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Australia's Labour government starts an election year with a solid lead against the conservative opposition which blocked key climate change legislation, according to a major poll published on Saturday. The widely watched Newspoll, published in The Weekend Australian, showed Labour beating the opposition coalition by 57 percent to 43 percent on a two-party basis, far exceeding the 5.4 percent margin by which it won the last election in 2007. The quarterly poll was conducted over the period from October to December, during which the opposition ditched former leader Malcolm Turnbull for current leader Tony Abbott in a push led by climate change sceptics. As a result, the opposition last month blocked legislation to set up an emissions trading scheme, reneging on an agreement with the government made earlier by Turnbull and his allies. The next election has to take place this year. The poll covered 8,000 voters drawn from across the country over the three-month period. Compared to the previous quarter, it showed a slight shift in support in favour of the government on a two-party basis, taking into account Australia's complicated system of transferable voting. The poll also found 60 percent of voters satisfied with Rudd's performance as prime minister, while 65 percent judged he would make the better prime minister over the opposition leader, who was Turnbull for most of the period covered by the poll. The emissions trading scheme has been blocked twice in the upper house Senate, where the government lacks a majority, giving it a potential trigger to call an early election for both houses of parliament. Rudd has said, however, that he wants to serve his full term. | 0 |
The result shows the enduring strength of far-right populism in the Netherlands, coming nearly two decades after the assassination of populist Pim Fortuyn in 2002 led to a similar upset in parliamentary elections. The most important short term impact is that Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right coalition will be forced to seek outside support to win Senate approval for laws passed by parliament. Provincial votes determine the composition in the Senate, where Rutte’s government has lost its majority. The big winner in the vote was the Forum for Democracy party, led by 36-year-old Thierry Baudet, which holds just two seats in parliament after entering politics in 2016. On current projections it will have an equal number of seats in the Senate as Rutte’s VVD. In a speech to supporters peppered with literary allusions, Baudet said the arrogance of the elites had been punished. “We are standing in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilization in the world,” he said. Following the lead of US President Donald Trump, Baudet opposes immigration and emphasizes “Dutch first” cultural and economic themes. He opposes the euro and thinks the Netherlands should leave the European Union. Baudet had continued campaigning when other parties stopped after Monday’s attack in Utrecht, in which a gunman shot three people dead on a tram. Baudet blamed the incident on the government’s lax immigration policies. A 37-year-old Turkish-born man has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the shooting. Prosecutors have not determined a motive, though they say it may have been terrorism. Pollsters had for weeks predicted Rutte’s center-right coalition would lose its Senate majority. But experts, including pollster Maurice de Hond, said the Utrecht attack boosted turnout most among opponents of immigration. The Dutch economy has been one of Europe’s best performers under successive Rutte-led governments, but resentment over early 2010s austerity programs lingers. Recent debate has focused on funding the government’s plans to meet international goals on climate change. Left-leaning voters feel not enough is being done and supported the pro-environment Green Left party, which also booked big gains nationwide on Wednesday, including taking nearly a quarter of the vote in Amsterdam. Rutte is expected to look to the Green Left or Labour parties for outside support once the new Senate is seated in May, though there are other possibilities in the increasingly fragmented political landscape, which include religious parties and a party focused on voters older than 50. Rutte said he would be looking for support from “constructive” parties on either the left or the right. Baudet ruled out any cooperation. “This means drinking a lot of coffee and making even more phone calls” Rutte told supporters. “So I’m counting on it that the country will remain well manageable with this result.” Parliamentary elections are due by March 2021. | 0 |
China is producing far more carbon dioxide (CO2) than previous estimates and this will frustrate global aims to stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gases, a group of US economists said. China is the world's second-largest emitter of C02 and some studies suggest it might already have overtaken the United States last year. The report could add to calls for China to sign up to binding cuts, something it has refused to do. Writing in the May issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego said China's CO2 emissions will grow at least 11 percent annually between 2004 and 2010. Previous estimates, including those used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions during the same period. The release of the article comes as energy and environment ministers from the world's 20 major greenhouse gas emitting nations prepare to meet in Japan from Friday to discuss climate change, clean energy and sustainable development. The G20, ranging from top polluters the United States and China to Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa, emit about 80 percent of mankind's greenhouse gases. Pressure is growing on these nations to hammer out a pact to halt and reverse growing emissions of CO2, the main gas blamed for global warming. In the journal report, the U.S. researchers said that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions in China over levels in 2000. They said that figure from China alone would overshadow the 116 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol during the pact's 2008-2012 first commitment phase. China is not obliged under Kyoto to cut greenhouse gas emissions during 2008-12. But it joined nearly 190 nations in Bali in December in agreeing to launch two years of U.N.-led talks to create a global emissions-fighting pact to replace Kyoto from 2013. The authors used pollution data from 30 provinces and China's official waste gas emissions data to get a more detailed picture of CO2 emissions up to 2004. "It had been expected that the efficiency of China's power generation would continue to improve as per-capita income increased, slowing down the rate of CO2 emissions growth," said Maximillian Auffhammer, UC Berkeley assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics. "What we're finding instead is that the emissions growth rate is surpassing our worst expectations, and that means the goal of stabilising atmospheric CO2 is going to be much, much harder to achieve." Part of the problem was also a shift to give provinces more say in building power plants after 2000, the report said. "Wealthier coastal provinces tended to build clean-burning power plants based upon the very best technology available, but many of the poorer interior provinces replicated inefficient 1950s Soviet technology," said Richard Carson, UC San Diego professor of economics. "The problem is that power plants, once built, are meant to last for 40 to 75 years," said Carson. "These provincial officials have locked themselves into a long-run emissions trajectory that is much higher than people had anticipated. Our forecast incorporates the fact that much of China is now stuck with power plants that are dirty and inefficient." | 0 |
China should cut its carbon intensity every year by 4 or 5 percent if it wants to achieve a goal of low-carbon development by 2050, state media on Thursday cited a thinktank report as saying. In September, Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to put a "notable" brake on the country's rapidly rising carbon emissions, but dashed hopes he would unveil a hard target to kickstart stalled climate talks. Hu, the leader of the world's biggest emitter, told a UN summit China would pledge to cut "carbon intensity", or the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each dollar of economic output, over the decade to 2020. The official China Daily said the China Council of International Cooperation on Environment and Development would submit a report to the central government on cutting carbon intensity. "If China is to meet the target of year-on-year emissions cuts of between 4 and 5 percent, it will need to reduce energy intensity by between 75 and 85 percent by 2050," the newspaper wrote, paraphrasing the report. "In addition, the proportion of manufacturing industry within the national economic structure would need to be cut from the current 50 percent to around 30 percent by the middle of the century," it added. "By 2030, more than half of new energy demand should be met by low-carbon energy and by 2050, all new energy should be clean energy," the newspaper said. "In addition, carbon capture and storage technology should be promoted by 2030." The China Daily said the report was the first time a high-level think-tank had made concrete proposals to cut emissions since Hu's September address. The think tank said China should reform its environmental tax system. "It says the time is ripe for the country to begin to collect taxes from companies that emit pollutions and carbon dioxide because of the burning of fossil fuels." The report comes ahead of a major UN climate gathering in Denmark in December. The United Nations wants the Dec. 7-18 Copenhagen meeting to yield a broader, and tougher, legally binding agreement by all nations to fight climate change but negotiations have largely stalled, dimming hopes of success. | 1 |
Support for Australia's government has fallen sharply, polls show, making the August 21 election likely to be decided by marginal seats where voters are focussed on the divisive issues of mining tax, climate and immigration. The ruling Labor party is now level with the conservative opposition with only three weeks left of the campaign, a Newspoll survey in the Australian newspaper showed on Monday. "I wake up some days and go, let's fire up, let's get more determined and that's what I've done today," Prime Minister Julia Gillard told Sydney radio after waking to a headline "Poll at 50:50." Even more alarming for Gillard, who only took office in June, a Nielsen poll on Saturday showed support for her party had dived six percentage points to 48 percent, and the opposition, led by Tony Abbott, with an election-winning 52 percent. Gillard, who has seen Labor's support plunge after it held a commanding seven point lead last month, pledged to do away with a stage-managed and risk averse re-election campaign and talk directly to voters about issues such as jobs, schools, hospitals and the economy. "I'm desperate to make sure that Australians in this election campaign get to hear from me," she said. Defeat for Labor would sink a planned 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal mining, moves to introduce carbon-trading to fight climate change and a planned $33 billion (20 billion pounds)-plus broadband network. A victory by the conservative opposition would also see tougher border security, with the reopening of South Pacific island detention camps for asylum seekers arriving by boat. Whether Labor is re-elected for a second term could rest on a handful of marginal seats around the country, where the mining tax, climate policy and asylum seeker issues resonate. There is a prospect of a protest vote in mining towns against the government's resource tax, even after it was watered down from 40 percent to 30 percent and limited to iron ore and coal. "The feeling out in the community is that Gillard's (tax) compromise will save jobs, but the devil is still in the detail," said Peter Gleeson, editor of the Townsville Bulletin newspaper which covers small mining towns in marginal seats in Queensland. "Whether it's changed enough for the electorate, on August 21 we will know the answer to that. It's a 50:50 bet." Whichever side wins the election, the Greens party is set to win the balance of power in the upper house Senate and will be key to future legislation. STAID CAMPAIGN Gillard, Australia's first woman prime minister after replacing Kevin Rudd in a party coup in June, has been criticised by some political commentators for a staid, orchestrated election campaign, devoid of major policy announcements. Government infighting and cabinet leaks appear to be weighing on Labor's popularity, after it had been comfortably ahead in polls when the election was called on July 17. The latest Newspoll showed Gillard has kept her clear lead over Abbott as preferred prime minister -- at 50 percent to 35 percent. But dissatisfaction with her performance rose 3 points to 40 percent, and is now up 11 percentage points since the election was called. Abbott dismissed Gillard's declaration of a more honest campaign, saying the "faceless men" of the Labor party who appointed her prime minister would continue to run her campaign and if Labor was re-elected would run the country. | 0 |
Fears of disease gripped Indonesia's flood-hit capital on Friday with thousands of people living in cramped emergency shelters and some streets still inundated a week after the city's worst floods in five years. Authorities are on guard for any outbreaks of diarrhea, cholera or skin disease as torrential rains overnight triggered fresh flooding in parts of the low-lying city of around 14 million people. "We are concentrating on health issues to prevent diarrhea, cholera and leptospirosis (a disease spread by rats and mice) outbreaks by clearing up places and water sanitation," Rustam Pakaya, the health ministry's crisis center chief, told Reuters. "There are three cases of leptospirosis reported. All of the patients are treated. No cases of tetanus have been reported." The floods in Jakarta have killed 57 people and more than 250,000 people are still displaced from their homes, many of them sheltering under flyovers and plastic tents near graveyards and cemeteries. A group of horse carriage operators sheltered under one East Jakarta flyover with their carriages and horses as ankle-high manure spread around and mixed with cooking utensils. Traffic moved slowly and several cars broke down as parts of a city highway were inundated by water following the floods that have also caused blackouts and cut telecommunications. Teddy, a resident of Manggarai Bukit Duri in south Jakarta, said he was desperate to leave the shelter he was staying in. "We are cleaning our house hoping we can sleep in this house tonight," he said on Thursday as he swept mud and debris out of his home with his two brothers. The disruption in power affected water supplies in parts of the city, forcing people to use rain water for bathing. Relief agencies distributed food and medicines to the displaced people while authorities moved some of the people whose homes have been flooded into a sports stadium. "The Red Cross distributed 11,000 packages of food for communal kitchens, 5,000 hygiene kits, 5,000 packets of biscuits in five of the worst-hit areas yesterday," Irwan Hidayat, secretary of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Red Cross. "Today, we are going to give medical treatment to the areas." Officials and green groups have blamed excessive construction in Jakarta's water catchment areas for making the floods worse, while a deputy environment minister told Reuters on Wednesday that climate change was contributing to the problem. A previous flood disaster in 2002 saw widespread looting, but National Police Chief General Sutanto said there had been no repeat this time and he had dispatched 14,000 police officers to flood-hit areas, Antara news agency reported. Indonesia's largest telecommunications firm, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom), had suffered losses of around 18 billion rupiah ($1.99 million) due to flooding in areas in and around Jakarta, its chief was quoted by one newspaper as saying. However, despite the flood's disruption of various business operations, and sporadic difficulties with telecommunications, Indonesia's rupiah currency was holding firm against the dollar on Friday, while the share market key index was down only about half a percentage point at mid-morning. | 0 |
Delayed by a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, COP26 aims to keep alive a target of capping global warming at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels - the limit scientists say would avoid its most destructive consequences. Meeting that goal, agreed in Paris to much fanfare in 2015, will require a surge in political momentum and diplomatic heavy-lifting to make up for the insufficient action and empty pledges that have characterised much of global climate politics. The conference needs to secure more ambitious pledges to further cut emissions, lock in billions in climate finance, and finish the rules to implement the Paris Agreement with the unanimous consent of the nearly 200 countries that signed it. "Let’s be clear - there is a serious risk that Glasgow will not deliver," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) rich nations last week. "Even if recent pledges were clear and credible — and there are serious questions about some of them — we are still careening towards climate catastrophe Countries' existing pledges to cut emissions would see the planet's average temperature rise 2.7C this century, which the UN says would supercharge the destruction that climate change is already causing by intensifying storms, exposing more people to deadly heat and floods, killing coral reefs and destroying natural habitats. The signals ahead of COP26 have been mixed. A new pledge last week from China, the world's biggest polluter, was labelled a missed opportunity that will cast a shadow over the two-week summit. Announcements from Russia and Saudi Arabia were also lacklustre. The return of the United States, the world's biggest economy, to UN climate talks will be a boon to the conference, after a four-year absence under President Donald Trump. But like many world leaders, President Joe Biden will arrive at COP26 without firm legislation in place to deliver his own climate pledge as Congress wrangles over how to finance it and new uncertainty Leaders of the G20 meeting in Rome this weekend will say they aim to cap global warming at 1.5C, but will largely avoid firm commitments, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters. The joint statement reflects tough negotiations, but details few concrete actions to limit carbon emissions. The G20, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany and the United States, accounts for about 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but hopes the Rome meeting might pave the way to success in Scotland have dimmed considerably. SHADOW OF COVID-19 Adding to the challenging geopolitical backdrop, a global energy crunch has prompted China to turn to highly polluting coal to avert power shortages, and left Europe seeking more gas, another fossil fuel. Ultimately, negotiations will boil down to questions of fairness and trust between rich countries whose greenhouse gas emissions caused climate change, and poor countries being asked to de-carbonise their economies with insufficient financial support. COVID-19 has exacerbated the divide between rich and poor. A lack of vaccines and travel curbs mean some representatives from the poorest countries cannot attend the meeting. Other obstacles - not least, sky-high hotel rates in Glasgow - have stoked concerns that civil society groups from the poorest nations which are also most at risk from global warming will be under-represented. COVID-19 will make this UN climate conference different from any other, as 25,000 delegates from governments, companies, civil society, indigenous peoples, and the media will fill Glasgow's cavernous Scottish Event Campus. All must wear masks, socially distance and produce a negative COVID-19 test to enter each day - meaning the final-hour "huddles" of negotiatiors that clinched deals at past climate talks are off the table. Attendees who test positive must quarantine for 10 days - potentially missing most of the conference. World leaders will kick start COP26 on Monday with two days of speeches that could include some new emissions-cutting pledges, before technical negotiators lock horns over the Paris accord rules. Any deal is likely to be struck hours or even days after the event's Nov 12 finish date. Outside, tens of thousands of protesters are expected to take to the streets to demand urgent climate action. Assessing progress will be complex. Unlike past climate summits, the event won't deliver a new treaty or a big "win" but seeks to secure smaller but vital victories on emission-cutting pledges, climate finance and investment. Ultimately success will be judged on whether those deals add up to enough progress to keep the 1.5C goal alive - still a long way off. Since the Paris accord in 2015, scientists have issued increasingly urgent warnings that the 1.5C goal is slipping out of reach. To meet it, global emissions must plummet 45% by 2030 from 2010 levels, and reach net zero by 2050 - requiring huge changes to countries' systems of transport, energy production, manufacturing and farming. Countries' current pledges would see global emissions soar by 16% by 2030. "The way I think about this is, there is a meteor coming at our planet and it has the very real potential of wiping out humanity," said Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate diplomat who led the talks that yielded the Paris Agreement. | 0 |
Half a century after the first atomic power plant opened at Obninsk near Moscow, climate change is widening the environmental appeal of nuclear power despite a lack of final storage for the most toxic waste. The world's 439 nuclear power plants emit almost no greenhouse gases and so avert the equivalent of the emissions of Japan every year, according to some studies, compared with the average for electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. But risks of accidents, such as at Chernobyl in 1986 in what is now Ukraine, mean anguished decisions for governments attracted by nuclear power as a weapon to fight global warming. "Nuclear is not a straightforward choice," said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Climate Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore. "You can't ignore it, it accounts for 16 or 17 percent of the electricity generated in the world," Pachauri told Reuters. "But you need institutions in place to handle it, places for disposal...I think it's a sovereign decision for each country." Some waste will be toxic for thousands of years and no permanent repositories exist for high-level waste, more than five decades after the Obninsk reactor opened in June 1954. Nevertheless, Britain decided to invest in a new generation of nuclear power stations this month, Finland and France are building new plants, while companies in the United States have begun filing licence applications. Thirty-four plants are under construction worldwide. While some people are warming to nuclear power, partly because of climate change, security of supply and oil prices close to $100 a barrel, others say opposition is undimmed. RENAISSANCE "There's a big hype about a 'nuclear renaissance', saying that countries are looking more positively at nuclear power, arguing about climate change and security of supply," said Jan Beranek of the Greenpeace environmental group. "It's a dead end," he said, arguing that nuclear energy was soaking up investment that could otherwise go to renewable energies such as wind, hydro, solar or tidal power. "There are huge storage problems with nuclear power," said Norwegian Environment Minister Erik Solheim, whose country has never had nuclear power. Oslo favours a drive for technology to bury carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power plants. Still, Pachauri's U.N. climate panel said in 2007 that "nuclear power is an effective greenhouse gas mitigation option". The panel quoted a study saying that nuclear power already avoids 1.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year compared with the world average emissions for electricity generation. By comparison, Japan's greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 were 1.4 billion tonnes. Other studies put emissions from nuclear higher because of factors such as ore processing and decommissioning. And there are public doubts about the environmental impact, alongside fears of terrorist attacks on plants or that states might use the technology to make bombs. "With nuclear the first reaction is still: 'Oh, Chernobyl'," said Ferenc Toth, senior energy economist at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA says the leak at Chernobyl is likely to kill 4,000 people from radiation-induced cancers among the 600,000 people nearest the plant and perhaps another 5,000 further away. Toth said that environmental benefits of nuclear power such, as cutting greenhouse gas emissions, were less known. Even for developing nations, nuclear power could be an attractive environmental option, he said. It could help countries such as China to curb smog in cities including Beijing. In India, one IAEA study indicated that nuclear power could compete more than 800 kms (500 miles) from coal mines, because of high transport costs, Toth said. And he noted that big developing nations were also looking at ways to curb their rising greenhouse gas emissions in the long term, even though they have no curbs under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol meant to slow climate change until 2012. There are temporary storage sites for waste but no permanent repositories "yet exist for high-level waste such as spent light-water reactor fuel," the UN Climate Panel said. "The closest to...implementing deep geological storage are Finland and Sweden," said Toth. The Yucca Mountain (storage site) in the United States may take 10 to 15 years." But he added that future technologies might allow recycling of the waste before it needed to be buried forever. | 2 |
Marguerite Hanley, a native Californian who lives in Amsterdam, is one of those travellers. “After a year of being forced to look inward, we have all realized the value and impact of our actions, both globally in terms of COVID, as humans infringing on habitat, and how we treat people in our community,” said Hanley, who recently decided to decelerate an ambitious honeymoon in Africa planned for next March. Instead of a whirlwind trip that included a Botswana safari, a visit to Cape Town and an exploration of South African wine country, she scaled down to concentrate on a few camps in Botswana that support conservation and local communities. “It made sense to stay longer, bring our euros to a couple of communities and reduce our carbon footprint, too,” she said. Slow travel grew out of the slow food movement, which emphasizes sustainable, local and organic food, and prizes artisanal traditions. It isn’t new — the appeal of walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain, for example, has endured for centuries. But it’s attracting more travellers now for a variety of reasons: as a salve to social distancing, a response to flight-shaming, a meditative breather or an exercise of pandemic-inspired caution. These more mindful trips involve visiting fewer places and sometimes transiting slower, whether by car, train, bike, foot or canoe. “While typical travel is all about what you do, slow travel emphasizes how you do it,” Kyle Kowalski, the founder of Sloww, a website devoted to slow living, wrote in an email. “Instead of a jam-packed itinerary, slow travel is about intentionally choosing where you will do less in order to experience more. Instead of rushing from one thing to the next, slow travel is about balance and pace, leaving open time to create space and spontaneity.” A pandemic-inspired pace Whether they wanted to or not, many people have experienced a slower life during the pandemic, which has fed the slow travel movement. The environmental gains witnessed during the pandemic as travel ebbed persuaded Julia Douglas, a social media manager in Los Angeles, to walk whenever possible rather than order an Uber. On a recent trip from New York City to Buffalo, New York, she took an eight-hour train ride rather than fly as part of an effort “to make small changes that would prolong the improvement in pollution, which the world saw when travelling by plane almost completely stopped,” she said. While commuter train ridership has suffered during the pandemic, long-distance train travel has shown signs of resurgence. Amtrak Vacations, a tour operator that bundles hotels, excursions and travel by train, said bookings were up 47 percent this year to date compared to 2019. In Europe, where 2021 has been designated the European Year of Rail by the European Union to highlight sustainable transportation, long-distance train travel has been revived. Night train networks have made a comeback and one startup, Midnight Trains, plans to launch luxury sleeper cars on routes from Paris to more than 10 cities beginning in 2024. Work-from-anywhere policies, born of the pandemic, enabled many to stretch their trips. Airbnb said its stays of 28 days or more had increased 10 percent in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period in 2019. Exclusive Resorts, a membership home rental service, said bookings of 21 days or more grew 550 percent in 2021 compared to 2019. The time-consuming requirements of travel today, such as testing or applying for entry, also tend to slow things down. “In the before times, it was common for travellers to pack in as many destinations and countries as possible, and a Southern Africa safari could include two, three or four countries,” said Jeremy Townsend, the marketing director for Next Adventures, based in Berkeley, California. “Today, with required COVID tests for entry and spotty flight connections, our clients are opting for single-country safaris to places like Kenya, Uganda or Zambia that offer a wide variety of experiences with the convenience of reliable international access.” Getting a COVID-19 test 72 hours before returning to the United States from abroad, as required, is a natural brake. “Traveling is complicated right now, and we’re recommending that clients add on a few days at the end of their vacation near to their departure point, in order to more easily deal with the requirements for testing before getting onto a flight home,” said Simon Scutt, the director of On Foot Holidays, which specializes in European walking tours. Anti-checklist travel But it’s not just practicalities pumping the brakes. There’s a calming appeal to travellers who may feel overwhelmed after more than a year of nervous coexistence with the coronavirus. In anticipation of Norway’s recent opening to vaccinated American travellers, Up Norway, a bespoke travel company, began selling the concept of “kos,” a Norwegian term for peace, harmony and gratitude cultivated “when one takes their time travelling, soaking in the simple joys of culture and natural beauty,” according to a news release touting 28-day stays in remote areas of the country. It’s a far cry from seeing Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and the Roman Colosseum — the package-trip hit parade — in a week. “We used to book a lot of Europe and Asia where people just wanted to check spots off their list,” said Denise Ambrusko-Maida, a travel adviser and the owner of the travel agency Travel Brilliant in Buffalo, New York. “People are pulling away from tourist hot spots. They don’t want to be crammed in and shuffling along in lines.” Rebecca Werner, a Chicago-based travel adviser with Protravel, recently booked a summer train trip to Glacier National Park for a Wisconsin family of four who are fans of the Netflix miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit.” It was a “good way to catch up with their kids and see some good scenery, plus play some chess on the train,” she said. For these travellers, pursuing personal passions has supplanted the bucket list. Working with the bespoke travel agency Untold Story Travel, David Demers of Naples, Florida, is organizing two nearly month-long trips next year to Israel and the Mediterranean with ample time to pursue his interests in history, theatre, food and art. “In the past, travel was about packing in as much as you can, running around checking boxes, which becomes mechanical,” said Demers, who recently sold his health care company. “The pandemic taught us all that it’s OK to not go fast, to focus on what’s important.” With that in mind, the travel company Sojrn recently launched monthlong trips staying in one destination, each with an educational theme such as philosophy in Athens, wine in Italy or Spanish language in Colombia. Travellers stay in local apartments and participate in weekly dinners and events, leaving lots of unstructured time to work and explore. “I’m trying not to plan everything out to the minute like I have done in the past,” said Cara Wright, of Apple Valley, Minnesota, who plans to continue working for a nonprofit while in Italy in October with Sojrn. A sustainable speed For others, like Donna Hetrick, a potter based in Pittsburgh who is bound for Africa, slow travel is about reducing their environmental impact. “I couldn’t justify a two-week safari,” said Hetrick, who instead plans to spend several months biking in Africa beginning in 2022 with TDA Global Cycling. In addition to amortizing her carbon footprint and seeing a place in-depth, the long trip offers connection. “When you’re on a bicycle, you are accessible to people,” she said. As a form of tourism that espouses treading lightly, going off the beaten path, connecting with community and patronizing locally owned businesses — all tenets of sustainable travel — slow tourism is also being championed as a correction to overtourism, the kind of overcrowding that plagued destinations such as Dubrovnik before the pandemic. “Slow tourism is more sustainable because people tend to spend more time in a destination and spread out,” said Martha Honey, the former executive director of the Center for Responsible Travel and co-editor of the book “Overtourism: Lessons for a Better Future." She describes slow travel as a “win-win” for both the traveller, who engages more deeply in a destination, and the destination, which sees the benefits of travel dispersed, and credits the recent buy-local movement, forged in the pandemic as communities pulled together to keep local businesses afloat, for popularizing slow principles. “It’s less disruptive and more economically beneficial,” Honey added. As indicated by the popularity of destinations such as Alaska and Montana this summer, travellers continue to avoid densely populated places. In a recent survey of more than 800 travellers in five countries, including the United States, by Flywire, a payment-processing service, three-quarters said they would look for an uncrowded destination when they travel. For eco-conscious explorers who cling to Phileas Fogg-like ambitions of circumnavigating the globe, but fret over their impact, the sustainable tour operator Responsible Travel recently introduced an 11-week trip — roughly 80 days — around the world by train and cargo ship, crossing Europe to Central Asia, following the Silk Road to China, then shipping out across the Pacific for North America. “The journey becomes part of the travel experience rather than just a way of getting from A to B,” said Anna Rice, a manager at Responsible Travel who spent a year beginning in 2011 travelling around the world by train and ship, and discovering, among other things, that Vietnam, China, Russia and Poland all had a similar dumpling with a different name. “You become much more aware of your surroundings and how countries are connected in subtle ways in terms of culture and their environments.” Moving at the speed of humans For those to whom trains and freighters are too mechanized, human-powered travel, such as hiking, biking and paddling, allow for maximum exposure to nature and the small details blurred at higher speeds. “You get to see things you don’t see in a car because you’re going slow,” said Kristi Growdon, a personal golf trainer based in Seattle who took a cycling trip to Utah in April with VBT Bicycling Vacations. The company has nearly sold out all domestic departures this year. At the Maine Island Trail Association, which manages a route across more than 200 undeveloped islands along the Maine coast, membership, which includes access to trail information, jumped 23 percent last year. A sea kayak “takes you into a place other boats cannot go, the intertidal zone,” said Michael Daugherty, the co-owner of Sea Kayak Stonington, which offers boat rentals and guided trips to some of the islands on the trail. “There’s tide and swell and it’s dynamic, and you’re much more aware of that in a small boat.” He runs the business with his wife, Rebecca Daugherty, an artist, and together they have paddled 625 miles along the Maine coast, producing the 2020 illustrated book “Upwest & Downeast.” “I’m a painter, and it takes a while to see a place,” Daugherty said. “I felt on that 55-day trip, it wasn’t slow enough.” New ways to slow down Where there’s a trend in travel, tour operators follow, as indicated by a new wave of relaxed vacation packages. The active travel company Backroads, launched a division this year called Dolce Tempo, offering a less ambitious pace. Nearly all 2021 trips are sold out; in 2022, it plans to add 100 new Dolce Tempo departures at home and abroad, including Scandinavia, England and along the Danube River. Motorists can drive from Denver to Moab, Utah, in about 5 1/2 hours. But beginning in August, riders of the Rocky Mountaineer train can cover the route in two days on a scenic ride with an overnight stay in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The new Rockies to the Red Rocks route has been so popular the company has added capacity and extended its inaugural season to Nov 19. Notably, there is no Wi-Fi onboard. In southern Utah, the new Aquarius Trail Hut System stations five backcountry huts — fashioned from recycled shipping containers and powered by solar energy — across a 190-mile bicycling route from Brian Head Peak to the town of Escalante. Cyclists pedal in the Dixie National Forest through the hoodoos of Red Canyon and skirt Bryce Canyon National Park. Jared Fisher, who owns the Las Vegas-based cycling outfitter Escape Adventures, developed the Aquarius Trail Hut System over five years to make “bike-packing” — or backpacking via bike — accessible by including food and bedding, which reduces the amount of gear and planning required. An avid bike-packer, Fisher has ridden across the United States three times. “Personally, I enjoy the freedom and headspace” of travelling by bike, he said. “I love to be out in nature and feel it, smell it, taste it.” © 2021 The New York Times Company | 2 |
UN talks billed as a "turning point" in a bid to slow global warming open on Monday seeking to agree curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and raise billions of dollars for the poor in aid and clean techology. The two-week talks, ending with a summit of 105 world leaders including US President Barack Obama on Dec. 18, will have to overcome deep distrust between rich and poor nations about sharing out the burden of costly curbs on emissions. The planned attendance of the leaders and pledges to curb emissions by all the top emitters -- led by China, the United States, Russia and India -- have raised hopes for an accord after sluggish negotiations in the past two years. "Copenhagen is already a turning point in the international response to climate change," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat. South Africa added new impetus on the eve of the event, saying on Sunday it would cut its carbon emissions to 34 percent below expected levels by 2020, if rich countries furnished financial and technological help. World leaders did not attend the last time the world's environment ministers agreed the existing UN climate pact, the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997. Copenhagen will be the biggest climate meeting in history with 15,000 participants from 192 nations. In a conference hall with wind turbines outside generating clean energy, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN's panel of climate experts, will be among speakers at Monday's opening session. Plans by world leaders to attend have brightened hopes since Rasmussen said last month that time had run out to agree a full legal treaty in 2009. The aim for Copenhagen is a politically binding deal and a new deadline in 2010 for legal details. Some 56 newspapers from 45 countries including The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and Toronto Star published on Monday a joint editorial urging rich and poor to unite in Copenhagen. "At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world," it said. "Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets. Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles." KYOTO The existing Kyoto pact obliges binds industrialised nations to cut emissions until 2012 and even its supporters admit is is only a pinprick in rising world temperatures, especially since Washington did not join its allies in ratifying the pact. This time, the idea is to get action from all major emitters including China and India to help avert more droughts, desertification, wildfires, species extinctions and rising seas. The meeting will test how far developing nations will stick to entrenched positions, for example that rich nations must cut their greenhouse gases by at least 40 percent by 2020 -- far deeper than targets on offer. De Boer wants developed nations to agree deep cuts in greenhouse emissions by 2020 and come up with immediate, $10 billion a year in new funds to help the poor cope. And he wants developing nations to start slowing their rising emissions. "It needs to be new money, real and significant," he said. De Boer said that Pachauri on Monday would address a scandal about leaked e-mails from a British university that sceptics say show that some researchers exaggarated evidence for warming. But he said the UN process of reviewing climate science was well insulated against manipulation. "I do not believe there is any process anywhere out there that is that systematic, that thorough and that transparent," he said. | 0 |
A UN summit on Wednesday will consider new 2020 targets for combating the increasing extinction of animals and plants caused by threats such as pollution, climate change and forest clearance. The United Nations says the world has failed to reach a goal, set in 2002, of a "significant reduction" in biodiversity losses by 2010. Some UN studies say the world is facing the worst losses since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago. And a quickening pace of extinctions could disrupt food and water supplies for a rising human population. The world leaders' meeting on biodiversity at UN headquarters in New York, at the end of a three-day summit, is a prelude to UN talks in Japan in October due to agree a formal 20-point plan to protect biodiversity by 2020. Following are details of the draft plan: OVERALL "MISSION" Some nations, such as those in the European Union, want to set a 2020 deadline "to halt the loss of biodiversity", a target many experts say is out of reach. Poor countries say such a goal would require a 100-fold increase in funds for safeguarding biodiversity, currently about $3 billion a year. An alternative is to set no firm deadline, merely talking of action by 2020 "towards halting" loss of plant and animal species. Nations agree on a 2020 deadline for reducing pressures on biodiversity and to avoid irreversible "tipping points", such as an acidification of the oceans that would make it hard for creatures such as crabs or oysters to build their shells. 20-POINT PLAN: * RAISE AWARENESS OF BIODIVERSITY BY 2020 AT THE LATEST 1) Make people aware of biodiversity and what they can do 2) Ensure that the values of biodiversity are integrated into development plans, perhaps into national accounts 3) Eliminate, phase out or reform incentives -- perhaps including subsidies -- harmful to biodiversity 4) Ensure sustainable production and consumption * CUT PRESSURES ON BIODIVERSITY BY 2020 5) The rate of loss and degradation of natural habitats is either "at least halved" or "brought close to zero" 6) Improve management of fish stocks, shifting to sustainable harvests. Some nations want references to "ending overfishing" and to "restoring" stocks 7) Manage agriculture, aquaculture and forestry sustainably 8) Cut pollution to levels that do not damage nature 9) Control or eradicate invasive alien species 10) By 2020 or 2015, minimise pressures on coral reefs and other ecosystems hit by climate change and ocean acidification * SAFEGUARD ECOSYSTEMS BY 2020 11) Conserve at "least 15 percent" or "at least 20 percent" of land areas and a yet-to-be-decided percentage of coastal and marine areas 12) Prevent extinction and decline of known threatened species and improve their conservation status 13) Halt the loss of genetic diversity of cultivated plants and farm animals, set new strategies for safeguarding genetic diversity of other important species * RAISE BENEFITS TO ALL FROM BIODIVERSITY BY 2020 14) Safeguard and restore ecosystems vital for health, livelihoods and well-being, ensure fair access for all 15) Make ecosystems more resilient -- including by restoring at least 15 percent of degraded ecosystems. This will help store carbon dioxide in plants and slow desertification 16) Ensure fair "access and benefit sharing" of genetic resources. This would set guidelines to allow pharmaceutical companies, for instance, to use plants in the Amazon in return for sharing benefits with local indigenous peoples. Some nations want a linked fund to help developing nations * IMPROVE PLANNING BY 2020 17) All countries should adopt a "national biodiversity strategy and action plan" 18) Promote ways to tap traditional knowledge of indigenous and local communities relevant to protecting biodiversity 19) Improve and apply biodiversity knowledge, science and technologies 20) Improve capacity for carrying out biodiversity goals. Some countries want a tenfold increase in funds | 0 |
