Ukraine: Dozens dead and injured as UN condemns ‘utterly deplorable’ shopping centre attack

UNDP/Oleksandr Ratushniak I Ukraine is suffering heavy damage to infrastructure that will be costly to repair or rebuild.

At least ten people have reportedly been killed by what Ukrainian authorities have said was a Russian missile strike on a crowded shopping centre, and attack which the UN condemned on Monday as “utterly deplorable”.

At least ten people have reportedly been killed by what Ukrainian authorities have said was a Russian missile strike on a crowded shopping centre, and attack which the UN condemned on Monday as “utterly deplorable”.

The mall in the eastern city of Kremenchuk – a city which has largely escaped being targeted – was hit in the late afternoon, with reportedly 1,000 or more shoppers inside.

Ongoing shelling has led to homes being destroyed with many living in bomb shelters without access to basic services. To help those in need, @UNHCRUkraine in this convoy, delivered tarps, jerry cans + solar lamps for over 10k families. https://t.co/t4QJrH4gl9 pic.twitter.com/c70FLpee9l

— UNHCR Ukraine (@UNHCRUkraine) June 27, 2022

At least 40 were injured in the strike, said authorities, and the number of dead and injured is likely to rise. Footage from the scene showed buildings on fire and widespread destruction.

Civilians should not be targeted

United Nations Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told correspondents at the daily briefing in New York that although casualties still had to be verified, “whatever the number is any attack that hits a shopping mall, is utterly deplorable.”

“Any sort of civilian infrastructure, which includes obviously shopping malls, and civilians, should never ever be targeted”, he added.

Mr. Dujarric said there had been “disturbing reports of a new wave of airstrikes and shelling over the weekend and again today, with civilians having been killed or injured. Homes, health facilities and other civilian infrastructure were reportedly damaged.”

In a statement issued later in the day,  Osnat Lubrani, UN Resident Coordinator for Ukraine, said she was appalled at news of the airstrike on the mall.

"My thoughts and my heart are with the families and loved ones, of the people that have been killed, with those injured, and with the people of Kremenchuk and Ukraine, that had to witness another tragic event."

She said it was one more example "of the massive suffering that Russia’s war on Ukraine is causing on the people of this country."

Kyiv hit

During the weekend, the capital, Kyiv, was hit again, and a residential building was damaged, with some people trapped in the debris, he added.

“Loss of life, injury, destruction of homes across Ukraine, wreak havoc in the lives of individuals, families, communities”, said Ms. Lubrani, in a tweet on Sunday. “Civilians must be protected wherever they are.”

Desperation in the Donbas

Meanwhile in the Donbas region on the front lines between the invading Russian forces and Ukrainian defenders, fighting has continued, with UN humanitarians facing “tremendous challenges” reaching civilians, “who are facing increasing needs”, said Mr. Dujarric.

“The challenges are not only due to insecurity, but also to lack of access due to administrative restrictions imposed by the parties. 

We once again stress that the parties are obliged under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

The UN Crisis Coordinator for Ukraine, Amin Awad, tweeted at the weekend that as humanitarian needs grew, the UN would “continue to scale up and work side by side, with the Ukrainian Government and its people.”

Energy prices are causing chaos in Asia. Here's why the rest of the world should worry

Tara Subramaniam

In Sri Lanka, people queue for miles to fill a tank of fuel. In Bangladesh, shops shut at 8 p.m. to conserve energy. In India and Pakistan, power outages force schools to shut, businesses to close and residents to swelter without air conditioning through deadly heat waves in which temperatures top 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius).

These are just some of the more eye-catching scenes playing out in the Asia Pacific region, where various countries are facing their worst energy crisis in years — and grappling with the growing discontent and instability caused by knock-on increases in the cost of living.

In Sri Lanka and Pakistan, the sense of crisis is palpable. Public anger has already caused a wave of ministers to resign in Colombo and contributed to Imran Khan's downfall as prime minister in Islamabad.

Yet many suspect the political reckoning has only just begun; both countries have been forced into desperate measures, going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund and introducing shorter working weeks in an effort to save energy. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the Sri Lankan economy had "completely collapsed."

Elsewhere in the region, the signs of trouble may be less obvious but could yet have far reaching consequences. Even in comparatively rich countries, such as Australia, economic concerns are beginning to emerge as consumers feel the pinch of higher energy bills.

Wholesale electricity prices in the first quarter of 2022 were up 141% from last year; households are being urged to cut down usage and on June 15 -- for the first time -- the Australian government suspended indefinitely the national electricity market in a bid to bring prices down, ease pressure on the energy supply chain and prevent blackouts.

But it is the experience of India, where power demand recently hit record highs, that illustrates most clearly why this is a global — rather than regional — crisis.

Having suffered through widespread outages amid record temperatures, the world's third-largest carbon emitter announced on May 28 that state-run Coal India will import coal for the first time since 2015.

South Kolkata District Congress members join a demonstration against rising fuel prices in Kolkata, India on June 2.

What's causing the problem?

While each of these countries faces a unique set of circumstances, all have been hit by the twin effects of the coronavirus pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine — two unforeseeable events that have turned on their heads previously reasonable assumptions about supply lines and regional security and in the process plunged the world of economic planning into chaos.

At root, experts say, the problem lies in a growing mismatch between supply and demand.

Over the past couple of years, the pandemic kept demand for energy unusually low, with global electricity consumption dropping by more than 3% in the first quarter of 2020 as lockdowns and other restrictions kept workers at home, cars off the road, and ships stuck in ports.

But now, as nations begin to put the pandemic behind them, demand for fuel is spiking — and the sudden competition is pushing the prices of coal, oil and gas to record highs.

Turbo-charging this trend is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the world's third largest oil producer and second largest crude oil exporter. With the United States and many of its allies sanctioning Russian oil and gas, many countries have been left scrambling to find alternative sources — heating up the competition for limited supplies even further.

"Energy demand has rebounded quite quickly from the coronavirus and more quickly than supply," said Samantha Gross, director of the Brookings Institute's Energy Security and Climate Initiative.

