change could end globalisation by 2040 as nations look inward to conserve scarce resources and conflicts flare when refugees flee rising seas and drought, national security experts warned on Monday. Scarcity could dictate the terms of international relations, according to Leon Fuerth of George Washington University, one of the report's authors. Global cooperation based on a resource-rich world could give way to a regime where vital commodities are scarce, Fuerth said at a forum to release "The Age of Consequences." "Some of the consequences could essentially involve the end of globalisation as we have known it ... as different parts of the Earth contract upon themselves in order to try to conserve what they need to survive," said Fuerth, who was national security adviser to former Vice President Al Gore. Rich countries could "go through a 30-year process of kicking people away from the lifeboat" as the world's poorest face the worst environmental consequences, which he said would be "extremely debilitating in moral terms." "It also suggests the kinds of hatreds that build up between different groups will be accentuated as these groups attempt to move to more clement locations on the planet," Fuerth said. Published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the report offers three scenarios for security implications of climate change, starting with the middle-ground estimate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This scenario, which the report said could be expected, forecasts global warming of 2.3 degrees F (1.3 degrees C), with sea level rise of about 9 inches by 2040. 'INEVITABLE' SCENARIO "We predict a scenario in which people and nations are threatened by massive food and water shortages, devastating natural disasters and deadly disease outbreaks," said John Podesta, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff and now president of the Center for American Progress think tank. Podesta called this outcome inevitable, even if the United States -- the world's biggest emitter of climate-warming carbon dioxide -- enters immediately into an international system to cap and trade credits for the potent greenhouse gas. This is unlikely, though a bill to limit carbon emissions is up for debate, possibly as soon as this week, in the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. President George W. Bush has opposed mandatory caps on emissions, saying they would hurt the US economy. Climate change will force internal and cross-border migrations as people leave areas where food and water are scarce. They will also flee rising seas and areas devastated by the droughts, floods and severe storms that are also forecast consequences of climate change. South Asia, Africa and Europe will be particularly vulnerable to these mass migrations, notably from countries where Islamic fundamentalism has grown, Podesta said. In the Middle East, he said, the politics of water will hold sway, with the Jordan River creating a physical link to the interests of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. (Editing by Jackie Frank)

The meeting is the first by top leaders from the G7 group of rich democracies since April, it said. "This virtual engagement with leaders of the world’s leading democratic market economies will provide an opportunity for President Biden to discuss plans to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, and rebuild the global economy," the White House said in a statement. The White House said Biden would focus his remarks on a global response to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution as well as "continued efforts to mobilise and cooperate against the threat of emerging infectious diseases by building country capacity and establishing health security financing." Biden, a Democrat who took over from Republican former President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, has sought to project a message of re-engagement with the world and with global institutions after four years of his predecessor's "America First" mantra. Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord and largely scoffed at multilateral organisations and groups. Biden brought the United States back into the WHO and rejoined the Paris accord and has signalled a desire to work with allies in confronting China on a host of thorny issues. "President Biden will also discuss the need to make investments to strengthen our collective competitiveness and the importance of updating global rules to tackle economic challenges such as those posed by China," the White House said. Trump challenged China over its trade policies by imposing punishing tariffs, an instrument he also used on traditional allies, drawing criticism for not taking a more unified approach with US friends to stand up to Beijing on issues such as intellectual property theft and other economic practices. Domestically, Biden is pressing Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus package to boost the US economy and provide relief for those suffering from the pandemic. The White House said he would discuss his economic agenda with G7 counterparts and encourage them and all industrialised countries to maintain "economic support for the recovery" and other collective measures. Climate change would also be on the agenda. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke to her G7 counterparts last week and called for continued fiscal support to secure the economic recovery.