The decision comes as nations around the world seal their borders and ban travel to stop the virus’ spread. Trump held a video-conference with the leaders of the world’s major industrialised countries earlier this week and plans to repeat that in April, May and June, when the physical meeting at the presidential retreat in Maryland was scheduled to take place. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who also serves as Trump’s G7 “sherpa,” has informed his counterparts about the move. “In order for each country to focus all of its resources on responding to the health and economic challenges of COVID-19 and at President Trump’s direction, National Economic Council Director and US Sherpa for the 2020 G7 Larry Kudlow has informed his Sherpa colleagues that the G7 Leaders’ Summit the US was set to host in June at Camp David will now be done by video-teleconference,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement to Reuters. “The White House also informed the other G7 members that in order to continue close coordination, the President will convene the Leaders’ via video teleconference in April and May just as he did this week,” he said. The White House views the change as part of mitigation efforts to fight the virus. Countries normally send large delegations with their leaders to G7 summits and journalists from around the world convene to cover their meeting as well. Trump had intended to focus the G7 meeting on the economy, eschewing traditional topics that often top the agenda such as climate change. He initially planned to host the leaders’ group at one of his properties in Florida but cancelled those plans after criticism that he would profit financially from the meeting. The G7 is made up of the United States, Italy, Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Britain as well as the European Union. Trump irritated Europe by instituting a travel ban on its citizens without first alerting European leaders. Europe has become the epicentre of the coronavirus. | 0 |
Pakistani comedian Alamzeb Mujahid had bad news for his fans after being freed by Islamist militants who kidnapped him in Peshawar city last month. "I'm retiring from showbiz," Mujahid, whose stage name is Janaan, told a news conference without going into details about either the kidnapping or his reasons for quitting the stage. Friends and colleagues were less circumspect. They say Mujahid, an ethnic Pashtun, was kidnapped by Islamist vigilantes hell-bent on imposing Taliban-style values in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a volatile region bordering Afghanistan. A veteran of hundreds of theater and television plays, the slim, clean shaven 38-year-old actor has begun growing a beard for his life after comedy. Reluctant to speak about his life-changing experience, Mujahid told Reuters he was joining Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary group, to preach religion. "God has fed me before and will continue to feed me now," he said solemnly. Mujahid was lucky. Others who have fallen foul of militant morality squads, didn't get a second chance. Catalog OF MURDER In January, a woman dancer, Shabana, was dragged onto the street and shot in the center of Mingora, a town in Swat, a valley about 130 km (80 miles) north of the capital Islamabad where militants are virtually in complete control. Gunmen tried to kill Pashtun singer Sardar Yousafzai in Dir district as he returned home after performing at a wedding party in December. He escaped but his harmonium player, Anwar Gul, was killed and four other people were wounded in the attack. The climate for anyone associated with the entertainment industry in the region turned hostile after Islamist parties rode to power in NWFP on a wave of anti-American sentiment following the US-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001. The disapproving Islamist parties banned music on public transport and had movie posters featuring women torn down. Militants went a lot further. At first, music shops in tribal areas such as Waziristan were blown up and then attacks spread across the northwest as the Islamist tide radiated outwards, toward cities and towns. Last June, gun-totting Taliban fighters roamed Peshawar, the provincial capital, in pick-up trucks, warning music shop owners to close their businesses or face the consequences. The sight of them sent a shock wave through Pakistan three months after a civilian government had come to power, and security forces were ordered to launch an operation. Since then more tribal regions and districts of the NWFP have become the stomping grounds of militants. The army has conducted offensives in tribal regions such as Bajaur and Mohmand. While advances are made in some areas insecurity worsens in others. Peshawar is no exception. WORTH DYING FOR? The defeat of Islamist parties in NWFP following an election a year ago raised hopes that the northwest would again become a safe place to sing, dance and make people laugh. But the secular Pashtun party now heading the provincial government has been unable to deliver despite good intentions. Syed Aqil Shah, provincial minister for sports and culture, said everyone needs to stand up against the militants. "It's wrong to assume that only the government can handle it," said Shah. "The entire population and the civil society have to confront these threats." People don't want to wind up dead, though. Several singers and musicians have already fled abroad, and others plan to follow. "I'm scared of leaving my home. Even if I go out, my wife keeps calling to check on me," said one singer, who asked for his name to be withheld for fear of reprisal by militants. "We are very scared. That's why I am planning to go abroad." Others have simply found safer ways to earn money for their families. "Ninety percent of the music is dead," said a musician, reduced to selling fruit and vegetables for a living. Beside him lay his harmonium gathering dust. | 2 |
Australia's Greens party said Wednesday it would back a minority Labor government, giving a not-unexpected boost to Prime Minister Julia Gillard as she vies with the opposition to win over enough lawmakers to rule. However, the race to secure an outright majority may still have several days to run, with four independent lawmakers now holding the balance of power following the inconclusive elections on August 21. If Labor forms government, the deal with the Greens would commit it to tackling climate change, holding a parliamentary debate on the war in Afghanistan and consulting the Greens on economic and budget issues. "Our agreement is to the stable, open and good governance of this country," Greens leader Bob Brown told a news conference. The independent lawmakers now hold the key to power, but may take another few days or so to decide whether to support Labor or the conservative opposition coalition led by Tony Abbott. "I think it might be a bit optimistic to say this week, but I would be very surprised if it went beyond Monday or Tuesday," rural-based independent Bob Katter told Australian television. Another independent, Andrew Wilkie, said he was undecided on who to back after earlier giving himself a Wednesday deadline for making his mind up on who would meet a long list of demands. "The reality is that it is going more slowly than I had hoped," Wilkie said. Bookmakers are tipping a win for the conservative coalition, which has promised to scrap a proposed mining profits tax and carbon-trading plans, and a $38 billion broadband project that could hurt dominant telecoms provider Telstra. Election-count projections point to the conservatives ending up with 73 seats and Labor 72. With the Green lawmaker, Adam Bandt, Labor is now level with the opposition, but 76 seats are needed to command a working majority in the 150-seat lower house. The Greens' support, although fully expected, did not come without a price. The party said it would ensure budget funding and support Labor in the event of a parliamentary no-confidence motion in the government. However, its support was also conditional on a referendum on constitutional recognition of indigenous people. Australia's struggle to forge a government has failed to unsettle financial markets: the Australian dollar is almost unchanged from its pre-election level and stocks have lost only 0.5 percent since the vote. Investors are mostly worried that an economic slowdown in the United States and Japan could spill over into Australia. | 0 |
Scientists asked people around the world on Monday to help compile an Internet-based observatory of life on earth as a guide to everything from the impact of climate change on wildlife to pests that can damage crops. "I would hope that ... we might even have millions of people providing data" in the long term, James Edwards, head of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) based at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, told Reuters of the 10-year project. He said scientific organizations were already working to link up thousands of computer databases of animals and plants into a one-stop "virtual observatory" that could be similar to global systems for monitoring the weather or earthquakes. People in many countries already log observations on the Internet, ranging from sightings of rare birds in Canada to the dates on which flowers bloom in spring in Australia. The new system, when up and running, would link up the disparate sites. About 400 biology and technology experts from 50 countries will meet in London from June 1-3 at an "e-Biosphere" conference organized by the EOL to discuss the plans. The EOL is separately trying to describe the world's species online. "This would be a free system that everyone can access and contribute to," said Norman MacLeod, keeper of paleontology at the Natural History Museum in London which is hosting the talks. Edwards said a biodiversity overview could have big economic benefits, for instance an unusual insect found in a garden might be an insect pest brought unwittingly in a grain shipment that could disrupt local agriculture. Among health benefits could be understanding any shifts in the ranges of malaria-carrying mosquitoes linked to global warming, Edwards said. "Within 10 years, scientists say they could have an efficient and effective way of tracking changes over time in the range and abundance of plants and animals as worldwide temperature and precipitation patterns shift," a statement said. And plane accidents might be averted by studying DNA genetic samples of birds sucked into jet engines and the timing, altitude and routes of bird migrations. The observatory could give a benchmark for monitoring the rate of extinctions, for instance, to threats led by loss of habitats to farms, cities and roads. It could also help people in their everyday lives -- anyone planning to visit a local forest could study trees, flowers, animals or insects that might be seen on a hike. | 0 |
Economic slowdown and possible recession in the United States and other rich countries will not affect the rising trend in food prices, the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told Reuters the fundamentals that have pushed food prices to records in recent months -- climate change, emerging country demand, demand for biofuels and population growth -- remained in place. "In the short term I believe that the trend in food prices will be maintained because they are due to fundamental elements that have not changed," Diouf said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos. "Even if there's a slowdown in the economy and we see people reducing their consumption it certainly won't be on food, it will certainly go to other commodities before it reaches food." Far from demand for food in emerging markets easing, there was food inflation in those countries, he said. Diouf said it was understandable some countries were deterring food exports through duties or quantitative restrictions, as they sought to ensure food security and prevent social problems. But taken together such moves would compound the global problem, he said. That is why the FAO decided in June last year to call a conference of all its 192 members to look at the problem collectively and consider the contributing factors such as climate change and energy demand. The conference will be held on June 3-5 this year, he said. | 0 |
China can become a powerful force to help developing nations fight both climate change and poverty with low-cost exports of wind or solar technologies, the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said. "Climate change is not only the paramount environmental challenge of our time, it's also a huge development issue," Helen Clark told Reuters on the sidelines of a Dec. 7-18 U.N. conference trying to work out a new UN climate pact. "We have to aim for green and inclusive growth," she said. China could be a big part of the solution with new green technology exports, such as wind turbines, solar panels and other low-carbon technologies. "When (China) applies its mind to getting these goods out there at a competitive price I think it will be extremely powerful. They have already emerged as a major exporter of wind energy," she said. China had an ability to "do it cheaper and more widespread than before," Clark, a former New Zealand prime minister, said of production of green technology exports. Developing nations say they are most at risk from global warming that the U.N. panel of climate experts predicts will disrupt food and water supplies and cause more powerful storms, heatwaves, species extinctions and rising ocean levels. TOP EMITTER China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases ahead of the United States, could also work out models for greener cities in the developing world. "By 2030 it's estimated that China will have 350 million more people living in cities than it has today," Clark said. "The opportunity for planned urbanisation around sustainable city models is there." Developing countries say that they will do more to fight global warming under a new U.N. pact meant to be agreed at a summit of more than 110 leaders in Copenhagen on Friday. But they say that ending poverty remains their overriding concern. "You cannot divorce the climate change issues from poverty reduction," said Clark. "We believe fundamentally that you won't reduce poverty if the world is destroying ecosystsms on which we all depend." She said that a draft final text for Copenhagen should make more reference to the goal of ending poverty. "There's a bit of work to do on that," she said. "It has to have a reference to sustainable development and poverty reduction. It has to be a deal for development." "Developing countries have not come here to sign a deal that is just good for the environment," she added. She also said that planned start-up funds of $10 billion a year for 2010-12, requested by the United Nations, were a fraction of long-term needs to help the developing world combat climate change and adapt to harmful impacts. | 0 |
FAMILY SAGAS ‘The Candy House,’ by Jennifer Egan Scribner, April 5 A follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “A Visit
From the Goon Squad,” this story picks up with familiar characters, including
the friends and descendants of music producer Bennie Salazar and his protege,
Sasha, who is now an installation artist of renown. But you don’t need to be familiar
with “Goon Squad” to enjoy this book, which opens with the “tech demi-god” Bix
Bouton, who has created technology that allows people to upload their memories
to an external consciousness and browse the experiences other users have
shared. ‘Young Mungo,’ by Douglas Stuart Grove, April 5 Stuart follows his debut novel, “Shuggie Bain,” which won
the Booker Prize and earned praise for its portrayal of working-class Scottish
life, with a love story set in a Glasgow housing project. Two young men, Mungo
and James, fall in love and imagine a brighter future for themselves while
protecting their secret. ‘The Return of Faraz Ali,’ by Aamina Ahmad Riverhead, April 5 As a young boy, Faraz is taken from his mother, who works in
Lahore’s red light district, and sent to live with distant relatives in a more
respectable part of the city. Years later, his father — a political operator
with connections throughout the city — asks him to return to the neighborhood
to help contain the fallout of a young girl’s murder. ‘Companion Piece,’ by Ali Smith Pantheon, May 3 Smith has a notably fast literary metabolism: Her most
recent novels, referred to as the Seasonal Quartet, incorporated contemporary
political and social events — Brexit, immigration debates, climate change —
practically in real time. Her latest opens when Sandy receives a mysterious
call from a former classmate. The ingredients? An antique lock and key, a
puzzling interaction with border control, and a bit of wordplay that could
explain it all. ‘Love Marriage,’ by Monica Ali Scribner, May 3 Ali’s 2003 novel, “Brick Lane,” centred on a young
Bangladeshi woman who enters an arranged marriage and lives in Britain, and
later discovered her own desires and strengths. Now, Ali focuses again on a
marriage — between Yasmin, a 26-year-old of Indian ancestry studying to be a
doctor, and Joe, a middle-class white man whose mother is an outspoken
feminist. As the families prepare for the wedding, their beliefs and traditions
evolve, a betrayal threatens to derail the marriage and a years-old secret
comes to light. TIME-TRAVELING NOVELS ‘Sea of Tranquillity,’ by Emily St. John Mandel Knopf, April 5 The lives of characters living centuries apart converge in
this time-travelling novel. They include an aristocrat’s son on a
trans-Atlantic journey, a grieving composer and a writer visiting Earth from
her interstellar colony while on her book tour. During the visit, the writer
faces endless questions from readers about the imaginary disease she wrote
about — perhaps a sly reference to Mandel’s own experience talking about her
earlier novel, “Station Eleven,” which took on new resonance during the
pandemic. ‘Four Treasures of the Sky,’ by Jenny Tinghui Zhang Flatiron, April 5 This debut follows Daiyu, a Chinese girl in the 1880s, who
reinvents herself to survive a string of tragedies. As a child, she is
kidnapped and taken from China to the United States in the 1880s, sold into
prostitution and escapes from California to Idaho. Later, she lives as a man,
and deals with both external threats — including the rising tide of anti-Asian
sentiment — and her private longings. ‘Trust,’ by Hernan Diaz Riverhead, May 3 In Gilded Age New York, Benjamin and Helen Rask have risen
to the top of society. The couple is the object of fascination: He is a
successful Wall Street trader, she is the daughter of offbeat socialites, and
together they amass a huge fortune. As the book progresses, readers get
glimpses of their story, with each new perspective peeling back layers of
intrigue and suppressed history. BOOKS IN TRANSLATION ‘The Faces,’ by Tove Ditlevsen. Translated by Tiina
Nunnally. Picador, April 19 ‘The Trouble With Happiness: And Other Stories,’ by Tove
Ditlevsen. Translated by Michael Favala Goldman. April 19 Ditlevsen’s collected memoirs, released last year in English
as “The Copenhagen Trilogy,” were among the New York Times Book Review’s 10
best books of 2021, earning praise for “stunning clarity, humour and
candidness.” Two works of fiction from the Danish writer will come this year,
including “The Faces,” a novel about a children’s book author in 1960s
Copenhagen grappling with creative frustrations, marital infidelity and the
spectre of insanity. “The Trouble With Happiness,” too, unfolds in midcentury
Copenhagen, following all manner of unhappy people. But if you know Ditlevsen’s
writing, you know she finds a way to make even misery luminous. ‘All the Lovers in the Night,’ by Mieko Kawakami. Translated
by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Europa, May 3 Kawakami has been a feminist voice in her home country,
Japan, with novels that tackle the interior lives of women. In this book, she
follows Fuyuko, a solitary proofreader in her 30s whose connections with the
outside world are a tenuous friendship with a colleague and her annual walks on
her birthday. But when she meets a physics teacher in Tokyo, their shared
fascination with light helps draw Fuyuko out, helping her confront her past —
and her desire to change her life. ‘Paradais,’ by Fernanda Melchor. Translated by Sophie
Hughes. New Directions, April 26 Long-listed for the International Booker, this novel follows
two miserable teenagers who meet at a gated community in Mexico. Franco Andrade
is consumed by thoughts of his neighbor, the wife of a TV personality, and has
an unhealthy appetite for pornography, while Polo, the community’s gardener, is
desperate to escape his own circumstances. Together, they concoct a plan that
quickly spirals into violence and risk. PAGE TURNERS ‘Lessons in Chemistry,’ by Bonnie Garmus Doubleday, April 5 In Garmus’ debut novel, a frustrated chemist finds herself
at the helm of a cooking show that sparks a revolution. Welcome to the 1960s,
where a woman’s arsenal of tools was often limited to the kitchen — and where
Elizabeth Zott is hellbent on overturning the status quo one meal at a time. ‘Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel,’ by Claire Kohda HarperVia, April 12 We’ve seen sexy vampires, scary vampires and psychic
vampires, but never one quite like the one in this ambitious debut. Lydia is a
23-year-old, mixed-race artist whose appetite can only be sated with a tall
serving of blood. With wit and a poet’s eye, Kohda examines cravings, desire
and emptiness. ‘The Fervor,’ by Alma Katsu Putnam, April 26 The author of “The Hunger” and “The Deep” — two
hair-raising, twisty novels with deceptively simple titles — returns with “The
Fervor.” Having mined the Donner Party and the high seas for suffering and
trauma, Katsu sets “The Fervor” in a Japanese American internment camp during
World War II. The conditions there are hellish enough ... and then a mysterious
disease begins to spread among the imprisoned. ‘The Hacienda,’ by Isabel Cañas Berkley, May 3 Hacienda San Isidro is the house of your worst nightmares.
As we learn on the first page of Cañas’ supernatural suspense story (think
“Mexican Gothic” meets “Rebecca”), “white stucco walls rose like the bones of a
long-dead beast jutting from dark, cracked earth.” A young bride finds herself
pulled into the clutches of this creepy place after being abandoned there by
her new husband. ‘The Lioness,’ by Chris Bohjalian Doubleday, May 10 If you’re getting on a long flight and have no idea what
book to bring, Bohjalian’s novels are always a safe bet. If you’re going on a
safari, you may want to approach his latest with caution: It’s the story of a
lavish expedition in Tanzania in 1964 gone very wrong. The travellers are
Hollywood A-listers; wildebeest and zebras abound; and Bohjalian steers this
runaway Land Rover of a story into some wildly entertaining territory. ‘The Cherry Robbers,’ by Sarai Walker Harper, May 17 A renowned artist living under an assumed identity (she’s a
hungry journalist, go figure) finds herself face-to-face with her past in
Walker’s long-awaited, much-anticipated follow-up to “Dietland.” This feminist
Gothic thriller whisks readers from New Mexico in 2017 to Connecticut in 1950 —
straight into the bull’s-eye of a firearms dynasty. ©2022 The New York Times Company | 0 |
BONN, August (Reuters) - UN climate talks have moved backward rather than forward towards a hoped-for deal later this year as nations make slow progress on pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and add more proposals to the working document. As talks in Bonn on a new climate treaty drew to an end on Friday, the frustration of delegates with the process this week was clearly felt, and a deal in Mexico this year looks increasingly out of reach. This week's meeting is the penultimate before a meeting set for the end of November in Cancun, Mexico. "I came to Bonn hopeful of a deal in Cancun, but at this point I am very concerned as I have seen some countries walking back from progress made in Copenhagen," said Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. deputy special climate envoy. A new climate text under discussion on the last day of talks in Bonn has increased to 34 pages from 17, though at its peak last year it totalled 200 pages. The text is intended as a blueprint to guide negotiators in overcoming rifts between rich and poor nations when they meet again at the next session in October in China. The pace of negotiations has slowed as some countries have gone back on issues agreed in the Copenhagen Accord last year and as proposals have been added to the text or reinserted. At the time of writing, proposals for the deepest cuts in emissions of at least 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 have been reinserted alongside other options, after being taken out of an earlier draft. "The text is larger than it needs to be for us to reach an agreement (in Cancun)," Pershing said. SLOW PACE "We are still having to entertain new inputs into the text," added Dessima Williams, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States. In discussions behind closed doors, Williams said she had not seen any clarifications from rich nations on their emissions cut pledges. "We cannot anticipate any major shift from what we had in Copenhagen, which was a 12 to 18 percent reduction when the IPCC called for 25 percent. We are far from that in the aggregate figures," she said. But Pershing said discussions focussed too much on putting the onus on only rich nations to deliver cuts, rather than all countries. Climate finance is also an area of disagreement. The Copenhagen Accord last December set a long-term goal of raising $100 billion (£63 billion) a year by 2020 to avert the effects of climate change. It also fixed a short-term goal of $10 billion a year by 2012 to aid developing nations. Pershing said some countries were seeking "staggering sums out of line with reality." Another setback to the talks arose from the lack of legislation to curb emissions in the United States. The US Senate dropped efforts to put emissions curbs in an energy bill that is now focussed narrowly on reforming offshore drilling, but the country has said it will stick by its 2020 target for reducing emissions. "It has been taken as a signal by some that the process should be slowed or we should wait for the US," Williams said. | 0 |
“At this time of national mourning, I offer the support of the United Nations to work alongside the people of the island,” Efe news agency quoted Ban as saying. The UN chief, who is attending the Global Sustainable Transport Conference in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, extended condolences to the Cuban people and Fidel Castro’s family, particularly the late revolutionary leader’s brother, Cuban President Raul Castro. “I hope that Cuba will continue to advance on a path of reform and greater prosperity,” he added, referring to Raul Castro’s project of “updating” Cuba’s socialist economic model by allowing more scope for private enterprise and foreign investment. Ban said he met with Fidel Castro in January 2014, adding that they had discussed topics including sustainable development and climate change. Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, who passed away Friday night at the age of 90, Ban said that Cuba had “made advances in the fields of education, literacy and health”. Castro formally resigned as Cuba’s president in 2008, two years after falling ill with diverticulitis and ceding power to his younger brother. | 0 |
LONDON, Nov 16, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Agreement in Copenhagen next month on a new pact to fight climate change will encourage long-term investors to move into firms better placed to cope with a likely and eventual rise in the cost of carbon emissions. A strong political deal including targets for emission cuts at the Dec 7-18 summit might be just enough to accelerate moves by investors such as pension funds or sovereign wealth funds to adjust portfolios to better reflect long-term risks from climate change, asset managers reckon. It is also likely to boost growth rates of firms which are either energy self-sufficient or engage in alternative energy such as wind or solar, while pressuring emission-intensive industries such as utilities, aluminium or car makers. And a more concrete deal -- such as a legally binding target to cut emissions -- would likely to prompt funds to start to change their asset allocation now to protect portfolios from the impact on companies hit by a rising cost of emissions. "It's effectively a global treaty to control pollutants. You are intervening in the economy to control and internalise the cost of carbon," said Bruce Jenkyn-Jones, managing director of listed equities at Impax Asset Management. "The idea that... people will pay for carbon right across the economy will have an impact on products and services. Big energy producers, utilities and industrials will be affected." Impax manages a total of 50 million pounds in global equities for the UK Enviornmental Agency's Active Pension Fund. The strength of a Copenhagen deal is still very uncertain. At a preparatory UN meeting in Barcelona last week, developed countries played down expectations of agreement on a legally binding text, saying that would take an additional 6-12 months. But developing countries are suspicious of backtracking on commitments from rich nations which have promised to lead in the fight against climate change. They insisted on a legally binding deal in December. "Politicians have done a good job of lowering expectations. That's exactly why there's real opportunity here. Decisions made in Copenhagen will dramatically influence growth rates of companies you are investing in," said Simon Webber, fund manager at Schroders. He reckons immediately affected industries from a concrete deal included power generation, utilities and transport, citing that some utilities -- such as Germany's RWE -- could face higher carbon costs that are equal to almost a third of operating profits in the next few years. He added the $26 billion deal in November by Warren Buffett to buy railway firm Burlington Northern Santa Fe highlighted the long-term viability of rails. "(An aggressive deal) will mean nuclear power and solar growth rates will take off in these industries. There will be a major shift from combustion engine cars to electric vehicles. There's no other way of meeting tough initial targets," he said. Malcolm Gray, portfolio manager at Investec Asset Management, says energy self-sufficient industries such as sugar can better cope with emission reductions and will attract flows. Some utilities in the traditional thermal space and aluminium producers that are not diversified will be exposed. As the cost of goods will be adjusted to take into account the increased cost of production as a result of high carbon prices, consumers with less disposable income and some high-volume low-margin retail business might also be losers. "We are faced with a world which has a lot more embedded inflation than people currently realise. You could be caught up with a slightly more aggressive inflation cycle globally compared with the deflating world we're currently in," he said. RISK MITIGATION AND OPPORTUNITIES The outcome of Copenhagen talks would enable investors to mitigate portfolio risks by better forecasting the likely pace of the rise in the cost of carbon emissions, and seek new investment in industries which benefit from alternative energy. Long-term investors, such as sovereign funds, are already getting increasingly active in environmental investing, at a time when private sector involvement has been somewhat slow. Norway's $400 billion-plus oil fund, the biggest owner of European stocks, is investing more than $3 billion over five years into firms engaged in environmental technologies. It is also pushing companies it holds to tackle climate change harder. "We're best served by promoting good standards of corporate behaviour. This is something very consistent with pursuing long-term investment objectives," Martin Skancke, director general of Norway's Ministry of Finance Asset Management Department, told Reuters last month. Rabobank says the Copenhagen outcome will clarify the framework for the unlisted Dutch bank which is already taking into account the cost of carbon emissions as a risk factor in granting credit facilities. "We will deal with risk mitigation and business opportunities will come in time," said Ruud Nijs, head of corporate social responsibility at Rabobank. "If the costs of climate change were taxed -- suddenly we will look at the credit portfolio in a different way. If one of our customers now has to pay for the price for climate, then the risk factor to that customer will change dramatically." The bank has been investing in renewables in deals worth over 4 billion euros, with its investments in its credit investment portfolio in the past 18 months all in clean technology. It is a sole debt provider to the Belfuture solar project, worth a couple of hundreds of million euros. It has given project financing of senior debt and equity financing worth 620 million euros for the Belwind offshore wind farm project. "Copenhagen brings us a better framework to do business with. The positive outcome will automatically generate big cleantech deals, investment in solar, wind and biomass technologies. The pipeline will also increase," Nijs said. | 4 |
Trump, a Republican, whom Democrats have accused of stoking racial divisions, said Americans must "condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy," a day after Texas officials said racial hatred was a possible motive in the killings of 22 people in the southern border city of El Paso. A 21-year-old white man has been charged with capital murder in Saturday's shooting spree at a Walmart store. Police in El Paso cited a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto posted online shortly before the shooting, which they attributed to the suspect, Patrick Crusius. Trump did not address accusations that his own anti-immigrant and racially charged comments have contributed to a rise in race tensions, nor did he call for broad gun control measures. "These sinister ideologies must be defeated," he said in remarks at the White House. "Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul." Democrats, who have long pushed for stricter gun control, quickly accused Trump of hiding behind talk of mental health reform and the role of social media instead of committing to laws aimed at curbing gun violence in the United States. 'WE NEED TO HEAL' Trump plans to visit El Paso on Wednesday, Mayor Dee Margo said on Monday. Former congressman and El Paso native Beto O'Rourke, now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said Trump should stay away from the southwest Texas border city. "This president, who helped create the hatred that made Saturday's tragedy possible, should not come to El Paso," O'Rourke tweeted on Monday. "We do not need more division. We need to heal. He has no place here." Several other Democrats vying to face Trump in the November 2020 presidential election likewise blamed him for the attack in Texas, citing his rhetoric on immigrants. Five of the Democrats were in San Diego on Monday for the annual conference of UnidosUS, the biggest Hispanic advocacy group in the United States. The group's president, Janet Murguia, called Trump the "radicalizer-in-chief." Current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, who was vice president under former President Barack Obama, directed his opening remarks at the gun attacks. "Mr President, it's long past time you called it out: It's hatred pure and simple fueled by rhetoric that's so divisive it's causing people to die," Biden said. Obama himself, who fought unsuccessfully for gun restrictions while in office, did not mention Trump by name when he urged Americans to reject divisive rhetoric. "We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments," Obama said in a statement. Trump began his presidential campaign in 2015 by characterizing Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug smugglers, and he has repeatedly likened illegal border-crossings from Mexico as an "invasion," calling such migrants "very bad thugs and gang members." Eight Mexican citizens were among the 22 people killed at the El Paso Walmart on Saturday by a man who authorities say drove from his home in the Dallas suburb of Allen, 660 miles (1,062 km) away, to El Paso, authorities said. Just 13 hours later, another gunman killed nine people in downtown Dayton, Ohio, before he was shot to death by police. His motive was not clear. White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, speaking on Fox News, confirmed that Trump would travel to both El Paso and Dayton but did not give a date for either trip. RED FLAGS AND BACKGROUND CHECKS? Mass shootings by lone attackers in recent years have heightened concerns about gun violence and the threat posed by racist and white-supremacist ideologies. Trump, who has been accused of failing to aggressively tackle domestic extremist groups, said he would direct the US Justice Department to investigate domestic terrorism and would propose legislation to ensure that those who commit hate crimes and mass murder face the death penalty. He also said the country needs to reform mental health laws to identify disturbed individuals and to work with social media companies to detect potential mass shooters. "We must make sure those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do those firearms can be taken through rapid due process," he said, an apparent reference to "red flag" laws. US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican and Trump ally, said he has spoken with Trump about legislation he plans to introduce in September with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. It would direct federal grant money to states seeking to adopt such laws. "Red flag" bills make it easier for police to confiscate weapons from someone found to pose a threat of violent behavior. In a Twitter post earlier on Monday, Trump called for "strong background checks" on gun buyers, but he did not elaborate on the idea and it was not the central part of his White House statement. "Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun," he said in the address. That comment drew immediate criticism. Another Democratic presidential candidate, US Senator Amy Klobuchar, accused Trump of trying to dodge the issue of gun control. "There's mental illness&hate throughout world, but US stands alone w/high rate of gun violence," she said on Twitter. After a gunman killed 58 people at a music festival in Las Vegas in 2017, Trump proposed a ban on attachments called bump stocks that give semi-automatic weapons the capability of a machine gun. The ban went into effect in March. But Trump stepped back from sweeping gun law changes. In a morning Twitter post, Trump called for bipartisan measures to strengthen background checks, possibly in combination with "desperately needed immigration reform." But Democrats, who have fought Trump's immigration crackdown, rejected such a linkage. Lawmakers are not scheduled to return to Capitol Hill from summer recess until September. The Democratic-led US House of Representatives already has passed a bill calling for universal background checks for gun buyers. Top Democrats have urged Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to reconvene the Senate to vote on the bill. Instead, McConnell encouraged bipartisan efforts to address mass murders in a statement that lacked the word "gun" but condemned "partisan theatrics and campaign-trail rhetoric." | 2 |
Asia-Pacific leaders will pledge to do their part to break a deadlock in global trade talks at a summit in Hanoi on Saturday that is also likely to deliver a unified message to North Korea to end its nuclear ambitions. "We are ready to break the current deadlock: each of us is committed to move beyond our current positions in key areas of the (Doha) Round," according to a draft of a statement from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders. That means opening up agriculture markets and cutting industrial tariffs, said the statement, expected to be issued on Saturday after a "leaders' retreat". The video game industry's own clash of the titans reboots this week with the midnight launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Sunday's debut of Nintendo's Wii. The Doha round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks collapsed in July, mainly due to an impasse over farm subsidies among six key players -- the European Union, India and Brazil and APEC members the United States, Australia and Japan. Australian Prime Minister John Howard told executives attending a "CEO summit" held parallel to the government meetings on Saturday that prospects for Doha looked bleak but leaders shouldn't give up. "We should take the opportunity of this APEC gathering to re-assert the importance of the Doha round and re-assert our belief that achieving progress on the multilateral front is a goal for all of us," Howard said. Although APEC was formed in 1989 to focus on mutual trade and economic concerns, the meetings are regularly hijacked by security issues such as the war on terrorism or North Korea, and this year looked to be no different.
All of the countries involved in six-party talks to end North Korea's nuclear programs are in Hanoi except for the North itself, and there was a flurry of one-on-one meetings among leaders of the five countries on Saturday to discuss the issue. The need for talks, stalled since last year, became all the more pressing after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on October 9, drawing worldwide condemnation and UN sanctions. But the five parties have not always acted in tandem. Washington and Japan consistently argue for the toughest possible stand, while neighbors China and South Korea favor an approach focused on dialogue -- including direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang, which the United States rejects. At a meeting with US President George W Bush on Saturday, South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun pledged to abide by the UN sanctions. But he said his country would not join the Proliferation Security Initiative to intercept North Korean ships on the grounds that it could lead to armed clashes. The video game industry's own clash of the titans reboots this week with the midnight launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Sunday's debut of Nintendo's Wii. White House spokesman Tony Snow said Roh made the point that "(within) the political constraints he faces, he was trying to do what he can". US officials say they hope APEC will agree to send a message to put pressure on North Korea on its nuclear programs by the end of the session on Sunday, possibly through a joint statement or a message from the chairman. The weekend summit is the culmination of a week-long extravaganza of plenary sessions, back-room meetings and banquets attended by 10,000 officials, businessmen and journalists at Hanoi's new, German-designed $270 million convention centre. APEC accounts for nearly half of global trade and nearly 60 percent of the world's GDP and encompasses economies and political systems as different as global superpower the United States and the tiny sultanate of Brunei. Their agenda is just as diverse and wide-ranging, from climate change and customs procedures to economic security threats and the role of women in development. Bush is only the second American president to visit Hanoi since the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam in April 1975, when the Communists unified the country, and has been dogged by comparisons with Iraq, another deeply unpopular war. As well as Roh, and later Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he was meeting leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to reassure them that the United States will remain engaged in the region at a time when the rise of China is top of many Asian leaders minds. Bush will also likely continue to push for a free trade zone encompassing the whole APEC region, despite an earlier rebuff of the proposal. Supporters of such an area see it as insurance in case the Doha talks are never resuscitated. | 0 |
The all-but-assured confirmation of Judge Brett M Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court will cap a week that also saw the president seal an ambitious and elusive new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, one of his top campaign promises. And the latest jobs report out on Friday put unemployment at its lowest since 1969. None of this necessarily changes the fundamentals of an often-chaotic presidency that has defied norms and struggled with scandal, but it gives Trump a fresh narrative to take on the campaign trail just a month before critical midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. With the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, turning quiet during campaign season, Trump has an opportunity to redirect the conversation onto more favourable territory. “From his standpoint, it’s been a good week after many bad ones,” said David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “For a self-proclaimed perpetual ‘winner,’ he will have had some big wins to tout. The jobs figure, other than wages, and the after-NAFTA agreement are positive.” Still, in Trump’s scorched-earth presidency, even victories come at a cost. The relationship with Canada was deeply scarred by his brutal negotiating tactics, while America has been ripped apart by the battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, fraught as it was with gender politics that Trump seemed eager to encourage and anger on the left and the right. “The impact of Kavanaugh is more of a mixed bag, further inflaming both sides, which could help him retain or even expand his Senate margin but further imperil the House,” Axelrod said.
Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative hold his notes as President Donald Trump speaks about the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Oct 1, 2018. The New York Times
Trump is the first president in American history never to have held public office or served in the military, and his inexperience has shown at times. Unfamiliar with the workings of government, legislation or diplomacy, he has often been stymied in his efforts to achieve goals like repealing Obama’s health care law, toughening immigration regulations, building a wall along the Mexican border or bringing peace to the Middle East. Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative hold his notes as President Donald Trump speaks about the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Oct 1, 2018. The New York Times Until recent days, he proved more effective at blowing up agreements than reaching new ones. He pulled out of an Asian-Pacific trade pact, a global accord on climate change and a nuclear deal with Iran, but he has made no progress in negotiating replacements, as he suggested he would. His most significant legislative achievement was last year’s tax-cutting package, which was forged in large part by Republican congressional leaders who had their own reasons for pushing it through. The past couple weeks, however, saw Trump seal a revised trade agreement with South Korea and replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which not long ago seemed as if it might be beyond his reach. The continuing fall in unemployment to 3.7 percent was built on the recovery he inherited from Obama — something he refuses to acknowledge — but the booming economy has become one of his strongest political assets. And with Kavanaugh nearing confirmation Saturday, he showed he could push through an important nomination that many predicted was likely to fail after allegations of sexual misconduct. “It’s a wonderful week. We’re thrilled,” Kellyanne Conway, his counselor, said in an interview. “It shows that his perseverance and his tenacity and his adherence to campaign promises and principles are paying dividends.” Some Republican activists said Trump had shown that defying conventional wisdom could work. “President Trump has made a ton of gambles,” said Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist, a conservative news site. “Most of them have paid off. Even a bad gambler can get on a hot streak. The measure of a good gambler is what happens when the dice cool down.” The cause for celebration in the White House, of course, was cause for mourning among his opponents. In the view of his critics, he will be putting a man credibly accused of sexual assault on the nation’s highest court, he blew up friendships with America’s neighbours for a new trade deal whose actual impact has been exaggerated, and he has appropriated credit for the economy from Obama while ballooning the deficit in a way that conservatives have until now always condemned. James J. Blanchard, an ambassador to Canada under President Bill Clinton, attended the groundbreaking of a new bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, on Friday and said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada “was upbeat” after the new trade deal. Trump was right to update the trade agreement, he said, although “it probably could have been done six months ago without the cheap theatrics,” and now “everyone knows we need to repair relations, but no one expects Trump to do that.” Whether the string of success for Trump will translate into support on the campaign trail could be the defining test of the next few weeks. Trump’s own approval ratings remain mired at just over 40 percent in most polls, a historically low level for a president that usually signals losses for his party this close to an election. “Independents especially are tired of the chaos and the uncertainty,” said Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in 2008. “Yes, the economy is good; yes, Trump got two conservative judges on the court; and, yes, he is doing what he promised on the campaign trail” in terms of trade, tax cuts and tougher immigration enforcement. “But at what cost?” she asked. “Tariff wars, separating children from their mothers, huge deficit. I can go on and on.” Trump plans to take his case on the road with a frenetic burst of campaigning in the weeks to come. He heads to Kansas on Saturday and will be on the road six of the next eight days, mainly for boisterous arena rallies where he rouses his conservative base with red-meat speeches. Midterm elections are about turnout, and Democrats have been more energised for months, intent on stripping Trump of his party’s control of the House and possibly the Senate. While conservatives had grown more animated over the battle for Kavanaugh, once he is confirmed, Democrats may be more motivated to vote out of anger at the outcome, especially women who are upset that allegations of sexual assault were disregarded. And it is not at all clear that when it comes to promoting his strongest political points, Trump can stay on message. Even this week, as he highlighted the new trade agreement, which he is calling the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, he drifted off to other subjects, as he is wont to do. One truism of the Trump presidency has been how quickly the story line changes from week to week, or day to day. New tales of palace intrigue or flare-ups of international tension or revelations stemming from various investigations could easily swamp a message of progress by the Nov 6 election. As Axelrod said, it is not clear “how any of this will factor in a month from now, which is an eternity in the Age of Trump.” © 2018 New York Times News Service | 1 |
“Sun & Sea (Marina)” — presented by artists Lina Lapelyte, Vaiva Grainyte and Rugile Barzdziukaite — took the Golden Lion for best national participation at the Biennale, beating 89 other national pavilions. This was the second successive time the prize has gone to a performance piece: In 2017, the winner was the German pavilion, for Anne Imhof’s haunting “Faust.” Saturday’s other big prize, the Golden Lion for best participant in the Biennale’s central exhibition, was won by American artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa. He showed a stirring 50-minute film, “The White Album,” in which he juxtaposes manifestations of white supremacy with portraits of white people he cares for and is close to. Jafa also showed a set of monumental sculptures of truck tires in chains. “If I could have picked a list, I would’ve picked the same list,” said Catherine Wood, a senior curator specialising in performance at the Tate in London. Wood said the Lithuanian pavilion had “this very clever way of framing people’s everyday activities and leisure” — lying on towels, playing board games, applying suntan lotion, chatting, reading — with a “quite powerful activist dimension” of warnings against ecological disaster and species extinction. “It’s pedestrian movement meeting this overarching framework of a story that was joyful and melancholic at the same time,” she said. The Lithuanian pavilion’s curator, Lucia Pietroiusti — who is curator of general ecology and live programmes at the Serpentine Galleries in London — encouraged museums to start thinking outside the box. “The exhibition format is begging for a certain kind of opening up of possibilities,” she said. “We specialise so much, create these niches of specialism. Then we encounter these huge catastrophic situations like climate change or species extinction, and we need to find more ways to connect.” ©2019 New York Times News Service | 0 |
Japan will call for an early solution to a feud with China over disputed gas fields when foreign ministers meet for broad-ranging talks in Beijing this weekend, a Japanese ministry official said. Frosty relations between the Asian neighbours have thawed over the past year -- an improvement symbolised by this week's landmark port call to Tokyo by a Chinese missile destroyer. But the dispute over how to develop natural gas in the East China Sea has shown scant signs of a solution. "I hope the Chinese side will make a political decision on this issue to make a final agreement," the Japanese foreign ministry official told reporters on Thursday. "The Chinese side is very much aware of the importance of reaching an agreement on this issue," he said, adding Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura would raise the issue in talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing on Saturday. Those talks will be followed by others on macro-economic policies and Beijing's currency reforms, climate change, and trade and investment. An 11th round of talks on how to develop natural gas in the East China Sea ended earlier this month with no sign of progress, prompting Japan's top government spokesman to say the dispute could affect a planned visit to China by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. China quickly denied that that was the case. The Japanese official said that resolving the gas feud was not a precondition for Fukuda's visit, which Tokyo has said could be later this year or early in 2008. But he noted that then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had agreed in April that the two sides would report to their leaders on a compromise in the autumn. "This is the timing for us to accelerate the efforts," he said. "(It is) not only the economic implications, but Japanese public opinion." Both sides are eager to secure new oil and gas supplies but disagree over where the maritime boundary separating their exclusive economic zones should lie. China's state-controlled CNOOC Ltd said in April that it had begun producing gas from Tianwaitian field and was ready to begin producing from the larger Chunxiao field in the area, raising fears in resource-poor Japan fears that such production could siphon gas from what Tokyo sees as its side of the zone. | 0 |
The renaming of India's tech hub and other cities coincided with Karnataka's 59th formation day.An official told IANS here: "The state government late Friday notified that Bangalore and 11 other cities across the state will be pronounced and spelt in Kannada from Nov 1, following approval by the central government to rename them in the local language."As the fifth largest city in the country, Bangalore drew global attention over the last decade, riding on the success of its resilient IT industry, talent pool, salubrious climate and cosmopolitan culture of its nine million denizens.Other well-known cities like Mysore will be pronounced and spelt Mysuru, Mangalore as Mangaluru, Belgaum as Belagavi, Bellary as Ballari, Hubli as Hubballi and Gulbarga in the state's northern region as Kalaburgi.The remaining five cities - Bijapur became Vijayapura, Chikmagalur Chikkamagaluru, Hospet Hosapeta, Shimoga in Malnad region as Shivamogga and Tumkur Tumakuru.Heralding the Karnataka Rajyotsava Day at a colourful cultural event in the city centre, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told the gathering that it was a proud moment for the 60-million people of the state to pronounce names of a dozen cities in Kannada and use them officially hereafter.He said: "We propose to rename other cities and towns in the state in due course after assessing the impact of changes to the 12 cities with a population of 0.5-1 million."Though old timers and majority of citizens, including locals speak and write Bengaluru in Kannada, they use Bangalore when conversing or writing in English.N Mahadevappa, a college teacher, told IANS: "Bangalore has been Bangalored! Renaming has robbed the city's charming Anglican name and fame. It's official. We have no choice but follow and get used to it."US Secretary of State John Kerry was the first politician who coined or used "Bangalored" in the run-up to the 2008 presidential poll to highlight how low-cost Indian software firms were taking away thousands of tech jobs from his country due to increasing outsourcing of services.The official said: "Renaming states and cities is not new. We are behind other states like Maharashtra which made the historical Bombay into Mumbai, while Madras became Chennai, Calcutta Kolkata, Poona Pune, Baroda Vadodara and Orissa Odisha. We have done to popularise our cities' original names and respect the people's sentiments."The renaming exercise began in 2006 when the state's first coalition government between Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) proposed to mark the state's golden jubilee (50 years) in response to the demand by social, cultural and political organisations. It was also endorsed by the state legislature during the former BJP rule.The state government will Monday direct corporations, departments and institutions to change their nameplates and stationery accordingly.Chief secretary Kaushik Mukherjee said: "Private firms or organisations will not be compelled to change their registered names if there is reference to any of the 12 cities." | 5 |
Britain reversed previous estimates to say its emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases fell in 2006, showing on Thursday that it was already nearing a self-imposed goal for 2025. Britain says it is a world leader in the fight against global warming and is introducing legally binding targets to cut carbon emissions by 26-32 percent by 2025 and 60 percent by 2050 below 1990 levels. Environmental groups have demanded that Britain toughen those 2025 and 2050 goals. UK greenhouse gas emissions were more than 16 percent below 1990 levels in 2006, or 21 per cent below when calculated net of carbon trading whereby governments and companies count as their own cuts that they funded overseas. But international aviation emissions rose while the commonest greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) was barely changed, down 0.1 percent. "As a country we must do much more across the board," said Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, adding that the UK was on track to meet and go "well beyond" its Kyoto commitments. Under the international Kyoto Protocol, Britain has to cut by 2012 its greenhouse gases to 12.5 percent below 1990 levels. Benn said Britain was taking steps to cut emissions further. "That's why we're reforming the planning system to remove barriers to renewable energy and backing new nuclear power generation," said Benn. Earlier this month, the government gave the green light to a new generation of low carbon-emitting nuclear power plants. The first new plants could come on line from 2017 at the earliest.
AVIATION EXCLUDED Emissions in 2006 of all six major greenhouse gases were equivalent to 652.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), of which CO2 accounted for 554.5 million tonnes. But those numbers excluded international aviation and shipping. Countries do not report these under Kyoto. Environment ministry data showed that in 2006 international flights in and out of Britain produced 35.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, based on UK fuel consumption, or 6.4 percent of total CO2, while international shipping produced 1.2 percent. British international aviation emissions rose 1.5 percent in 2006 while domestic aviation fell 2.8 percent, the environment ministry said in a statement. Total national greenhouse gas emissions estimates fall if calculated net of emissions permits that companies buy from overseas to help them meet limits imposed by the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme. But in 2006 European industry overall got more emissions permits than they needed meaning that those permits were not necessarily linked to any emissions cut. Double-click on for a relevant table | 0 |
Sisi - whose smiling face, framed in sunglasses and capped by a beret, appears across Egypt on posters, t-shirts and even chocolates - inspires fear in his opponents that the country will soon have a military man as its president once again.But to investors, and many Egyptians, Sisi offers the hope of relief from three years of political turmoil that began with the Arab Spring uprising, even though he was the man who toppled Egypt's first freely-elected president, Islamist Mohamed Mursi."I think most investors would say it doesn't appear all that democratic, but it's more stable, so my investment will be safer," said Gabriel Sterne of Exotix, a frontier market bank in London which handles investments in Egypt.Sisi deposed Mursi last July after mass protests against his Muslim Brotherhood government and unveiled a political roadmap that includes presidential elections. Given his strong popularity he is widely expected to run and win, albeit after probably giving up his army position.Once in office, he will need to deliver on the economy which he has acknowledged presents huge "challenges", without saying publicly how he intends to tackle them.Sisi is regarded as a decisive figure who can take bold decisions. After two changes of government in three turbulent years, Egyptians crave economic and political calm, and Sisi is seen as the man who can deliver.Western investors appear to agree. "He does seem to have support that has been absent from any single politician. Whatever it is, it's a sign of stability," said Sterne."Strongman"Egyptian industry and investment minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour says he realises Western governments are wary of Sisi's change from camouflage fatigues to a president's business suit, but he believes investors will thank him for it."In the West, a candidacy and maybe the election of an army officer or an ex-officer to the presidency of a developing, third world country would raise eyebrows and call to mind the image of a Pinochet rather than a George Washington, ... a dictator rather than a reformer," he said."(But) this country as it stands today needs a strongman that can pull it together ... Law and order is good toward investment and toward the economy," he added at Cairo's ornate 19th century bourse.Generals-turned-politicians have earned varying reputations across history. Washington, who led American forces in the war of independence and became the first US president, is widely regarded as a statesman. Strongman Augusto Pinochet, who ousted an elected Chilean government in 1973, oversaw economic reforms but was accused of major human rights abuses during his dictatorship.Security forces killed hundreds of pro-Brotherhood activists protesting against Mursi's overthrow and have gained the upper hand in stamping out the Islamist movement, partly through curbs on dissent and public gatherings.However, Sinai-based Islamist militants have claimed responsibility for several high-profile attacks, including an assassination attempt on the interior minister last year.Gulf aid pours inSerious progress on the economy remains elusive. Massive debt, a weak Egyptian pound and political uncertainty had scared away much foreign direct investment (FDI).However, billions of dollars in aid from the military-backed government's allies in the Gulf have improved prospects for infrastructure growth and bought time for economic reforms.The current account ran a $757 million surplus between July and September last year, driven by a massive increase in official transfers from Gulf monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.Egyptians' household spending climbed last year. Analysts say Samsung of South Korea is likely to pour tens of millions of dollars into its local assembly plant, and Coca-Cola announced a half-billion dollar investment in Egypt last week."Strong business and strong communities go hand-in-hand and our investment not only helps to create good jobs, opportunity and a better tomorrow for Egyptians but also sends a strong signal about Egypt's future," said Curt Ferguson, President of Coca-Cola's Middle East and North Africa Business Unit.Overall, FDI remains sluggish. It edged up to $1.25 billion between July and September last year from $1.16 billion in the same period of 2012. FDI totalled $3 billion in the year ending June 2013, when Egypt was in turmoil, almost $1 billion less than in the previous year.Before the 2011 revolution which toppled autocratic president Hosni Mubarak, a former air force commander, Egypt was attracting net FDI of around $8 billion annually, according to central bank data.But with Egypt's stock market hitting a five-year high and the global economy in a much better state than in Mubarak's last years in office, Sisi should enjoy an easier investment climate.A report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch last month described a Sisi presidential bid as "market-friendly in the near term", saying that keeping up the Gulf aid or agreeing a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was crucial.But it sounded a warning over Sisi's holdover of officials and policies from the Mubarak era. Mubarak enjoyed some economic successes, but his rule was widely seen as corrupt and inept."The Egyptian political transition is likely to be complete in 2014 but could result in a watered down version of the pre-revolution regime ... This will likely weigh on growth and keep fiscal and external financing vulnerabilities high," it said.Stating the obviousThough Sisi has been omnipresent on Egyptian television, he has offered few pointers on economic policy beyond stating the obvious in a speech last week: "I am saying it with the utmost sincerity. Our economic conditions are so, so difficult."More interestingly, he broached the issue of fuel subsidies that cost the government $15 billion a year, a fifth of the state budget, but gave no clear prescription.The subsidies, in place for half a century, drain foreign currency that could be used to pay off debts to overseas energy companies and improve payment terms to encourage investment.Investment minister Abdel Nour hinted that Sisi may be able to absorb the public anger that major cuts to the subsidies are likely to provoke. "I think he will be able and probably willing to draw on his popularity to take the difficult and often painful decisions to reform the Egyptian economy and face the fiscal problems," he said.Lifeline from the GulfDubai firm Arabtec signed a $40 billion deal this week to build a million homes in Egypt, a possible sign of politically-inspired Gulf investment in the country's infrastructure. Arabtec's CEO said the UAE would provide initial financing, signalling that Gulf companies' Egyptian investments will enjoy government backing and protection.Because many Gulf firms are partly state-backed or family-run, their more cohesive base of shareholders may be more easily convinced to plunge into Egypt when Western firms would hesitate."They've got a different variety of people they have to answer to, and not all of them work in conjunction in the West," said Angus Blair, chairman of business and economic forecasting think-tank Signet.Western investors, worried by repeated spasms of violence in recent years, are more sensitive and shareholders have a more short-term outlook, according to Blair.Analysts agree that the flood of cash and confidence from the Gulf into Egypt has encouraged Western investors to follow, but are split on whether long-lapsed negotiations for an IMF loan, which would demand tough budget reforms, are the answer."In the end there's nothing like a good old-fashioned IMF-type fiscal adjustment to put the position on the straight and narrow to provide long-lasting confidence, because you never know when these (Gulf) gifts finish," said Sterne of Exotix.But legal obstacles, not a binding international agreement to curb Egypt's rampant corruption and soaring subsidies, may be what holds Western companies back. "Legislation is as badly needed as subsidy reform, it is just not in the spotlight," said Moheb Malak, Cairo-based economist at Prime Securities.A draft investment law aims to prevent third parties from challenging contracts made between the government and an investor, a move designed to attract investment.The clauses are intended to reassure investors unnerved by previous legal challenges to such deals, some of which have left companies sold by the government in legal limbo. "Yes, Egypt needs a strongman but it needs a lot more than just a strongman, it needs to correct its investment policy," Malak added. | 2 |
Media forecasts show Abe's gamble on the snap poll is likely to pay off, with his conservative Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition closing in on the two-thirds "super majority" it had in parliament's lower house before dissolution. A hefty victory would raise the likelihood that Abe, who took office in December 2012 promising to bolster defence and reboot the economy, will win a third term as LDP leader next September and go on to become Japan's longest-serving premier. It would also reenergise Abe's push to revise the war-renouncing constitution by clarifying the status of the military, while maintaining his "Abenomics" growth strategy centred on the Bank of Japan's hyper-easy monetary policy. The constitution's Article 9, if taken literally, bans the maintenance of armed forces. But Japanese governments have interpreted it to allow a military exclusively for self-defence. Backers of Abe's proposal say it would just codify the status quo. Critics fear it would allow an expanded role overseas for the military. The LDP's junior partner, the Komeito, is cautious about changing the constitution, but media have forecast that the LDP and pro-revision opposition parties are on track for the two-thirds majority needed to begin to change the charter. A weak LDP showing, however, could trigger moves to replace Abe when his term as party chief ends, and cloud the outlook for amending the constitution.
A girl casts her father's ballot for a national election at a polling station in Tokyo, Japan Oct 22, 2017. Reuters
Abe, 63, has already led the LDP to four landslide wins since he took the helm of the party, but turnout has been low and the LDP has typically won with about 25 percent of eligible votes. Others either stayed home or backed opposition parties. A girl casts her father's ballot for a national election at a polling station in Tokyo, Japan Oct 22, 2017. Reuters This time, Abe said he needed a new mandate to tackle a "national crisis" from North Korea's missile and nuclear threat and a fast-ageing population. He called the poll amid confusion in the opposition camp and an uptick in his ratings, dented earlier in the year by suspected cronyism scandals. Backing Trump Abe has backed US President Donald Trump's tough stance toward Pyongyang that all options including military action are on the table. Trump is to visit Japan Nov 5-7 to reaffirm the leaders' tight ties. "The situation in the world is not stable in many aspects and I believe the LDP is the only party to rely on," 78-year-old Kyoko Ichida said after voting in the capital. As voters went to the polls, powerful Typhoon Lan was dumping heavy rain on much of Japan, threatening to lower turnout. Voting ends at 8 pm local time and media issue exit polls thereafter. Final official results will be early Monday morning. Abe's move had seemed risky after Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, often floated as a possible first Japanese female premier, launched her conservative Party of Hope. The Party of Hope absorbed a big chunk of the failed main opposition Democratic Party. But voter enthusiasm soon seemed to wane despite its calls for popular policies such as an exit from nuclear power and a freeze on a planned sales tax rise. Koike is not running for a lower house seat herself - she will be in Paris for a climate change event on Sunday - and has failed to say whom her party would back for prime minister. Fish wholesaler Kazuo Takeguchi, 71, said he had had hopes for Koike's party but was disappointed when she decided not to run. Instead, he voted for the Japanese Communist Party, in part because of the cronyism scandals that had eroded Abe's ratings. "I can't help wonder if you are entitled to do whatever you want to if you are sole strong party," Takeguchi said. "I want some party to emerge as a force to defeat the LDP," he said, adding, however, that the JCP was unlikely to play that role. A new Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), formed by liberal DP members, is now vying with Koike's party for the top opposition spot, though both will have just a sliver of the LDP's presence if forecasts prove accurate. | 0 |
A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali began a hunt for a new global deal to fight global warming by 2009 on Tuesday with skirmishing about how far China and India should curb surging greenhouse gas emissions. "The conference got off to a very encouraging start," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat of the Dec. 3-14 meeting of 10,000 participants that will try to launch talks on a climate pact to succeed the UN's Kyoto Protocol. After an opening day dominated by ceremony, governments set up a "special group" to look at options for launching two years of talks meant to bind the United States and developing nations led by China and India more firmly into fighting climate change. De Boer said the group of senior officials would report back to 130 environment ministers who will arrive next week at the talks in a luxury Indonesian beach resort. The meeting also agreed to study ways to do more to transfer clean technologies, such as solar panels or wind turbines, to developing nations. Such a move is a key to greater involvement by developing nations in a new pact beyond Kyoto. The Kyoto Protocol now binds 36 rich nations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a step to curb droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas. The Bali talks seek a mandate to widen Kyoto to all nations beyond 2012. Of the top world's top five emitters Kyoto only cuts Japan's greenhouse gases, with the United States outside the pact, and China, India exempt and Russia facing easy caps. BACKTRACKING But there was controversy about how to share out the burden. Environmentalists accused Kyoto nations Japan and Canada of asking China and India to do too much. Canada said in a submission to the talks that "to be effective, a new international framework must include emission reduction obligations for all the largest emitting economies". It did not mention deeper cuts for rich nations beyond 2012. And Japan on Monday called on all parties to "effectively participate and will contribute substantially". A Japanese official said it was "essential" that China and India were involved. China and India say that rich nations must take on far deeper cuts in emissions and that they cannot take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty. "Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They are trying to shift the burden to China and India." De Boer played down the objections, saying that all nations were merely laying out ideas. "A marriage contract is not something to discuss on a first date," he said. "No proposals have formally been made." In Australia, new Climate Minister Penny Wong said Australia hoped to be a leader at the Bali talks after Australia ratifed the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, leaving the United States alone in opposition among rich nations. "We have already said we would expect binding commitments to be on the table for both developed and developing nations," she said, adding the nature of those commitments would be the subject of negotiations. Outside the Bali conference centre on Tuesday, a group of environmentalists gave a mock swimming lesson to delegates, saying that rising seas could swamp low-lying tropical islands such as Bali unless they acted. "Sea level rise is threatening hundreds of millions of people," they said. "Sink or swim!" | 0 |
German authorities on Wednesday launched raids in six northern states and said they impose new border controls over fears left-wing radicals were planning attacks to disrupt a June G8 summit on the Baltic coast. Some 900 security officials were searching 40 sites in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement, adding it had opened two separate investigations. "We suspect those targeted, who belong to the militant extreme-left scene, of founding a terrorist organisation or being members of such an organisation, that is planning arson attacks and other actions to severely disrupt or prevent the early-summer G8 summit in Heiligendamm from taking place," the prosecutor's office said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States at the June 6-8 summit, which will focus on climate change, African poverty and economic cooperation. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble announced a tightening of border controls ahead of the G8 summit. The actions are similar to those taken by Germany during last year's World Cup tournament to prevent an influx of soccer hooligans. "We are particularly focused on dangers arising from violent globalisation opponents," the ministry said. Prosecutors suspect the left-wing militants they are investigating of being behind nine minor attacks in the Hamburg area and three in the Berlin region in the past two years. Those attacks include an incident last December when a car was set on fire in front of the home of deputy finance minister Thomas Mirow and windows and walls of his house were splattered with paint. Anti-G8 group "Gipfelsoli" denounced the raids, accusing authorities of a "wave of repression" to dismantle the movement's communication network "All attempts to criminalise us do not change the fact that we will use the G8 (summit) to cast a spotlight on the injustices of this world," Hanne Jobst, a Berlin-based member of the group said in a statement. Germany has not experienced any major left-wing violence since the militant Red Army Faction (RAF), which waged a bloody two-decade long campaign of killings and kidnappings, announced in 1998 that it was disbanding. But authorities are taking aggressive pre-emptive measures to ensure the summit goes as smoothly as the World Cup did. bdnews24.com/lq/1840hrs A 2.5-metre high steel fence, topped with razor wire, has been placed in a 14-km ring around Heiligendamm and police will control access through airport-style X-ray machines. | 0 |
Less than 10 percent of the articles written about last year's Copenhagen climate summit dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday. Based on analysis of 400 articles written about the December 2009 summit, the authors of the report for Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) called for a re-think of reporting on future such conferences. Author James Painter concluded that "science was under-reported" as the essential backdrop to the drama when about 120 world leaders met in Copenhagen but failed to agree a binding treaty to slow climate change. Much coverage from Copenhagen instead focused on hacked e-mails from a British university that some sceptics took as evidence of efforts by scientists to ignore dissenting views. The scientists involved have since been cleared of wrongdoing. "We need more discussion between scientists, journalists and policy-makers on how to keep highly significant, slow-burn issues like climate change interesting and engaging to different audiences around the world," Painter wrote. Of 12 countries studied, Brazil and India gave the summit the most space in print media, followed by Australia and Britain. At the other end of the scale, Nigeria, Russia and Egypt gave the least coverage. Painter said one way to improve the reporting on climate change was to provide more media staff to help scientists. He said environmental group Greenpeace had 20 media staff in Copenhagen against 12 media staff from 250 universities. The UN panel of climate scientists has one media officer. Among other suggestions was more frontline reporting about the impacts of climate change, along with more imaginative use of new media. Findings by a UN panel of scientists in 2007 that global warming is very likely man-made have been the main driver for action to curb emissions blamed for raising temperatures and causing more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels. This year's UN talks -- of environment ministers rather than world leaders -- will be in Mexico from Nov. 29-Dec. 10. | 0 |
China is producing far more carbon dioxide (CO2) than previous estimates and this will frustrate global aims to stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gases, a group of US economists said. China is the world's second-largest emitter of C02 and some studies suggest it might already have overtaken the United States last year. The report could add to calls for China to sign up to binding cuts, something it has refused to do. Writing in the May issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego said China's CO2 emissions will grow at least 11 percent annually between 2004 and 2010. Previous estimates, including those used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions during the same period. The release of the article comes as energy and environment ministers from the world's 20 major greenhouse gas emitting nations prepare to meet in Japan from Friday to discuss climate change, clean energy and sustainable development. The G20, ranging from top polluters the United States and China to Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa, emit about 80 percent of mankind's greenhouse gases. Pressure is growing on these nations to hammer out a pact to halt and reverse growing emissions of CO2, the main gas blamed for global warming. In the journal report, the U.S. researchers said that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions in China over levels in 2000. They said that figure from China alone would overshadow the 116 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol during the pact's 2008-2012 first commitment phase. China is not obliged under Kyoto to cut greenhouse gas emissions during 2008-12. But it joined nearly 190 nations in Bali in December in agreeing to launch two years of U.N.-led talks to create a global emissions-fighting pact to replace Kyoto from 2013. The authors used pollution data from 30 provinces and China's official waste gas emissions data to get a more detailed picture of CO2 emissions up to 2004. "It had been expected that the efficiency of China's power generation would continue to improve as per-capita income increased, slowing down the rate of CO2 emissions growth," said Maximillian Auffhammer, UC Berkeley assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics. "What we're finding instead is that the emissions growth rate is surpassing our worst expectations, and that means the goal of stabilising atmospheric CO2 is going to be much, much harder to achieve." Part of the problem was also a shift to give provinces more say in building power plants after 2000, the report said. "Wealthier coastal provinces tended to build clean-burning power plants based upon the very best technology available, but many of the poorer interior provinces replicated inefficient 1950s Soviet technology," said Richard Carson, UC San Diego professor of economics. "The problem is that power plants, once built, are meant to last for 40 to 75 years," said Carson. "These provincial officials have locked themselves into a long-run emissions trajectory that is much higher than people had anticipated. Our forecast incorporates the fact that much of China is now stuck with power plants that are dirty and inefficient." | 6 |
VINA DEL MAR, Chile, Mar 29,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Center-left world leaders including Britain's Gordon Brown and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday called for global financial reforms at next week's G20 summit, but the US warned against over-regulation. Meeting in the Chilean coastal resort of Vina del Mar in a pre-G20 warm-up, Brown, Lula, host Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said deep financial reforms were vital to avert a another financial meltdown. "The whole world is paying the price for the collapse of a reckless venture of those that have turned the world economy into a gigantic casino," Lula told fellow leaders in a roundtable discussion. "We are rejecting blind faith in the markets." Brown said the G20 summit in London had to focus on concrete ways to revive growth and create jobs while protecting the environment and the world's poor. "We have got to be very clear that banking cannot be unsupervised any more; there's got to be cross border supervision," he said, calling for an overhaul of the system of international finance and coordinated policies to help underpin sustainable growth. U.S. President Barack Obama has called on fellow G20 leaders to agree on immediate action to help boost the struggling global economy, while Brown wants the group to back a $100 billion expansion of trade financing and agree upon a long-delayed global trade pact. US Vice President Joe Biden told the meeting overlooking Chile's Pacific coast the United States was eager to coordinate international policy to reduce systemic risk to global markets, but warned over-regulation could hurt healthy markets. "We should not over-react. It is not a choice of markets or governments," Biden said. "A free market still needs to be able to function." Thousands of people marched in Britain, France, Germany and Italy on Saturday to protest the economic crisis and urge world leaders to act to reduce poverty, create jobs and avert climate change at the G20 summit. "We have to democratize the economy, globalization and the financial system. How to do this? We already know: with information, transparency and responsibility," Zapatero said. | 0 |