"So we saw high prices even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine (but then there was) really a shock to energy supply. Various actions taken in response to that are really a challenge for energy supply globally."

Why Asia?

While the price of energy imports has risen dramatically across the world, with international coal prices five times higher than a year ago and natural gas prices up to 10 times higher than last year, experts say there are reasons some Asian economies — particularly import-reliant, developing ones — have been hit hardest.

"If you're a country, especially an emerging economy like a Sri Lanka that has to buy those commodities, has to buy oil, has to buy natural gas, this is a real struggle," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

"You're paying a lot more for the things you need but the things you sell haven't gone up in price. So you're shelling out a lot more money to try to buy the same things to keep your economy running."

Poorer countries that are still developing or newly industrialized are simply less able to compete with more deep pocketed rivals — and the more they need to import, the bigger their problem will be, said Antoine Halff, adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

"So Pakistan certainly fits there. Sri Lanka I think fits there as well," he said. "They're taking the price hit but they're also taking the supply hit. They have to pay more for their energy supplies and in some countries like Pakistan, they actually have a hard time sourcing energy."

Canaries in the coal mine

This dynamic is behind the increasingly chaotic scenes playing out in those countries.

As recently as a week ago, Sri Lanka's power and energy minister said it was a matter of days before the country ran out of fuel. That bleak warning came as lines at fuel stations in Colombo extended up to 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) and in many towns clashes between police and the public broke out.

It is almost as if everyday life itself is shutting down. On Monday, public sector offices, government schools and government-approved private schools were closed for at least two weeks. Public sector workers have been told to take Fridays off for the next three months — with the suggestion they use the time to grow their own food.

Pakistan too has had to reduce its working week — back down to five days from six — though that may only make the situation worse. Its six-day week, only recently introduced, was supposed to improve productivity and boost the economy.

Instead, daily hours-long power outages have plagued the country of 220 million for at least a month and malls and restaurants in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi have been told to close early to save fuel.

The country's energy supply is almost 5,000 megawatts below demand — a shortfall that could power between 2 million and 5 million homes on some estimates.

As Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb put it on June 7: "We are facing a severe crisis."

A vendor sells fabrics under an emergency light connected to a motorcycle during a load-shedding power outage in Karachi, Pakistan on June 8.

And any notion that such problems are a matter only for poorer, less developed nations is dispelled by the experience of Australia — a country that has one of the world's highest levels of global median wealth per adult.

Since May, the "Lucky Country" has been operating without 25% of its coal-based energy capacity — partly due to planned outages for maintenance, but also because supply disruptions and soaring prices have caused unplanned outages.

Like their counterparts in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Australians are now being urged to conserve, with Energy Minister Chris Bowen recently asking households in New South Wales, which includes Sydney, not to use electricity for two hours each evening.

A bigger problem ahead

How these nations respond may be stirring up an even greater problem than rising prices.

Under pressure from the public, governments and politicians may be tempted to turn back toward cheaper, dirtier forms of energy such as coal, regardless of the effect on climate change.

And there are signs this may already have started.

In Australia, the federal government's Energy Security Board has proposed that all electricity generators, including coal-fired ones, be paid to keep extra capacity in the national grid in a bid to prevent power outages. And the government of New South Wales has used emergency powers to redirect coal from mines in the state to local generators rather than overseas.

Both measures have come in for criticism from those who accuse the government of betraying its commitment to renewable energy.

In India, a country of 1.3 billion people that relies on coal for about 70% of its energy generation, New Delhi's decision to increase coal imports is likely to have even more profound environmental effects.

Scientists say a drastic reduction in coal mining is necessary to limit the worst effects of global warming, yet this will be hard to achieve without the buy-in of one of the world's biggest carbon emitters.

"Any country, be it India, be it Germany, be it the US, if they double down on any kind of fossil fuel it will eat up the carbon budget. That's a global problem," said Sandeep Pai, senior research lead for the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Energy Program.

While Pai said that India's decision might only be a temporary "reaction to the crisis," if in one or two years' time countries were continuing to rely on coal this would significantly affect the war on global warming.

"If these actions happen, it will eat up the carbon budget which is already shrinking in India and the target of 1.5 or 2 degrees will become increasingly hard," Pai said, referring to the Paris Climate Agreement's goal of keeping the rise in global average temperature between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

If the rise in temperature exceeds that range, even temporarily, scientists suggest some of the resulting changes to the planet could be irreversible.

As Pai put it: "India's scale and size and demand means that if it really doubles down on coal, then we'll have a really serious problem from a climate point of view."

Iqbal Athas contributed reporting.

Millions affected after deadly floods hit India and Bangladesh

Swati Gupta and Rhea Mogul

Millions of people across India and Bangladesh have been affected by raging floods and landslides that left more than 100 people dead and entire communities devastated.

People wade past stranded trucks on a flooded street in Sunamganj, Bangladesh on June 21, 2022.

The South Asian nations, home to more than 1.3 billion people, have been particularly badly hit by the rains, prompting some of the worst flooding in the region in years, as extreme weather events become increasingly frequent due to the climate crisis.

A man attempts to move his cattle through a flooded field to a safer place after heavy rains in Nagaon district, Assam, India, June 21, 2022.

In India, at least 48 people have died since June 14, after heavy rains battered the northeastern state of Assam, according to its disaster management authority, triggering landslides and causing river banks to swell. More than 5.5 million people have been affected in the state alone, the authority added.

Assam's Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, on Tuesday visited one of the 1,687 relief camps, housing more than 260,000 displaced people in the state.

"Our Govt will soon launch a portal for the affected people to register their livestock loss and other damages caused by floodwaters," he wrote on Twitter. "A flood relief package too will be announced shortly."

Flood affected people queue in knee-deep flood waters to collect food relief following heavy monsoon rainfalls in Sunamganj district, Bangladesh on June 21, 2022.

In the nearby state of Meghalaya, at least 25 people have died since June 9, with 11 still missing and 22 more injured, according to state officials.

