Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

[Q]: Britain’s step, which follows France, amounts to a victory for electric cars that if copied globally could hit the wealth of oil producers, as well as transform car industry jobs and one of the icons of 20th Century capitalism: the automobile itself. The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens have said they plan to ban diesel vehicles from city centers by 2025, while the French government also aims to end the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2040. The British government has been under pressure to take steps to reduce air pollution after losing legal cases brought by campaign groups. Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives had pledged to make “almost every car and van” zero-emission by 2050. “There should be no new diesel or petrol vehicles by 2040,” environment minister Michael Gove told BBC Radio. The ban would only apply to conventional rather than hybrid vehicles that have both an electric and combustion engine, Gove’s ministry said. There is a mountain to climb, however. Electric cars currently account for less than 5 percent of new car registrations in Britain, with drivers concerned about the cost and limited availability of charging points and manufacturers worried about making expensive investments before the demand is there. “We could undermine the UK’s successful automotive sector if we don’t allow enough time for the industry to adjust,” warned    Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Hawes said there were only 12,000 public charging points in Britain and new power infrastructure would be needed, as well as steps to ensure the power network could cope with large numbers of people seeking to charge vehicles at the same time. While many automakers may find it hard to countenance the end of the combustion engine, some have embraced a future where electric vehicles, or perhaps even driverless ones, prevail. This month, Volvo became the first major traditional automaker to set a date for phasing out vehicles powered solely by the internal combustion engine by saying all its car models launched after 2019 would be electric or hybrids. Renault-Nissan in 2009 announced plans to spend 4 billion euros on electric car development. But until Volkswagen (VW) admitted in 2015 to cheating on U.S. diesel emissions tests, most mainstream auto manufacturers had been slow to sink serious investment into battery cars. The backlash against diesel, without which carmakers would struggle to meet CO2 targets, has since refocused minds and produced a flurry of new commitments. VW itself unveiled ambitious plans last year to roll out 30 new battery-powered models that it expects to account for 2-3 million annual sales by 2025 - or as much as 25 percent of its vehicle production. “Even though modern combustion engines will be relevant for at least another 20 years, it is clear that the future will be ruled by electric drives,” VW chief executive Matthias Mueller said earlier this year. PSA Group boss Carlos Tavares, in the past a vocal defender of diesel technologies, said on Wednesday the French company was ready to embrace mass electrification, provided the required consumer demand and government support were there. “The rise of the electric vehicle is very much dependent on the subsidies and the support governments will be able to give to this technology,” Tavares told analysts during the company’s first-half results presentation. PSA is planning to roll out new pure-electric and plug-in hybrid models from 2019. Toyota, which pioneered hybrids but long resisted battery-only cars, changed tack last year and has since unveiled plans for a new range of pure-electric models. In Europe, so called ‘green cars’ benefit from subsidies, tax breaks and other perks, while combustion engines face mounting penalties including driving and parking restrictions. China, struggling with catastrophic pollution levels in major cities, is pushing plug-in vehicles, though in the United States there is much less appetite so far. Germany, the home of major carmakers such as VW, Daimler and BMW, should soon start phasing out petrol and diesel too, said Oliver Wittke, a transport expert in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. But there is likely to be resistance in Europe’s biggest car market. More than 600,000 jobs could be at risk in Germany from a potential ban on combustion engine cars by 2030, the Ifo economic institute said this month in a study commissioned by Germany’s VDA car industry lobby. Germany’s major carmakers have invested heavily in diesel technology, which offers more efficient fuel burn and lower carbon dioxide emissions than gasoline-powered cars. In response to the British decision, a German government spokeswoman said on Wednesday Merkel had repeatedly warned against “demonizing” diesel vehicles. A spokesman for VW’s Audi brand, two thirds of whose European sales are diesel cars, said it could make diesel “fit for a future with even more stringent emission standards”. Yet Britain’s move will accelerate the decline of diesel cars, whose nitrogen oxide emissions have been blamed for causing respiratory diseases, in Europe’s second biggest market. The government will provide more than 250 million pounds to local authorities for schemes to restrict diesel vehicles’ access to polluted roads but said other options should be exhausted before charging users of polluting vehicles. Any restrictions or charges for polluting vehicles to use affected roads should be time-limited and lifted as soon as air pollution is within legal limits, it added. Gove said he favored road-by-road restrictions for diesel vehicles rather than outright bans from town centers or costly vehicle scrappage schemes, but did not rule them out entirely if they were local authorities’ preferred options. The government also said it would consult later this year on other possible measures including a targeted scrappage scheme. London mayor Sadiq Khan, of the opposition Labour Party, said the government’s commitment was half-hearted and steps needed to be taken before 2040 to tackle air pollution. “We need a fully-funded diesel scrappage fund now to get polluting vehicles off our streets immediately, as well as new powers so that cities across the UK can take the action needed to clean up our air,” Khan said in a statement. Turning away from oil will add to discussions about whether the world is reaching peak oil demand and how additional electric power can be generated. Some companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, expect demand to peak as early as by the end of the next decade. Demand for diesel cars fell 10 percent in the first half of the year in Britain while sales of petrol vehicles rose 5 percent, according to industry data. Sales of electric and hybrid models rose by nearly 30 percent, the fastest growing section of the market albeit from a low base.
[A]: Electric cars win? Britain to ban new petrol and diesel cars from 2040.