BEIJING Oct 22, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A top Chinese official and senior US politicians warned on Thursday that the world must deal with climate change urgently, but said if the two top emitting nations work more closely together they could spur rapid improvements. Vice Premier Li Keqiang, widely touted as the country's prime minister in-waiting, said China was keen to smooth the path to a new global deal on warming and willing to step up consultation ahead of a major summit to be held in Copenhagen in December. "We should be aware of the severity and urgency of coping with climate change, and we should also seize this precious development opportunity," Li told a summit of academics, businessmen and officials from the two countries. Mutual distrust has sometimes hobbled discussions between the two nations about curbing emissions, although there has been plenty of investment and trade in green technology. Beijing says it is still a developing nation and should not be asked to make promises that will hinder its efforts to lift it out of poverty, while many in Washington are wary of making commitments they fear could give China an economic edge. But Li said that the US and China were well positioned to work together on climate change, reinforcing a message President Hu Jintao's gave his US counterpart Barack Obama on Wednesday. "China and the US have different national situations and we are at different development stages, but we face similar challenges in terms of responding to climate change," he added. Hu said closer cooperation on fighting climate change could help improve overall ties between the two, and added that he was optimistic Copenhagen would be successful, even though the latest round of negotiations has run into trouble. Officials have touted climate change as an area where both sides have much to gain from working together, and much to lose if they cannot reach a deal to limit greenhouse gas production. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Beijing meeting that the countries, which often face friction over issues including trade and human rights issues, should take advantage of their combined economic might to push for change. "As the world's two largest emitters of carbon, the United States and China have a responsibility to lead the world in developing and adopting clean technologies, and as two of the world's largest economies our nations have the power to build a thriving global marketplace for these technologies. "As always, we are more likely to succeed when we work together," she said in a video address. White House Science Adviser John Holdren said that though Obama was facing bruising battles over other major policy issues like health care reform, climate change was still a top priority. "The President's focus and his administration's efforts on completing energy climate legislation as rapidly as possible have not faded in the slightest," Holdren said in a video address. China on Wednesday also signed a deal with India, which it said would improve ties between two developing nations and boost the chances of success in Copenhagen. "The agreement will certainly benefit international efforts to fight climate change, and will help ensure we reach a positive result in the Copenhagen negotiations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told a regular news briefing.

But set foot in any store where denim is sold, and you’ll find among the racks a panoply of silhouettes and styles: mom, dad, boyfriend, girlfriend, skater, stovepipe, 1990s, sculpted, cigarette, puddle, patchwork, contrast, slim, split. The question of what’s stylish may be better formulated in the negative: What isn’t? The trend cycle is said to complete its journey every 20 years, and while there’s some truth to that — low-rise jeans, for instance, haven’t been popular for about as long — the adage is starting to sound dated. These days, new styles emerge and recycle at dizzying speed. So fast, in fact, that sometimes they seem not to move at all, like a colourful spinning wheel transformed into a blur of brown: everything relevant at the same time. Such a landscape, where nothing is “in” or “out” so much as chosen or not, presents some clear wins for fashion as a form of self-expression. But what else may the smorgasbord of jeans being sold today say about this moment in history? Denim, after all, has always been a cultural weather vane. Jeans for You (and You and You) Classic jeans as we today know them — stiff, pocketed, blue — were patented by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis in 1873. For decades they were worn primarily by laborers and amended to meet their needs: extra stitching for reinforcement, copper rivets to keep the pockets from ripping off, belt loops and zippers for ease of wear. It wasn’t until the 1920s and ’30s that jeans shed their strictly utilitarian associations. By borrowing the so-called edge implied by the garment’s class associations, Hollywood cowboys like John Wayne and Gary Cooper lent denim an air of romanticised rebellion. Trace the history of American denim over the hundred years that followed and you get a rough sketch of 20th-century iconoclasts: greasers, hippies, rock stars, rappers and hipsters. This century has had its