Video broadcast on local television showed people in affected cities wading waist deep in muddy water and streets turned into rivers, with vehicles submerged underwater.

In neighboring Bangladesh, flooding-related incidents, including electrocutions and landslides, have killed at least 22 people, according to officials.

As many as 4 million people, including 1.6 million children, have been stranded by the flash floods, according to UNICEF.

"Children need safe drinking water right now. Preventing deadly waterborne diseases is one of several critical concerns," Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Bangladesh, said in a statement Monday.

The downpour has caused catastrophic flooding in the northeastern Sylhet region, local officials said.

"The flooding is the worst in 122 years in the Sylhet region," Atiqul Haque, Director General of Bangladesh's Department of Disaster Management, told Reuters on Monday.

Health facilities have been inundated in Sylhet, while children were at heightened risk of drowning, according to UNICEF.

More than 36,000 children have sought refuge in overcrowded shelters, together with their families, UNICEF said.

Schools have been forced to close and exams have been canceled, further impacting their education following months of closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, it added.

An aerial shot of a flooded area following heavy monsoon rainfalls in Companiganj, Bangladesh on June 20, 2022.

Extreme weather events in South Asia are becoming increasingly frequent due to the climate crisis, with temperatures in parts of India and Pakistan reaching record levels during a heatwave in April and May. Scientists said the climate crisis had made the possibility of a record-breaking heatwave hitting India and Pakistan "100 times more likely."

A 2022 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said they had medium confidence that heatwaves and humid stress would become more "intense and frequent," and that "annual and summer monsoon precipitation will increase."

CNN's Esha Mitra contributed reporting.

5 Things to Know About NASA's New Mineral Dust Detector

Esprit Smith
NASA’s Earth Science News Team

Dust swirls over the Arabian Peninsula in this image captured by the Suomi NPP satellite in July 2018. NASA’s upcoming Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) will help scientists better understand the role of airborne dust in heating and cooling the atmosphere. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Called EMIT, the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation will analyze dust carried through the atmosphere from dry regions to see what effects it has on the planet

Each year, strong winds carry more than a billion metric tons – or the weight of 10,000 aircraft carriers – of mineral dust from Earth’s deserts and other dry regions through the atmosphere. While scientists know that the dust affects the environment and climate, they don’t have enough data to determine, in detail, what those effects are or may be in the future – at least not yet.

Launching to the International Space Station on June 9, NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument will help fill in those knowledge gaps. EMIT’s state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer, developed by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, will collect more than a billion dust-source-composition measurements around the globe over the course of a year – and in doing so, significantly advance scientists’ understanding of dust’s influence across the Earth system.

Here are five things to know about EMIT:

1. It will identify the composition of mineral dust from Earth’s arid regions.

Desert regions produce most of the mineral dust that makes its way into the atmosphere. They’re also largely remote, making it difficult for scientists to collect soil and dust samples over these vast areas by hand.

From its perch on the space station, EMIT will map the world’s mineral dust source regions. The imaging spectrometer will also provide information on the color and composition of dust sources globally for the first time. This data will help scientists understand which kinds of dust dominate each region and advance their understanding of dust’s impact on climate and the Earth system today and in the future.

Using image spectrometer technology developed at JPL, EMIT will map the surface composition of minerals in Earth’s dust-producing regions, helping climate scientists better understand the impact of airborne dust particles in heating and cooling Earth’s atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

2. It will clarify whether mineral dust heats or cools the planet.

Right now, scientists don’t know whether mineral dust has a cumulative heating or cooling effect on the planet. That’s because dust particles in the atmosphere have different properties. For instance, some particles may be dark red, while others may be white.

The color matters because it determines whether the dust will absorb the Sun’s energy, as dark-colored minerals do, or reflect it, as light-colored minerals do. If more of the dust absorbs the Sun’s energy than reflects it, it’ll warm the planet, and vice versa.

EMIT will provide a detailed picture of how much dust comes from dark versus light minerals. That information will allow scientists to determine whether dust heats or cools the planet overall, as well as regionally and locally.

3. It will help scientists understand how dust affects different Earth processes.

Officials from NASA and JPL oversee vibration testing of the EMIT science instrument, including its telescope and imaging spectrometer. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mineral dust particles vary in color because they’re made of different substances. Dark red mineral dust gets its color from iron, for example. The composition of dust particles affects how they interact with many of Earth’s natural processes.

For instance, mineral dust plays a role in cloud formation and atmospheric chemistry. When mineral dust is deposited in the ocean or forests, it can provide nutrients for growth, acting like fertilizer. When it falls on snow or ice, the dust accelerates melting, leading to more water runoff. And for humans, mineral dust can be a health hazard when inhaled.

EMIT will collect information on 10 important dust varieties, including those that contain iron oxides, clays, and carbonates. With this data, scientists will be able to assess precisely what effects mineral dust has on different ecosystems and processes.

4. Its data will improve the accuracy of climate models.

In the absence of more specific data, scientists currently characterize mineral dust in climate models as yellow – a general average of dark and light. Because of this, the effects that mineral dust may have on climate – and that climate may have on mineral dust – are not well represented in computer models.

Color and composition information gathered by EMIT will change that. When the instrument’s data is incorporated, the accuracy of climate models is expected to improve.

5. It will help scientists predict how future climate scenarios will affect the type and amount of dust in our atmosphere.

As global temperatures rise, arid regions may become even drier, possibly resulting in larger (and dustier) deserts. To what extent this might happen depends on several factors, including how much temperatures rise, how land use changes, and how rainfall trends change.

By incorporating EMIT’s global dust source composition data into models and predictions, scientists will gain a better understanding of how the amount and composition of dust in arid regions may change under different climate and land-use scenarios. They’ll also gain a better understanding of how these changes may impact climate in the future.

More About the Mission 

EMIT is being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California. It will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s 25th commercial resupply services mission for NASA. Once EMIT begins operation, its data will be delivered to the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) for use by other researchers and the public.