China is set to get its first judge on the World Trade Organisation's highest court, which will also for the first time include three women, diplomats and officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Chinese lawyer Yuejiao Zhang is slated to be named on Monday to the seven-member WTO Appellate Body, which issues rulings in trade disputes that can be worth billions of dollars, including cases between China and the United States. Jennifer Hillman of the United States, Lilia Bautista of the Philippines and Shotaro Oshima of Japan were also endorsed by a WTO selection committee to fill the four soon-to-be-vacant spots on the dispute board. They are expected to be officially selected at a meeting on Monday at the WTO, where any of the trade body's 151 member states have the right to veto their accession. Dispute resolution is the heart of the multilateral trading system, which hinges on countries' adherence to rules on how to treat goods and services crossing borders. WTO member states can seek a ruling on another country's policies that they believe violate international trade rules. Both developed and developing countries have launched disputes in areas including bananas, computer chips and rolled steel. Complaints are reviewed by an expert panel, whose findings may then be appealed to the Appellate Body which can uphold, modify or reverse the conclusions. Countries losing cases at the WTO can be forced to change their laws or face trade sanctions. ECONOMIC TENSIONS WTO disputes are expected to proliferate if diplomats negotiating a new global trade pact, known as the Doha round, fail to produce a deal to smooth trade flows. Several big cases are now underway at the WTO, including fights between Airbus and Boeing over aircraft subsidies. Economic tensions between the United States and China are also playing out at the WTO, where both Washington and Beijing have launched cases against the other on issues including copyright, taxation, car parts, paper and movies and music. Climate change, another sensitive issue for China, which has resisted accepting limits on its explosive economic growth, is also likely to come up before the WTO in coming years. Countries' efforts to subsidise biofuel manufacturers may face litigation if world prices for goods such as ethanol shift as a result, and any penalties imposed on imports from countries with weak carbon emission rules could also be reviewed. "Any trade measure that a government imposes can be challenged at the WTO," said Joost Pauwelyn of the Graduate Institute for International Studies in Geneva. The international law professor said it was critical the WTO's judges be seen as politically neutral, especially given the weighty business and economic issues ahead. Otherwise, he said countries may raise serious questions about the forum's legitimacy to rule on such matters. The WTO says members of its Appellate Body must be recognised authorities with expertise in law, international trade and the subject matter of the various agreements. "They are also required to be unaffiliated with any government and are to be broadly representative of the membership of the WTO," a statement on its Web site reads. If selected on Monday, Hillman and Bautista would join the top court next month, replacing Yasuhei Taniguchi of Japan and Merit Janow of the United States, who was the first woman to serve as WTO appellate judge. Zhang and Oshima would join in June, taking the place of Georges Michel Abi-Saab of Egypt and Arumugamangalam Venkatachalam Ganesan of India. They can serve up to two four-year terms. | 0 |
Israel said on Wednesday it was prepared to make "painful concessions" to achieve peace with the Palestinians, working via an Arab initiative drawn up earlier this year and supported by Egypt and Jordan. But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, writing in Britain's Guardian newspaper, said any talks must take the form of discussion rather than an ultimatum. "I take the offer of full normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world seriously; and I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner," Olmert wrote. "Working with our Jordanian and Egyptian partners, and hopefully other Arab states, we must pursue a comprehensive peace with energy and vision.... But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum." His remarks were published a day after the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, when Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria within a week, capturing the Sinai peninsula, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem. The Arab peace plan, endorsed at a summit in March, offers Israel normal relations with the Arab world in return for a Palestinian state and full withdrawal from the land seized in the 1967 war. Olmert has previously said he is willing to sit down and discuss the Arab initiative, but there has been little progress towards that goal, with Israeli-Palestinian tensions at a peak in recent weeks thanks to increased violence in Gaza. Israel said on Wednesday that a summit between Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas scheduled for Thursday and expected to discuss aspects of Palestinian statehood had been postponed at the Palestinians' request. Palestinian officials said several agreements had to be settled before talks convened. Writing in a column published alongside Olmert's, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said if Israel was serious about peace, it had to recognise "the basic rights of our people", including the right of refugees who fled or were driven out by Israel when it was founded in 1948 to return. "In the 1967 war, Israel conquered the land of Palestine but it did not conquer the people... The 1967 war has over 40 years engendered successive wars and destabilisation of the Middle East," Haniyeh wrote. For the climate to change, he said, Israel had to withdraw from all lands occupied in 1967, dismantle all the settlements in the West Bank, where around 250,000 Jews live among 2.4 million Palestinians, free all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and recognise the right of refugees to return. "If Israel is serious about peace, it has to recognise these basic rights of our people," Haniyeh said. "Nothing will stop our struggle for freedom and to have all our children reunited in a fully sovereign state of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital." | 2 |
The World Bank announced on Friday a global alliance to better manage and protect the world's oceans, which are under threat from over-fishing, pollution and climate change. Oceans are the lifeblood of the planet and the global economy, World Bank President Robert Zoellick told a conference on ocean conservation in Singapore. Yet the seas have become overexploited, coastlines badly degraded and reefs under threat from pollution and rising temperatures. "We need a new SOS: Save Our Seas," Zoellick said in announcing the alliance. The partnership would bring together countries, scientific centres, non-governmental groups, international organisations, foundations and the private sector, he said. The World Bank could help guide the effort by bringing together existing global ocean conservation programmes and support efforts to mobilise finance and develop market-mechanisms to place a value on the benefits that oceans provide. Millions of people rely on oceans for jobs and food and that dependence will grow as the world's population heads for 9 billion people, underscoring the need to better manage the seas. Zoellick said the alliance was initially committed to mobilising at least $300 million in finance. "Working with governments, the scientific community, civil society organizations, and the private sector, we aim to leverage as much as $1.2 billion to support healthy and sustainable oceans." FISH STOCKS A key focus was understanding the full value of the oceans' wealth and ecosystem services. Oceans are the top source of oxygen, help regulate the climate, while mangroves, reefs and wetlands are critical to protecting increasingly populous coastal areas against hazards such as storms -- benefits that are largely taken for granted. "Whatever the resource, it is impossible to evolve a plan to manage and grow the resource without knowing its value," he said. Another aim was to rebuild at least half the world's fish stocks identified as depleted. About 85 percent of ocean fisheries are fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted. "We should increase the annual net benefits of fisheries to between $20 billion and $30 billion. We estimate that global fisheries currently run a net economic loss of about $5 billion per year," he said. Participants at the conference spoke of the long-term dividends from ocean conservation and better management of its resources. But that needed economists, bankers and board rooms to place a value on the oceans' "natural capital". "The key to the success of this partnership will be new market mechanisms that value natural capital and can attract private finance," Abyd Karmali, global head of carbon markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told Reuters. He pointed to the value in preserving carbon-rich mangrove forests and sea grassbeds and the possibility of earning carbon offsets for projects that conserve these areas. "The oceans' stock is in trouble. We have diminished its asset value to a huge degree and poor asset management is poor economics," Stephen Palumbi, director of the Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, told the conference. | 0 |
China defended its extensive censorship and brushed aside hacking claims on Thursday, telling companies not to buck state control of the Internet after US search giant Google threatened to quit the country. The Google dispute could stoke tensions between China and the United States, already at odds over the value of the yuan currency, trade quarrels, US arms sales to Taiwan and climate change policy. It threw a spotlight on hacking and the Internet controls that Google says have stifled its business in China. Google's challenge to Beijing came as foreign businesses have voiced growing frustration at China's business climate, even as Chinese economic growth outpaces the rest of the world. Google, the world's top search engine, said it may shut its Chinese-language google.cn website and offices in China after a cyber-attack originating from China that also targeted other firms and human rights campaigners using its Gmail service. The company, which has struggled to compete with local market leader Baidu, said it would discuss with the Chinese government ways to offer an unfiltered search engine, or pull out. But Minister Wang Chen of China's State Council Information Office said Internet companies should help the one-party government steer the fast-changing society, which now has 360 million Internet users, more than any other country. Wang did not mention Google, but his comments suggested little room for compromise in the feud over Internet freedom. "Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts," said Wang, whose comments appeared on the Information Office's website. "Properly guiding Internet opinion is a major measure for protecting Internet information security." MENACES TO SOCIETY Online pornography, hacking, fraud and "rumours" were menaces to Chinese society, Wang said, adding that the government and Internet media both have a responsibility to "guide" opinion. The Information Office is an arm of the China's propaganda system, and Wang's comments were Beijing's first substantial comment on Internet policy after Google threatened to retreat from the world's third-biggest economy. Later in the day, the Foreign Ministry batted away Google's allegation that it and dozens of other foreign companies were the targets of sophisticated hacking from within the country. "China welcomes international Internet businesses developing services in China according to the law," Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said when asked to comment on Google. "Chinese law proscribes any form of hacking activity." Jiang repeatedly said it was up to other "relevant departments" to answer questions about the hacking, and she avoided commenting on the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's criticisms of Chinese online controls. The official China Daily described Google's threat as a "strategy to put pressure on the Chinese government". The dispute drew an outpouring of nationalistic fervour from China's online community, with some Internet users cheering it as a victory for the Chinese. For Reuters Insider TV on the Google v Baidu rivalry, click link.reuters.com/vup33h For a related TIMELINE Graphic, click here For a Graphic on China market share, click here Cyber-experts said more than 30 firms were victims of attacks that used tailored emails to deliver malicious software exploiting vulnerabilities in the Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader software. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke urged China on Wednesday to ensure a "secure" commercial environment for U.S. companies. "The recent cyber intrusion that Google attributes to China is troubling to the U.S. government and American companies doing business in China," Locke said in a statement. SENSITIVE TOPICS Google came under pressure from the Chinese government last year and was ordered to change the way it allows searches. It filters many topics deemed sensitive in China. Most of those filters were still in place on Thursday, although controls over some searches, including the June 4, 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters, appear to have been loosened. Google trails homegrown rival Baidu in China's $1 billion a year search market, with 30 percent market share to Baidu's 61 percent, according to Analysys International. Baidu shares rose after the Google announcement. About a dozen Chinese fans of Google held an impromptu candlelight vigil at the company's Beijing headquarters late on Wednesday. Others had brought bouquets of roses and lilies shortly after Google's decision was announced. He Ye, a woman at the vigil, said finding alternative news would become more difficult if Google pulled out of China. "If I cannot search for it through Google, I'd feel I lose a part of my life," she said. A comment on the website of a Chinese-language tabloid, the Global Times, said Google was threatening to quit China because it had been beaten by Baidu. "Our largest Chinese search engine has thoroughly defeated the American leader, and we can again rejoice in the global arena," said the comment. "It also shows that nowhere can we not match up to the United States." | 0 |
India said on Monday its existing energy policy would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by over 25 percent by 2020, but warned pressure to set mandatory targets to curb global warming would hurt economic growth. Currently contributing around three percent of global carbon emissions, India is already among the world's top polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Despite pressure from industrialised nations and environmental groups to cut emissions, India is not required under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions -- said to be rising annually by 2-3 percent -- presently. Prodipto Ghosh, environment secretary, told a news conference that India was an environmentally responsible country which actively enforced programmes on energy efficiency and promotion of renewable energy, which were paying off. "Our modelling approaches show the effect of many of our policies taken together that the year 2020 will result in a more than a 25 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions," said Ghosh. Booming economies India and China are likely to face more pressure at next week's summit of the Group of Eight in Germany to do more to cut emissions. Ghosh said India was spending 2.17 percent of GDP annually on addressing the variability of climate change through projects in agriculture, coastal zones and health and sanitation. Experts say the Indian subcontinent will be one of the most affected regions in the world, with more frequent natural disasters of greater severity, more diseases such as malaria and greater hunger. Ghosh said global warming was the fault of industrialised nations who should set higher cuts in emissions targets for themselves, rather than pressuring developing countries. The world's richest countries, including the United States, contributed about 60 percent of total emissions in 2004 and account for 77 percent of cumulative emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution, a U.S. study reported this month. "Developing countries like India have not historically, are not now and will not in the foreseeable future be a significant contributor to emissions," said Ghosh. "Any legally mandated measures for reducing emissions are likely to have significant adverse impacts on GDP growth and this will have serious implications for poverty alleviation efforts." He urged the West to do more to help developing countries adapt to the impact of climate change. "Climate change impacts will largely affect the poor and their livelihoods and lives will be at risk," he said. | 1 |
"Yes, he (Pachauri) has been hospitalised," the source told IANS.Pachauri stepped down as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following a complaint of alleged sexual harassment.The woman complainant, who is a research analyst at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) of which Pachauri is the director-general, lodged a police case against him.Citing several texts, emails, and WhatsApp messages as evidence to prove the claim of sexual harassment, the complainant accused the scientist of harassing her soon after she joined the Delhi-based environment think-tank in September 2013.A Delhi court has granted interim protection from arrest to Pachauri till Feb 26. | 0 |
BERLIN, Dec 29, bdnews24.com/Reuters) - From the German town that unwittingly advertised pornography on its website to the American who interrupted his wedding to update his Facebook and Twitter accounts, the world was full of weird stories in 2009. "Standing at the alter with @TracyPage where just a second ago she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss the bride" is how Dana Hanna kept the world posted between "I do" and that kiss. Cartoon character Marge Simpson made it on the cover of Playboy magazine, two White House gate-crashers celebrated their triumph on Facebook, and the world was fooled into believing a 6-year-old boy was caught in a runaway home-made helium balloon. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube proved fertile ground for many of the bizarre stories. British physicians were advised to ignore amorous advances from patients after some were propositioned on Facebook, Dutch lawmakers were told off for tweeting in parliament and in Canada an MP had to apologise for insulting a rival on Twitter. In New York, five "restroom ambassadors" got jobs tweeting from the toilets at Times Square: greeting tourists and shoppers -- and then sending short dispatches on their encounters. Britain's High Court ordered its first injunction via Twitter to stop an anonymous Tweeter impersonating someone else. The U.N.'s World Food Programme sent text messages to Iraqi refugees in Syria so they could redeem the virtual vouchers for fresh food in local shops. A U.S. survey found that one in five drivers read or sent text messages from behind the wheel. "The new technologies that help us multi-task in our everyday lives and increasingly popular social media sites present a hard-to-resist challenge," said U.S. motor club head Robert Darbelnet -- a fitting description for the whole year. FUNERAL HOME GOES GREEN Swine flu, or H1N1, presented another challenge -- and rich source of weird stories. In Egypt, thousands of pigs were slaughtered even though the United Nations said the mass cull was a "real mistake" because the strain was not found in pigs. Russian soccer fans were instructed to drink whisky on a trip to Wales for a World Cup qualifier match to ward off the H1N1 virus. In Japan, candidates stopped shaking hands. In Italy an inventor devised an electronic holy water dispenser. The spread of new media got people in trouble. Dutch muggers were caught with the help of a Google street view camera. A vain British burglar sent a picture of himself to his newspaper because the wanted criminal said he did not like the police mugshot. A picture of a student urinating on a British war memorial published in a newspaper led to his being charged. A German student thrown off a train for riding without a ticket got in trouble on his own. He stuck his backside against the window at railway staff but his trousers got caught in a train door. He nearly died mooning as he was dragged half-naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks before the train stopped. In India, a mid-air scuffle broke out between pilots and crew of one flight. In the U.S., two Northwest pilots overflew their destination by 250 km (155 miles). They said they lost their bearings while using their personal laptops in the cockpit. A Saudi court sentenced a man to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes for boasting about his sexual exploits on TV. Australian horse racing officials were denounced for holding a dwarf racing competition. The race involved men charging down a course with dwarfs dressed in jockey silks riding piggyback. The Paris tourist board urged locals to do their part to battle a 17-percent plunge in visitors: Smile! S'il vous plait. In Norway happy cows proved to be more productive. Since new rules were introduced in 2004 allowing the cows to relax for up to half a day on soft rubberized mattresses, officials reported they are producing more milk and have fewer udder infections. An Irish school told children to bring their own toilet paper to help the school save money while Cuban officials said the country was facing a severe shortage of toilet paper. Climate change was another big theme in 2009. To save water and electricity in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez urged people to stop singing in the shower. Those wishing to be cremated but worried about producing greenhouse gases even after dying learned about a funeral home in Florida that has come up with a greener way to go by dissolving the body using a chemical process. | 0 |
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. | 0 |
"This is a grove of Atlantic Cedars... victims of saltwater inundation from rising seas due to climate change," said Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. "They're called, 'Ghost Forests,' so I wanted to bring a ghost forest to raise awareness about this phenomenon," she added, noting that more than 50% of Atlantic Cedars on the US Eastern Seaboard have been lost. The trees, some of them 80 years old, are from the Atlantic Pine Barrens of New Jersey, which is about 100 miles (160 km) from downtown Manhattan. The exhibit in Madison Square Park, in the shadow of the Empire State Building, will be displayed until Nov 14. | 0 |
Indonesia rejected on Monday a study by US researchers that concluded that the H5N1 bird flu virus had spread from person to person during an outbreak last year, saying it was misleading. A mathematical analysis published last week in the US journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases said it found statistical evidence of human-to-human transmission in a cluster of cases on Sumatra island, where eight family members died in May 2006. Indonesia's Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the research findings had "misled the public". "It's pure logic... If there had been human-to-human transmission, it would have already swept the country and killed thousands," Supari told a news conference. "Our scientists have already determined that the 2006 outbreak on North Sumatra was not a case of human-to-human transmission." Researcher Ira Longini and colleagues at the Ferd Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who examined two clusters of bird flu cases, said they had developed a tool to run quick tests on disease outbreaks to see if dangerous epidemics or pandemics may be developing. "We find statistical evidence of human-to-human transmission in Sumatra, but not in Turkey," they wrote in a report published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases on the two clusters studied. Bird flu is endemic in bird populations in most parts of Indonesia, where millions of backyard chickens live in close proximity to people. While it is largely an animal disease, experts fear the virus could mutate and spread from human to human, turning into pandemic that could kill millions. Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the disease. Indonesia has had 105 confirmed human cases from bird flu, out of which 84 have been fatal, the highest for any country in the world. The popular resort island of Bali, the centre of Indonesia's tourism industry, recently saw its first confirmed human fatalities from the disease. Supari said tests done in WHO laboratories in Atlanta on virus samples from Bali showed the virus had jumped from animal to humans. "There is nothing to worry about, so far Atlanta has not issued any alarm," she said after the news conference. Bali regularly hosts large international conventions and is due to hold an important UN climate change conference in December with about 10,000 people expected to attend. Globally there have been 327 cases and 199 human deaths from bird flu, World Health organisation data shows. | 0 |
Big business is officially going solar. This month, several of the world's biggest technology and manufacturing companies -- including Intel Corp and International Business Machines Corp -- made major moves into the burgeoning solar power business. That could be the start of a trend as corporate giants look to capitalize on the growing demand for cleaner energy sources. "These announcements are a great indication of where the solar industry is going," Rhone Resch, president of industry trade group the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Renewable Energy Finance Forum conference in New York this week. "This is the beginning of both high-tech and energy companies getting into solar." Solar power still makes up a tiny fraction of the world's energy consumption, but the makers of panels that transform sunlight into electricity are enjoying supercharged growth due to heightened concerns about climate change and rising prices on fossil fuels. In the last few years alone, solar companies including San Jose, California-based SunPower Corp and Germany's Q-Cells AG have grown from small technology-focused start-ups into businesses with multibillion-dollar market capitalizations. Now, other companies want a piece of that fast-growing market. A few tech companies, such as chip equipment maker Applied Materials Inc and SunPower stakeholder Cypress Semiconductor Corp, got into the solar business earlier this decade, recognizing the similarities between their own industries and technology-driven solar power. With their proven successes, others are following. "What the strategic players bring is that ability to bring large-scale manufacturing," said Kevin Genieser, who heads Morgan Stanley's renewable energy investment banking practice. "We're expecting to see merger and acquisition activity ramp up in the solar space," he said at the conference. 'THE REAL DEAL' This week, the world's largest maker of semiconductors, Intel, said it would spin off solar technology it developed into a start-up called SpectraWatt Inc, and IBM said it had joined forces with semiconductor process company Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co Ltd to develop more efficient solar power technologies. Intel is leading a $50 million investment round in SpectraWatt, which will begin shipping its solar cells next year, while IBM and TOK plan to license their copper-indium-gallium-selenide thin film solar technology in the next two to three years. Those moves came on the heels of Robert Bosch GmbH's announcement earlier this month that it would buy German solar cell maker Ersol for 1.08 billion euros ($1.67 billion). Privately owned Bosch is the world's biggest automotive supplier. Finally, also this month Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's biggest computer maker, said it would license its clear transistor technology to Livermore, California-based solar power company Xtreme Energetics. Many said the interest from corporate stalwarts lends new credibility to solar power, proving that it is far from a fad. "Intel, IBM and HP announcements of new solar initiatives (on the heels of Bosch acquisition of Ersol) validate solar's long-term opportunity," Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel said in a note to clients this week. Even Tom Werner, chief executive of SunPower, agreed that with Intel and IBM in the business, financiers and others can't help but see solar as "the real deal." Werner said IBM and Intel would certainly raise the competitive bar, but he added that SunPower's well-established business has a significant advantage. "For us, it just makes us sharpen our sword a little bit more," Werner said in an interview. "The Intel thing, they are breaking ground now. We've been shipping for several years now, so if we can't stay in front of that, shame on us." Resch and Pichel also said new entrants into the market, however large, were unlikely to hurt established players given that demand for solar panels far outpaces supply. Still, there are some who say the big companies now coming into the solar fold may just be too late to the party. "Today it may be a day late and a dollar short," said CRT Capital Group analyst Ashok Kumar. "Most of the domestic and overseas players have already built up scale." | 2 |
an epithet which came to define the lacklustre latter years of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the 1970s and early 1980s, but is now increasingly used of Putin. Despite years of government promises, Russia has yet to build a modern pensions saving system, improve regulation to create a viable financial market trading centre to compete with Dubai or invest in its crumbling infrastructure. Already weighed down by the cost of hefty public sector pay rises ahead of this year's presidential election, the Russian government's latest budget envisages spending $620 billion by 2020 re-equipping the country's military, while cutting spending on infrastructure and education. These priorities have upset business leaders, who are desperate for improvements to the creaking road network. And despite repeated Putin's pledges to cut the economy's dependence on oil and gas exports, the oil price required by the Kremlin to make its budget sums add up has more than doubled over the pasts five years to $110. In foreign policy, Medvedev's much-vaunted plan to reset relations with the United States on a more constructive track has stalled. Instead Moscow has confronted the West over Syria and given priority to pursuing a free trade area with former Soviet neighbours Belarus and Kazakhstan. Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, says Russia wants to be an "independent centre of attraction" for nations in its neighbourhood and adds: "The West made a major mistake wanting Russia to be like the West - Russia wants to be Russia". PUNISHING PUSSY RIOT One of the clearest signs of divergence between Russia and the West is the treatment of Pussy Riot - a punk feminist band who staged a protest song in Moscow's main cathedral this year imploring the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin. Three of its members were jailed for two years - one later released on a suspended sentence - for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Putin said the women had "got what they deserved" because their performance amounted to a vulgar act of group sex and threatened the moral foundations of Russia. Western governments and human rights groups were outraged at what they saw as a grossly disproportionate punishment. Yet the harsh treatment meted out to Pussy Riot may signify something deeper than moral indignation. Many analysts see the jail terms as a sign of something deeper - Kremlin insecurity amid rising popular discontent. While the street protests which swept Moscow last winter have now abated, political analysts say the urban, educated population is increasingly unhappy with Putin's leadership. Far from the grandeur of Putin's Novo-Ogaryovo residence, its wrought-iron gates topped with the double-headed Russian eagle, to the north of Moscow lies the featureless dormitory town of Krasnogorsk. Inside a small, noisy McDonald's restaurant there, a diminutive 30-year-old woman energetically explained her prediction for Russia's future under Putin, as a snowstorm swirled outside. "The system itself is crumbling," said Yekaterina Samutsevich, the released Pussy Riot member. "It's becoming more repressive ... those in power have very strong fears and their behaviour is more and more wild. We could end with a total collapse like the Soviet Union." Whether the vision of the strong, stable, great power projected by Putin or the apocalyptic prediction of the young punk rocker come to pass remains to be seen. But in the meantime Russia's people and its business elite are voting with their feet and their wallets. And Putin is not winning. | 2 |
She made the remarks in her address to the 76th session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) via video conference on Thursday. The theme of the session was "promoting economic, social and environmental cooperation on oceans for sustainable development”. Hasina was scheduled to attend the meeting in Bangkok and deliver the keynote speech but the session had to be held on a virtual platform for the first time due to global the COVID-19 pandemic. Bangladesh Ambassador to Thailand and Permanent Representative to the ESCAP Nazmul Quaunine was elected as the chair of the 76th Commission of UNESCAP. Addressing the fallout from the coronavirus crisis, Hasina said, "The world is facing unprecedented challenges of the century due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Along with the health issues this virus has severely affected our economy." "However, the pandemic is also showing some silver linings on the change of global efforts to deal with climate change and growing competition for natural resources. We need to tackle this pandemic together. In her message, Hasina stressed on regional cooperation for capacity building of developing countries for sustainable use of marine resources. Hasina highlighted Bangladesh's commitment to promoting the growth of the blue economy as part of the long-term national development strategy. Oceans and seas constitute a last resource frontier for the world and can help alleviate poverty and offer employment opportunities, the premier noted. "Environmental pollutants are the major hurdles of the marine food-web and require an integrated response for the world economy towards a sustainable, inclusive and resource-efficient path of using resources of the oceans," she said. "In view of this, my government has given utmost importance on promoting the growth of the blue economy as part of our long-term national development strategy." The prime minister underscored the conservations programmes that Bangladesh has been implementing along with the use of sustainable and eco-friendly technologies, among others, to protect freshwater and marine resources. She also laid out some "fundamental ocean issues" that must be addressed in order to strengthen the economic cooperation among member countries of the ESCAP. "We need enhanced support for capacity building through sharing of knowledge, expertise and transfer of technology from advanced countries on Blue Economy," said Hasina. The Bangladesh leader emphasised the need for joint research among member countries on fisheries development with a view to increasing regional fish production and establishing common platform network to deter, combat and eliminate "illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Hasina urged ESCAP to initiate mapping and management of resource identification while taking steps to protect critical coastal habitat and biodiversity. Besides Hasina, Prime Minister of Thailand Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Fiji Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama and Prime Minister of Tuvalu Kausea Natano also sent their video messages to the Commission. In the session, the Asia Pacific nations agreed to cooperate in addressing the socio-economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemics and adopted a resolution. | 1 |
Winter tornadoes that ripped across parts of the American South this week were unusually lethal but not particularly rare, a US government meteorologist said on Wednesday as the death toll mounted. Tornado season in the United States generally starts in March and continues through the summer months but winter tornadoes have become an almost annual occurrence, according to Harold Brooks of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "While this is not a normal event, it's not an incredibly rare event," Brooks, based at the agency's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, said by telephone. Tornadoes that rolled through Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky this week killed more than 50 people. Brooks said tornadoes in the southeastern United States occur in winter "roughly once a year," he said. The current tornado outbreak, which Brooks estimates includes some 30 to 40 tornadoes, is similar to a March 1, 2007, outbreak that killed 20 people in and around Enterprise, Alabama. There were previous deadly tornado outbreaks on March 12, 2006, in Missouri and Illinois and on January 1, 1999, in Arkansas and Tennessee, Brooks said. The difference between these other three outbreaks and the recent one is the death toll, he said. Tornadoes develop in warm, moist air ahead of east-moving cold fronts. There are 800 tornadoes reported in the United States in an average year, resulting in 80 deaths and over 1,500 injuries, according to the weather agency's Web site www.nssl.noaa.gov/edu/safety/tornadoguide.html. Big differences in temperature help fuel tornado development by whipping up strong winds aloft where masses of cold air and warm air meet. This year's cold northern temperatures and warm air in the US south created good conditions for tornado formation, Brooks said. Does climate change play any role in the frequency or intensity of tornadoes? Brooks said no, adding that the historical record of tornadoes is insufficient to let scientists figure out what impact, if any, climate change has. "Our current physical understanding of how tornadoes work (is that) some of the ingredients that are important to make a tornado will increase in a greenhouse-enhanced world, some of them will decrease and the balance is unknown," Brooks said. | 0 |
BEIJING, Sun Feb 22, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended her visit to China on Sunday by attending services at a state-sanctioned church, having a conversation with women's rights activists and doing a brief Web chat. The events on the last day of her one-week Asian tour aimed to highlight Clinton's commitment to civil and religious rights in a way that would not offend the Chinese government, which resents what it views as interference in its internal affairs. "Every society has challenges and problems and issues and obstacles and it's important that people like all of you continue to raise those and speak out," Clinton said as she met about two dozen women's rights activists at the US embassy. She warmly praised the activists, who included legal rights advocates, environmentalists and an 82-year-old doctor, Gao Yaojie, who exposed official complicity in the spread of AIDS in central China at unsanitary, often state-run clinics. "Change really does come from individual decisions, many millions of individual decisions, where someone stands up like Dr. Gao and says 'No, I am not going to be quiet,'" Clinton said. "That's what we have to encourage." Clinton made clear during her visit that while she would raise human rights in China she would not let US concerns about them get in the way of joint work on the global economy, climate change and security issues. China and the United States are both dependent on a revival of the US economy and will rise or fall together, she told the Shanghai-based Dragon TV in an interview. China is the world's biggest holder of US treasuries and Clinton said continuing to invest in them was "a very smart decision". "So by continuing to support American treasury instruments, the Chinese are recognising our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together. We are in the same boat and thankfully we are rowing in the same direction." CHURCH Having visited Tokyo, Jakarta, Seoul and Beijing over the last week, Clinton began her day by attending a service at the Haidian Christian church, which was opened in Beijing's university district in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games. China has about 40 million active Christians, and their numbers are evenly divided between state-run and underground churches, according to expert estimates. Religious freedom is enshrined in China's constitution, but the government expects Christians to worship in "patriotic" churches under state control with clergy vetted by the state. Last year a Christian activist was detained on his way to a service attended by US President George W Bush. In an effort to protect the rights activists whom she later met at the US embassy, US officials asked reporters not to name those who did not wish their presence to be public. Gao received an award in Washington two years ago after Clinton wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao asking that he intervene with local officials who had sought to prevent the elderly doctor from traveling. "I am already 82. I am not going to live that much longer," Gao told Clinton. "This is an important issue. I am not afraid." | 0 |
Populations of the
world's tallest land creature fell to about 98,000 from an estimated
152,000-163,000 in 1985, according to the List compiled by the International
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The Red List rated the
giraffe "vulnerable" to extinction on current trends for the first
time, against a previous rating of "least concern". It said the
plunge in numbers in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa had gone largely
unnoticed. "Whilst giraffes
are commonly seen on safari, in the media and in zoos, people – including
conservationists – are unaware that these majestic animals are undergoing a
silent extinction," Julian Fennessy, an IUCN giraffe specialist, said in a
statement. Giraffes are at risk
from the expansion of farmland to feed a rising human population and from
killings for their meat, often in areas of conflict such as South Sudan,
according to the IUCN, which groups scientists, governments and activists. "People are competing
for fewer and fewer resources and the animals are worse off ... especially with
civil strife," Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the Red List, told Reuters.