share of denim-clad cultural figureheads, but aside from the occasional office dress-code ban, jeans have mostly lost their subversive associations. Everyone wears them. If any strain of rebellion persists, it’s in the suggestion that we ought to refuse to bend to the whims of any one trend: to embrace, through the right purchases, our aesthetic potential as rugged individuals. Wear it your way, the ads suggest, before presenting nearly unlimited SKUs for consumers to choose from. The decline of the universal trend is the result of a confluence of forces, namely social media, e-commerce and globalisation, which have changed everything about the retail experience, from how quickly popular styles turn over, to how quickly they can be manufactured, to how they’re subsequently advertised, distributed, bought, sold and shared. (That is, so fast, your head spins.) The monetary incentive for retailers is clear: “Every time we see some sort of new innovation in the space is when we start to see the category pick up,” Maria Rugolo, an apparel industry analyst with the NPD Group, said in a phone interview. E-commerce changed the game. As Lorraine Hutchinson, a retail analyst for Bank of America, put it: The ability to manufacture new styles and test them in the market requires far less financial risk today than it ever has. So why limit the options? Several rapidly growing retailers seem to have made this their entire business strategy: Shein, a fast-fashion brand popular with Gen Z, has advertised that it adds some 1,000 products to its website every day — a staggering figure that has drawn concern from climate and labour activists. (On Wednesday, there were more than 6,600 styles of women’s jeans available.) Despite lofty pronouncements about sweatpants overtaking “hard pants,” the worldwide denim market is only getting bigger. According to Global Industry Analysts Inc., it was worth more than $60 billion in 2020, and it’s projected to grow another $20 billion by 2026. That leaves us where we are now: every style of jeans we could possibly dream of, available effective immediately. Is More Really More? “Personal” style, as opposed to trend based, is a popular idea today, perhaps because it suggests a kind of social progress — a movement toward a world in which fashion is inclusive, accessible and less dogmatic. That is an especially appealing proposition for consumers who feel ignored by most of the retail market. Lauren Chan, a model and size-inclusive advocate, said that when consumers can’t find well-made, stylish clothes for their bodies, “the message they receive is that they aren’t worthy of that.” Which is why, in 2019, she founded Henning, a clothing line for sizes 12 and up. Unlike, say, Shein, where more is more, Chan is in the business of essentialising: providing access to quality staples, versus access to everything. (For spring, she’s introducing just a single denim jeans design: a stiff, vintage-inspired straight-leg pair.) “The plus-size market is largely made up of pieces that are semitrendy, watered-down versions of what fashion at large has been offering for the past year,” Chan said, “because plus-size fashion is often a little bit late to adapt to those trends.” Plus-size shoppers have a long way to go before their access reflects that of straight-size shoppers — evidence, no doubt, of pervasive fat-phobia. But in the long run, it may be worth asking whether having virtually infinite choices — and infinite trends — actually reflects the average shopper’s ideal. In his 2004 book, “The Paradox of Choice,” psychologist Barry Schwartz proposed that while freedom of choice is crucial to our well-being, having too many choices makes us anxious. “Though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically,” he writes. In a recent study (now under peer review), he and his research associate Nathan Cheek explored a new hypothesis, which Schwartz explained by phone: “When you give people choices from large choice sets, even trivial choice sets, like what kind of drink they’d like, they treat the choice as a statement about who they are.” Imagine, for instance, if you could choose between only two types of moisturiser — for oily skin, or for dry. You’d probably think little of your choice, going with whichever seems like a generally better match. Now imagine you had hundreds to choose from. Your choice between brands, skin types, ingredients and bottle shapes would seem to carry more significance — perhaps, even, feel like an expression of who you are, or what you like. The consequence of too many options, Schwartz said, “is that even low-stakes decisions become high-stakes decisions, because when your identity is on the line, it matters.” As someone who loves clothes, I don’t need his research to know that what he proposes is true for many: The overwhelming opportunities to express ourselves aesthetically are both a gift and a curse, capable of inciting joy as much as dread. Georg Simmel, said to have publicised one of the first official “theories of fashion” in 1895, believed that fashion is defined by the push and pull between the desire to conform and the desire to distinguish oneself. This tension, he said, is critical. “Fashion exists only insofar as one of the two poles does not ultimately prevail in the