To learn more about the mission, visit:

https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/

A Force of Nature: Hurricanes in a Changing Climate

Angela Colbert, Ph.D.,
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Due to global warming, global climate models predict hurricanes will likely cause more intense rainfall and have an increased coastal flood risk due to higher storm surge caused by rising seas. Additionally, the global frequency of storms may decrease or remain unchanged, but hurricanes that form are more likely to become intense.

From June 1 to November 30, many Americans turn their eyes to the tropics — not just because they’re dreaming of beach vacations, but because it’s hurricane season. Called by many names depending on where you live (hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones), scientists call these storms tropical cyclones. This is because they are large, rotating storms that need tropical conditions to form — so they originate mostly in the tropics.

Note: Technically, hurricanes are tropical cyclones that have winds of more than 74 miles per hour (about 120 kilometers per hour). However, “hurricanes” will be used as a general term in this article to include tropical storms, which are tropical cyclones below hurricane intensity.

With that said, let’s talk about some science behind hurricanes and how they may change due to global warming.

Recipe for a Hurricane

Hurricanes need four main ingredients to form and strengthen:

• warm ocean water

• lots of moisture in the air

• low vertical wind shear

• a pre-existing disturbance (e.g., a cluster of thunderstorms)

Thermal (heat) image view of Category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017, as seen by NASA’s Terra satellite. Yellow and orange are the warm ocean waters, and blue and white are the hurricane’s tall, cool cloud tops. Credit: NASA 

Just like making a perfect cookie, a hurricane needs all the ingredients for it to grow. Change any ingredient too much and the cookie will be too flat, too dry, too crumbly, etc. The same is true for hurricanes: If any of the four main ingredients changes too much, the storm cannot form or will weaken.

Once a hurricane forms, scientists shift their focus to where it is going and how strong it will be when it gets there. Where a hurricane goes depends mainly on the large-scale weather patterns around it at the time. If it moves over land, it brings with it a fury of strong wind, drenching rain, dangerous storm surge and sometimes tornadoes.

With so many moving parts, forecasting a hurricane is hard. Large-scale changes in the climate, such as El Niño and La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean, also impact hurricanes over an entire season. Thus, trying to determine how climate change will impact hurricanes may seem like an impossible task. However, important tools are in place to help scientists tackle it. These include sophisticated global climate models, scientific understanding of how hurricanes form and evolve, and expanding observational records of past hurricane activity.

What Do the Models Show?

Tom Knutson, senior scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, is a leading scientist on hurricanes and climate change. He notes that “even if hurricanes themselves don’t change [due to climate change], the flooding from storm surge events will be made worse by sea level rise.” In addition, he says models show increases in a hurricane’s rainfall rate by 2100. This means that hurricanes are likely to cause more intense rain when they come ashore.

Scientists have long predicted that climate change would increase extreme rainfall events. In a warmer world, there is simply more moisture in the air in the form of gaseous water vapor. Think of heating up a pot of water on the stove. Once the liquid water becomes hot enough, it boils and creates steam (or hot water vapor). This process is called “evaporation,” or when a liquid changes to a gas.

A similar process happens at Earth’s surface. As surface temperatures rise, more liquid water evaporates from the land and ocean. Evaporation adds moisture to the air. How much water vapor the air can hold is based on its temperature. Warmer air temperatures can hold more water vapor. The increased moisture in the air leads to more intense rainfall, especially during extreme events.

In a hurricane, spiraling winds draw moist air toward the center, fueling the towering thunderstorms that surround it. As the air continues to warm due to climate change, hurricanes can hold more water vapor, producing more intense rainfall rates in a storm.

Moreover, according to Knutson, most models show that climate change brings a slight increase in hurricane wind intensity. This change is likely related to warming ocean temperatures and more moisture in the air, both of which fuel hurricanes. While most models show either no change or a decrease in hurricane frequency in a warmer climate, a greater proportion of the storms that form will reach very intense (Category 4 or 5) levels. In other words, while there may be fewer storms, the ones that form have a greater chance of becoming stronger.

Scientists continue to research these topics along with other important hurricane metrics, including any potential changes in the speed at which hurricanes move across the ocean, how large storms will get, and where hurricanes will go.

What Do Observations Show?

The record-breaking 2020 hurricane season as seen by satellites. Credit: NASA Science Visualization Studio

Climate models that help us understand future changes are a key part to the story, but have any changes in hurricane activity already been observed in recent years?

Since the 1980s, the hurricane record has shown a more active period in the North Atlantic Ocean. On average, there have been more storms, stronger hurricanes, and an increase in hurricanes that rapidly intensify. Thus far, most of these increases are from natural climate variations. However, one recent study suggests that the latest increase in the proportion of North Atlantic hurricanes undergoing rapid intensification is a bit too large to be explained by natural variability alone. This could be the beginning of detecting the impact of climate change on hurricanes, the paper states. In contrast, the frequency of hurricanes making U.S. landfall (a subset of North Atlantic hurricanes) has not increased since 1900, despite significant global warming and the heating of the tropical Atlantic Ocean.

One current focus of hurricane research is “sampling hurricanes by flying into them for more accurate data,” says Shirley Murillo, deputy director of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division. These higher-quality data are important for improving hurricane model forecasts now and in the future. NOAA partners with NASA to collect measurements of various aspects of hurricanes over time. “NASA weather satellites are a powerful tool for observations, as people cannot fly into every storm to gather data,” Murillo says. Satellites help expand the observational record. With a longer, more detailed record, scientists can detect changes in long-term data trends over time.

This partnership is also developing the next generation of satellites to further improve hurricane observations for models. Dr. Marangelly Fuentes, meteorologist and program manager for one of NASA’s Earth research contracts, says researchers “run tests with potential new data to see how they would impact the model’s ability to correctly forecast a hurricane.”

For example, researchers may test to see if more detailed data about the ocean’s surface temperature in front of a storm help to accurately predict its intensity. If they find something useful, they can use this information to inform the design of instruments on future satellites. Then as more data are collected, this will lead to a better understanding of forecasting hurricanes and how they may be impacted by climate change.

What Does That Mean for Me?