Drought and climate change are aggravating factors, he said. Among other changes on
the list, the African gray parrot - famed for its skill in mimicking human
speech - was rated endangered, one step worse than its earlier category as
vulnerable. Trapping for the pet trade has driven down numbers. The list also found
that 11 percent of more than 700 other species of bird newly assessed were at
risk of extinction, such as the Antioquia wren in Colombia, which is under
threat from a hydro-electric dam. A few were recovering
against the trend - conservation efforts had reduced threats for birds including
the Azores bullfinch, St Helena plover and Seychelles white-eye. The Red List, the main
global authority on risks to animals and plants, said 24,307 of 85,604 species
assessed in recent decades were in danger of extinction. UN studies say that
man-made threats, led by the loss of natural habitats, may herald the worst
extinction crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago. | 0 |
Chinese President Hu Jintao gave qualified support on Thursday to an Australian initiative on climate change, saying the "Sydney Declaration" is fine as long as it is in line with a UN framework. Hu made the comments in a rare news conference after meeting Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "We very much hope that this Sydney Declaration will give full expression to the position that the UN framework convention on climate change would remain the main channel for international efforts to tackle climate change," he said. The declaration should also reflect UN principles of "common but differentiated responsibilities" toward lowering harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Australia, as host of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, has put climate change at the top of the agenda. Its draft declaration calls for a new global framework that would include "aspirational" targets for all APEC members on lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists say is causing the climate to change. Australia, backed by the United States, says the Kyoto protocol, the main climate change treaty, is flawed because it does not commit big polluters in the developing world, such as India and China, to the same kind of targets as industrialised nations. That approach is getting a decidedly lukewarm response at the APEC meeting from developing countries, which prefer to see the whole issue handled at a U.N. meeting later this month in New York. "As one of our ministers, (Malaysia Trade Minister) Rafidah said, that E (in APEC) stands for economic, not environment," Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu told reporters, adding ministers should look at how climate change affects business. APEC ministers were grappling with the issue behind closed doors at a two-day meeting ending on Thursday, trying to agree on the wording of the declaration to be issued at a weekend summit. Kyoto's first phase runs out in 2012 and the APEC summit is one of a growing number of efforts to find a formula that brings rich and developing countries together on climate change. Hu has had a warm reception since his arrival in Australia on Monday when he visited the mining-rich state of Western Australia before heading to Canberra and a tour of a sheep farm. But in Sydney, three rallies were scheduled on Thursday to protest against China's human rights record, including one by the religious group Falun Gong that attracted up to 2,000 people in Sydney's Hyde Park. Australia has launched its biggest ever security operation in Sydney to welcome the 21 leaders attending this week's APEC meetings. Newspapers have dubbed the city of more than 4 million people "Fortress Sydney". Bush meets Hu later on Thursday and says he expects to have robust discussions on everything from product safety and trade to climate change, jailed dissidents, Beijing's support for Myanamar's junta, the Dalai Lama and Iran. The two men are only scheduled to meet for 20 minutes. At his news conference, Hu said China took international concerns over product safety very seriously. "The Chinese side is willing and ready to work together with the international community to step up cooperation in quality inspections and examinations and further deepen mutually beneficial economic cooperation and trade," he said. On climate change, Bush said China has "to be a part of defining the goals". "Once we can get people to define the goals, then we can encourage people to define the tactics necessary to achieve the goals," he said at a news conference on Wednesday. "I believe this strategy is going to be a lot more effective than trying ... to say, this is what you've got to do." Bush started his day on Thursday meeting Australia's opposition leader Kevin Rudd, who has vowed to bring back Australian frontline troops from the Iraq war, calling it the biggest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. Rudd holds a commanding lead in opinion poll over Howard -- a staunch supporter of the war -- ahead of a general election expected in the coming weeks, and soon could be in a position to reverse Howard's policies on the war. | 0 |
Southern African leaders will hold an emergency meeting in Swaziland's capital Mbabane on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe, officials said. Earlier, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai urged the United Nations to isolate President Robert Mugabe and said a peacekeeping force was needed in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has shrugged off Monday's unprecedented and unanimous decision by the U.N. Security Council to condemn violence against the opposition and declare that a free and fair presidential election on Friday was impossible. The Mbabane meeting has been called by the leading regional body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), amid mounting international pressure on Mugabe to resolve his country's political turmoil and economic meltdown. The leaders of Tanzania, Angola and Swaziland would attend the meeting in their capacity as the SADC's troika organ on politics, defense and security, the Tanzanian government said in a statement. "Others who have been invited to attend the meeting are the current SADC chairman, (President) Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, and the SADC mediator for Zimbabwe, (President) Thabo Mbeki of South Africa," said the statement. "The meeting will discuss how the SADC and its troika organ on politics, defense and security can help Zimbabwe to get out of its current state of conflict." Tsvangirai, who has withdrawn from the election and taken refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare since Sunday, said Zimbabwe would "break" if the world did not come to its aid. "We ask for the U.N. to go further than its recent resolution, condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, to encompass an active isolation of the dictator Mugabe," Tsvangirai wrote in an article in Britain's Guardian newspaper. "For this we need a force to protect the people. We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force," said Tsvangirai. "Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not trouble-makers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns." INCREASED PRESSURE Pressure has increased on Mugabe from both inside and outside Africa over Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, blamed by the West and the opposition on the 84-year-old president who has held power for 28 years. The United States has urged SADC to declare both the election and Mugabe's government illegitimate. Angola's state-run ANGOP news agency quoted SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salomao as saying foreign ministers agreed at a meeting on Monday that a "climate of extreme violence" existed in Zimbabwe and that the government must protect the people. Friday's vote was meant to be a run-off between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. The opposition leader won a first round in March but official figures did not give him an outright victory. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change won a parallel parliamentary election in March, sending Mugabe's ZANU-PF party to its first defeat since independence from Britain in 1980. Both Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and the leader of South Africa's ruling African National Congress said Friday's election must be postponed after Tsvangirai's withdrawal. Zuma, who rivals Mbeki as South Africa's most powerful man, called for urgent intervention by the United Nations and SADC, saying the situation in Zimbabwe was out of control. South Africa under Mbeki has been an advocate of "quiet diplomacy" with Mugabe and has resisted calls to use its powerful economic leverage over landlocked Zimbabwe. But Zuma, who toppled Mbeki as ANC leader last December, has become increasingly outspoken over Mugabe. On Tuesday, Mugabe dismissed the pressure and told a rally in western Zimbabwe that Friday's election would go ahead. "The West can scream all it wants. Elections will go on. Those who want to recognize our legitimacy can do so, those who don't want, should not," said Mugabe. Mugabe has presided over a slide into economic chaos, including 80 percent unemployment and the world's highest inflation rate of at least 165,000 percent. He blames Western sanctions for his country's economic woes. | 5 |
Natural disasters caused $109 billion in economic damage last year, three times more than in 2009, with Chile and China bearing most of the cost, the United Nations said on Monday. The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in February cost $30 billion. Landslides and floods last summer in China caused $18 billion in losses, data compiled by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) showed. Although Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake was the deadliest event of 2010, killing 316,000 people according to the government in Port-au-Prince, its economic toll was $8 billion. The July-August floods in Pakistan cost $9.5 billion. Margareta Wahlstrom, the UN assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction, said fast-developing countries were facing increasing price tags from natural disasters. "The accumulated wealth that is affected by disaster events is growing," she told a news briefing in Geneva, where most of the UN's emergency and aid operations are based. Cities are particularly vulnerable to big economic losses when poorly-maintained infrastructure is rattled by earthquakes or exposed to big storms, Wahlstrom said. "With more extreme weather events, and more earthquakes in urban areas, the state of repair or disrepair in urban areas is really critical," she said. CLIMATE CHANGE The most populous cities on earthquake fault lines include Mexico City, New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, Kolkata, Jakarta and Tokyo, according to the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Many people also live in parts of urban areas vulnerable to landslides and floods, which are anticipated to occur more often as a result of climate change, Wahlstrom said, also warning of rising risks from "silent events" like droughts. Of the 373 disasters recorded last year, 22 were in China, 16 were in India and 14 were in the Philippines, CRED said. The storms, earthquakes, heatwaves and cold snaps affected 207 million people and killed 296,800, according to the data, which does not incorporate an increase of Haiti's death toll announced earlier this month by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. The global toll estimates that 55,736 people died from a summer heatwave in Russia which led to crop failures and helped drive up food prices. It also says 2,968 people were killed in an April earthquake in China and 1,985 died from the Pakistani floods. The 2009 economic price tag of $34.9 billion was unusually low because of the lack of a major weather or climate event in the period, which nonetheless saw floods and typhoons in Asia and an earthquake in Indonesia. A major earthquake in China in 2008 caused $86 billion in damage, bringing that year's economic toll to approximately $200 billion. In 2005, the hurricanes that struck the southern United States drove up the global disaster toll to nearly $250 billion. The economic cost estimates are based on data from national authorities as well as insurance companies including Swiss Re, Munich Re and Lloyd's. CRED is part of the University of Louvain in Belgium and maintains a database of international disasters for the United Nations. | 0 |
Power prices have surged to record highs in recent weeks, driven by shortages in Asia and Europe, with an energy crisis in China expected to last through to the end of the year and crimp growth in the world's second-largest economy and top exporter. China on Tuesday took its boldest step in a decades-long power sector reform, saying it will allow coal-fired power plants to pass on the high costs of generation to some end-users via market-driven electricity prices. Pushing all industrial and commercial users to the power exchanges and allowing prices to be set by the market is expected to encourage loss-making generators to increase output. The impact of supply crunches in power and manufacturing components is showing up in data from Tokyo to London, adding to a deepening disquiet in global markets and underscoring the difficulty in cutting the world's dependency on polluting fossil fuels a month before global climate change talks. A sell-off in global stocks and bonds extended into Tuesday, taking short-dated US Treasury yields to 18-month highs, while world stocks fell for a third straight day on fears that energy prices were putting a dampener on economic growth. Data on Tuesday showed Japanese wholesale inflation hit 13-year highs last month, while shoppers in Britain slashed spending and China recorded a 20% drop in car sales. The International Monetary Fund cut growth outlooks for the United States and other major industrial powers citing persistent supply chain disruptions and pricing pressures. China's latest reform follows a raft of measures including urging coal miners to boost output and manage electricity demand at industrial plants to tame the record-high coal prices and to ease the power crunch across the country, with utilities unable to keep up with post-pandemic demand. And in a move that could push up already high global prices, India has asked power producers to import up to 10% of their coal needs and has warned states that their power supplies will be curbed if they are found selling electricity on power exchanges to cash in on surging prices. India is the world's second largest coal producer, with the fourth largest reserves, but a steep surge in power demand that has outstripped pre-pandemic levels in Asia's third-largest economy means state-run Coal India's supplies are no longer sufficient. The Indian power ministry said it had directed power companies to boost supply to the capital Delhi, whose chief minister has warned of a potential power crisis. And on Tuesday, residents of Bangalore, home to the technology operations of hundreds of global companies, including Amazon and Infosys, were facing scheduled power cuts of over ninety minutes in the afternoon. The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited said the city had sufficient power and the outages were to lay underground power cables. 'DO MORE' Oil rose towards $84 a barrel on Tuesday, within sight of a three-year high, as a rebound in global demand after the COVID-19 pandemic caused price spikes and shortages in other energy sources. Coal has scaled record peaks and gas prices remain four times higher in Europe than at the start of 2021. OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other oil producers led by Russia, is increasing output monthly to address recovering demand as it undoes curbs it put in place to support prices and oversupply. The price of Brent crude has surged by more than 60% this year, supported by those OPEC+ supply curbs as well as record European gas prices, which have encouraged a switch to oil in some places. Brent crude was up 24 cents or 0.3% at $83.89 a barrel at 0810 GMT. On Monday it reached $84.60, its highest since October 2018. US oil gained 21 cents or 0.3% to $80.73 and on Monday hit $82.18, its highest since late 2014. The sharp rise has meant OPEC+ has come under pressure from consumer nations, with a US official on Monday saying the White House stands by its calls for oil-producing countries to "do more" to ease the situation. A Russian official said on Tuesday that energy giant Gazprom has started using its inventories to pump more natural gas into the pipeline network to stabilise surging prices. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, in a BBC interview, rejected any suggestion that Russia was withholding gas from the European market. A group of European Parliament lawmakers has asked the European Commission to investigate Gazprom's role in the rising prices. In France, President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday the country wants to be a leader in green hydrogen by 2030 and build new, smaller nuclear reactors as part of a 30 billion euro ($35 billion) investment plan. And in Japan, electricity prices have risen to nine-month highs this week as gains in global prices of oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal are starting to feed through to the country's $150 billion power market. For Japan, which imports all but a tiny amount of its energy needs, higher oil, gas and coal prices are bringing back inflation, with wholesale prices at 13-year highs. | 0 |
Humanity faces a profound emergency and unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, a joint editorial published in newspapers in 45 countries said on Monday. It was published in 20 languages, including Chinese, Arabic and Russian, in newspapers including the Guardian in London, Le Monde in France, the Toronto Star, Gulf Times, Botswana Guardian, Miami Herald and The Daily Star in Bangladesh. The 56 newspapers said they were taking the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice to implore world leaders to "make the right choice" at UN climate talks in Copenhagen. "The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw a calamity coming but did not avert it," the editorial read. Two-weeks of talks open on Monday seeking to agree curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and raise billions of dollars for the poor in aid and clean technology. The talks end with a summit of 105 world leaders, including US President Barack Obama, on Dec. 18 and must overcome deep distrust between rich and poor nations about sharing the burden of costly cuts in carbon emissions. "Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days," read the front-page editorial. "This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone. "The science is complex, but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. "A bigger rise of 3-4C -- the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction -- would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea," it read. "The question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage." It urged politicians in Copenhagen to agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty, saying next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. | 0 |
Clashes between rich and developing nations over the future of the Kyoto Protocol for fighting global warming clouded UN climate talks on Saturday despite glimmers of progress in some areas. "I urge you to look for compromise," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa told negotiators at the 189-nation talks that seek a modest package of measures to slow climate change. Wrangling over whether to extend Kyoto, which obliges almost 40 developed nations to cut greenhouse emissions until 2012, overshadowed a review of work halfway through the talks that end on Dec. 10. Extending Kyoto "is indeed the cornerstone of a successful outcome in Cancun," said Abdulla Alsaidi of Yemen, who chairs the group of developing nations at the talks, meant to avert more floods, droughts, desertification and rising sea levels. Chinese delegate Su Wei said an extension of Kyoto was an "indispensable element" of a deal. Countries, including Bolivia, Venezuela and small island states, also criticized wealthy states. Developing nations note that Kyoto imposes a legal obligation on its supporters to extend the pact. But Kyoto backers -- especially Japan, Canada and Russia -- want a new, broader treaty that also binds emerging economies to act. "We need a new, legally binding instrument with the participation of all major emitters," said Japan's Mitsuo Sakaba. One UN official said a compromise would have to be found in "shades of gray between the two extremes. NEW ORDER Climate talks are a test of a new, shifting world order where China's strong growth has propelled it past the United States to become the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases stoking global warming and past Japan to become the second biggest economy. Many developed nations are struggling with budget cuts and high unemployment. The United States never ratified Kyoto, saying it would cost U.S. jobs and wrongly omitted developing nations. That decision is also at the heart of Kyoto nations' reluctance to extend the protocal unilaterally with no guarantee of action by Washington. All nations say a treaty is out of reach after world leaders failed to reach a binding deal last year at a summit in Copenhagen. Still, there were some signs of progress in narrowing other differences, such as elements of how to share green technologies worldwide, delegates said. The talks are also trying to agree on a new fund to channel aid to poor nations and ways to protect tropical forests. "Progress has been made in some areas but there areas where parties are still holding to national positions and even some areas going backwards in important issues," said Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe of Zimbabwe, chair of one session. Away from the deadlocked government talks, business leaders sought new ways to help shift to a greener economy. Corporate executives said governments should legislate energy-efficiency targets to help cut consumption in buildings, power plants and vehicles. "Solar may be sexy but energy efficiency is the gift that keeps on giving," said Adam Muellerweiss, commercial director of energy and climate change for Dow Chemical Co. Espinosa said she would brief about 60 environment ministers on Sunday about her hopes for ending the deadlock. In an earlier session, the United States and some developing nations criticized a separate UN draft text outlining long-term actions by all countries to slow global warming. | 0 |
The UN Security Council will debate climate change for the first time on April 17, the result of a British campaign to force it onto the agenda of a body that deals with matters of war and peace. "The traditional triggers of conflict are likely to be exacerbated by the effects of climate change," Britain's UN ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told a news conference on Wednesday at which he outlined Security Council business for April, when Britain holds the rotating presidency. Britain considers the topic so important to global security that Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett will preside over the debate. Countries on the 15-member Security Council normally have their ambassadors take part in debates but reserve the right to have foreign ministers or heads of state or government address the council on issues of greater importance. Britain invited other countries to send foreign ministers as well, Jones Parry said. In March Britain announced its intention to bring climate change to the Security Council, but it had to be agreed by the council's 15 members including the five permanent members who have veto authority. Permanent members China and Russia expressed some opposition to the holding the debate, diplomatic sources from two countries said. Meanwhile, the United States, which has declined to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol, had no opposition. Behind Prime Minister Tony Blair and Beckett, a former secretary of state for environment, Britain has taken a leading role in urgent action against global warming in other international forums such as the European Union, which last month agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 20 percent by 2020. Anticipating that some UN member states will argue that climate change should remain a matter for the General Assembly or agencies dealing with environment, Britain circulated a so-called concept paper arguing that climate change could provoke new wars, change borders, disrupt energy supplies and force mass migration. It outlines six areas where climate change could affect global security: border disputes, migration, energy supplies, other resource shortages, societal stress and humanitarian crises. Melting ice and rising sea levels could alter the world's physical landmass, leading to potential changes in political or maritime borders, and mass migration could also result, with some estimates that up to 200 million people could be displaced by the middle of the century, the paper says. | 1 |
Australia's former anti-immigrant politician, Pauline Hanson, is to become an immigrant herself, moving to Britain to escape lingering controversy over her warning that Australia was being swamped by Asians. Hanson, who went from fish-and-chip shop owner to form the One Nation party and turn it into a political force more than a decade ago, told Australia's Woman's Day magazine that she is selling her Queensland home and moving to the UK to find "peace". "I'm going to be away indefinitely. Its pretty much goodbye forever," she said. "I've really had enough. I want peace in my life. I want contentment, and that's what I'm aiming for." Hanson won fame in 1996, entering national parliament as an independent calling for cuts to Aboriginal welfare and immigration from Australia's regional neighbours. Her nationalist One Nation party drew a million votes at its 1998 peak, but she lost her seat and was later convicted of electoral fraud and briefly went to jail. Released in 2003 after her conviction was overturned, the red-headed mother of four left politics and became a minor celebrity, at one time entering a TV dancing competition. Hanson said Australia has changed too much for her liking, even though some political analysts had speculated in recent weeks that the mood of the country ahead of elections later this year once again favours her views. "Sadly, the land of opportunity is no more applicable," she told the magazine. A surge in asylum seekers arrivals over the past year has again divided Australians and threatens to become an issue for elections later this year which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is on track to win, despite recently slipping opinion poll support. Immigration is expected to push Australia's population from 22 million to around 35 million by 2050, with Rudd backing a "big Australia" that would be more economically self-sustaining, but which critics say would be unable to cope with accelerating climate shift and ageing infrastructure. | 1 |
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which compiles data from governments, United Nations humanitarian agencies and media reports, concluded in a report published Thursday that floods, landslides, cyclones and other extreme weather events temporarily displaced more people in the first half of this year than during the same period in any other year. “In today’s changing climate, mass displacement triggered by extreme weather events is becoming the norm,” the centre said in its report, adding that the numbers represent “the highest midyear figure ever reported for displacements associated with disasters.” The centre has been publishing annual data since 2003. The latest numbers reflect both bad news and good. Extreme weather events are becoming more extreme in the era of climate change, according to scientists, and more people are exposed to them, especially in rapidly growing and storm-prone Asian cities. At the same time, many government authorities have become better at preparing for extreme weather, with early warning systems and evacuation shelters in place that prevent mass casualties. So, the numbers of displaced this year include many who might otherwise have been killed. That was almost certainly the case for the 3.4 million people who were evacuated from their homes in India and Bangladesh in May before Cyclone Fani barrelled over the Bay of Bengal. Fewer than 100 fatalities were reported across both countries, according to the UN humanitarian affairs agency. By contrast, in southern Africa, where Cyclone Idai struck in March, more than 1,000 people were killed and 617,000 were displaced across Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. In March and April, half a million Iranians had to leave home and camp out in temporary shelters after a huge swath of the country saw some of the worst flooding in decades. And in Bolivia, heavy rains triggered floods and landslides in the first four months of the year, forcing more than 70,000 people to flee their homes, according to the report. All told, nearly twice as many people were displaced by extreme weather events, mainly storms, as the numbers displaced by conflict and violence in the first six months of this year, according to the monitoring centre. The numbers hold lessons for countries, especially those like the Caribbean island nations, repeatedly pummelled by intensifying storms. “With the impact of climate change, in the future these types of hazards are expected to become more intense,” the director of the monitoring center, Alexandra Bilak, said by phone from Geneva, where the group is based. “Countries that are affected repeatedly like the Bahamas need to prepare for similar, if not worsening, trends.” The worst may be still to come. Historically, the worst disaster season is between June and September, when storms lash the tropics. The monitoring centre estimates that the number of disaster-related displacements may grow to 22 million by the end of the year. For the most part, disasters like floods and cyclones result in temporary displacement, though that could mean months at a time, and almost always within national borders. There are limitations to these numbers, outside experts said. What the monitoring centre’s numbers may not adequately reflect are slow-moving extreme weather events, like rising temperatures or erratic rains that can prompt people to pack up and leave home, for example after multiple seasons of failed crops. In some cases, government agencies may not issue accurate data, including for political reasons. Still, Kees van der Gest, who studies climate-induced displacement at the Institute for Environment & Human Security, a UN research organisation, and who was not involved in the report, said the numbers tallied by the monitoring centre, even with these limitations, may be the best estimates available. Also, he said, they should be seen as “a low estimate.” © 2019 New York Times News Service | 0 |
"Misinformation shared on social media has a serious impact on our elections and undermines our democracy," Kardashian West wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday expressing support for the "Stop Hate for Profit" campaign against Facebook Inc. Actors including Kerry Washington, Jennifer Lawrence and Sacha Baron Cohen also tweeted on Tuesday, calling on Facebook to do more. The campaign, launched by civil rights groups this summer, won the support of hundreds of major companies in an advertising boycott of the social media giant in July, although it had little impact on Facebook's bottom line. This week, organisers encouraged users to post about the harm Facebook is causing and "freeze" their use of Facebook-owned Instagram for 24 hours on Wednesday.
Kim Kardashian West to freeze Facebook, Instagram accounts for 24 hours to protest hate speech https://t.co/accSgGD1X7 pic.twitter.com/TILG1NVGKr— Reuters (@Reuters) September 16, 2020
Kim Kardashian West to freeze Facebook, Instagram accounts for 24 hours to protest hate speech https://t.co/accSgGD1X7 pic.twitter.com/TILG1NVGKr The embrace of that call by Kardashian West, a businesswoman and reality TV star with one of the top 10 biggest Instagram followings worldwide, threatens a fresh blow to Facebook's image and careful management of its relationships with celebrities. The company devotes substantial resources to celebrity "partnerships," with dedicated teams handling special requests and giving stars early access to new products, according to two former employees familiar with the operation. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has said it would team up with civil rights groups to develop more tools to fight hate speech, although the groups say executives have shown little commitment to action. Kardashian West has become an influential powerhouse of social change, raising the issue of climate change to her 188 million followers and lobbying the White House for criminal justice reform. | 0 |
Ideas that fail to gain donors' support do not interest policymakers, the outgoing Director General of CIRDAP said on Monday. Dr Durga P Paudyal shared the bitter truth as he reminisced about his eight-year tenure in Bangladesh where the 15-nation institute is headquartered. "We generate new policies, new ideas, and ask the governments to act. But it's difficult to convince policymakers (with ideas) without money (to implement)," Dr Paudyal said replying a question. He was briefing journalists about the Center on Integrated Rural Development in Asia and the Pacific's 33rd founding anniversary celebration on Thursday. At the initiative of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and the UN's FAO, CIRDAP came into being on July 6, 1979 with six initial members for cooperation in the field of rural development and poverty alleviation. The number of member states rose to 15 as of 2010, with Fiji becoming the latest entrant. The body comprises Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iran, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Fiji. "Our aim is south-south cooperation," Dr Paudyal said, "it's easy to learn from a neighbouring or developing countries than a developed one." He said they organised regional dialogues and meetings on sharing best practices among the member states. "It helped governments in many ways that you may see or you may not see," he said as questions were asked about the visibility of CIRDAP's activities in Bangladesh. "When we talk about climate change and rural development in this region, we do not talk about Bangladesh only; we have to talk about 15 countries who are the members of the institution." "Programmes organised in Iran may not be known here (Bangladesh)," he explained, "we (CIRDAP) work at policy level, not at grassroots." The Director General said Bangladesh's current system of monitoring and analysing poverty was being developed by CIRDAP. He, however, extolled the incumbent government for its interest on CIRDAP as 'a way of regional cooperation'. "We got over USD 2 million (from Bangladesh) for building international conference centre here," he said. Like every founding anniversary, the Director General said, this year they would also organise a 'Founding Day' lecture where former Indian President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam will speak on sustainable development system in the Asia-Pacific. Dr Cecep Effendi from Indonesia will replace Dr Paudyal on Jul 6, according to CIRDAP's official release. | 1 |
BEIJING, Thu Oct 23, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - China is committed to seeking a climate change pact at key talks next year, the prime minister of Denmark said on Thursday, urging countries not to use global economic upheaval as a reason for delaying a deal. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is among the European leaders in Beijing for an Asia-Europe meeting. And with Copenhagen to host end-game talks late next year on a new climate change pact, he has been courting China, with its bulging output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas behind global warming. Rasmussen said on Thursday he had emerged from talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao the previous day with a commitment that China is "committed to reaching agreement in Copenhagen." "The two sides ... affirmed the common goal to reach an agreed outcome and adopt a decision at the climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009," he told a small group of reporters, citing an agreement the two countries sealed on Wednesday. The negotiations, culminating late next year, aim to create a treaty building on the current Kyoto Protocol climate pact that expires at the end of 2012. Its host role has given Denmark an unusual prominence in seeking agreement. With the world preoccupied with the financial crisis and its fallout, and with many issues dividing rich countries from poor ones over how to combat global warming, Rasmussen said China's commitment was an encouraging sign to others. He said other countries should not use the economic downturn as a reason to delay or stymie a new pact. "No doubt, the financial crisis will be used as an excuse to water down the climate change agenda," said Rasmussen, adding that he believed increased spending on environmentally friendly technology could help stimulate an economic rebound. STAY ON TRACK European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said later that delaying tackling climate change because of the crisis was not acceptable, and called on China to join in the fight. "Yes, there is a cost to reducing emissions. But the cost of climate change is going to be far higher, including for China," he said in a speech. "It is important that efforts to combat climate change stay on track, despite the financial crisis we are facing." Under the current Kyoto pact, China and other developing nations do not have to agree limits on their output of the greenhouse gases from industry, vehicles and land-use that are dangerously warming the atmosphere. But China's fast-rising emissions, which experts believe now far outstrip the United States', have driven other countries to say it must accept firmer limits. EU environment ministers this week said developing countries should commit to keep emissions 15 to 30 percent below unconstrained "business as usual" levels. Rasmussen said the EU proposal, which would not set an absolute ceiling on poorer countries' emissions but oblige them to take measurable steps, could be the way to draw China and other developing countries into the commitments. "The contributions from the industrialized countries will not be enough," he said. "We need engagement from the big emerging economies." At the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) opening on Friday, the 27 EU member states and the European Commission will also discuss climate change policy with Japan, China and India and 13 other Asian countries. Rasmussen said he also hopes that meeting will agree on aiming for a pact in Copenhagen. | 1 |
WASHINGTON, Sun Jul 27,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - What if cutting greenhouse emissions could also save the lives of soldiers in Iraq, where fuel-laden convoys make them targets? The US Army says it is happening now in a push to reduce its carbon 'bootprint.' From forward areas like Iraq and Afghanistan to training ranges in the United States, the Army has been working to limit its use of fossil fuels and make its operations more environmentally sustainable. The goal is to bring Army emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide down by 30 percent by 2015, said Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health. "What I'm interested in doing is finding out what the greenhouse gas emissions, this carbon bootprint, are for the Army in two to three years at the latest," Davis said by telephone. "We want to emit less that do that, hand in hand with reducing energy consumption from fossil fuels." The Army has pushed for environmental sustainability at all of its bases, starting with the giant Fort Bragg in North Carolina in 2001, Davis said. In practice, that meant changing the way training ranges were set up. Fort Bragg has long been the site of mock towns and villages used for combat training. Each village used to cost up to $400,000 to build. Now they are made of recycled truck-sized shipping containers at a cost of about $25,000, Davis said, and the shipping containers stay out of the solid waste stream. In the first years of the Iraq war, the long supply chain stretching from Kuwait to the battlefield put convoys at risk from makeshift bombs called IEDs. Much of the cargo was fuel, Davis said.
LESS FUEL, LESS RISK The more vehicles in the convoy, the more soldiers were vulnerable so it made sense to cut down on the amount of fuel required on the front line. "If we can reduce consumption on our forward operating bases by using renewable energy, let's say wind or solar instead of a diesel generator outside the tent ... then we can reduce the number of these supply convoys that need to come forward that are getting hit by these IEDs," Davis said. A recent survey of U.S. forward bases in Djibouti, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan showed that 85 percent or more of the power was used for air conditioning to provide comfort for sleeping but also to keep communications equipment cool. Poorly insulated tents and temporary buildings are the norm in these areas, Davis said, and keeping them cool was a challenge. The solution? Foam insulation sprayed directly on tents cut the loss of energy by 45 percent. Limiting greenhouse emissions from Army vehicles presents a different challenge, since making a Humvee or Bradley fighting vehicle more lightweight to save fuel would offer less protection for troops. But this could change, Davis said. "There's emerging technology that is providing lighter-weight armor, so I think at some point ... you're going to see more hybrid vehicles in the tactical military fleet," he said. Davis questioned the notion that the US military is among the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. The numbers are hard to pin down but the Army is starting to do just that, starting in June with an online program to track carbon emissions at Fort Carson in Colorado. The system shows Fort Carson emits 205,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually, about the same as a town of 25,000 people. Eventually this system, produced by California-based Enviance, is to be used on all Army bases. It is also in use at corporations and utilities in 45 countries to track compliance with environmental and safety regulations, Enviance's president Lawrence Goldenhersh said. | 2 |
Hasina will also have bilateral talks with her Austrian counterpart, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told the media on Sunday. Leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and the Caribbean will attend the conference in Vienna called “International Conference on the Technical Cooperation Programme: Sixty Years and Beyond – Contributing to Development”. A special Biman Bangladesh flight carrying Hasina and her entourage will take off from Dhaka's Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 9am. Ali said the prime minister’s participation will reaffirm Bangladesh’s commitment to world peace. Her participation will also “brighten” the country's image, he said, as Bangladesh always pursues peaceful use of atomic power. Bangladesh became member of the IAEA in 1972. The prime minister’s husband, late nuclear scientist Dr MA Wazed Miah played a key role to get the membership.
Ali said the prime minister in her speech will highlight how the IAEA’s technical cooperation programme is helping Bangladesh in enhancing atomic energy capabilities, socio-economic development and sustainable development. She will also highlight the use of science, technology in ‘digital Bangladesh’. The foreign minister said Austria is one of the first countries to recognise Bangladesh in 1972. The then Austrian Federal Chancellor Bruno Kriesky supported Bangladesh. Hasina awarded him with the ‘Friends of Liberation War Honor Award’ in 2012. Bangladesh opened a resident mission in Vienna in 2014. Ali said part of the government’s ‘broader engagement with Europe Policy,’ they had taken steps to enhance bilateral relations and cooperation with Austria also. Hasina is also expected to have a bilateral meeting with Austrian Federal Chancellor Christian Kern. Agriculture and livestock cooperation and starting direct flight and holding regular diplomatic consultations would be some of the areas the prime minister will discuss, apart from trade, investment and sustainable development, said Foreign Minister Ali. Global terrorism, migration, refugee crisis, climate change and post-Brexit Europe situation are some of the international issues they will also discuss. A MoU on foreign office consultations will also be signed during the visit, the foreign minister said. Hasina will also have a courtesy call on Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen Ali hoped that the bilateral relations will be “strengthened” further during the visit. The prime minister is scheduled to leave Vienna on Tuesday evening and return Dhaka on Wednesday morning. Apart from the foreign minister, the minister for science and technology will accompany the prime minister during her visit. | 1 |
The world’s attention, riveted on the fires earlier this year, has understandably shifted to the coronavirus crisis. But the devastating fire season has left lessons in its wake. As Australia looks toward a future of more frequent and dangerous fires, scientists and officials are working together to develop fire-prediction technologies that will enable firefighters to work faster and more safely when the next season — expected to be perhaps equally gruelling — begins in just a few months. What Australia continues to learn could be used elsewhere — everywhere from other countries, including the United States, to outer space, in software that must withstand the searing, blustery and otherwise inhospitable conditions of other planets. When a wildfire breaks out, one of the most difficult decisions faced by the operations team is who and what to send where, and which resources to keep in hand in case they are suddenly needed elsewhere. “Whether you hold resources back in reserve in case more fires break out, or whether you hit that fire very hard, can mean the difference between a fire that’s put out in 15 minutes and one that goes for weeks,” said Greg Mullins, a former commissioner of Fire and Rescue New South Wales. To make that decision correctly, firefighters first must know which areas are high risk. Central to many of the more recent technologies is the ability to predict the influence of Australia’s eucalyptus trees on a given fire. Eucalyptus are particularly fire-intensive; their dry, shedding bark catches easily, and the embers can be blown ahead of a blaze, lighting others. This phenomenon is known as “spotting,” and it is one of the most challenging problems in predicting a fire’s behaviour. An Australian computer program called Phoenix RapidFire models this kind of spotting, simulating the spread of fires across a given area. It has been relied upon to predict fire behaviour in both Victoria, where it was introduced after the Black Saturday bush fires that killed 173 people in 2009, and New South Wales. A similar program, FarSite, is used in the US. When a wildfire starts, analysts at the NSW Rural Fire Service headquarters in Sydney, who may be 200 miles away or more, enter variables into Phoenix, such as the fire’s location, the time it started and the terrain. Closer to the fire, regional teams feed information back to headquarters, where the fire management team, with the help of manual analysts, decides where to send resources like firefighters, trucks and water-bombing helicopters. The technology does not yet outperform people when predicting the spread and behavior of a particular fire. Simon Heemstra, the manager of planning and predictive services at the NSW Rural Fire Service, who has a PhD in fire behaviour, described Phoenix as mainly a “triage tool.” “Nine times out of 10,” he said, manual analysts produce more accurate results than the model. Using their experience, analysts are able to incorporate the uncertainty inherent in fire behaviour, something “the computer just isn’t able to grasp.” But where the computer model excels, Heemstra said, is in analysing several fires at once and determining which one poses the greatest risk — and therefore which one manual analysts should focus on. Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, has developed computer software called Spark, which aims to improve upon Phoenix. Phoenix was built to predict fire behaviour in forest and grass, Heemstra said, so for several other fuel types, like shrub land, “it’s a bit like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.” Spark, because it uses unique equations for each fuel type, is more intuitive and reliable. It could be “the next evolutionary step” in firefighting models, Heemstra said, and the NSW Rural Fire Service hopes to use it as early as the next fire season. Whereas fire behaviour models like Phoenix and Spark help predict the spread of a fire, drone technology may be able to predict where fires are likely to start. For the moment, drones are used mainly to monitor grassland fires. Forest fires burn particularly hot, and are volatile, making them unsafe for drones to fly over or for anyone nearby to operate the devices. The wildfire conditions in Australia are sufficiently severe that they verge on otherworldly. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, has been exploring, with the CSIRO, the possibility of testing artificial intelligence for drones, rovers and satellites — not yet developed but intended for future space exploration — on the fires. This software would need to withstand extreme conditions on other planets, like “hot temperatures, low visibility and turbulent winds,” said Natasha Stavros, a science system engineer at JPL, in an email. A November 2019 study by JPL’s Blue Sky Thinktank, on which Stavros was an author, found that the fire-management technologies offering the highest return on investment were autonomous micro-aerial vehicles — small drones typically weighing less than a quarter of a pound — that would be able to navigate themselves through wildfires. Eventually, these drones would operate in autonomous groups or “swarms,” which could monitor wider areas. Their ability to communicate with one another and a distant control centre could potentially be used in exploring other planets. On Earth such drones, equipped with infrared sensors, could also read the heat signatures of plants to determine how stressed the vegetation is in an area — and thus how dry and fire-prone the terrain might be. On the International Space Station, a similar sensor (though not yet small enough to fit on a drone) called Ecostress has been measuring the temperature of plants for almost two years. As Australia seems to have entered a new era of more extreme and frequent fires, researchers, firefighting organisations and the government increasingly are also looking at ways to help the environment itself adapt in the long run. Scientists with the University of Melbourne Bushfire Behaviour and Management group have developed the Fire Regime Operations Simulation Tool, or FROST, which aims to predict fire behaviour over the course of the next century, by taking into account how vegetation transforms after it is burned. Major trials are expected to begin within the next year. FROST takes uncertainties into account using Bayesian networks, predictive statistical tools that are designed to ask “What if?” of every assumption and then produce a range of possible outcomes in response. Faced with live fires, firefighters need to decide within a matter of minutes what to defend. Wildlife and vegetation inevitably come second to people and property. By simulating long-term risk, FROST can help find and protect zones for particular wildlife or plant species within a fire-prone area that are less susceptible to the flames. In late January, Trent Penman, a bush fire risk modeler who leads the group that developed FROST, used the program to identify areas that might act as refuges for a species of tree known as the alpine ash, which is particularly vulnerable to the increasing frequency of wildfires. Alpine ash trees die in high-intensity fires, regenerating from seeds left in the ground. But these seedlings take 20 years to reach maturity. Should the area burn again before then, the young trees will die before any new seeds have been left behind. Alpine ash is at a tipping point, Penman said. Extreme fires occurring over the next decade could mean the species becomes endangered “very, very quickly.” A 2015 paper by academics from the University of Tasmania and the University of Melbourne found that there were 97% fewer young, regenerating trees in alpine ash forest sites that had burned twice in 20 years. “Under rapid global warming, which is likely to increase fire frequency, it is hard to be optimistic about the long-term survival of the bioregion’s remaining mature alpine ash forests,” the authors of the paper wrote. Advancements in technology are important, said Mullins, the former NSW Fire and Rescue commissioner, but the “big ticket item” is tackling climate change. “It’s a bit like going to a gas fire and putting out all the houses and burning cars around it but not turning off the gas. Well, it’ll keep burning. All the houses, everything. Doesn’t matter how much water you put on them, they’ll keep catching fire again.” “To firefighters it’s pretty simple,” he said. “Deal with the basic problem and all the other problems will go away, eventually.” © 2020 New York Times News Service | 0 |
Tokyo,Sun Jun 29,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Anti-G8 summit protesters danced to blaring music and marched down the streets of Tokyo in heavy rain on Sunday, accusing the Group of Eight rich nations of causing poverty and world instability. The protests, which have become a fixture at Group of Eight summits, came as Japan tightened security ahead of this year's July 7-9 gathering in Hokkaido, northern Japan. Two separate rallies in the nation's capital gathered over 1,000 people, including anti-capitalists, labor union members and protesters from abroad, such as Spain and South Korea. Security was heavy with hundreds of anti-riot police guarding the streets as protesters walked down Tokyo's central shopping districts, carrying signs proclaiming various agendas such as "shut down G8 summit" and "G8=hunger". Some protesters scuffled with the police. Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi said two people were arrested. Police could not confirm the report. "Issues like environmental destruction and poverty in Africa, these are all caused by the G8 governments," said Yu Ando, a 31-year-old working for a municipal government in western Japan. "I can't stand that they are proclaiming to solve these issues." For the summit at Lake Toya, about 760 km (470 miles) north of Tokyo, domestic and international NGOs such as Oxfam plan to protest a range of topics including globalization, the food crisis and wars. Protests are expected near the summit venue -- where protesters are expected to gather at three camp sites -- as well as in Tokyo and Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido. But tight security and the sheer cost of travel to the vicinity of the remote summit site could dampen turnout. Human rights lawyers have said Japanese immigration authorities are making it tough for some activists to get visas by complicating the application process, and media reports said some activists were detained for hours at immigration. At last year's G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, an estimated 30,000 protesters flocked to the area and entered a restricted zone set up for the summit, as well as blocking land routes into the area. At Lake Toya, leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States will discuss soaring food and oil prices, along with climate change and African development. Japan has also invited eight other nations, including Brazil, China and India, to hold talks on climate change on the sidelines. | 1 |
Thriving only in near-freezing waters, creatures such as Antarctic sea spiders, limpets or sea urchins may be among the most vulnerable on the planet to global warming, as the Southern Ocean heats up. Isolated for millions of years by the chill currents, exotic animals on the seabed around Antarctica -- including giant marine woodlice and sea lemons, a sort of bright yellow slug -- are among the least studied in the world. Now scientists on the Antarctic Peninsula are finding worrying signs that they can only tolerate a very narrow temperature band -- and the waters have already warmed by about 1 Celsius (1.6 Fahrenheit) in the past 50 years. "Because this is one of the most rapidly warming areas on the planet and because the animals are so temperature sensitive...this marine ecosystem is at higher risk than almost anywhere else on the planet," said Simon Morley, a marine biologist at the British Antarctic Survey at Rothera. "A temperature rise of only 2-3 degrees (Celsius) above current temperatures could cause these animals to lose vital functions," he said. In warmer waters, laboratory studies show that clams and limpets lose the ability to right themselves if they land upside down. Such a skill is vital in Antarctica's shallows, where icebergs regularly scrape across rocks on the seabed. "Will they be here in 100 years' time?" Morley said, standing by blue tanks of sea cucumbers, worms and others. "I think that we will see changes in the ecosystems, more in some species and less in other species. "It does look as if these mechanisms are truly applicable worldwide," he said. Studies of clams in Singapore also show that they find it hard to burrow if temperatures rise, he said. Coral reefs can also suffer damage if temperatures rise even slightly. The U.N. Climate Panel has a best estimate that air temperatures may rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius this century, due to a build-up of greenhouse gases. Rothera's waters range from about minus 2 Celsius in winter, kept from freezing by saltiness, to 1 Celsius in summer. DIVERS, ICEBERGS, INVADERS On a recent trip into Rothera's bay, Ali Massey and Terri Souster, dressed in thick black dive-suits, disappeared into the water from a red inflatable speedboat and re-emerged 20 minutes later with a haul of the little-understood creatures. "It is a fascinating place to dive," said Souster, a 24-year-old South African. The inshore habitat is largely separate from the open ocean, where penguins and whales feed on krill that in turn consume algae. Big predators in the shallows are starfish and fish such as Antarctic cod. In Antarctica, another linked threat is from icebergs that now scour each part of the shallow seabed on average once a year -- smashing many of the creatures. Divers off Rothera are extending a 5-year study of iceberg scours by placing small white concrete blocks on the seabed. They are later retrieved to see how many are cracked by icebergs. And iceberg poundings could become more frequent since warming could bring a decline in sea ice. Winter sea ice locks icebergs into position -- when it melts they can get moved around by winds and tides and swept into the shallows. Another worry is that non-native species will arrive off Antarctica if the oceans warm, perhaps organisms floating on a piece of plastic or stuck on the hull of a ship. Invasive species, usually transported by humans, can oust local species. "It's something we are really concerned about," Morley said, noting that at current rates of warming the danger was about 50 years away. | 0 |
Back in
2009, many had hoped for a sweeping treaty to cut the greenhouse gas emissions
that are changing the climate. This time, nearly 200 countries will choose
their own policies in the hope of binding both rich and poor into the effort to
combat global warming. With seven
days of negotiations left before the conference closes on Dec 11, two
alternative draft texts are circulating, which all nations agreed on Friday to
accept as the basis for talks. At 38 and
48 pages long, they have shrunk from above 50 at the start of the week. At the
same stage of Copenhagen, the drafts ran to 300 pages. "I'm
optimistic," said Robert Stavins, director of Harvard University's
Environmental Economics Program. "It's drastically different from Copenhagen." But the
text still has hundreds of brackets, marking points of disagreement on
everything from finance for developing nations beyond 2020 to where to set the
long-term goal for cutting or phasing out the use of fossil fuels. "It’s
hugely frustrating," EU chief negotiator Elina Bardram said. But she
said there was no comparison with Copenhagen as China, the world's biggest
emitter was determined to be part of the deal and the presence of 150 heads of
state at the start of the talks on Monday had shown strong political will. The idea is
that the text will be cut and sent to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius by
Saturday. After that, it will be up to ministers to try to hammer out a deal
next week. Lack of ambition Still, many
say the price of this relative harmony is the conference's lack of ambition to
set steep, binding emissions limits and create the legal tools to enforce them. "We're
at the halfway point of the summit but, in the push to get a decent deal, we
are not yet halfway there," said Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace. The
Copenhagen summit failed after developing countries including Bolivia, Cuba,
Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Sudan blocked a deal accepted by others.