end,” Sergio Benvenuto, an Italian psychoanalyst, wrote on Simmel’s theory. This may be why, as Anna Wintour once put it, “Fashion can make people very nervous.” To get dressed is to walk a tightrope with ourselves at one end and everyone else on the other. ‘The Lack of Trend Is the Trend’ Katrina Klein has been designing jeans for nearly 20 years — for J Brand, Rag & Bone and now her own label, ASKK NY. She remembers vividly every microtrend she’s witnessed: colourful, patterned, embroidered, destroyed, whiskered. Right now, she said, “The lack of trend is the trend.” And she doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. “People don’t really want to be dressed the same as everybody else,” she said. Individualism: It seems like an almost too obvious place for this inquiry to land. As modern technology continues to provide access to abundance while driving us into increasingly isolated corners of existence, it makes sense that fashion — famously a reflection of the zeitgeist — would follow a similar trajectory. “There’s a cynical part of me that wonders if part of this is not about personal style, but that personal style is benefiting in a system that produces so much,” said Haley Mlotek, a fashion critic and an editor for the website Ssense. She also wonders if the emphasis on individualism misses something about the sense of shared meaning bolstered by trends: “This idea,” she said, “that the ultimate expression of style is one that is completely your own feels very lonely to me.” A disruption, maybe, of Simmel’s equilibrium. Much of Mlotek’s work concerns the future of fashion. Rather than assuming ethics, politics and morality are in conflict with fashion’s goals, she’s curious about how they might enrich one another. In the context of trends, their decentralisation may provide an opportunity to approach fashion with more intention. A reproach, of a kind, of the former system whereby a few powerful figures had outsize sway on what was considered cool, and the rest of us were merely meant to fall in line. But the pursuit of personal style as the singular apex of fashion may be taking this ethos too far, and the way it’s currently metabolising has alarming environmental effects. “Just because fashion and consumerism overlap does not mean they are synonymous,” Drew Austin, a writer who covers urbanism, technology and social change, said in an interview last month. “Every culture throughout history has used clothing to express itself, and doing so is arguably even more important in cultures and subcultures where fashion is less captured by consumerism — where it best performs its role as a communication medium and an enhancer of public space.” “Wear it your way” imbues clothing with a social purpose outside the language of status. But as a whole-cloth fashion philosophy, it has clear costs. Unlimited choice is no fashion utopia: not for consumers, not for garment workers or supply chains, and not for the planet. One thousand styles of jeans, in other words, will not save us. Constraints, on the other hand, can present a creative opportunity, Schwartz said: “They’re exhilarating in a way that simple novelty could never be.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Nov 29 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) -- The International Chamber of Shipping on Tuesday joined campaign groups Oxfam and WWF to urge climate talks in Durban to help put a price on polluting emissions from ships, which could help raise funding to tackle global warming. Oxfam and WWF have been pressing for a maritime carbon levy and the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which represents more than 80 percent of the world's merchant fleet, gave its qualified support. "If governments decide that shipping should contribute to the UNFCCC Green Climate Fund, the industry can probably support this in principle," ICS Secretary General Peter Hinchliffe said in a statement released to coincide with the Durban talks, which opened on Monday. Previous talks under the aegis of the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent treaty of the Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming, have agreed on a Green Climate Fund. The Durban meeting is expected to work on the design of the fund, which would channel money to help developing nations tackle climate change. Hinchliffe's conditions to the proposed shipping levy included that details would have to be agreed at the International Maritime Organization (IMO). He also said the industry's preference was for a compensation fund linked to ships' fuel consumption, rather than an emissions trading scheme (ETS). The European Union's plan to make all airlines taking off or landing in EU airports pay for carbon emissions under its EU ETS from Jan. 1 has stirred furious opposition and court action from the airline industry. Shipping is held accountable for around 3 percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. IMO talks on tackling them have dragged on. "It is vital that governments meeting this month at the U.N. climate talks in Durban give the signal needed to move such a deal forward in the International Maritime Organization," Tim Gore, Oxfam climate change policy advisor, said.

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.