Anyone who has experienced a hurricane knows how much damage it can cause to life and property. Flooding remains one of the biggest concerns when a hurricane comes ashore, and climate change will likely make that worse. With impacts from climate change (like sea level rise) already happening, the likelihood of a billion-dollar disasterfrom a hurricane remains very high.

If you live in hurricane-threatened areas, the best thing you can do is to be prepared. As we collect more data about hurricanes, we’ll better understand whether models correctly predicted hurricane changes from human-caused global warming. Fuentes says, “All of us have to do our part when seeing changes on the Earth, like the recent pattern of stronger hurricanes, to avoid it becoming something permanent.”

Rescue us from our environmental ‘mess’, UN chief urges Stockholm summit

Although there have been successes in protecting the planet since 1972, including rescuing the ozone layer, Mr. Guterres warned that “Earth’s natural systems cannot keep up with our demands.”

© UNEP I Secretary-General António Guterres (right) speaks at Stockholm+50 in Sweden, together with UNEP chief Inger Andersen and GA President, Abdulla Shahid

Triple planetary crisis

50 years ago, leaders came to #Stockholm & started the work of the environmental movement. Let us be the ones to finish it – by unleashing a paradigm shift to deliver a more caring world for all.

My statement at the opening of @StockholmPlus50
➡️https://t.co/XA1Bok3RTi pic.twitter.com/4YbmUjic0x

— Inger Andersen (@andersen_inger) June 2, 2022

“Lead us out of this mess”, he urged delegates at the Swedish summit convened by the UN General Assembly, in a call for action against a “triple planetary crisis” that’s been caused by the climate emergency – “that is killing and displacing ever more people each year” – biodiversity loss – which threatens “more than three billion people” – and pollution and waste, “that is costing some nine million lives a year”.

All nations should do more to protect the basic human right to a clean, healthy environment for everyone, Mr. Guterres insisted, focusing in particular on “poor communities, women and girls, indigenous peoples and the generations to come”.

GDP alert

Part of the solution lies in dispensing with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a gauge of countries’ economic clout, the Secretary-General continued, describing it as an accounting system “that reward(s) pollution and waste”.

He added: “Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP. GDP is not a way to measure richness in the present situation in the world.” 

After calling on all nations to commit further to implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and following the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle these threats, the Secretary-General also insisted that greater efforts were needed to bring emissions to net zero by 2050.

Hot air

“Hot air is killing us,” he said, repeating his call to all countries to abandon fossil fuel subsidies and invest in renewable energy, while developed nations should “at least double” their support to poorer countries so that they can adapt to a growing number of climate shocks.

Stressing that nations have already cooperated to protect the planet on many fronts, Mr. Guterres noted that the final touches are expected to be added to a new global biodiversity framework to reverse nature loss by 2030.

Work is also ongoing to establish a treaty to tackle plastics pollution, the UN chief continued, and the 2022 UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, is expected to galvanize efforts to save our seas.

“If we do these things we can avert climate catastrophe, end a growing humanitarian and inequality crisis and promote inclusive and sustainable development,” he said, adding that “every government, business and individual has a role to play”.

Tech-tonic push for sustainability

In a related development at Stockholm on Thursday, a UN-backed coalition of 1,000 stakeholders from more than 100 countries, launched their bid to use digital tools to accelerate environmentally and socially sustainable development.

The Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability (CODES) offers ways to embed sustainability in all aspects of digitalization. This includes building globally inclusive processes to define standards and governance frameworks for digital sustainability, allocating resources and infrastructure, while also identifying opportunities to reduce potential harms or risks from digitalization, said the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

5 things you should know about the UN Ocean Conference, a chance to save the planet’s largest ecosystem

UN NEWS

The Ocean is the planet’s largest ecosystem, regulating the climate, and providing livelihoods for billions. But its health is in danger. The second UN Ocean Conference, due to take place in June, will be an important opportunity to redress the damage that mankind continues to inflict on marine life and livelihoods.

© Unsplash/Prolific Ke I Boats docked near a port in Mombasa, Kenya.

With delegates from Member States, non-governmental organizations, and universities attending, as well as entrepreneurs looking for ways to sustainably develop the “Blue Economy”, there are hopes that this event, taking place in the Portuguese city of Lisbon between 27 June and 1 July, will mark a new era for the Ocean.

1. It’s time to focus on solutions

The first Conference, in 2017, was seen as a game changer in alerting the world to the Ocean’s problems. According to Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Lisbon “is going to be about providing solutions to those problems”.

© Ocean Image Bank/Brook Peters I Fish swim in Red Sea coral reef.

The event is designed to provide a space for the international community to push for the adoption of innovative, science-based solutions for the sustainable management of the oceans, including combating water acidification, pollution, illegal fishing and loss of habitats and biodiversity.

This year’s conference will also determine the level of ambition for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). The Decade will be a major theme in the conference, and will be the subject of several important events, laying out the vision of a healthier, more sustainable Ocean.

The UN has set 10 ocean-related targets to be achieved over this decade, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Organisation’s blueprint for a fairer future for people and the planet. They include action to prevent and reducing pollution and acidification, protecting ecosystems, regulating fisheries, and increasing scientific knowledge. At the conference, interactive dialogues will focus on how to address many of these issues.

The role of youth will be at the fore in Lisbon, with young entrepreneurs, working on innovative, science-based solutions to critical problems, an important part of the dialogue.

From 24 through 26 June, they will participate in the Youth and Innovation Forum, a platform aimed at helping young entrepreneurs and innovators to scale up their initiatives, projects and ideas, by providing professional training, and matchmaking with mentors, investors, the private sector, and government officials.

© UNDP/Amunga Eshuchi I A local fisherman in Kenya who depends on fish for food and livelihood.

The forum will also include an "Innovathon," where teams of five participants will work together to create and propose new ocean solutions.

2. The stakes are high

The Ocean provides us all with oxygen, food, and livelihoods. It nurtures unimaginable biodiversity, and directly supports human well-being, through food and energy resources.

Besides being a life source, the ocean stabilizes the climate and stores carbon, acting as a giant sink for greenhouse gases.