Of this
group in Paris, Venezuela has been the most critical. Yet even Venezuela's
delegation chief, Claudia Salerno, while accusing the conference chairs of
being "hectic and stressed", said: "Relax, we are going to reach
an agreement here." Harvard's
Stavins noted that both the United States and China, the world's two biggest
emitters of greenhouse gases, have twice jointly announced national policies
for slowing global warming in the past year, smoothing over years of friction. The
business community has also shifted as investors weigh the financial risks of
climate change. Mark
Carney, chairman of the Financial Stability Board, which drafts regulation for
Group of 20 economies, on the sidelines of the Paris talks, announced a global
task force to encourage business to make voluntary disclosures so investors can
assess the climate change risks they face. Even if
Paris does not achieve a new global deal, 186 of 195 countries have already
submitted national plans for combating climate change beyond 2020 and adapting
to changes such as droughts, floods, desertification, heatwaves and rising sea
levels. All sides
agree, however, that those plans are still far too weak to limit a rise in
world temperatures to a UN goal of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial
times. Six years
ago, Denmark angered many delegations by issuing its own draft text in an
attempt to cut through hundreds of disagreements. UN climate
chief Christiana Figueres said on Friday that a similar surprise text this time
was "completely ruled out".
So were the talks
looking more promising than Copenhagen at this stage? "Definitely." | 0 |
The additional forms,
customs charges and health safety checks needed for goods to cross Britain’s
border are particularly arduous for businesses moving small quantities. That
includes specialist food importers buying from small suppliers across the
European continent who have helped make London one of the world’s best cities
for dining. It has “minimised our
ability to discover and import unusual products,” said Yannos Hadjiioannou, the
owner of Maltby & Greek, which for the past decade has imported food and
wine from Greece and its islands, prising itself on products rarely found in
Britain. On Saturdays, under the arches, customers can peruse goat-milk butter;
Mastelo cheese, a kind of halloumi made from cow’s milk from the island of
Chios; bunches of mountain tea; and pale Gigantes beans from Feneos, in the
northern Peloponnese. Getting each of those
items here became more complicated just over two weeks ago. After a yearlong
delay, on Jan. 1, Britain stepped up its enforcement of customs requirements
for goods coming from the European Union, which in 2020 accounted for half of
all imports into the country. Now, the goods must be accompanied by customs
declarations. (Last year, British importers could delay reporting by about six
months.) And businesses importing animal and plant products — most food, for
example — must notify the government of shipments in advance. At the border, the
introduction of the new rules has gone relatively smoothly. DFDS, a Danish logistics
company that runs ferry services to Britain, said some customers had
incorrectly filled out the paperwork, and some food shipments were stopped. On
one day, shipments from the Netherlands had to be halted to deal with a backlog
from the previous day. “Everybody involved
tried to learn from what happened a year ago,” said Torben Carlsen, the chief
executive of DFDS. Last year, the
European Union introduced customs rules as soon as Brexit went into effect and
immediately the problems piled up: deliveries were delayed; trucking companies
stopped serving Ireland; and food spoiled in ports. It took more than a month
before most of the problems were resolved. Britain couldn’t
afford the same import issues this year. About a quarter of the country’s food
is imported from the European Union, according to data from 2019, a figure that
jumps substantially in winter for fresh fruit and vegetables. But there are challenges
— unseen, away from the border. Some British businesses are taking on the
export costs of their European suppliers to avoid losing them. Others are just
importing less, reducing the choices for customers. Still others are
restricting purchases to bulk orders and forgoing trying new products. The decline was
noticeable even before the latest import rules began. In the first nine months
of 2021, food and drink imports fell by about 11% from 2019, according to the
Food and Drink Federation. After Britain left
the EU’s customs union at the start of 2021, Hadjiioannou kept business going
as normal, he said. Within six months, however, the additional customs costs
and associated price increases became prohibitive. He stopped getting weekly
deliveries of anthotyro, a soft fresh sheep’s milk cheese from Crete, and
traditionally strained sheep or goat yoghurt, leaving the popular products
regularly out of stock. Sausages from Crete now come frozen instead of fresh,
so they can be sent in larger, less frequent deliveries. “Most of the
perishable products have suffered, particularly the ones which were small
volume but important for a lot of the restaurateurs and delis,” Hadjiioannou
said. The biggest disruption from Brexit has been the loss of flexibility, he
added. Maltby & Greek’s
warehouse is at Spa Terminus, a long strip of railway arches housing food
producers, wholesalers and wine importers. At this time of year, fresh produce
at its markets includes Sicilian citrus, Italian leafy greens and French root
vegetables. At the opposite end to Maltby & Greek, Rachel Sills sells
cheese made in Switzerland and the Netherlands. While her experience exporting
from Switzerland softened the blow of Brexit’s trade rules, it hasn’t insulated
her from the extra cost. She buys cheese from
four small producers in the Netherlands — so small that not all of them have an
email address. Now each one is required to have an Economic Operator’s
Registration and Identification number, as well as customs agents to do export
and tax paperwork, and they must complete more detailed invoices, which include
tariff codes. Sills said she had
taken on the extra costs for export clearances for the cheesemakers. Recently
she was able to combine the orders to pay only 65 euros ($74.50) for each
invoice, on top of her own import fees. “So they, to this stage, haven’t
started paying for the real costs of the export charges,” she said. “I have.” “It’s not that the
paperwork or the cost is actually that onerous,” Sills said. But for companies
with lots of suppliers, “when you add up the cost of each one, then it becomes
insane,” she said, especially if buying small volumes. And that is so far
what Brexit has boiled down to for these businesses: extra costs. “We are past the
point of having wild shortages,” said David Henig, a trade policy expert based
in London. The customs systems work, but the damage will be more like a “slow
boiling frog.” The extra costs will eat away at Britain’s economy, with
independent forecasts indicating a long-run shortfall of about 4% of gross
domestic product. For customers, the overall effect is likely to be less
choice, Henig added. It also continues to
diminish the incentives for companies to invest in Britain. “We are less
U.K.-centric than we were a couple of years ago,” said Franco Fubini, the
founder of Natoora, which began in London in 2004 and now supplies fresh
produce from hundreds of small farms in Europe and North America to about 1,600
restaurants globally and shops including Selfridges and Whole Foods, with
outposts in the United States. Natoora reorganised
its internal processes so that the British arm of the company no longer imports
anything directly from the farms in Italy, France, Spain and Greece. Instead
more employees were hired in Paris and Milan so the produce could be bought by
the hubs in the continent and then sold to the London office. This
consolidation means there is only one invoice, saving money on trucks and
customs. Even though Natoora
found a workaround, Fubini said Brexit had dented Britain’s international
reputation, making him reconsider his company’s future. “For the first time in
15 or 16 years, I really started to question how much we should continue to
invest in the U.K,” he said. When Prime Minister
Boris Johnson announced the new trade deal with the European Union on Christmas
Eve 2020, he said the agreement “if anything, should allow our companies and
our exporters to do even more business with our European friends.” In reality,
it has made it harder, not easier. Brexit might free Britain from Brussels
bureaucracy but it has tied businesses up in other red tape. While the promises
of Brexit were varied — from opening up new markets and deregulation — the slowness
in realising the benefits has frustrated even its supporters. The other fresh
produce market at Spa Terminus, Puntarelle & Co, is run by Elena Deminska,
who said Brexit could be a great opportunity for British farmers to produce
some of the food that is mostly imported from the European Union. The country
has the climate for bitter winter lettuce or broccoli raab or, “with a little
bit of effort,” apricots, Deminska said. Instead she complains that the farmers
are “not flexible.” About four years ago,
with great foresight, Deminska outsourced her customs work to an external
company. Still she despairs at the Brexit-induced paperwork. “It’s just not
helpful,” she said. “There is already enough paperwork.” For all of these
businesses there are more hurdles ahead. Beginning in July, food imports will
need to be accompanied by health certificates signed off by inspectors in the
European Union, and could be picked for spot checks at the border. Those changes “are
just going to add complexity, add cost,” Fubini said. “It is disruptive.” ©2022 The New York
Times Company | 1 |
The European Union and the United States agreed on Monday that global warming is an 'urgent' priority, and President George W Bush conceded he must work to convince Russia of the need for a missile shield in Europe. At a White House summit, Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also said they were firmly dedicated to reaching agreement on a global trade pact under the often-stalled Doha round of talks. They kept up pressure on Iran to forswear nuclear weapons given Tehran's refusal to stop uranium enrichment despite US-EU pressure. Bush said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's message to Iran, should she meet Iran's foreign minister at a regional summit this week on Iraq in Egypt, would be to repeat the offer that Washington would join European talks with Iran if Tehran would suspend uranium enrichment. It was Merkel's first visit to Washington since she took over the rotating EU presidency, and she pushed global climate change in hopes of making it a big part of the agenda at a Group of Eight summit she is hosting in Germany in June. At a joint news conference in the Rose Garden, the European side said it felt progress was made on the issue, despite an absence of concrete steps the EU and the United States can take together to address the problem. "I really welcome the fact that there was progress in this meeting," said Barroso. "We agree there's a threat, there's a very serious and global threat. We agree that there is a need to reduce emissions. We agree that we should work together." Bush, who critics charged was late to recognise climate change as a problem, made clear he felt any agreement between the United States and Europe would have a limited impact as long as developing countries like China are not included. "The United States could shut our economy and emit no greenhouse gases, and all it would take is for China in about 18 months to produce as much as we had been producing" to make up the difference, he said. But Merkel retorted that the developed world must lead the effort to reduce carbon emissions. "If the developed countries with the best technologies do nothing, then it will be very tough to convince the others. Without convincing the others, worldwide CO2 emissions won't go down," she said. The US and EU leaders met against a backdrop of Russian criticism of US plans to deploy a missile shield in Eastern Europe and a vow from Russian President Vladimir Putin to take 'appropriate measures' to counter the system. Bush said Merkel had previously expressed to him German and European concerns about the missile shield and that he should explain what he envisions to Putin. As a result, Bush said he sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Moscow last week to meet Putin to offer Russia the opportunity to be included in a shield that Washington sees aimed at countering the threat of terrorist attack and not a resurrection of the Cold War. "Therefore, we have started a dialogue...that hopefully will make explicit our intentions, and hopefully present an opportunity to share with the Russians, so that they don't see us as an antagonistic force but see us as a friendly force," Bush said. | 1 |
Dhaka, July 7 (bdnews24.com)—Finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam said Monday that nobody could give any assurance regarding a fall in commodity prices. "No one can guarantee that the prices of commodities will come down as the market price is dependent on a number of factors such as economic policy, monetary policy and international market situation," the adviser told reporters after a meeting at the Secretariat. Mirza Aziz said the media had only partially quoted one of his remarks made last Saturday, in which he alluded to Shayesta Khan to describe the real scenario of current market prices. "I won't say that the allusion was explained wrongly. But the remark was published only partially. I wanted to say that we have to consider the related issues in any given economic situation." "It is unreal to expect a fall in market prices. We are continuing all possible efforts to control or curb prices." The adviser said that the government had taken three approaches—including waiving of import duty on food commodities, cutting the prices of ingredients for the production of food, to help curb production costs, and curtailing corporate taxes. But even after those steps, prices are not falling due to the global market situation, Mirza Aziz said. The government has therefore initiated three separate welfare projects in hand to tackle the situation. They are creation of 100-day work programmes for rural people, pregnancy allowances and stipends for male students. "All the projects will help families increase their purchase power," the adviser said. On the fuel price hike, he said: "The government will still have to provide Tk 10,000 crore in subsidy to the energy sector. If prices were not increased the amount of subsidy would have been Tk 17,000 crore." "The increase is relatively low comparing to prices in the international market," the finance adviser said. Mirza Aziz had earlier held a meeting on the use of budget allocation to protect the country from the impact of climate change. The government has decided to create a foundation or trust to disburse the Tk 300 crore, allocated for the 2008-09 fiscal year in this regard. The board of trustees, however, will not be allowed to spend more than two-thirds of the allocation. The remaining money will be kept on account and any interest will be deposited to the trustees, who can also take foreign assistance if necessary, the adviser said. The World Bank and UNDP have already given positive response to the initiative, he added. A steering committee will also be formed with representatives of different ministries as members. | 3 |
The revision, which has been in the works since 2009, involves all of section six of the Church's Code of Canon Law, a seven-book code of about 1,750 articles. It is the most extensive revision since the current code was approved by Pope John Paul in 1983. The pope reminded bishops that they were responsible for following the letter of the law and that one aim of the revisions was to "reduce the number of cases in which the imposition of a penalty was left to the discretion of authorities". The new section, involving about 80 articles concerning crime and punishment, incorporates some changes made to Church law since 1983 by the popes and introduces new categories. Monsignor Filippo Iannone, head of the Vatican department that oversaw the project, said there had been "a climate of excessive slack in the interpretation of penal law," where mercy was sometimes put before justice. Sexual abuse of minors was put under a new section titled "Offences Against Human Life, Dignity and Liberty," instead of the previously vague "Crimes Against Special Obligations". That section was expanded to include new crimes such as "grooming" minors or vulnerable adults for sexual abuse and possessing child pornography. | 1 |
Backers of a global pact banning nuclear tests said on Tuesday they would seize on US President Barack Obama's disarmament initiatives to further their agenda at the United Nations this month. Obama has voiced his support for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which has yet to take force because his nation is among nine with significant nuclear activities that have not ratified it. "The time has arrived, even more than ever, to push ahead the non-proliferation regime," Omar Zniber, Morocco's ambassador to international organisations in Vienna, where the CTBT agency is based, told a news conference. Morocco and France are coordinating the drive to get nuclear states such as India, Pakistan and North Korea to sign the treaty. Others yet to ratify include Egypt, Iran and Israel. Senior officials of states in the CTBT as well as the UN Security Council will meet on Sept. 24-25 at the United Nations in New York to debate the pact -- the first time in a decade that the United States will join such talks on the treaty. Obama's predecessor George W. Bush gave short shrift to nuclear diplomacy and arms control, although the US Senate's failure to ratify the treaty dates back to 1999, during the Clinton administration. U.S. politicians said at the time there was no foolproof way to verify compliance with the treaty. But supporters say verification technology has since improved dramatically. Obama has vowed fresh efforts to secure Senate ratification. His administration and Russia have highlighted the need to rid the world of nuclear arsenals starting in their own backyards. The UN talks will coincide with a special meeting of the Security Council on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament to be chaired by Obama. Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the CTBT implementing agency, said that while the US-Russian commitment to gradual disarmament was an important step, a global test ban pact was also an achievable goal given the changed diplomatic climate. "I think a new licence for life has been given to multilateralism and nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. There is a need to have a return for the investment," he said. "This is the treaty which comes the closest to delivering something meaningful." Some 180 countries have signed the treaty and around 150 have ratified it. It cannot take force until the outstanding nine nuclear states sign and ratify. If the United States gets on board, supporters say it will provide a strong impetus for the others to follow. | 6 |
China and the United States will seek to revive stalled negotiations on a new pact to combat global warming at a UN summit on Tuesday amid warnings that time is running out. U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, leading the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, will address a one-day summit just 2-1/2 months before 190 nations gather in Copenhagen to work out a deal to slow climate change. "The clock is ticking," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. He said he hoped that leaders would "publicly commit to sealing a deal in Copenhagen" and give guidance to negotiators to step up the pace. Talks leading to the December 7-18 meeting have not gone well. Developed and developing countries are at odds over how to distribute emissions curbs while poorer nations press richer ones to contribute tens or hundreds of billions of dollars a year to help them cope with rising temperatures. European Commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso said talks are "dangerously close to deadlock" and were in danger of an "acrimonious collapse" without faster progress. Obama and Hu, who are scheduled to meet one-on-one after the summit, could help break the climate impasse. The Chinese leader, whose country is the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and other climate-warming gases, is expected to lay out new proposals that may include a "carbon intensity" target -- a pledge to cut the amount of greenhouse gasses produced for each dollar of national income. CHINA LEADS "This suite of policies will take China to be the world leader on addressing climate change," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N. climate chief, on Monday, anticipating the announcement. An aggressive move by China to curb its emissions -- even if short of an absolute cap -- could blunt criticism by leaders in Washington, many of whom are reluctant to commit to U.S. emission cuts without evidence that Beijing is acting. Obama, whose legislative initiatives to reduce U.S. emissions have been overshadowed by his push for healthcare reform, will try to fulfill his promise of showing leadership toward getting a global deal, even as chances that the U.S. Senate will pass a climate bill by December dim. Martin Kaiser, climate policy director for environmental group Greenpeace International, said the president had allowed "vested interests" to undermine his promises so far. "This is Obama's opportunity to be a global leader and signal to the rest of the world that the US will take on its fair share of the effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10 years," Kaiser said in a statement. Tuesday's meeting, called by Ban, will gather nearly 100 heads of state and government. Activists hope momentum from the talks will spur negotiators, who meet next week in Bangkok. Coinciding with the summit, about 500 businesses called for an ambitious deal to combat warming, saying failure to set tough goals in Copenhagen would erode confidence and cut investment in low-carbon technology. "Developed countries need to take on immediate and deep emission reduction commitments that are much higher than the global average," it said. They included German insurer Allianz, oil group Royal Dutch Shell and Britain's top retailer Tesco. Small island states, fearing rising sea levels, called on world leaders to set tougher goals to limit global warming. "We see climate change as ... a threat to our survival," Tillman Thomas, prime minister of Grenada, told reporters on Monday. The European Union, which welcomed Obama's more aggressive stance on climate policy compared to his predecessor George W. Bush, has become increasingly frustrated with the U.S. administration's lack of progress. And Europe wants rich countries among the Group of 20 to find some $10 billion annually for the developing world as an advance payment toward reaching a climate deal this year. G20 leaders are expected to discuss the issue in Pittsburgh later this week, but, barring a breakthrough in the U.N. summit, little progress is expected. | 0 |
The US decision to list polar bears as a threatened species has indigenous Alaskans like Aalak Nayakik worried that hunting the animals they rely on for food and warmth could be banned. Standing on the edge of the receding sea ice-shelf offshore from Barrow, some 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Nayakik, a member of the Inupiat peoples who have inhabited northern Alaska for centuries, says polar bears are a staple food for his family. "I like to eat bear meat almost every winter, can't go without it," he said. "It is almost like taking the cow away from the white folks." The Bush administration's ruling on Wednesday left residents of the northernmost point in the United States uncertain about how their lives and customs will change. Nayakik, who uses polar bear fur for his family's bedding, said news of the listing has him wondering if hunts will lead to sanctions or jail time. He estimates that about 20 bears a year are killed by authorized Inupiat hunters in the Barrow area. "The Inupiat have hunted the polar bear for years, not necessarily for trophy matters but for food, and the hide itself is used for clothing materials," said Barrow Mayor Michael Stotts. "It is considered a delicacy. It is considered an honor in the Inupiat tradition to be able to capture and have a polar bear," he said. The bears live only in the Arctic and depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals. The U.S. Geological Survey said two-thirds of the world's polar bears -- some 16,000 -- could be gone by 2050 if predictions about melting sea ice hold true. THINNER ICE, AND LESS OF IT In announcing the government's decision, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions contributed to the global warming that has damaged the bears' habitat. It is something that Barrow is all too familiar with. "There is less (ice) and it's thinner. It is not really thick like it used to be," Nayakik, 47, said as he stood at the edge of the ice. "It is going to melt right away." The new protection was not accompanied by any proposals to address climate change or drilling in the Arctic for the fossil fuels that spur the climate-warming greenhouse effect. Throughout Barrow, a mostly native community of 4,500 people, there was fear that residents would shoulder an undue amount of the burden to protect the polar bear. "Everyone needs to worry about it," said Nayakik's son Charlie, 14. Television host Jeff Corwin, who was in Barrow filming a segment on polar bears for his "Animal Planet" show, said it would be unfair to leave Barrow solely responsible for protecting the polar bear. "These are the iconic, apex pinnacle predator of these lands," he told Reuters. "I don't think one remote community can or should be saddled with responsibility for that species. It should be shared." | 0 |
My favoured theory is that the Oscars are declining because
the movies they were made to showcase have been slowly disappearing. The ideal
Oscar nominee is a high-middlebrow movie, aspiring to real artistry and
sometimes achieving it, that’s made to be watched on the big screen, with
famous stars, vivid cinematography and a memorable score. It’s neither a difficult
film for the art-house crowd nor a comic-book blockbuster but a film for the
largest possible audience of serious adults — the kind of movie that was
commonplace in the not-so-distant days when Oscar races regularly threw up
conflicts in which every moviegoer had a stake: “Titanic” against “L.A.
Confidential,” “Saving Private Ryan” against “Shakespeare in Love,”
“Braveheart” against “Sense and Sensibility” against “Apollo 13.” That analysis explains why this year’s Academy Awards —
reworked yet again, with various technical awards taped in advance and a trio
of hosts added — have a particular sense of an ending about them. There are 10
best picture nominees, and many of them look like the kind of Oscar movies that
the show so desperately needs. “West Side Story”: Steven Spielberg directing an
update of a classic musical! “King Richard”: a stirring sports movie lifted by
a bravura Will Smith performance! “Dune”: an epic adaptation of a
science-fiction classic! “Don’t Look Up”: a big-issue movie starring Leonardo
DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence! “Drive My Car”: a three-hour Japanese film
about the complex relationship between a widowed thespian and his young female
chauffeur! OK, maybe that last one appeals to a slightly more niche
audience. But the point is that this year’s nominees offer their share of
famous actors, major directors and classic Hollywood genres. And yet, for all
of that, almost nobody went to see them in the theatres. When the nominees were
announced in February, nine of the 10 had made less than $40 million in
domestic box office. The only exception, “Dune,” barely exceeded $100 million
domestically, making it the 13th-highest-grossing movie of 2021. All told, the
10 nominees together have earned barely one-fourth as much at the domestic box
office as “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Even when Hollywood tries to conjure the old magic, in other
words, the public isn’t there for it anymore. True, this was a COVID-shadowed year, which especially hurt
the kinds of films that older moviegoers frequent. Remove the delta and omicron
waves from the equation, and probably “West Side Story” and “King Richard”
would have done a little better. And many of the best picture nominees were
released on streaming and in theatres simultaneously, while “Don’t Look Up” was
a big streaming hit for Netflix after a brief, pro forma theatrical release. But an unusual crisis accelerating a technological
transformation is a good moment to clarify where we stand right now. Sure,
non-superhero-movie box office totals will bounce back in 2022, and next year’s
best picture nominees will probably earn a little more in theatres. Within the larger arc of Hollywood history, though, this is
the time to call it: We aren’t just watching the decline of the Oscars; we’re
watching the End of the Movies. A long time coming … That ending doesn’t mean that motion pictures are about to
disappear. Just as historical events have continued after Francis Fukuyama’s
announcement of the End of History, so, too, will self-contained, roughly
two-hour stories — many of them fun, some of them brilliant — continue to play
on screens for people’s entertainment, as one product among many in a vast and
profitable content industry. No, what looks finished is The Movies — big-screen
entertainment as the central American popular art form, the key engine of
American celebrity, the main aspirational space of American actors and
storytellers, a pop-culture church with its own icons and scriptures and rites
of adult initiation. This end has been a long time coming — foreshadowed in the
spread of television, the invention of the VCR, the rise of cable TV and
Hollywood’s constant “It’s the pictures that got small” mythologization of its
own disappearing past. But for decades these flights of nostalgia coexisted with
continued power, and the influence of the smaller screen grew without
dislodging the big screen from its commanding cultural position. TV in the
1960s and ’70s was incredibly successful but also incredibly disposable, its
endless episodes standing in relation to the movies as newspaper opinion pieces
stand to best-selling books. The VHS tape created a different way to bond with
a successful movie, a new life for films neglected in their initial run, a new
source of revenue — but the main point of all that revenue was to fund the next
Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts vehicle, with direct-to-video entertainment as the
minor leagues rather than The Show. There have been television stars since Milton Berle, and the
’80s and ’90s saw the slow emergence of what we now think of as prestige TV.
But if you wanted true glory, real celebrity or everlasting artistic acclaim,
you still had to put your work up in movie theatres, creating self-contained
works of art on a larger-than-life scale and see how critics and audiences
reacted. If you succeeded, you were Robert Altman (who directed
small-screen episodes of shows like “Bonanza” and “US Marshal” for years before
his big-screen breakthrough) or Bruce Willis (who went from “Moonlighting” to
“Die Hard”). If you tried to make the leap and failed — like Shelley Long after
“Cheers” or David Caruso leaving “NYPD Blue” — you were forever a cautionary
tale and proof that the movies still stood alone, a mountain not just anyone
could climb. The late 1990s were this cultural order’s years of twilight
glow. Computer-generated effects were just maturing, creating intimations of a
new age of cinematic wonder. Indie cinema nurtured a new generation of auteurs.
Nineteen ninety-nine is a candidate for the best year in movies ever — the year
of “Fight Club,” “The Sixth Sense,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Election,”
“Three Kings” and “The Insider,” so on down a roster that justifies not just a
Top 10 but a Top 50 list in hindsight. Tellingly, Oscar viewership actually rose from the late
1980s onward, peaking in 1998, when “Titanic” won best picture, which (despite
its snobbish detractors) was also a victory for The Movies as a whole — classic
Hollywood meeting the special-effects era, bringing the whole country to the
multiplex for an experience that simply wouldn’t have been the same in a living
room. To be a teenager in that era was to experience the movies,
still, as a key place of initiation. I remember my impotent teenage fury at
being turned away from an R-rated action movie (I can’t recall if it was “Con
Air” or “Executive Decision”) and the frisson of being “adult” enough to see
“Eyes Wide Shut” (another one of those 1999 greats — overhyped then, underrated
now) on its opening weekend. And the initiation wasn’t just into a general
adulthood but into a specific lingua franca: There were certain movies you
simply had to watch, from “Austin Powers” to “The Matrix” (1999 again!), to
function socially as a college student, to understand the jokes and references
that stitched together an entire social world. Just another form of content? What happened next was complicated in that many different
forces were at work but simple in that they all had the same effect — which was
to finally knock the movies off their pedestal, transform them into just another
form of content. The happiest of these changes was a creative breakthrough on
television, beginning in earnest with “Sopranos”-era HBO, which enabled
small-screen entertainment to vie with the movies as a stage for high-level
acting, writing and directing. The other changes were — well, let’s call them ambiguous at
best. Globalisation widened the market for Hollywood productions, but the
global audience pushed the business toward a simpler style of storytelling that
translated more easily across languages and cultures, with less complexity and
idiosyncrasy and fewer cultural specifics. The internet, the laptop and the iPhone personalised
entertainment and delivered it more immediately, in a way that also widened
Hollywood’s potential audience — but habituated people to small screens,
isolated viewing and intermittent watching, the opposite of the cinema’s
communalism. Special effects opened spectacular (if sometimes
antiseptic-seeming) vistas and enabled long-unfilmable stories to reach big
screens. But the effects-driven blockbuster, more than its 1980s antecedents,
empowered a fandom culture that offered built-in audiences to studios, but at
the price of subordinating traditional aspects of cinema to the demands of the
Jedi religion or the Marvel cult. And all these shifts encouraged and were
encouraged by a more general teenage-ification of Western culture, the
extension of adolescent tastes and entertainment habits deeper into whatever
adulthood means today. Over time, this combination of forces pushed Hollywood in
two directions. On the one hand, toward a reliance on superhero movies and
other “presold” properties, largely pitched to teenage tastes and
sensibilities, to sustain the theatrical side of the business. (The landscape
of the past year, in which the new “Spider-Man” and “Batman” movies between
them have made over a billion dollars domestically while Oscar hopefuls have
made a pittance, is just an exaggerated version of the pre-COVID dominance of
effects-driven sequels and reboots over original storytelling.) On the other
hand, toward a churn of content generation to feed home entertainment and
streaming platforms, in which there’s little to distinguish the typical movie —
in terms of casting, direction or promotion — from the TV serials with which it
competes for space across a range of personal devices. Under these pressures, much of what the movies did in
American culture, even 20 years ago, is essentially unimaginable today. The
internet has replaced the multiplex as a zone of adult initiation. There’s no
way for a few hit movies to supply a cultural lingua franca, given the sheer
range of entertainment options and the repetitive and derivative nature of the
movies that draw the largest audiences. The possibility of a movie star as a transcendent or iconic
figure, too, seems increasingly dated. Superhero franchises can make an actor
famous, but often only as a disposable servant of the brand. The genres that
used to establish a strong identification between actor and audience — the
non-superhero action movie, the historical epic, the broad comedy, the
meet-cute romance — have all rapidly declined. The televised serial can establish a bond between the
audience and a specific character, but the bond doesn’t translate into that
actor’s other stories as easily as the larger-than-life aspect of movie stardom
did. The great male actors of TV’s antihero epoch are forever their characters
— always Tony Soprano, Walter White, Don Draper, Al Swearengen — and recent
female star turns in serial entertainment, like Jodie Comer in “Killing Eve” or
Anya Taylor-Joy in “The Queen’s Gambit,” haven’t carried their audiences with
them into their motion-picture follow-ups. It is important not to be ungrateful for what this era has
given us instead — Comer and Taylor-Joy’s TV work included. The surfeit of
content is extraordinary, and the serial television drama has narrative
capacities that even the most sprawling movies lack. In our most recent week of
TV viewing, my wife and I have toggled between the ripely entertaining
basketball drama “Winning Time” and a terrific Amanda Seyfried turn as
Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout”; next week we’ll turn to the long-delayed
third season of Donald Glover’s magical-realist serial “Atlanta.” Not every
stretch of new content is like this, but the calibre of instantly available TV
entertainment exceeds anything on cable 20 years ago. But these productions are still a different kind of thing
from The Movies as they were — because of their reduced cultural influence, the
relative smallness of their stars, their lost communal power, but above all
because stories told for smaller screens cede certain artistic powers in
advance. First, they cede the expansive powers inherent in the scale
of the moviegoing experience. Not just larger-than-life acting but also the
immersive elements of the cinematic arts, from cinematography to music and
sound editing, which inherently matter less when experienced on smaller screens
and may get less attention when those smaller screens are understood to be
their primary destination. Just to choose examples among this year’s best picture
nominees: Movies like “Dune,” “West Side Story” and “Nightmare Alley” are all
profoundly different experiences in a theatre than they are at home. In this
sense, it’s fitting that the awards marginalised in this year’s rejiggered
Oscars include those for score, sound and film editing — because a world where
more and more movies are made primarily for streaming platforms will be a world
that cares less about audiovisual immersion. Second, the serial television that dominates our era also
cedes the power achieved in condensation. This is the alchemy that you get when
you’re forced to tell an entire story in one go, when the artistic exertions of
an entire team are distilled into under three hours of cinema, when there’s no
promise of a second season or multiepisode arc to develop your ideas and you
have to say whatever you want to say right here and now. This power is why the greatest movies feel more complete
than almost any long-form television. Even the best serial will tend to have an
unnecessary season, a mediocre run of episodes or a limp guest-star run, and
many potentially great shows, from “Lost” to “Game of Thrones,” have been
utterly wrecked by not having some sense of their destination in advance.