Britain wants to launch a major international clean energy project with other European countries, Japan and the United States in a drive to combat climate change, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday. Blair said the project could focus on carbon capture and storage -- where carbon dioxide produced from burning coal is buried under the ground or the seabed instead of being released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. But he indicated the goals of the project had not yet been finalized. "We have an idea ... of a major project, which we will try and agree internationally, for one particular type of energy to be dealt with in a different way and it may well be that carbon capture and storage is where we go with it," he said. "I think there is a real possibility of getting ourselves and the other Europeans and the Americans and Japanese and others into a major project which will allow us -- in relation to a particular form of new energy source -- to make the investment in the research and technology necessary to deliver it," he told a parliamentary committee. Britain is discussing this and other ideas on countering climate change with other countries, he said. "The thing that will make the biggest difference is if you get the investment in the science and technology that will allow us to develop, for example, fuel cells for the motor vehicle (and) carbon capture and storage," he said. Environmentalists have criticised Blair in the past for putting his faith in technological solutions to climate change. The European Union and Norway said last Friday they would cooperate in developing carbon capture and storage technologies, seen as key to meeting the bloc's ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Blair repeated his view that an international agreement to combat climate change was "the single biggest thing that will make a difference on this issue". He said he would be holding further talks on climate change with the United States and other countries in the next few weeks. Blair wants a binding international agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which runs to 2012. The Kyoto Protocol aims to slash greenhouse gases but does not include countries including India, China and the United States, responsible for a quarter of the world's industrial greenhouse gas emissions. It obliges 35 developed nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Blair has said any new agreement must include the United States, China and India. "I think there is a changing mood in America as well which is very positive," Blair said. "That's why I think it is possible, I don't say it's yet probable ... that we would get an agreement at least to the principles that should govern the Kyoto framework after 2012." A new agreement must include a goal to stabilise climate change, an agreement to set a carbon price and technology transfer to poorer countries, Blair said. President Bush last month recognized climate change as a challenge and asked Americans to cut gasoline usage.

Almost six decades later, “solar geoengineering” research has made scant headway. It attracts less than 1% of climate science budgets, amid fears that tampering with the global thermostat could produce unexpected consequences - and distract from an overriding need for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. But governments are facing ever starker choices as global warming creeps towards 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) - a threshold set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, agreed by about 200 countries, to avert ever more damaging floods, droughts, wildfires and melting ice. Such impacts are already surging with temperatures now just 1.1C above pre-industrial levels. Last year, opposition from indigenous peoples forced the cancellation of an early, high-profile outdoor test of solar geoengineering technology by Harvard University. The planned balloon flight over Sweden was designed as a first step toward releasing tiny reflective particles 20 km high in the atmosphere, to see if they could form a planetary haze mimicking a volcanic eruption. Major eruptions - like that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 - can cut global temperatures for more than a year, as an ashen mask circulates in the stratosphere. This year, after the setback, backers of research into the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering are turning to diplomacy to advance their work. “There is no question that in the public battle, if it is Harvard against indigenous peoples, we can’t proceed. That´s just a reality,” said David Keith, a professor of applied physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who was involved in the balloon project, known as SCoPEx. Harvard was considering alternative launch sites but Keith said “we also could kill the project. We really don’t know.” INDIGENOUS OPPOSITION Åsa Larsson-Blind, vice president of the Saami Council of reindeer herders, which led opposition to the test, sent an open letter to Harvard University in June urging an end to SCoPEx. The group said the project violated indigenous peoples’ principles of living in harmony with nature. So far, “we haven’t heard back”, she said. Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, said the focus of solar geoengineering research efforts was shifting to winning broader backing for them. He said he doubted there would be any outdoor experiments in the upper atmosphere this year. “There is diplomatic work behind the scenes – you don’t see a lot of this on Twitter,” he said. One aim of the push is to have solar geoengineering discussed for the first time by the UN General Assembly, the top UN policy making body, in a session starting in September 2023. Pasztor said that the risks of geoengineering - such as a potential skewing of global weather patterns and monsoon rains - had to be judged against fast-worsening climate change impacts. “Are the risks of a 2C (warmer) world worse than the risks” of geoengineering?, he asked. That is a question expected to rise on the global diplomatic agenda. FACING UP TO OVERSHOOT The Paris Peace Forum, a non-governmental group, plans to appoint in coming weeks a commission of former government