According to UN data, around 680 million people live in low-lying coastal zones, rising to around one billion by 2050.

Plus, latest analysis estimates that 40 million people will be employed by ocean-based industries by the end of this decade.

3. Spotlight on Kenya and Portugal

Although the Conference is taking place in Portugal, it is being co-hosted by Kenya, where 65 per cent of the coastal population lives in rural areas, engaging primarily in fisheries, agriculture, and mining for their livelihoods. 

© Unsplash/Tamas Tuzes-Katai I Nazaré beach in Portugal.

For Bernadette Loloju, a resident of Samburu County, Kenya, the ocean is important for her country’s people because it allows them to get many of the goods they need. “The ocean contains many living organisms including fish. It also gives us food. When we go to Mombasa city, we enjoy the beach and swim, adding to our happiness”.

Nzambi Matee, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Young Champion of the Earth winner, shares the same vision. Nzambi lives in Nairobi, Kenya, and is the founder of Gjenge Makers, which produces sustainable low-cost construction materials made of recycled plastic waste.

Ms. Matee takes plastic waste from the ocean, fished by fishermen, and converts it into paving bricks – “my work of recycling plastic waste from the ocean has enabled me to employ over 113 youth and women, whom together have produced 300,000 bricks. I get my livelihood from the ocean, and therefore the ocean is life to me”, she said.

The passion for the ocean is shared with Portugal, the largest coastal European Union Member State with some four million kilometers of continuous coastline, and as such, a country that plays a central role in the Atlantic basin.

“Our expectations for the UN Oceans Conference are that it will be a conference about action and not just about commitment”, says Catarina Grilo, Director of Conservation and Policy at Associação Natureza Portugal (ANP), a non-governmental organization working in line with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). ANP runs several projects in the areas of marine protection, sustainable fisheries, and ocean conservancy.

“The previous conference in New York was a really good moment to raise awareness about the role of the oceans for humanity’s well-being. At the time we had a lot of voluntary commitments from Member States and non-state organizations, but now it's time to move from words to actions”.

4. The ocean and the global climate are intrinsically linked

The ocean and global climate heavily influence one another in many ways. As the climate crisis continues to pose an existential threat, there are some key metrics scientists are watching closely.

According to the latest climate change report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) global mean sea levels increased at an average of 4.5 mm per year between 2013 and 2021, due to ice sheets melting at an increasing rate.

The ocean absorbs around 23 per cent of CO2 generated by human activity, and when it does, chemical reactions take place, acidifying the seawater. That puts marine environments at risk and, the more acidic the water becomes, the less CO2 it is able to absorb.

Samuel Collins, a project manager at the Oceano Azul Foundation, in Lisbon, believes that the conference will serve as a bridge to COP27, due to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt this November.

“The ocean is fundamentally integral to climate. It houses 94 per cent of the living space on the planet. I could reel off statistics that shock us all.”, says the 27-year-old Scot.

© FAO/Kurt Arrigo I Different fish species swim in a marine protected area outside the coast of Malta.

“The reason why the products that we buy in the shop are so cheap is because shipping transports 90 per cent of the goods in our homes, so there are many reasons why we are connected to the ocean, whether you're a landlocked country or not. There’s no living organism on earth that is unaffected by the Ocean”.

5. What can you do to help?

We asked some experts - including Catarina Grilo and biologist Nuno Barros at ANP, as well as Sam Collins at Oceano Azul Foundation - what citizens can do to promote a sustainable blue economy, while waiting for decision-makers and world leaders to move into action. Here are some ideas that you can incorporate to your daily lives:

1. If you eat fish, diversify your diet in terms of seafood consumption, do not always eat the same species. Also avoid consuming top predators and make sure what you eat is coming from responsible sources.

2. Prevent plastic pollution: with 80 per cent of marine pollution being originated on land, do your part to stop pollution reaching the sea. You can help by using reusable products, avoid consuming disposable products, and also making sure that you are placing your waste in the appropriate bins.

UN News/Teresa Salema I Beach clean-up at Praia da Poça, a popular little beach at the start of the Estoril - Cascais coast, in Portugal.

1. Pick up trash from the beach, and do not litter. But also think that any step you can take to reduce your environmental footprint will help the ocean in an indirect way.

2. Continue to advocate for solutions, whether that’s on the streets, writing letters to decision-makers, signing petitions, or supporting campaigns that aim to influence decision makers, at the national level or at a global level.

Egypt says climate finance must be top of agenda at Cop27 talks

Fiona Harvey

Host of November’s summit wants focus to be on ‘moving from pledges to implementation’

Rania Al Mashat, Egypt’s minister for international cooperation, called for Cop27 to be about ‘practicalities’. Photograph: Reuters

Financial assistance for developing countries must be at the top of the agenda for UN climate talks this year, the host country, Egypt, has made clear, as governments will be required to follow through on promises made at the Cop26 summit last year.

Egypt will host Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in November. The talks will take place in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, as well as rising energy and food prices around the world, leaving rich countries grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and poor countries struggling with debt mountains.

Most of the world’s biggest economies, and biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have yet to fulfil the pledges they made at Glasgow last November to strengthen their targets on emissions cuts. Work to turn the pledges of climate finance from rich countries into projects on the ground helping poor countries has also been slow.

Rania Al Mashat, Egypt’s minister for international cooperation, said: “For us, what we want this Cop[27] to be about is moving from pledges to implementation. And we want to highlight what are the practical policies and practices, the processes that can actually push the pledges [into action], to bridge that gap.”

She added: “We want this Cop to be about the practicalities: what is it that we need to do to operationalise the pledges into implementation?”

Some countries have difficulty gaining access to finance, she noted, and that must be addressed with new ways of “de-risking” finance, to attract private sector investors. This could be done through governments providing guarantees or other assurances to private lenders, or co-investing with them.

“One of the successes from Glasgow which will always be remembered is how the private sector was mobilised in a very important way,” Mashat told the Guardian. “So instead of just billions, the word trillions started coming up.