Whereas a great movie is more likely to be a world unto itself, a self-enclosed
experience to which the viewers can give themselves completely. This takes nothing away from the potential artistic
advantages of length. There are things “The Sopranos” did across its running
time, with character development and psychology, that no movie could achieve. But “The Godfather” is still the more perfect work of art. Restoration and preservation So what should fans of that perfection be looking for in a
world where multiplatform content is king, the small screen is more powerful
than the big one and the superhero blockbuster and the TV serial together rule
the culture? Two things: restoration and preservation. Restoration doesn’t mean bringing back the lost landscape of
1998. But it means hoping for a world where big-screen entertainment in the
older style — mass-market movies that aren’t just comic-book blockbusters —
becomes somewhat more viable, more lucrative and more attractive to audiences
than it seems to be today. One hope lies in the changing landscape of geopolitics, the
current age of partial deglobalisation. With China becoming less hospitable to
Western releases in the past few years and Russia headed for cultural autarky,
it’s possible to imagine a modest renaissance for movies that trade some
potential global reach for a more specifically American appeal — movies that
aspire to earn $100 million on a $50 million budget or $50 million on a $15
million budget, instead of spending hundreds of millions on production and
promotion in the hopes of earning a billion worldwide. The more important potential shift, though, might be in the
theatrical experience, which is currently designed to cram as many trailers and
ads as possible in front of those billion-dollar movies and squeeze out as many
ticket and popcorn dollars — all of which makes moviegoing much less attractive
to grown-ups looking for a manageable night out. One response to this problem is the differential pricing
that some theatre chains have experimented with, which could be part of a
broader differentiation in the experience that different kinds of movies
promise. If the latest Marvel spectacle is packing theatres while the potential
“West Side Story” audience waits to see it on TV at home, why not make the
“West Side Story” experience more accessible — with a low-cost ticket, fewer
previews, a simpler in-and-out trip that’s more compatible with, say, going out
to dinner? Today’s struggling multiplexes are full of unsold seats. Why not see
if a streamlined experience for non-Marvel movies could sell more of them? But because these hopes have their limits, because “West
Side Story” making $80 million domestically instead of $40 million won’t
fundamentally change the business of Hollywood, lovers of The Movies have to
think about preservation as well. That means understanding their position as somewhat akin to
lovers of theatre or opera or ballet, who have understood for generations that
certain forms of aesthetic experience won’t be sustained and handed down
automatically. They need encouragement and patronage, to educate people into
loves that earlier eras took for granted — and in our current cultural climate,
to inculcate adult tastes over and above adolescent ones. In the case of movies, that support should take two
overlapping forms. First, an emphasis on making it easier for theatres to play
older movies, which are likely to be invisible to casual viewers amid the
ruthless presentism of the streaming industry, even as corporate overlords are
tempted to guard classic titles in their vaults. Second, an emphasis on making the encounter with great
cinema a part of a liberal arts education. Since the liberal arts are
themselves in crisis, this may sound a bit like suggesting that we add a wing
to a burning house. But at this point, 20th-century cinema is a potential
bridge backward for 21st-century young people, a connection point to the older
art forms that shaped The Movies as they were. And for institutions, old or
new, that care about excellence and greatness, emphasising the best of cinema
is an alternative to a frantic rush for relevance that characterises a lot of
academic pop-cultural engagement at the moment. One of my formative experiences as a moviegoer came in
college, sitting in a darkened lecture hall, watching “Blade Runner” and “When
We Were Kings” as a cinematic supplement to a course on heroism in ancient
Greece. At that moment, in 1998, I was still encountering American culture’s
dominant popular art form; today a student having the same experience would be
encountering an art form whose dominance belongs somewhat to the past. But that’s true as well of so much else we would want that
student to encounter, from the “Iliad” and Aeschylus to Shakespeare and the
19th-century novel and beyond. Even if the End of the Movies cannot be
commercially or technologically reversed, there is cultural life after this
kind of death. It’s just up to us, now, to decide how abundant it will be. ©2022 The New York Times Company | 2 |
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. | 0 |
A senior World Bank official said on Thursday that countries should not greatly increase biofuels production until there is more clarity about how much they have contributed to the global food price crisis. Juergen Voegele, director for agriculture and rural development department at the World Bank, cautioned against shifting a lot of the blame to biofuels but also said massive subsidies for the biofuel industry was not helping the crisis. "We don't think it's advisable to vilify biofuels and make it responsible for all evil at the moment, nor do we think we can continue to support biofuels the way it is supported at the moment in many countries," Voegele told Reuters. He said the World Bank was analyzing biofuels on several fronts, including its economic, environmental and social value. "The interlinkages with food production are complex, and we need to get a much better understanding of what is sustainable in the long run," said Voegele. "There are a lot of expectations that second and third-generation biofuels will have better economic, environmental and social balance sheets." Experts blame the food crisis on the conversion of land to grow crops for biofuel, as well as drought, changing diets in fast-growing developing countries and more expensive fuel. Riots in poor Asian, African and Latin American countries have followed the steep rise in food prices, which has also prompted governments to revert to old and potentially damaging controls. Anti-poverty activists argue that the biofuels industry is exacerbating the crisis by diverting needed crops, while a leading US-based agricultural research group has called for a moratorium on grain- and oilseed-based biofuels to help cut crop prices substantially. The Bush administration has defended its corn-based ethanol policy, saying it accounts for somewhere between 2 percent and 3 percent of the overall increase in global food prices. "This is a debate that is taking place right now; different models give us different results and it will take us time to figure this out, but we are actively studying it," Voegele said. NO RESPITE SOON Still, he said the World Bank did not expect the crisis to ease any time soon, and the development agency was advising between 30 to 50 countries on ways to deal with higher prices, cautioning them against actions that disrupt supplies. "Overall, we see supply responses in all these crops, but it's also not going away very quickly," he said, noting that increased supplies had lowered wheat prices over the past six weeks, although they remained at historical highs. Voegele said the World Bank had warned for several years about increasing food price volatility but "no one can claim they saw this coming the way it has actually happened." World Food Program Executive Director Josette Sheeran has referred to the crisis as "the silent tsunami" that threatens to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger. Voegel said the crisis was not as much about shortages as it is about countries, especially in the developing world, struggling to deal with sharply higher prices. He said there were "clear indications" that global grains stocks are too low and need to be rebuilt. Voegele said there were measures being taken to urgently deal with the crisis and said the World Bank welcomed statements by Southeast Asia nations on cooperation on rice. "We really hope the rice-producing countries and the rice-consuming countries -- they overlap to a large extent -- get together and work out trading arrangements that are beneficial at the regional and global level, and we certainly see that happening," he added. Voegele said the food crisis had highlighted the need for governments to rebuild agricultural sectors, which have been neglected over the years because food prices were low. "I think it's a wake-up call and we certainly think the international community needs to invest more in international agricultural research to get more productivity increases in the next few years, to allow countries to climate-proof their agriculture," he added. | 0 |
This was November 2018, and the Camp Fire, the most destructive wildfire in California history, was making swift and smoky headway through the Sierra Nevada foothills. It took less than four hours to rip through this town of 26,000 residents, reducing schools, businesses and 11,000 homes into piles of smoldering ash. When Singer got the evacuation order, he thought it was another false alarm. But he peeled out of his driveway as flames licked his yard, making it out of town with minutes to spare. Paradise was lost. Eighty-five people died, and more than 90% of its population was driven out. Two years later, about 4,000 residents have returned to its scorched earth to lay new foundations and test fate once again. Singer is among them. Now he is having second thoughts. For decades in this chaparral-covered ecosystem, it has been a ritual: After the burn comes the rebuild. But as the nation’s most populous state stares down a seething climate crisis, one that cranked temperatures into triple digits last fall and set off a series of infernos that exploded into bone-dry air, the rebuilding process is beginning to look different. California has battled dual crises, with the largest wildfire season on record breaking out in the midst of the pandemic. At the close of 2020, as millions of Californians were put under a second lockdown in a bid to quell a massive second surge in COVID-19 cases, more than 4.2 million acres of the state had been scorched by nearly 10,000 fires. But in many ways, the crises have split the state into two: Northern California continues to reel from multiple megafires, including the August Complex Fire and the SCU Lightning Complex Fire that exploded in late summer. And in Southern California, Los Angeles is now the epicentre of the pandemic, leading the nation both in confirmed cases and number of deaths. In the midst of this, a historic housing shortage and low interest rates have pushed California’s home prices to record highs. In August, the median cost of a single-family home in the state crossed $700,000; in September it climbed further. And while the cost of new homes is on the rise, many homeowners are finding the cost of rebuilding after a fire is even higher. Home rebuilds are on the decline across the entire state, triggered by a combination of contractor shortages, pressures on the rental market and an ever-escalating climate crisis that has become impossible to ignore. California, which remains mired in an affordable-housing crisis, has seen new construction permits dwindle for the past two years after more than a decade of rebounding steadily after the 2008 recession. New home construction permits reached 120,000 in 2018, then dipped to 110,000 in 2019.
A home destroyed in a wildfire in Malibu, Cali, Dec 30, 2020. As the nation’s most populous state stares down a seething climate crisis, one that cranked temperatures into triple digits last fall and set off a series of infernos that exploded, into bone dry air, the rebuilding process is beginning to look different. Beth Coller/The New York Times
The California Industry Research Board, which monitors construction and permit activity statewide, will publish its 2020 numbers in February but estimates that only 103,670 total housing units were issued last year. A home destroyed in a wildfire in Malibu, Cali, Dec 30, 2020. As the nation’s most populous state stares down a seething climate crisis, one that cranked temperatures into triple digits last fall and set off a series of infernos that exploded, into bone dry air, the rebuilding process is beginning to look different. Beth Coller/The New York Times The board doesn’t track when permits are issued for fire-related losses. And “analysing the effect of California’s wildfires on homebuilding has historically been difficult, as wildfires typically do not enclose themselves in one municipality alone,” Marissa Saldivar, the board’s data journalist intern, wrote in a recent report. But the statewide decline in rebuilds, coupled with the increase and intensity in fires, points to a clear trend: Faced with the choice of rebuilding or starting afresh, more homeowners than ever before are choosing to cut their losses. A critical piece of the puzzle? The state is also short on contractors, which means homeowners looking to rebuild can find themselves in limbo for four or even five years. “Even after the Camp Fire, you’d think we would have seen a spike in the number of permits, and yet we haven’t,” said Dan Dunmoyer, president and chief executive of the California Building Industry Association. “Most big insurance companies will just cut you a big check, and you can be sitting there looking at a check for $900,000. And you talk to contractors and they say: ‘Sure, I can build you a home, but I’m backed up for a year and a half.’ So we’re seeing a lot people just cut and run.” There is one exception: Rebuilds are holding steady where the land is particularly valuable, as it was in 2018 when the devastating Woolsey Fire tore through Malibu, one of the Los Angeles area's most exclusive cliffside hideaways. Three people were killed. The entire city was evacuated, and 650 of its multimillion-dollar homes, including those belonging to Miley Cyrus, Gerard Butler and Robin Thicke, were vanquished, but today more than one-third of those homes have rebuild permits (in Paradise, the number stands at just over 10%). “Rebuilding after a fire is sort of like someone who gets a shark bite and still goes back and surfs,” said Michael Nourmand, president of the Los Angeles real estate brokerage Nourmand & Associates. “But people in LA have a short memory. Most people are planning to rebuild.” It’s always easier to indulge an urge to rebuild, however, if you have deep pockets. California in 2008 enforced strict fire-safe building codes, which require reinforced roofs made of brick, masonry or concrete; walls that can withstand high temperatures; and landscaping that is free of highly flammable flora. In 2011, the state also required all single-family homes to be equipped with sprinkler systems. These codes can increase costs by $20,000 or more for homeowners looking to rebuild a pre-2008 home. Homeowners who do choose to rebuild must enter the rental market while waiting it out, putting pressure on a housing system where prices are already inflated and demand far outstrips supply. And the state’s most vulnerable residents inevitably suffer the domino effects. California’s homelessness numbers rose 16% in 2019 and have now swelled to more than 150,000 of its residents. Because of COVID-19, those numbers are expected to rise. “When thousands of homes burn down, those people are pushed elsewhere, which pushes rental prices up. That means affordable housing also goes up and housing insecurity goes by the wayside,” said James Ryan, president of Time for Homes, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating chronic homelessness. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s eviction moratorium, meant to protect tenants from losing their homes because of hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic, expires Feb 1. But some reports point to evictions rising during the pandemic, despite the moratorium. “There are always people who get lost in the shuffle,” Ryan said. “There are forced evictions, and those people will be looking for other housing, just as people who have lost homes from fire will be looking for temporary housing too. You have more and more people looking for fewer and fewer homes.” The crunch is causing a population shift to California’s more rural enclaves. In tiny El Dorado County, east of Sacramento, sales in 2020 were up 28% (compared with a small decline in Sacramento). But it’s the Inland Empire, the swath of Riverside and San Bernardino counties that sits inland and adjacent to Los Angeles, that is the fastest-growing sector of the state, and it has largely been spared the megafires that have raged through many of the state’s major metropolitan areas, including San Diego, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, over the last two decades. COVID-19, which has prompted an upsizing, exurban surge, has only increased this trend. The median home price in Riverside County in November was $490,000; in San Bernardino County it was $380,250. That’s a fraction of Orange County’s median, which was $930,000; Los Angeles County, meanwhile, saw a median of $664,160. And in the Inland Empire, job growth is strong — for fire-stricken families staring at insurance checks and weighing their options, Dunmoyer said, heading east presents an appealing option. But it’s also impossible to pinpoint cause and effect. “We’ve been seeing a lot of movement toward areas like the Inland Empire, and also out in Joshua Tree and Palm Springs. It’s difficult to say how much is flight away from fire risk and how much is just movement toward affordability. It’s been happening since about 2010,” Dunmoyer said. But moving away from fire risk isn’t a viable option for everyone, especially not in a state already facing an extreme housing shortfall. Since the Camp Fire, Singer and his wife, Shannon, have been renting an apartment in Chico, about 20 miles away, while navigating the various headaches — insurance, zoning, construction, planning — to rebuild their home. They have also started a nonprofit, Paradise Stronger, which utilizes their background in fitness coaching to bring mental health care to residents coping with trauma from the disaster. At first, they were committed to being part of Paradise’s ambitious recovery plan to rebuild the entire city from scratch, which includes more parks and green space, fire-safe landscaping, and improved evacuation routes and warning systems. But then came the 2020 fire season, which pushed new hellish vocabulary into the lexicon — “megafires,” “hot drought.” Fire-whipping winds, which force preventive power shut-offs, are now standard practice. In October, the Singers found themselves once again evacuating their land, except this time, the fire was both on its way and had already had its feast. “This time around, the area that got evacuated first was exactly where our home would have been,” Singer, 43, said. “All you could see was smoke. The PTSD was rampant.” His wife decided she had had enough. “She turned to me and said, ‘I’m not sure I want to rebuild. I’m not sure this is where I want to be anymore,’” Singer said. For his part, he says, he would be willing to stick it out — but not at the expense of his relationship. “I see the vision of this town, and I want to be a part of that, but not if it means my marriage,” Singer said. For now, the couple have hit the pause button on their rebuild plans. If they do move forward, they’re also looking at spending $100,000 out of pocket. Their rebuild plans are for a smaller but more fire-safe home on the same property, and the estimated cost is $250,000. They received $145,000 for the structure that burned; like nearly 60% of American households, they learned after the fact that they were vastly underinsured. Many insurers have also abandoned policies altogether in areas deemed too high a risk: The California Department of Insurance in October reported that refusals from home insurers to renew policies rose by 31% statewide in 2019, and that percentage jumped to 61% in ZIP codes with an elevated fire risk. A handful of new developments have responded by incorporating new resilience protocols into their building strategies in areas well acquainted with wildfire. In Southern California, Rancho Mission Viejo, which is in the southern part of Orange County and is the largest new community in the state, has been in development since 2001 on 23,000 acres of open space. When completed, it will provide 14,000 homes (including 6,000 homes for 55-plus residents), and its development plans stipulate that 75% of that open space be preserved. Fire resilience is a tenet of the construction, and the community implemented many wildfire resistance tactics long before they became state and local requirements. The community was recently highlighted in a report by the Urban Land Institute (as was the entire town of Paradise, whose rebuild, the report said, could serve as a template for other wildfire-affected communities). Each neighbourhood in Rancho Mission Viejo is surrounded by a 110-foot-wide fuel modification zone — a strip of land where combustible vegetation has been replaced with fire-resistant plants. Certain plant species are prohibited. Construction materials are noncombustible; automatic fire sprinklers were mandatory in every home well before the California law changed in 2011. And the added cost is now negligible; when construction began, those fire-safe modifications were adding between $4,000 and $10,000 to the bottom line of each home, compared with a comparable-size new home in the area, but have since dipped to as low as $1,000. Jay Bullock, Rancho Mission Viejo’s vice president for planning and entitlement, said that is because fire-safe methods, once considered radical, have become more commonplace. “The market has caught up,” he said. And in a state where livable space is at a premium, building safely in high fire hazard zones is the key to a sustainable future, said Mike Balsamo, Rancho Mission Viejo’s senior vice president for governmental relations. “There is a playbook,” he said. “We can create the most fire-safe community possible.” © 2020 New York Times News Service | 2 |
United Nations climate talks are a bigger threat to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia than increased oil supplies from rival producers, its lead climate negotiator said on Sunday. Saudi Arabia's economy depends on oil exports so stands to be one of the biggest losers in any pact that curbs oil demand by penalising carbon emissions. "It's one of the biggest threats that we are facing," said Muhammed al-Sabban, head of the Saudi delegation to UN talks on climate change and a senior economic adviser to the Saudi oil ministry. "We are worried about future demand ... oil is being singled out. We are heavily dependent on one commodity." Saudi depends on oil income for nearly 90 percent of state revenue and exports make up 60 percent of its gross domestic product. Rival producers such as Iraq and Brazil have plans for significant increases in output, with Baghdad agreeing deals that could raise its capacity to around 12 million barrels per day and threaten Saudi market dominance. The kingdom has a production capacity of 12.5 million barrels per day. Climate talks posed a bigger threat, Sabban said, and subsidies for the development of renewable energy were distorting market economics in the sector, he said. Subsidies for other energy sources such as coal made little sense, he said. "We all know that oil is already heavily taxed while coal is enjoying subsidies ... (but) coal is producing more pollution than oil," he said. "If we are sincere about protecting the climate we need to adjust that ... Whenever we talk about carbon tax it simply results in a simple gasoline tax and that adds burden on oil and adds on uncertainties on future demand for oil." DEMAND The possibility that oil demand might peak this decade was a "serious problem" for Saudi Arabia, Sabban said. The kingdom had looked at the assumptions behind studies that pointed to demand peaking in 2016 and saw "some truth in it", Sabban said. The kingdom was watching future demand projections closely and would match any future investment in capacity expansion with demand, Sabban said. "We will continue keeping the same spare capacity but no more," he said. Saudi had plenty of spare capacity to increase output if global demand warrants, Sabban said. Demand should grow this year with the economic recovery, he added. The kingdom completed a programme to boost its capacity last year, coinciding with the global contraction in oil demand due to the economic recession, and led record OPEC output cuts, leaving it with more than double the spare capacity it targets. The kingdom has around 4.5 million bpd of spare capacity while having a policy of holding 1.5 million to 2.0 million bpd to deal with any surprise outage in the global oil supply system. The kingdom is producing around 8 million bpd. Meanwhile Saud Arabia plans to invest heavily in solar energy technology, Sabban said, and hopes to begin exporting power from solar energy by 2020. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi has said the kingdom aims to make solar a major contributor to energy supply in the next five to 10 years. | 0 |
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made an 11th hour appeal on Saturday for a 190-nation conference in Bali to end a deadlock over a plan to launch talks on a new UN treaty. "I am disappointed at the lack of progress," Ban told delegates after making an unscheduled return from a visit to East Timor as the Dec. 3-14 talks ran a day over time. "Your work is not yet over ... everybody should be able to make compromises," he said of a dispute over developing nations' demands that the rich should do more to help the poor cope with climate change. If the dispute is resolved, the meeting would launch two years of talks on a sweeping new worldwide treaty to succeed the UN's Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 and link in outsiders including the United States and all developing nations. "You have in your hands the ability to deliver to the peoples of the world a successul outcome," he said. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also made an appeal to delegates. "Without an effective road map we may never reach our destination as we envision it," he said. "The worst thing we can do is for this project to crumble because we can't find the right wording," he said. "The world is watching anxiously and I beg you not to let them down." | 0 |
The head of the UN Climate Panel buried a past feud with former US Vice President Al Gore on Friday after the panel and Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. "I feel privileged sharing it with someone as distinguished as him," Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told Norway's TV2 in New Delhi. Pachauri was backed by President George W Bush when he was elected in 2002 to chair the panel, which issued reports this year warning of the risks of global warming, over objections by Gore who said he would slow down the IPCC. Gore denounced Pachauri in an article in the New York Times in 2002 as "the 'let's drag our feet' candidate" to head the IPCC known for "virulent anti-American statements" that Gore said could undermine the IPCC's authority in the United States. Pachauri struck back a few days later in a letter criticising what he called Gore's "derogatory comments". He said Gore had made a speech in 1991 "referring to my 'commitment', 'vision' and 'dedication'" and wrote: "Would the real Al Gore stand up? Does what he say today hold no value tomorrow?" Gore and the panel will collect the $1.5 million prize in Oslo on Dec. 10. | 0 |
Rivera, 18, was leaving his part-time job at a Chick-fil-A in New Jersey as the remnants of Hurricane Ida pummeled the region. Surrounded by waist-deep water, he searched for a sidewalk. Instead, he was pulled into a ravine and through a narrow sewer pipe in South Plainfield, New Jersey. “I couldn’t comprehend where I was, or where I was going,” said Rivera, who shielded his head and tore off the raincoat that was choking him. “All I felt was concrete. When I realised I was in a tunnel, I just let the water take me.” He was saved when rescuers searching for another man spotted Rivera clinging to a branch in 8 feet of fast-moving water, a police report shows. The other man, Dhanush Reddy, 31, had been pulled through the same 36-inch pipe after parking his car and trying to make his way home on foot with his girlfriend. Reddy did not survive. Stories of people who drowned in and near their cars or who narrowly cheated death ricocheted across New Jersey after the storm hit Sept 1. The remnants of Hurricane Ida, which first made landfall 1,300 miles away, killed at least 30 people in New Jersey, more than in any other state. It was New Jersey’s second-deadliest storm on record. The communities along the state’s 130 miles of Atlantic coastline are painfully familiar with flooding, as are many low-lying towns along its extensive network of rivers. But damage stretched deep into towns like South Plainfield, where flooding is far less common, underscoring what President Joe Biden called a “code red” warning about climate change as he toured hard-hit parts of New York and New Jersey. As the most densely populated state, New Jersey has set ambitious goals for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions proven to contribute to global warming and has been buying back homes prone to flooding during hurricanes. But grappling with flash flooding from the more frequent storms that a warming climate unleashes — in a state with the highest percentage of impervious, hard-to-drain surfaces in the country — is in some ways more complicated. “Are we seeing flooding in areas where we haven’t seen it before?” said Shawn M. LaTourette, commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection. “The answer is a resounding yes.” “Ida was a remnant of a tropical depression,” he said. “A really bad thunderstorm wiped out communities. This is the new reality.” In South Plainfield, flash flooding stranded dozens of motorists, swamped basements and restaurants, and lapped against the back of the municipal building. Musty piles of debris topped with holiday decorations, carpets and warped wooden furniture lined the streets for more than a week afterwards in one neighbourhood outside the 100-year flood plain, where homeowners are thought to have a 1-in-100 chance of shallow flooding each year. “The last 50 years, we haven’t had a drop,” said George Babish, 88, whose basement on Redding Avenue filled with about 4 feet of water, destroying a newly installed furnace. It took nearly two days for the water to drain. “We did get it good.” Three inches of rain fell per hour as the storm moved from Pennsylvania across New Jersey and into New York, colliding with another low-pressure weather system along the way, according to New Jersey’s state climatologist, Dave Robinson. As several tornadoes touched down in central and southern New Jersey, levelling homes, a group of 300 “citizen scientists” recorded rainfall totals as high as 9.45 inches across a wide corridor of the state, Robinson said. The volume and pace of the rainfall and the intensity of the tornadoes quickly overwhelmed many communities. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has designated 11 New Jersey counties as major disaster zones. Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who helped write a grim report on global warming released last month by the United Nations, called Ida a “direct impact” of climate change. “And it didn’t come out of nowhere,” Kopp said. “It came on top of Henri and Fred and Elsa.” “Unfortunately, what we can expect is just a wetter future with more extreme weather events,” he said. Christina Krusinowski has lived in the same house off South Plainfield Avenue for 26 years. She got a trace of water in her basement 10 years ago during Hurricane Irene. This time the water reached above her ankles. “I never before saw that much water on my street,” Krusinowski said. “The water was running like a river.” South Plainfield, a borough of 24,000 people in Middlesex County, about 40 miles southwest of midtown Manhattan, covers about 8 1/2 square miles. Parts of town are along a tributary that widens as it approaches the Raritan River, a waterway that routinely contributes to flooding farther west in towns like Manville, Bridgewater and Bound Brook, near where the US Army Corps of Engineers has built levees, walls and a pump station to alleviate flooding. But much of South Plainfield is outside the designated flood zone, and commercial and residential development has expanded steadily over the last five decades. Only 10% of land in the borough was vacant in 2000, down from 40% in 1970, according to master plans completed by local officials. In 2007, more than 39% of the borough was covered by impervious surfaces, which, according to a survey completed by the US Department of Agriculture, was three times the statewide rate of 12%, already the nation’s highest. “When you pave over it, it can’t drain,” said Alice Tempel, South Plainfield’s recycling coordinator and environmental specialist. “Our infrastructure is inadequate to handle weather at this rate,” she said. New Jersey is expected to begin requiring builders to factor in climate change, including rising sea levels and emission levels, in order to win government approval for projects. New rules due by January would enable the state to reject or modify building plans based on anticipated changes to the climate. New Jersey has also begun encouraging residents, planning officials and political leaders to use its how-to tool kit to increase communities’ flood resiliency. Suggested strategies include altering municipal codes to require that structures be built above the base flood elevation and better using the natural environment to manage stormwater. In 2015, a report by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Water Resources Program, which analysed 54 towns in the Raritan River basin, offered specific recommendations on ways South Plainfield could better address stormwater runoff, including the addition of porous pavement and bio-retention systems like rain gardens. (Neither the borough’s mayor nor the council president returned calls or emails seeking comment.) Last year, New Jersey released its first scientific report on climate change, concluding that average temperatures in the state had gone up by 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, outpacing other parts of the Northeast. Over the last 10 years, average precipitation levels in New Jersey increased 7.9%, the report found. Even against this sobering backdrop, the scope of the devastation this month was alarming. “Ida was a bench mark storm for us in the same way that Sandy was a bench mark coastal storm,” said David Rosenblatt, the state’s chief climate and flood resiliency officer. “We’re unprepared for the bigger storms when they come.” After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which was linked to 40 deaths in New Jersey, the state began buying back coastal and flood-prone properties from homeowners as part of the Blue Acres program, rendering the land forever off limits to developers. As of July, the state had offered 1,115 families in 20 towns the option to sell; 830 owners had accepted buyouts, according to a Department of Environmental Protection spokesman, and 705 homes had already been razed. In South Plainfield, at one end of the borough’s original, two-block downtown corridor stands the family-run Sherban’s Diner. During the storm, the roof over one dining room began to leak, soaking the ceiling tiles and rug. Then the nearby Bound Brook spilled its banks and flooded a 120-seat banquet hall in the basement, said Kateina Ganiaris, who runs Sherban’s with her husband. Plumbers and flood remediation companies were booked solid, Ganiaris said, and several inches of standing water still filled the basement eight days after the storm. The basement had flooded before, she said, but never as badly. “Financially, it’s devastating,” Ganiaris said as customers ate from a handful of tables in a third room the family was able to reopen. Sales had already been hit hard by forced closings during the pandemic, said Peter Ganiaris, who purchased Sherban’s in 1972. While trying to clean up from Ida, Kateina Ganiaris was also preparing for a burial: Her 89-year-old mother recently died after testing positive for the coronavirus. The funeral was Saturday. “It has been hell,” Ganiaris said. © 2021 The New York Times Company | 0 |
GENEVA, Thu Mar 26, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Asian and Pacific countries are particularly vulnerable to the triple threat of food and fuel price volatility, climate change and the global economic crisis, a United Nations agency said on Thursday. This is because the region has almost two thirds of the world's poor and half of its natural disasters, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said in a regional survey. The emergence of all three crises at the same time has "hit the world's poor the hardest, two thirds of whom live in the Asia-Pacific," said ESCAP Executive Secretary Noeleen Heyzer. "It is clear that a more inclusive model for economic growth is required to address their needs," she said in a statement. "This requires setting up social protection systems that increase income security and free up the spending power of middle and lower-income people who drive the economy." The bigger role in the economy that many governments are taking through increased public spending because of the crisis offers them an opportunity to draw up development policies that are more inclusive and sustainable, ESCAP said. ESCAP forecasts developing Asian economies will still manage to grow by 3.6 percent this year after 5.8 percent in 2008. But that masks wide regional variations, with China forecast to grow 7.5 percent and Kazakhstan only 1.5 percent. But the developed economies of Japan, Australia and New Zealand will contract by a combined 2.2 percent after growing 2.6 percent in 2008, it said. One of ESCAP's functions is to promote economic and social progress in the region, and a UN official conceded that the forecasts, based on data at the end of February, could err on the optimistic side. Asian countries have been particularly badly hit by the slowdown in global trade -- forecast by the World Trade Organisation to contract 9 percent this year -- as demand shrivels in advanced economies. While domestic demand is important in the larger Asian nations such as India, Indonesia and China, exports dominate small economies such as Hong Kong and Singapore. "The fact is that the Asia-Pacific region is more economically integrated with the rest of the world than with itself," Heyzer said. | 0 |
So far, organisers have not revealed the number of positive COVID-19 test results. But on Saturday, the State Department confirmed that a member of the US delegation had tested positive. Earlier, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles tested positive days after arriving in Scotland. The State Department statement Saturday declined to identify the person but said the official had been fully vaccinated and was quarantining. The statement also said John Kerry, the US presidential envoy for climate change who is leading the negotiations at the summit, had received several negative COVID-19 results, including daily lateral flow tests and a PCR test, since the delegate tested positive. Asked this week about the number of positive tests at the conference, Alok Sharma, the British president of the talks, said the numbers were lower than in the rest of Scotland. “At this point, we’re comfortable where we are,” he said. Still, delegates expressed concern. “You are being exposed to more COVID than you would want,” said Marcelo Mena Carrasco, a scientist and former environment minister of Chile. At the venue, the percentage of people wearing high-quality, certified masks indoors is low, he said. Air circulation in the meeting rooms was so poor that when he measured it with an air quality monitor, levels were much higher than is recommended for indoor settings. “This is supposed to be the COP based on science, and we’re supposed to be the ones who are basing decisions on science,” he said, “and this has shown that even the most basic things we’ve been hearing over the past two years haven’t really come through.” The conference comes at a time when coronavirus cases in Britain are high. When asked about incidences of COVID-19 at COP26, a spokesperson for Police Scotland also said the force would not be making numbers public. On Tuesday, a National Security Council aide who had travelled abroad with President Joe Biden’s delegation tested positive in Scotland and entered quarantine, a White House official said. The aide, who had not been in close contact with Biden, tested positive Tuesday with a rapid test but later tested negative through a PCR test, and was no longer in quarantine as of Saturday, the official added. The United Nations has put in place rules to limit the virus’s spread. All attendees are required to take a coronavirus test, although the system is based on the honour code, since results are self-reported. Masks are required almost everywhere, and there are limits on the number of people allowed to gather in meeting rooms. But inside the venue, social distancing is limited or nonexistent, and many attendees have their masks lowered. There are lines for food, bathrooms and crowds of people in the conference venue halls. John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, said this week that a rise in cases in Scotland was “very unsettling” and warned of a possible increase as a result of the climate summit. © 2021 The New York Times Company | 0 |
The Obama administration wants to build on a US-India civilian nuclear power deal to work with the Indians to strengthen the global non-proliferation system, a senior US diplomat said on Monday. US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said the 2005 atomic power deal allowing New Delhi to import nuclear technology after a 33-year freeze gave both countries a duty to shore up the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty system. "Both the United States and India have the responsibility to help to craft a strengthened NPT regime to foster safe, affordable nuclear power to help the globe's energy and environment needs, while assuring against the spread of nuclear weapons," he said. India, which is not a signatory to the NPT, is nonetheless "in the position to look at the kinds of commitments it can make to be part of an international approach," Steinberg said at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group agreed in September to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India, imposed after its first nuclear test in 1974 and for its refusal to join the NPT. Washington overcame significant opposition to win the NSG waiver in order to implement the nuclear cooperation pact, a key strategic, clean energy, environmental and commercial goal of the United States. India, Pakistan and Israel are the only countries never to have signed the NPT. India's special envoy for nuclear issues and climate change said the nuclear deal and NSG waiver meant his country was "now accepted as a partner in the global nuclear domain." "Thanks to the civil nuclear agreement, we are now, potentially at a different level of engagement on these hitherto sensitive and even contentious issues," envoy Shyam Saran said at Brookings. "How we deal with bringing India and Pakistan into the NPT world is a critical question," Steinberg said. How Washington and New Delhi would cooperate on non-proliferation issues would be worked out in talks once the Obama administration filled key posts and following India's general elections in April and May, he added. | 1 |
BRUSSELS, Fri Jun 13,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The European Union, opening up a new transatlantic trade spat, will investigate whether soaring imports of US biodiesel break global trade rules because of subsidies, the EU's executive Commission said on Friday. "We have always said that the EU will not tolerate unfair trade practices and will pursue vigorously any well-founded complaint," said Peter Power, a spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. In April, EU biodiesel producers complained that they were being hammered by US subsidies that were distorting the growing international trade in plant-based fuels. The Commission on Friday said there was enough evidence to warrant anti-subsidy and anti-dumping investigations. European producers say their US rivals benefit from big subsidies when they blend biodiesel with small amounts of mineral diesel in the United States, creating unfair competition that has put much of EU industry out of business. The European Biodiesel Board said it was crucial that Europe took measures quickly against the so-called B99 blend imports which it said broke World Trade Organization rules. "It will be essential that countervailing measures targeting B99 imports are imposed by the EU authorities in a reasonable timeframe," it said in a statement. "In the absence of such measures, the situation of the EU biodiesel industry would become even more critical than it is at present." US PRODUCERS SAY NOT TO BLAME US imports into the EU are larger than from any other country and increased from about 7,000 tonnes in 2005 to about 1 million tonnes in 2007, the Commission said. US producers deny their exports are behind Europe's problems which they say are caused by local factors such as biodiesel taxes in Germany and the rising price of the raw materials. They have suggested they might hit back with action of their own, saying EU fuel specifications discriminate against imports. Brussels now has up to nine months, until March 13, 2009, to decide whether U.S. imports need to be hit with duties on a provisional, six-month basis, and after a further six months it could extend them definitively, usually meaning for five years. Any proposal by the Commission to impose duties would have to be backed by EU member states. European producers pointed to US federal excise and income tax credits and a program of grants to finance increased capacity, plus state-level subsidy programs, as evidence in the anti-subsidy case, the Commission said. The Commission wants to encourage the use of biofuels as part of its strategy to tackle climate change. It said the decision to launch the investigations into the US imports was not linked to that policy. Biofuels have come under attack by many scientists and environmental groups that contend their production has contributed to food price inflation, depleted rainforests and failed to save substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Biodiesel is the second most important biofuel and is mainly produced from vegetable oils such as soybean oil, rapeseed oil and palm oil. Other feedstocks such as tallow and used cooking oil are also used. | 0 |