[Q]: The Antarctic Sabbatical , as the travel company is dubbing it, will give five people the opportunity to study how widely micro plastics have infiltrated the region. Over a month’s time in December, they’ll be trained in lab work in Chile, collect snow samples in Antarctica, climb key glaciers and even visit the South Pole. Scientist Kirstie Jones-Williams, who will be helping to train and guide the volunteer researchers, says the goal of the program isn’t to create more scientists, but moreso global ambassadors on the dangers of pollution and more. “The science itself that we’re doing isn’t enough,” she told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “Actually, one of the biggest threats to our sort of natural environment isn’t necessarily the lack of information that we have ... but it’s more the disenfranchisement that can occur with policymakers and apathy and eco-fatigue. “One of the main things is to get a bunch of people that can take the messages that we learn back to their respective countries,” she said. It’s the second offering in Airbnb’s sabbatical program, which offers its users a chance to take time to do more than see the sights but actually do some good. Earlier this year, Airbnb selected five people to spend three months in Grottole in southern Italy to help preserve the way of life in the town, which is in danger of disappearing. Airbnb’s Chris Lehane says both sabbaticals are part of the company’s larger goal of more eco-friendly travel and to raise awareness of tourism’s global footprint. “Airbnb is not going to solve climate change, but we all have a responsibility to do what we can and use our capacity to help take steps forward,” said Lehane, senior vice president of global policy and communications. “A lot of travel in the world takes place in and around big events,” he said. “Can we find ways when people are going to travel around these big events, to make them much more sustainable?” No scientific background is required to be selected for the Antarctic trip: However, a love of the environment and the ability to complete some of the physical tasks, such as collecting samples, climbing glaciers and enduring bitter cold, is paramount. “It is hard to work in cold environments so people that ... perhaps work well under pressure, work well when they’re tired, that’s actually quite key,” Jones-Williams said,” and to actually ask questions, and people that are really hungry to get as much as they can out of this experience. “It’s really people that kind of respect the scientific process,” she added. The five will stay in Airbnb’s in Chile for their training for about two weeks and will stay at a camp provided by Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions in Antarctica for about a week or so. Airbnb will partner with Ocean Conservancy to use the research for advocacy. Nick Mallos, a conservation biologist and ocean debris specialist for Ocean Conservancy, called it an “incredible opportunity,” and noted that the group has long worked with “citizen science volunteers” to help clean up the environment. “We’ve seen the power of when you train and empower individuals to perform science, they can generate invaluable information and data that ultimately then can form solutions,” he said. ___ Online: http://airbnb.com/sabbatical
[A]: Airbnb to train volunteers for science research sabbatical.


[Q]: But one in three of the children who died in a car crash in 2011 was not using a seat belt or child safety seat, suggesting many more deaths could be prevented, the CDC said. The results were based on a study in the Morbidity and Mortality report, the agency’s weekly report on death and disease. According to the report, more than 9,000 children age 12 and younger died in a car crash from 2002 to 2011. “The good news is motor vehicle deaths decreased by 43 percent over the past decade for children age 12 and younger. The tragic news is still with that decrease, more than 9,000 kids were killed on the road in this period,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden told reporters in a telephone news conference. “Thousands of children are at risk on the road because they are not buckled up,” he said. The study found that of the children who died between 2009 to 2010, a much higher proportion of black and Hispanic children were not buckled, compared with white kids. “The difference was nearly half (45 percent for blacks and 46 percent for Hispanics) versus a quarter (26 percent) for white kids,” Frieden said. The study did not investigate why racial differences played such a big role in seat belt use, but it did suggest socio-economic factors may play a role. For the study, CDC researchers analyzed data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to find the number of deaths among occupants in cars from 2002 to 2011 for all children aged up to the age of 12. Overall, 9,182 children died in car crashes during the period. But deaths dropped sharply, from 2.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2002, to 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2011, a 43 percent decline. According to the report, seat belt use increased from 88 percent in 2002 to 91 percent in 2011 among all children age 7 and under. The study also confirmed earlier findings that older children are less likely to be wearing seat belts than younger children. To prevent future deaths from car crashes, Frieden said parents should make sure their children use appropriate-sized car seats, booster seats and seat belts on every trip. The CDC recommends that children from birth to age 2 should be in a rear-facing car seat. Starting at age 2, children should be in a forward-facing car seat until at least age 5, or when they reach the upper weight or height limit of that seat. Children age 5 and older should use a booster seat until the adult seat belt fits them properly, generally when the lap belt lays across the upper thighs and the shoulder belt slays across the chest, but not the neck. More information on proper use of child safety seats can be found at www.safekids.org or other websites.
[A]:
Fewer U.S. children dying in car crashes: CDC.