“However, these trillions from the private sector commitments or pledges can never make their way to the countries that need them most, unless we have more synergy between [public sector] development finance and private capital to create de-risking tools.”

Mohamed Maait, the Egyptian finance minister, also spoke of the need to address bigger finance issues, such as the “huge burden” of mounting debt that many poor countries are facing. “Most developing countries are in debt. Can we do something to engage those countries? Can we reduce this burden and assist them towards net zero?” he said.

Maait made it clear that tackling the debt burden, which inhibits countries from taking measures that would reduce emissions, and making investments that would help them cope with the effects of the climate crisis, would be a key priority for Egypt. “We need to sit down together and come up with a solution – the alternative is to let the risks increase, the challenges increase, and people’s suffering increase,” he said.

Helping poor countries cut their emissions, and become more resilient to the effects of extreme weather would benefit rich countries too, he added. “The risks of climate change are not for one country but for all of us,” he said.

Rich countries would also need to find ways to compensate poor countries for not extracting more oil and gas, he said. He gave the example of Senegal, where major gas discoveries are expected that could transform the economy – but would also constitute a vast “carbon bomb”, of the kind that if exploited would lead to temperatures far exceeding the 1.5C temperature limit targeted in Glasgow.

“Senegal were hoping this discovery would help them. Now you are coming to say, climate change means stopping the finance,” said Maait. “That is very worrying.”

Developing countries had done little to create the climate crisis but risked being penalised in ways that rich countries have escaped, he warned. “Poor countries’ responsibility for this problem is limited. Unless we can get a good solution to this, it will be very difficult. We need to ensure we do not add to suffering, to debt, and that countries can fulfil their ambitions.”

Poor countries could feel as if they were being “punished”, he added. “We [need] a situation where we ensure you are not punished but are encouraged to go green.”

He also cautioned against rich countries providing climate finance in the form of loans that require repayment or incur interest. “Don’t tell me you are going to offer green finance at the same cost as traditional finance,” he said, speaking at a small gathering in the City of London. “This will not work.”

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More than 59 million internally displaced in 2021

UN NEWS

© UNOCHA

A displaced persons camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

IOM has welcomed the report, produced by its partner the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), calling it a valuable tool for the organization, humanitarians, and governments, in supporting communities affected by disasters and other crises. 

“Understanding, managing, and adapting to human mobility trends is crucial to ensure humanitarian assistance and essential services are reaching people where they are most needed,” the UN agency said. 

Running from disasters 

For the past 15 years, most internal displacement was triggered by disasters, with annual numbers slightly higher than those related to conflict and violence. 

The number of people living in #internaldisplacement worldwide reached a record 59.1 million at the end of 2021, up from 55 million in 2020.

⚫️ 53.2 million by conflict & violence
⚫️ 5.9 million by disasters#GRID2022: https://t.co/nFkUalQklu

— IOM - UN Migration 🇺🇳 (@UNmigration) May 19, 2022

Last year was no exception, according to the report.  Weather-related events such as floods, storms and cyclones resulted in some 23.7 million internal displacements in 2021, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region. 

IOM warned that with the expected impacts of climate change, and without ambitious climate action, numbers are likely to increase in the coming years. 

Conflict and violence 

Meanwhile, conflict and violence triggered 14.4 million internal displacements in 2021, a nearly 50 per cent increase over the previous year. 

The majority took place in Africa, particularly Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while Afghanistan and Myanmar saw unprecedented numbers of displacement. 

Young lives affected 

The report also includes a special focus on children and youth, who account for more than 40 per cent of the total number of those internally displaced last year.  

It looks at the impacts of displacement on their well-being now and in the future, and fills data and knowledge gaps that are critical to finding durable solutions. 

IOM added that gaps remain in understanding and addressing internal displacement in conflict. 

Driven by data 

The agency has partnered with the IDMC - which is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) - to provide reliable and accurate data through its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), the world’s largest source of primary data on internal displacement. 

The two organizations signed an agreement four years ago to join forces on improving data and to accelerate policymaking and action. 

IOM has also co-chaired the International Data Alliance for Children on the Move (IDAC) since 2020. 

The coalition brings together governments, international and regional organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks, academics, and civil society, to improve statistics and data on migrant and forcibly displaced children. 

Earth given 50-50 chance of hitting key warming mark by 2026

The Associated Press

An elderly resident watches wildfire approach her house in the village of Gouves, on the island of Evia, Greece, on Aug. 8, 2021.Konstantinos Tsakalidis / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

In 2018, a major United Nations science report predicted dramatic and dangerous effects on people and the world if warming exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted.

With human-made climate change continuing, there’s a 48 percent chance that the globe will reach a yearly average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s at least once between now and 2026, a bright red signal in climate change negotiations and science, a team of 11 different forecast centers predicted for the World Meteorological Organization late Monday.

The odds are inching up along with the thermometer. Last year, the same forecasters put the odds at closer to 40 percent and a decade ago it was only 10 percent.

The team, coordinated by the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office, in their five-year general outlook said there is a 93 percent chance that the world will set a record for hottest year by the end of 2026. They also said there’s a 93 percent chance that the five years from 2022 to 2026 will be the hottest on record. Forecasters also predict the devastating fire-prone megadrought in the U.S. Southwest will keep going.

“We’re going to see continued warming in line with what is expected with climate change,” said UK Met Office senior scientist Leon Hermanson, who coordinated the report.

These forecasts are big picture global and regional climate predictions on a yearly and seasonal time scale based on long term averages and state of the art computer simulations. They are different than increasingly accurate weather forecasts that predict how hot or wet a certain day will be in specific places.

But even if the world hits that mark of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times — the globe has already warmed about 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s — that’s not quite the same as the global threshold first set by international negotiators in the 2015 Paris agreement. In 2018, a major United Nations science report predicted dramatic and dangerous effects on people and the world if warming exceeds 1.5 degrees.

The global 1.5 degree threshold is about the world being that warm not for one year, but over a 20- or 30- year time period, several scientists said. This is not what the report predicts. Meteorologists can only tell if Earth hits that average mark years, maybe a decade or two, after it is actually reached there because it is a long term average, Hermanson said.