Some had white fur, or brown patches, or tails with 28 black-and-white rings. All had one thing in common: endangerment by rampant deforestation and climate change, which threaten the island nation’s future. Pope Francis used his first full day in Madagascar to hammer the same point home. “Your lovely island of Madagascar is rich in plant and animal biodiversity, yet this treasure is especially threatened by excessive deforestation, from which some profit,” Francis said Saturday in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, about an hour’s drive from the lemur reserve. “The last forests are menaced by forest fires, poaching, the unrestricted cutting down of valuable woodlands.” Francis has been making a similar case since his election in 2013, when he put environmental protection and global warming at the top of his agenda. He championed the Paris climate accord and, in 2015, became the first pope to dedicate an encyclical to protecting the earth. But the timing of his visits to Mozambique, which ended Friday, and to the islands of Madagascar and later Mauritius seemed unsettlingly fitting. In recent weeks the Amazon has burned, fires have raged in Angola and Congo, and a glacier has melted in Iceland. The appeals of Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager and environmentalist, have spread across Europe. And yet another deadly storm has been bearing down on the United States, where calls for a Green New Deal have gathered liberal momentum. “The visit is an occasion for this subject to come forward,” said Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a confidant of the pope. Parts of Mozambique were devastated in March by a cyclone that the United Nations called one of the worst in recent memory and another that followed soon after; Madagascar, Malawi and Zimbabwe were also affected. The storms caused severe flooding, killed more than 1,000 people and caused acute food insecurity for more than 1.5 million, according to the US Agency for International Development. “Before the pope’s arrival we had many meetings with young people about what the pope said about climate change,” said Bishop António Juliasse of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. He called it “a big issue for us,” saying: “We know the consequences from that. We know because we suffer it.” So do others. This year’s Global Climate Risk Index lists Madagascar as the seventh most affected country in part because of the toll that droughts and floods have taken on the island’s poor, who rely on small-scale farming or fishing. Throughout his trip, the pope has denounced the exploitation of natural resources. In Mozambique, the World Bank estimates, nearly 20 million acres of forest have been lost, an amount about the size of its onetime colonizer, Portugal. “At times it seems that those who approach with the alleged desire to help have other interests,” Francis said Friday at a packed stadium in Maputo. The stripping of resources, he said, is “the price to be paid for foreign aid.” Hints of China’s deep investments in Mozambique are everywhere, from the signs that bear Chinese writing to the spring rolls on the hotel menus. China has also taken much, importing large amounts of Africa’s rosewood and other hardwoods for luxury furniture. “They said, ‘We come to help you,’” Augusta Alinda, 16, said of the Chinese, “but they made it worse.” In Madagascar, nearly half of the forests have disappeared in the last 60 years, according to the French agricultural research centre CIRAD. The Primate Specialist Group, a network of scientists, has deemed its lemurs the most endangered primates in the world, owing to illegal logging, poaching for food, slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal production. “In the wild, they need at least three hectares for each group,” Diary Rafalimanana, a guide at the lemur reserve, said as he watched a cramped family. Across the river behind them, villagers planted sweet potatoes, fished for tilapia and did what they could to get by. Intense droughts, storms and floods have wreaked havoc on agriculture in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries. More than 90% of its 26 million people live on less than $2 a day, according to the United Nations World Food Program. While condemning environmental devastation, Francis recognised on Saturday that the poor often had little alternative to illegal logging or stripping the earth of minerals. Indeed, on the roads west of Antananarivo, climate change did not seem to be a pressing concern. Instead, getting across the road seemed challenging enough. Taxi vans, scooters, bicycles and bull-drawn carriages loaded with bulging sacks of wood barely slowed for barefoot children rushing across the street. Shopkeepers in open-air butcher shops, vegetable stands and chicken spots brushed up against vendors selling brooms, license plates and sneakers. Men and women balanced bags of rice, stereo speakers, tires and baskets of live chickens on their heads. Francis’ image in these parts was minimal. There were a few signs of him smiling and waving, and closer to town a woman sold sunhats adorned with his face. But in the periphery of the population Francis so wants to reach, he and his message seemed peripheral. Everywhere smoke billowed. From exhaust pipes, from fires in the fields and from under the pots where children sell corn heated by brick ovens on the roadside. Many men wore orange shirts emblazoned with the face of Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina. Rajoelina, an event promoter turned power broker, has tried to bolster the country’s finances by allowing a surge in deforestation. Much of the felled rosewood and ebony found its way to China, and a “large, unexplained stash of rosewood logs was discovered at the presidential palace,” according to a European Parliament resolution calling on Madagascar to curb corruption and better protect its environment. The pope had the same message Saturday. “In a word, there can be no true ecological approach or effective efforts to safeguard the environment without the attainment of social justice,” Francis said next to Rajoelina, who promised “on this day” to “repair and rebuild Madagascar.” For some of Francis’ believers, at least, the message was getting through. “The pope and now everybody is talking about the environment,” said Angelo Chambule, 51, who works in imports in Maputo. “That we have to do something or we won’t have a future.” © 2019 New York Times News Service | 0 |
CHICAGO, Thu May 29, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Global warming will likely drain more water from the Great Lakes and pose added pollution threats to the region's vulnerable ecosystem, environmental groups said in a report issued on Wednesday. Climate change could further reduce scant ice cover observed in recent winters, increasing evaporation rates and dropping water levels in the five lakes that collectively make up 20 percent of the world's surface fresh water. Last year, Lake Superior water levels receded to their lowest in 77 years before rebounding, and the report by the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition predicted global warming could lower lake levels by up to 3 feet (1 meter) over the next century. The lower levels will hamper lake shipping, expose polluted sediments, and further damage water quality. "Climate change is threatening the health of the Great Lakes and jeopardizing efforts to restore them," the coalition's Jeff Skelding said in a teleconference. The coalition represents groups including zoos, fishing and hunting interests, business organizations and environmental groups. The report said global warming added to the urgent need for the U.S. Congress to act on more pieces of a $20 billion Great Lakes restoration plan, proposed back in 2005. Spending priorities are billions of dollars needed to repair antiquated sewage treatment plants as well as cleaning up toxic sediments from past pollution, restoring coastal wetlands that naturally cleanse pollutants and stopping invasive species of fish, plants and mussels, the report said. Scientists studying climate change have predicted more frequent droughts that will hurt the lakes' coastal ecosystem coupled with more intense storms that produce runoff containing toxic metals, viruses and other pollutants, the report said. THIRSTY WORLD The report blamed warming temperatures for ruining ice fishing in many areas, shortening the snowmobile season and harming Michigan's tart cherry crop. Warming could expand or create new oxygen-depleted "dead zones" in the lakes caused in part by uncontrolled algae growth and other processes. "If Congress delays in acting to curb global warming and to restore the lakes, the problems will only get worse and the solutions more costly," Skelding said. Perhaps the most promising avenue for new funding is contained in a proposal in Congress that calls for auctioning off permits to emit greenhouse gases in a so-called cap-and-trade system. Proceeds from the auctions could provide a stream of up to $3 billion a year for ecological restoration, said Andy Buchsbaum of the National Wildlife Federation. Meanwhile, eight US states and two Canadian provinces bordering the lakes should enact a compact to prevent diversions of lake water to an "increasingly thirsty world," Buchsbaum said. All but three states have passed the compact, after which the federal governments of both countries would be asked to ratify it. | 0 |
SINGAPORE, Nov 15, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US President Barack Obama said on Sunday the world economy was on a path to recovery but warned that failure to re-balance the global economic system would lead to further crises. Obama was addressing Asia Pacific leaders in Singapore, where officials removed any reference to market-oriented exchange rates in a communique after disagreement between Washington and Beijing over the most sensitive topic between the two giants. The statement from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum endorsed stimulus measures to keep the global economy from sliding back into recession and urged a successful conclusion to the Doha Round of trade talks in 2010. An earlier draft pledged APEC's 21 members to maintain "market-oriented exchange rates that reflect underlying economic fundamentals." That statement had been agreed at a meeting of APEC finance ministers on Thursday, including China, although it made no reference to the Chinese yuan currency. An APEC delegation official who declined to be identified said debate between China and the United States over exchange rates had held up the statement at the end of two days of talks. That underscored strains likely to feature when Obama flies to China later on Sunday after Washington for the first time slapped duties on Chinese-made tires. Beijing fears that could set a precedent for more duties on Chinese goods that are gaining market share in the United States. Obama told APEC leaders the world could not return to the same cycles of boom and bust that sparked the global recession. "We cannot follow the same policies that led to such imbalanced growth. If we do, we will continue to drift from crisis to crisis, a failed path that has already had devastating consequences for our citizens, our businesses, and our governments," Obama said. "We have reached one of those rare inflection points in history where we have the opportunity to take a different path -- to pursue a new strategy for jobs and growth. Growth that is balanced. Growth that is sustainable." Obama's strategy calls for America to save more, spend less, reform its financial system and cut its deficits and borrowing. Washington also wants key exporters such as China to boost domestic demand. YUAN ON THE AGENDA Chinese President Hu Jintao has been under pressure to let the yuan appreciate, but in several speeches at APEC he ignored the issue and focused instead on what he called "unreasonable" trade restrictions on developing countries. One of the key themes when Obama visits China for three days will be the yuan, which has effectively been pegged against the dollar since mid-2008 to cushion its economy from the downturn. Washington says an undervalued yuan is contributing to imbalances between the United States and the world's third-biggest economy. China is pushing for US recognition as a market economy and concessions on trade cases that would make it harder for Washington to take action against Chinese products. China's central bank said last week it will consider major currencies in guiding the yuan, suggesting a departure from the peg. Obama arrived in Singapore late on Saturday, missing most of that day's formal talks and speeches where several leaders suggested the world's largest economy was hampering free trade through policies such as "Buy America" campaigns. APEC is the last major gathering of global decision-makers before a UN climate summit in Copenhagen in three weeks meant to ramp up efforts to fight climate change. Those negotiations have largely stalled, but a US official said Obama had backed a two-step plan by the Danish prime minister to aim for an operational agreement and to leave legally binding details until later. The APEC statement dropped all references to emissions reductions that had been in earlier drafts. | 0 |
A small group of activists and celebrities protested in front of the White House to put pressure on Obama to reject the controversial proposed crude oil pipeline. Among the 48 protesters arrested and released on $100 (64.3 pounds) bail were actress Daryl Hannah and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his son Conor Kennedy, said Maggie Kao, spokeswoman for the Sierra Club.The action came before a rally planned for Sunday on Washington's National Mall, which organizers have dubbed "the largest climate rally in history."The TransCanada Corp pipeline would transport 830,000 barrels of crude from the oil sands of northern Alberta, the world's third largest crude resource, to refineries and ports in Texas. TransCanada has been waiting for approval for 4 1/2 years.Environmentalists say approval of the pipeline will encourage more development in the oil sands, where extraction is carbon-intensive, leading to greater greenhouse gas emissions.The State Department in the coming days is due to issue a new environmental impact statement on the project, which is expected to guide the White House as it decides whether to give the project the go-ahead.Obama had been widely expected to approve the pipeline after the governor of Nebraska approved a revised route through his state that avoided ecologically sensitive areas and aquifers.But doubts rose after Obama put surprising emphasis on climate change in his January inaugural address, leading pipeline watchers to question whether the president would heed pressure from environmentalists.Still, Canada's natural resources minister said on Wednesday he was cautiously optimistic Washington would approve the pipeline.The American Petroleum Institute, the country's biggest oil and gas lobbying group, and some labour unions said they were also confident that Obama would approve Keystone."This is the one of the most scrutinized infrastructure projects in our nation's history," Sean McGarvey, president of building and construction at the AFL-CIO labour organization."The president has thoughtfully and methodically looked at this issue. I have no doubt that the president will make the right decision."Many environmental groups welcomed Obama's focus on climate change in Tuesday's State of the Union speech. But some warned the Keystone decision would be more meaningful."I'm glad to see the president, after the long, odd silence of the campaign, ratcheting up the rhetoric about climate change," said Bill McKibben, founder of environmental group 350.org, who was among those arrested outside the White House on Wednesday. "The test of that rhetoric will be what he does about the purest, simplest test: the Keystone XL pipeline."The American Petroleum Institute is also stepping up pressure on Obama to approve Keystone, which its members say will create more jobs and help ensure US energy security. The group plans a national advertising campaign and "grassroots events across the country," urging Obama to approve the project.Republican lawmakers, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, have called on the president not to delay the decision further.TRADE-OFFSSome policy analysts speculate that Obama could announce other carbon-cutting measures if he were to approve the pipeline.Joshua Saks, legislative director at the National Wildlife Federation, rejected such a trade-off."You can't do something else to mitigate the enormous effects of passing the Keystone pipeline," he said.But Paul Bledsoe, an energy consultant who served on the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Bill Clinton, said Obama should roll out sweeping regulations targeting emissions at power plants, which account for one-third of US greenhouse gas emissions, if he approves the pipeline.Environmental groups should not dwell on Keystone, Bledsoe said, calling it "one isolated decision" within Obama's overall "long-term climate change vision." | 0 |
JAKARTA, Wed Feb 18, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed on Wednesday Indonesia's transition to democracy and stressed Washington's desire for stronger ties with Southeast Asia to bring change in Myanmar. Clinton's visit to the world's most populous Muslim country highlights President Barack Obama's desire to forge a better US relationship with the Islamic world, where many of the policies of former president George W Bush's administration, including the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, were deeply unpopular. After talks with Indonesia's foreign minister, Clinton said the two nations intended to move forward in areas ranging from climate change to security and counter-terrorism. "It is exactly the kind of comprehensive partnership that we believe will drive both democracy and development," Clinton told a joint news conference, adding it was "no accident" Indonesia had been picked for her trip. Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said Indonesia provided a successful development model. "Indonesia is not only (the) country with (the) largest Muslim population but, as we have proven here, democracy, Islam and modernity can go hand in hand," the minister said. "President Obama has a very strong constituency here in Indonesia -- of course, without the right to vote," said Wirajuda, when asked about a possible Obama visit to Indonesia, where he spent four years as child. REVIEWING MYANMAR, ASEAN POLICY Wirajuda said Indonesia had shared America's "joy" at Obama's election and he wanted Clinton to go back and tell the U.S. President "we cannot wait too long". Clinton touched on a fresh U.S. review into its policy towards Myanmar to seek ways to sway the military junta. "Clearly the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta but ... reaching out and trying to engage them hasn't influenced them either," she said. There had been concern in Southeast Asia that Washington neglected the region under Bush, allowing China to fill the vacuum. Clinton visited the Jakarta-based headquarters of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where she discussed signing ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. "Today I am proud to announce the Obama administration will launch our formal inter-agency process to pursue accession to the treaty," she said. Signing the treaty with ASEAN, a grouping often dismissed by critics as a toothless talkshop, could signal a big upgrading in ties with Southeast Asian and a new tactic by the new U.S. administration in exerting influence over Myanmar. She also announced the U.S. Peace Corps would be negotiating to resume volunteer work in Indonesia. The programme was booted out under former President Sukarno during the turbulent 1960s. Clinton came to Indonesia from Japan as part of a four-country Asian tour that also takes in South Korea and China. Some hardline Islamist groups and students opposing Clinton's visit held rallies. But this leg of her Asian tour was expected to go smoothly given good government-to-government relations and Indonesian pride in the fact that Obama had lived in Jakarta. Playing on Obama's Indonesian ties, about 50 schoolchildren from the U.S. president's old school, waving U.S. and Indonesian flags, sang traditional folk songs as Clinton walked across the tarmac at an airport in the suburbs of Jakarta. While most Indonesian Muslims are moderate, the country has a small, radical fringe. About 100 Muslim students, some chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), held a rally at Jakarta's presidential palace, some throwing shoes at a picture of Clinton. Police have deployed 2,800 officers in the capital for Clinton's visit. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, seeking a second term this year, is keen to showcase Indonesia's stability since its transformation from an autocracy under former President Suharto -- who was forced to resign in 1998 -- to a vibrant democracy. The United States is Indonesia's second-biggest export destination, but Jakarta is concerned over a slide in exports of commodities such as palm oil, rubber and nickel to developed economies, as well as curbs on textile and shoe exports. Indonesia also wants a bigger role in world affairs, notably in the Middle East, given its core position in ASEAN, its population of 226 million, and its location straddling key trade routes. | 0 |
On weekends, jazz bands played on the corners. Friends reunited on the median. Children zigged and zagged on their bikes as diners sat at bistro tables atop asphalt. The faint sound of cars could be heard in the distance.Just as the early days of the coronavirus forced New Yorkers inside, it eventually pushed them outdoors — for fresh air, for exercise, for eating, for relief — in what became an organic takeover and reimagining of the city’s streets across its five boroughs.City officials handed over 83 miles of roadway to cyclists, runners and walkers, allowed nearly 11,000 restaurants to stretch onto sidewalks and streets and let retailers expand their storefronts beyond their front doors. People reclaimed the pavement and are, by and large, unwilling to give it back.Mayor Bill de Blasio has heralded the programs — known separately as Open Streets, Open Restaurants and Open Storefronts — as a bright spot in an otherwise dark moment for the city. Once a skeptic, de Blasio believes that some of these pandemic-era experiments will be woven permanently into the fabric of New York.But how exactly will the city look?The New York Times asked people who have taken advantage of Open Streets what they want to see endure. The Times also asked a noted urban planner and architect, Claire Weisz of WXY Studio, to explore what would be realistic but also to offer a more ambitious vision and share what has worked elsewhere.The Times selected three streets that were part of the Open Streets and Open Restaurants programs and that represent possibilities applicable to all parts of the city. While the Open Restaurants program has been made permanent, the city has said less about the future of Open Streets, most of which recently ended because of colder weather, beyond that the mayor wants to see it stay in some form.There is Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights, a grand mixed-use, European-style boulevard. There is 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens, a wide street lined with apartment buildings and townhouses. And there is Avenue B on the Lower East Side, which, like other Manhattan residential neighborhoods, is anchored by a park.THE EUROPEAN BOULEVARDVanderbilt Avenue, BrooklynVanderbilt Avenue could become a destination for the surrounding areas by taking advantage of the existing median, expanding it with curves that force drivers to slow down and building a performance stage.What New Yorkers ThinkOn Halloween morning, Dayna Rosen stood in the middle of the major thoroughfare connecting Fort Greene to the north and Prospect Park to the south, snapping photos of Monty, her Boston terrier mix. Monty wore a jean jacket and a magenta mohawk.Rosen, 40, felt for a moment as if she had been whisked away to another continent.“It reminds me of all the squares in Europe,” she said.Until Thanksgiving, Vanderbilt Avenue — which stretches 60 feet curb to curb — was transformed into a central hub in the Prospect Heights neighborhood. Restaurants stretched into the street. One block of the avenue has a concrete median with a few planted trees, a splash of greenery in the middle of the two-way street.The transformation started on Saturday mornings with volunteers moving blue barricades onto the avenue, blocking all cars except emergency vehicles.“Since we live right on this block, we are able to bring our chairs,” Molly Marcotte said as she carried a barricade.When we asked people who have flocked to Vanderbilt what it needs most, almost everyone mentioned more benches and tables. The existing bike lane should be more clearly marked and improved to try to separate faster cyclists from others, especially children, who are traveling more slowly.Above all, local residents said they wanted to be able to dictate the future of Vanderbilt and not cede decision making to City Hall.Jaykuan Marrero, who has cut hair at two barbershops on the street, said he would love to see Vanderbilt converted into an ambitious events space, with a stage for musical and theatrical performances.Andy Bachman, a rabbi who was getting his hair cut by Marrero, agreed.“This is a borough of writers, painters and poets,” Bachman said.What’s PracticalThe future of a road like Vanderbilt, Weisz said, begins with the median — a 10-foot-wide by 300-foot-long elevated concrete block broken up by nine Japanese zelkova trees.On many city streets, the median is “purely a kind of visual safety barrier and nothing else,” she said.Weisz said Vanderbilt’s median could be extended along additional blocks and expanded outward, becoming a small park.The islands in the middle of Vanderbilt, she said, could also provide something sorely needed across the entire city: public bathrooms, which make places more welcoming and allow people to linger longer.In some countries, users of public bathrooms pay a small fee — 25 cents in U.S. currency, for instance — with the proceeds used to hire workers to keep bathrooms clean and stocked with supplies. (The city has five public, climate-controlled restrooms that cost 25 cents to use for 15 minutes.)Medians could also be used as loading and unloading zones for deliveries. New kinds of bike lanes — one dedicated to fast bicyclists, commuters and delivery workers — could be added next to the median. There could be a separate lane for leisurely riders.That is a model embraced by Copenhagen, the cycling-friendly city in Denmark, which has nine so-called supercycle highways crisscrossing the city and its metropolitan area.THE RESIDENTIAL PROMENADE34th Avenue, QueensIn Queens, 34th Avenue could become a long pedestrian promenade by expanding the existing median, which would allow space for features like a workout area and gardens, and would move the existing bike lane away from traffic.What New Yorkers ThinkTwice a day, Laurie Gold takes her pit bull mix, Shani, on a long walk — more than 2 miles along 34th Avenue. The straight roadway, whose lanes are separated by an elevated median with plants and trees, is full of people day and night, running, walking or biking.“I love it,” Gold, 29, said about the Open Streets portion, which extends more than a mile from near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to Junction Boulevard. “I wouldn’t change anything.”During the pandemic, the avenue has become a family destination. Neighbors stop to chat. Parents push strollers, while children bounce basketballs or zip around on bicycles. Ashley Cedeno, 8, loves playing tag or hide-and-seek.The street, Ashley said, is “for having fun and playing together.”A gathering area on the western half is Travers Park, a 2-acre playground and green space surrounded by apartment buildings and schools. While wanting to maintain the avenue’s residential appeal, some people said they would like more commercial activity, like fairs, food trucks and sidewalk vendors.On some weekends, farmers and winemakers have set up tents to sell goods. Edwin Cordero, who has lost 5 pounds in the past month walking his yellow Labrador retriever, Lucy, said there should be more choices.“We don’t get street festivals up here at all,” Cordero said.What’s PracticalA street like 34th Avenue is ripe with opportunities, Weisz said. The roadway stretches about 55 feet across from curb to curb, enough room for the median to be extended to the sidewalk on one side and create a one-way road on the other.The extended area would create a large section for pedestrians and for more greenery, she said.While the avenue has a bike lane, it runs between the roadway and parked cars. Weisz said it would be safer to move it next to the sidewalk to prevent drivers from hitting cyclists with the door when they get out of their vehicles.“It does feel dangerous,” she said.Travers Park could serve as an anchor, a place to add public bathrooms as well as carve out space for vendors and a workout area.New York could take inspiration from the Tokyo Toilet, architecturally appealing and wheelchair-accessible restrooms found across Shibuya, a major commercial center in Tokyo.“You need some sort of public facilities here,” Weisz said.THE NEIGHBORHOOD SIDE STREETAvenue B, ManhattanAvenue B could be made more inviting to pedestrians by converting the road into a one-way strip near Tompkins Square Park, which would lose its fencing but gain public bathrooms.What New Yorkers ThinkHolding a paintbrush lathered in red wood stain, Darrin Arremony knelt on Avenue B on a recent Sunday, applying the first coat on a newly built outdoor dining structure at Barnyard, his wife’s cheese restaurant.As he spread the stain, Arremony kept an eye on the narrow lanes behind him, watching for traffic. He said it might be safer to convert the open street section of Avenue B, between East Sixth and East 14th streets, into a one-way street.Today, with parked cars and some restaurants operating on the roadway, there is roughly a 20-foot wide gap on the street for people, bicyclists and some vehicles. Only local car traffic is allowed through.“We definitely need automobile traffic here,” Arremony said. “The businesses will need the support of deliveries.”The focal point of the neighborhood is Tompkins Square Park, developed into a landscaped oasis more than 150 years ago on former swampland.Many residents said the park’s best features — a place to sit or relax amid greenery — should be adopted along Avenue B. Debora Williams, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years, said the sidewalks should have more trees and plants.Converting Avenue B into a permanent open street, she added, would allow schools to use it as a big playground.“Just more greenery would be great,” Williams said.What’s PracticalThe park is 10.5 acres but most of it is off limits to people. Fences ring its perimeter, except for paved entryways into the park. Benches line the paths but are not surrounded by trees and shrubs, which are protected by more fencing within the park.Weisz said the fences were a relic of a different era when residents worried about farm animals roaming into the parkland. Then, “it turned into a weird 1970s security thing,” she said. But imagine, she said, what the area would look like without fences.It would be easy to enter the park with paths weaving amid the trees and landscapes, allowing people to escape in the greenery and stay socially distanced.A template for Avenue B could be Barcelona, Spain, which has superblocks — islands of car-free streets. The avenue could be made one-way as an open street, while reverting to a two-way elsewhere.A wider street would also make room for public bathrooms, she said.Breaking up the flow of traffic would force drivers to slow down, increasing safety. Avenue B would also benefit from bike lanes and discrete areas for deliveries.“It looks like the perfect shared street,” Weisz said. © 2020 The New York Times Company | 2 |
Britain will on Thursday outline plans to expand London's Heathrow Airport to help cope with a boom in air travel, despite fierce opposition from environmental groups. Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly will propose building a third runway for short-haul flights at Europe's biggest airport by 2020, according to a report in the Times. In the meantime, she intends to allow up to 60,000 more flights each year on the existing two runways, the report said. Supporters of the planned expansion say it will pump billions of pounds into the economy and allow Heathrow to compete with other international airports. Critics, however, say the extra flights will contribute to global warming, increase pollution and blight the lives of millions of people under the flightpaths. The developments are being closely watched by governments and campaigners across Europe, including Frankfurt, Paris and Stuttgart, where airport expansions are planned. Kelly will publish a consultation paper on Thursday that will say the expansion will not breach the European Union's air pollution limits and the government's own noise limits, the Times said. "We need extra capacity in the southeast," Kelly told the newspaper. "But fundamentally we need a global hub airport." Scientists say air transport contributes to global warming, and the carbon dioxide gas and water vapour emitted by aircraft are four times more potent at high altitude than at sea level. The government says it is committed to tackling climate change and plans to set legally binding targets for cutting CO2 emissions -- but it also backs an expansion of air travel, which is set to double in the next 25 years. Airport operator BAA, part of Spain's Ferrovial said the expansion would bring huge economic benefits through tourism, job creation and businesses relocating to be near Heathrow. "It is a very considerable economic powerhouse," BAA Chief Executive Stephen Nelson told BBC radio. British Airways Chief Executive Willie Walsh said benefits could be worth more than 9 billion pounds each year. Green campaigners question that figure. John Stewart, chairman of anti-airport expansion group HACAN ClearSkies, told the BBC: "There's a mantra here that it's important for the economy. What has never been worked out is how those figures are arrived at." Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Secretary Susan Kramer said the plans "make a mockery of any attempts to tackle climate change". "It is time for ministers to listen to the public and stop any further Heathrow expansion," she said. | 0 |
Rising temperatures are contributing to a drop in fish populations in many regions, and oxygen levels in the ocean are declining while acidity levels are on the rise, posing risks to important marine ecosystems, according to the report issued Wednesday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders in policymaking. In addition, warmer ocean waters, when combined with rising sea levels, threaten to fuel ever more powerful tropical cyclones and floods, the report said, further imperilling coastal regions and worsening a phenomenon that is already contributing to storms like Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston two years ago. “The oceans are sending us so many warning signals that we need to get emissions under control,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and a lead author of the report. “Ecosystems are changing, food webs are changing, fish stocks are changing, and this turmoil is affecting humans.” For decades, the oceans have served as a crucial buffer against global warming, soaking up roughly a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans emit from power plants, factories and cars, and absorbing more than 90% of the excess heat trapped on Earth by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Without that protection, the land would be heating much more rapidly. But the oceans themselves are becoming hotter and less oxygen-rich as a result, according to the report. If humans keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an increasing rate, the risks to human food security and coastal communities will increase sharply, particularly since marine ecosystems are already facing threats from plastic pollution, unsustainable fishing practices and other man-made stresses. The report, which was written by more than 100 international experts and is based on more than 7,000 studies, represents the most extensive look to date at the effects of climate change on oceans, ice sheets, mountain snowpack and permafrost. Changes deep in the ocean or high in the mountains are not always as noticeable as some of the other hallmarks of global warming, such as heat waves on land, or wildfires and droughts. But the report makes clear that what happens in these remote regions will have ripple effects across the globe. For instance, as ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt and push up ocean levels, the report said, extreme flooding that was once historically rare could start occurring once a year or more, on average, in many coastal regions this century. How quickly this happens depends largely on the ability of humanity to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. Around the world, glaciers in the mountains are receding quickly, affecting the availability of water for millions of people who depend on meltwater downstream to supply drinking water, irrigate agricultural land and produce electricity through dams and hydropower. But some of the report’s starkest warnings concern the ocean, where major shifts are already underway. The frequency of marine heat waves — which can kill fish, seabirds, coral reefs and seagrasses — have doubled since the 1980s. Many fish populations are migrating far from their usual locations to find cooler waters, throwing local fishing industries into disarray. Floating sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is declining at rates that are “likely unprecedented for at least 1,000 years,” the report said. The report warns that more dramatic changes could be in store. If fossil-fuel emissions continue to rise rapidly, for instance, the maximum amount of fish in the ocean that can be sustainably caught could decrease by as much as a quarter by century’s end. That would have sweeping implications for global food security: Fish and seafood provide about 17% of the world’s animal protein, and millions of people worldwide depend on fishing economies for their livelihoods. And heat waves in the ocean are expected to become 20 to 50 times more frequent this century, depending on how much greenhouse-gas emissions increase. Changes in the ocean also threaten to disrupt the complex and often delicate ecosystems that underpin marine environments. The report notes that the upper layers of the open ocean have lost between 0.5% to 3.3% of their oxygen since 1970 as temperatures have risen. And, as the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide, it is becoming more acidic, which could make it harder for corals, oysters, mussels and other organisms to build their hard shells. While the report recommends that the world’s nations sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions to lessen the severity of most of these threats, it also points out that countries will need to adapt to many changes that have now become unavoidable. Even if, for instance, nations rapidly phase out their greenhouse gas emissions in the decades ahead and limit global warming to well below an increase of 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels — a goal enshrined in the Paris agreement, a pact among nations to fight warming — the world’s oceans and frozen landscapes would still look very different by the end of the century than they do today. Warm-water coral reefs would still face devastation. Global sea levels could still rise another 1 to 2 feet this century as ice sheets and glaciers melted. Fish populations would still migrate, creating winners and losers among fishing nations and potentially leading to increased conflicts, the report noted. To cope with these problems, coastal cities will need to build costly sea walls and many people will likely need to move away from low-lying areas, the report said. Fishery managers will need to crack down on unsustainable fishing practices to prevent seafood stocks from collapsing. Nations could also expand protected areas of the ocean to help marine ecosystems stay resilient against shifting conditions. c.2019 The New York Times Company | 0 |
At least 133 people have died in the flooding, including some 90 people in the Ahrweiler district south of Cologne, according to police estimates on Saturday. Hundreds of people are still missing. Around 700 residents were evacuated late on Friday after a dam broke in the town of Wassenberg near Cologne, authorities said. Over the past several days the floods, which have mostly hit the states of Rhineland Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, have cut off entire communities from power and communications. The flooding has also hit parts of Belgium and the Netherlands. At least 20 people have died in Belgium. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Armin Laschet, state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, were scheduled to visit Erftstadt, one of the hardest hit towns, on Saturday. Laschet is ruling CDU party's candidate in September's general election. The devastation of the floods could intensify the debate over climate change ahead of the vote. Scientists have long said that climate change will lead to heavier downpours. But determining its role in these relentless downpours will take at least several weeks to research, scientists said on Friday. | 0 |
That strategy, called solar climate intervention or solar geoengineering, entails reflecting more of the sun’s energy back into space — abruptly reducing global temperatures in a way that mimics the effects of ash clouds spewed by volcanic eruptions. The idea has been derided as a dangerous and illusory fix, one that would encourage people to keep burning fossil fuels while exposing the planet to unexpected and potentially menacing side effects. But as global warming continues, producing more destructive hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other disasters, some researchers and policy experts say that concerns about geoengineering should be outweighed by the imperative to better understand it, in case the consequences of climate change become so dire that the world can’t wait for better solutions. “We’re facing an existential threat, and we need to look at all the options,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School and editor of a book on the technology and its legal implications. “I liken geoengineering to chemotherapy for the planet: If all else is failing, you try it.” On Wednesday, a nonprofit organisation called SilverLining announced $3 million in research grants to Cornell University, the University of Washington, Rutgers University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and others. The work will focus on practical questions, such as how high in the atmosphere to inject sunlight-reflecting aerosols, how to shoot the right-size particles into clouds to make them brighter, and the effect on the world’s food supply. Kelly Wanser, SilverLining’s executive director, said the world is running out of time, and protecting people requires trying to understand the consequences of climate intervention. She said the goal of the work, called the Safe Climate Research Initiative, was “to try to bring the highest-calibre people to look at these questions.” The research announced Wednesday adds to a growing body of work already underway. In December, Congress gave the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration $4 million to research the technology. NOAA will also start gathering data that will let it detect whether other countries start using geoengineering secretly. And Australia is funding experiments to determine whether and how the technology can save the Great Barrier Reef. “Decarbonising is necessary but going to take 20 years or more,” Chris Sacca, co-founder of Lowercarbon Capital, an investment group that is one of SilverLining’s funders, said in a statement. “If we don’t explore climate interventions like sunlight reflection now, we are surrendering countless lives, species, and ecosystems to heat.” One way to cool the earth is by injecting aerosols into the upper layer of the atmosphere, where those particles reflect sunlight away from the earth. That process works, according to Douglas MacMartin, a researcher in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University whose team received funding. “We know with 100% certainty that we can cool the planet,” MacMartin said in an interview. What’s still unclear, he added, is what happens next. Temperature, MacMartin said, is a proxy for a lot of climate effects. “What does it do to the strength of hurricanes?" he asked. "What does it do to agriculture yields? What does it do to the risk of forest fires?” To help answer those questions, MacMartin will model the specific weather effects of injecting aerosols into the atmosphere above different parts of the globe and also at different altitudes. “Depending on where you put it, you will have different effects on the monsoon in Asia,” he said. “You will have different effects on Arctic sea ice.” Another institution getting money as part of the new initiative is the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and has what its researchers call the world’s most sophisticated earth system model. The grant from SilverLining will pay for the centre to run and analyse hundreds of simulations of aerosol injection, testing the effects on weather extremes around the world. One goal of the research is to look for a sweet spot: the amount of artificial cooling that can reduce extreme weather events without causing broader changes in regional precipitation patterns or similar impacts. “Is there a way — in our model world, at least — to see if we can achieve one without triggering too much of the other?” said Jean-Francois Lamarque, director of the centre’s Climate and Global Dynamics laboratory. Injecting aerosol into the stratosphere isn’t the only way to bounce more of the sun’s rays back into space. The Australian government is funding research into what’s called “marine cloud brightening,” which is meant to make clouds more reflective by spraying saltwater into the air. The goal is to get salt particles to act as nuclei in those clouds, encouraging the formation of many small water droplets, which will increase the brightness of the clouds. Australian researchers say they hope the technique can save the Great Barrier Reef. Rising water temperatures during so-called marine heat waves are accelerating the die-off of the reef, and making marine clouds more reflective may be able to cool water temperatures enough to slow or stop that decline. In March, Daniel Harrison, a biological oceanographer at Southern Cross University in Australia, tested the technology by using 100 nozzles to spray water into the air. “The results were quite encouraging,” Harrison said in a phone interview. One of the challenges, he said, will be using the technology on a large enough scale to make a difference. He estimated it would probably take 500 to 1,000 stations such as barges or platforms spraying water, or a smaller number of moving vessels, to cover the entire reef. © 2020 The New York Times Company | 0 |
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." | 5 |
Former Vice President Al Gore pledged on Monday to do all he could to help Barack Obama win the White House, saying it was crucial the United States has not only a new leader but a new vision for its future. Gore, one of the most prominent figures in the U.S. Democratic party and known around the world for his push to combat climate change, publicly backed Obama for the first time at a huge rally in Detroit. He recalled his own presidential bid in 2000 to urge his party to support the Illinois senator in the November election against Republican John McCain. "Take it from me, elections matter," said Gore, who lost the election to President George W. Bush eight years ago amid a dispute over the vote in Florida. Gore won the popular vote nationwide but Bush emerged the winner after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor on the disputed Florida balloting. Gore had remained neutral as Obama and former first lady and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton battled over their party's nomination. Gore was vice president during the administration of Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton. At the Detroit rally of about 20,000 people, Gore strongly criticized Bush and said McCain's policies were too similar to those of the current president. Highlighting Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Gore said he and Obama spoke out publicly against the war in the months leading up to it. "After eight years of the worst, most serious foreign policy mistakes in the entire history of our nation, we need change," Gore said. "We've got to have new leadership ... not only a new head of state but new vision for America's future." Gore likened Obama to assassinated President John F. Kennedy and told of having stood in the snow when he was 12 years old to watch Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. "I know what his inspiration meant to my generation and I feel that same spirit in this auditorium," he said. Gore has focused his career since the 2000 election on fighting climate change, writing a book and starring in a documentary on the subject. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his efforts against global warming. Gore wrote a letter to his supporters urging them to contribute to Obama's campaign. "From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure (Obama) is elected president of the United States," Gore said in the letter. "It means a lot obviously," Obama told reporters when asked earlier in the day about Gore's support. "We've had ongoing conversations about a whole host of issues. A lot of them have revolved around issues of climate change and energy and the environment. He's provided good political advice." | 0 |
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