leaders to consider options if global temperatures overshoot the Paris Agreement’s goals. The "Global Commission on Governing Risks from Climate Overshoot", to be chaired by Pascal Lamy, a former head of the World Trade Organization, will have 12-15 members and report back late next year. Adrien Abecassis, who coordinates the work at the Paris Peace Forum, said the commission would consider both solar geoengineering and ways to extract carbon from the air, along with options such as more climate finance to help developing nations adapt to climate change. Switzerland also is considering submitting a resolution to the UN Environment Assembly, which is likely to meet in April, to seek UN-level consideration of climate altering technologies and measures (CATM). “Switzerland is of the view that an authoritative report by the UN system is key to enable an informed debate on CATM and their governance,” said Felix Wertli, head of the global affairs section of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, in an email. Switzerland, backed by 10 other nations, withdrew a similar resolution at the UN Environment Assembly in 2019 after it failed to win sufficient support. MORATORIUM PUSH Some prominent scientists opposed to geoengineering say there is no need to advance consideration of such technologies as a way to address runaway climate change. “It is dangerous to normalise solar geoengineering research,” Frank Biermann of Utrecht University wrote in the journal Nature last year, on behalf of 17 scientists, after the journal argued for more research. Instead, “a global moratorium is needed”, he said. Biermann and more than 60 climate scientists and governance experts on Monday launched an appeal for an "international non-use agreement on solar geoengineering", aimed at halting development and deployment of the technology. Decarbonising economies needs to be the global priority, they argued, terming solar geoengineering neither ethical nor politically governable. Lili Fuhr, head of international environmental policy at Germany's Heinrich Böll Foundation, which opposes geoengineering research, said “any next stage of research would basically take us down a slippery slope towards deployment. We know enough about its dangers that we can never use it.” Also this year, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected to provide a scientific update on geoengineering research as part of a report due in early April about ways to combat climate change. DEVELOPING WORLD VIEWS Research on geoengineering options by scientists in developing nations is also growing. Projects under a fund known as Decimals include how "solar radiation management" (SRM) - another term for solar geoengineering - could affect malaria rates in Bangladesh and dust storms in the Middle East. A team led by Inés Camilloni of the University of Buenos Aires is looking at how SRM might affect rainfall in the basin of the La Plata river in South America, home to 160 million people. “A key area of concern is the insufficient knowledge about the potential impacts at regional scale - and in this sense much more research is needed,” she said. Andy Parker, who heads the Degrees Initiative and who helped create the Decimals project, said research into SRM in developing countries "is feasible, it is desirable.” The Degrees Initiative, a UK non-profit group, was launched in 2010 as a partnership between the UK Royal Society, the Italy-based World Academy of Sciences, and the UN Environmental Defense Fund. It says it wants to help developing nations evaluate the “controversial technology” of SRM. Back in the 1960s, Parker said, UN President Johnson’s science advisors had little inkling that global warming would become so severe in the 21st century. He predicted that the looming 1.5C threshold would force people to face up to what he called “the big question: what are our options if emissions cuts prove insufficient?”

Participating countries continued with their closing plenary sessions overnight as delegations took the floor to voice their support for the text at hand. The only country to have directly objected to the package being offered at the Cancún climate talks is Bolivia. This 16th meeting of about 190 UN climate convention members began about two weeks ago to reach a deal that would be the foundation for a comprehensive agreement in Durban, South Africa next year. The opposition from the South American country blocking consensus could pose a problem for the agreement being accepted since the UN climate convention's decisions are always adopted on the basis of a consensus. Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solón "egged to point out his country did not agree with the decision". "You do not have consensus, madam president," he told conference president Patria Espinosa who is also Mexico's foreign minister. Solón said although the other countries had agreed the text did not address the very basic concerns for the people around the world. He reiterated Bolivia's position of keeping Earth's temperature below 1.5 degree Celsius, which is also the position of the island states and poor countries. "But the requirements of the package appear to target a temperature rise of over 4 degrees Celsius. We cannot make that compromise." The outspoken Bolivian ambassador reiterated his position, which is similar to that of the vulnerable countries and said on behalf of his government that he would have agreed to any deal that would eventually reduce emissions, albeit with reservations. "But this is not going to reduce emissions since it is less demanding for the countries that are historically responsible for having caused climate change." He concluded by expressing his disagreement and pointing out that there was no consensus. Bangladesh was also among many of the countries who took the floor through the night to commend Espinosa for the manner in which she had conducted the negotiations. Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, a long time delegate of Bangladesh at the climate negotiations, agreed implicitly with Bolivia but stopped short of outright rejection. "Bangladesh would have liked a stronger package." However, Chowdhury said it was still possible to work further on what was being offered.