“This is a warning of what will be just average in a few years,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the forecast teams.

The prediction makes sense given how warm the world already is and an additional tenth of a degree Celsius (nearly two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) is expected because of human-caused climate change in the next five years, said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth, who wasn’t part of the forecast teams. Add to that the likelihood of a strong El Nino — the natural periodic warming of parts of the Pacific that alter world weather — which could toss another couple tenths of a degree on top temporarily and the world gets to 1.5 degrees.

The world is in the second straight year of a La Nina, the opposite of El Nino, which has a slight global cooling effect but isn’t enough to counter the overall warming of heat-trapping gases spewed by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, scientists said. The five-year forecast says that La Nina is likely to end late this year or in 2023.

The greenhouse effect from fossil fuels is like putting global temperatures on a rising escalator. El Nino, La Nina and a handful of other natural weather variations are like taking steps up or down on that escalator, scientists said.

On a regional scale, the Arctic will still be warming during the winter at rate three times more than the globe on average. While the American Southwest and southwestern Europe are likely to be drier than normal the next five years, wetter than normal conditions are expected for Africa’s often arid Sahel region, northern Europe, northeast Brazil and Australia, the report predicted.

The global team has been making these predictions informally for a decade and formally for about five years, with greater than 90 percent accuracy, Hermanson said.

NASA top climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said the figures in this report are “a little warmer” than what the U.S. NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use. He also had doubts about skill level on long-term regional predictions.

“Regardless of what is predicted here, we are very likely to exceed 1.5 degrees C in the next decade or so, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are committed to this in the long term — or that working to reduce further change is not worthwhile,” Schmidt said in an email.

John Kerry warns a long Ukraine war would threaten climate efforts

Fiona Harvey

Exclusive: US presidential envoy says limiting global heating to 1.5C could be made harder by conflict

The longer the war in Ukraine carries on, the worse the consequences will be for the climate, the US presidential envoy John Kerry has warned.

Many countries are struggling with an energy crisis while also urgently needing to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global heating to 1.5C, he said.

John Kerry: ‘My message to people is we have to take advantage of the fact that the science tells us we still have time, but we have to greatly accelerate what we’re doing.’ Photograph: Orn E Borgen/AP

“If it’s a long period of time, obviously that makes [staying within 1.5C] very complicated,” Kerry said. “It depends on what happens with the war, where the war goes and how long it lasts. If miraculously we can somehow find a way to resolve some of the fundamental problems in the next six months, then maybe we could just accelerate everything together. I think we can make up some distance [in progress on tackling the climate crisis].”

But he added: “The longer this goes on, the harder it becomes [to stay within 1.5C]. There are a number of scientists who believe we are on the edge of 1.5C now. Anything that is not part of the acceleration [of emissions-cutting efforts] gets in the way.”

He said the agreement reached at the UN Cop26 climate summit last year would have “faced some big hurdles” if taking place in the current geopolitical circumstances, but there was still a chance of fulfilling its promises.

“This is not easy, but it hasn’t fallen apart,” he told the Guardian. “[The effort to stay within 1.5C] has met with an unexpected barrier, the war, and it has met with an unfortunate and dangerous resurgence of business as usual by some parties that threatens the acceleration necessary to get the job done, and it’s going to be up to us to push back and continue with the process.”

The world’s leading climate scientists recently warned it was “now or never” for the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst ravages of the climate crisis.

Kerry said this showed there was still a chance of holding to the 1.5C goal. “The IPCC said to us a few weeks ago ‘we’re behind, it’s not getting better at the pace it should be, emissions have gone up, but you still have time to do this’,” he said. “And my message to people is we have to take advantage of the fact that the science tells us we still have time, but we have to greatly accelerate what we’re doing. We have to speed up very significantly.”

He said the disruption caused by the Ukraine war was forcing countries to reconsider their dependence on fossil fuels. “The promises of Cop26 were never going to be fulfilled in six months, or one year or two years. These are promises for 2030. A hiccup of a number of months may be something that we can work around or get through.”

Kerry also said the US would increase its production of natural gas, despite its climate targets, to help allies replace Russian fossil fuels. He said gas from the US produced lower carbon emissions than gas from Russia, owing to more efficient extraction, and could provide a short-term solution while countries ramp up renewable energy.

The US president, Joe Biden, has come under heavy criticism from green campaigners in the US for allowing the expansion of gas drilling, opening up new tracts of public land for exploration and development. Kerry said more gas was needed in the short term, to make up for supplies lost from Russia, but that companies should beware of building large amounts of new gas infrastructure that would be left as stranded assets when the energy crisis passes.

“Gas has always been part of the transition away from dirtier fossil fuels and towards this new energy economy,” he said. “I’d take a gas-fired power plant in the near term – I emphasise near term – over coal or oil any day of the week. But we don’t want to build out a huge new infrastructure around gas that has stranded asset challenges or is unabated [not fitted with technology to capture and store carbon] after a number of years.”

He hinted at moves to limit how long such plants could operate. “We have to decide how quickly we must have a requisite for abatement – maybe 10 years, eight years, who knows? But for the long run, gas is going to have to abate and live up to low emissions standards just like everybody else,” he said.

With six months to go before the next UN climate summit, Cop27 in Egypt, Kerry said the focus must be on the G20 countries, the world’s 20 biggest economies, which are responsible for about 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The emissions-cutting plans these countries brought to Cop26 were inadequate to meet the 1.5C target, so they have been asked to come to Egypt this November with more stringent proposals.

Kerry acknowledged that many countries were unlikely to meet the targets, including Russia, which is one of the biggest fossil fuel producers. He warned some countries were “indifferent” to the need to cut emissions, or have vested interests in not doing so.

“The war is not the only thing that’s in the way of the acceleration – an unfortunate indifference in some quarters, outright disinformation in others, and people who just love the status quo is perhaps one of our biggest problems,” he said.

But there were hopes that major emitters including China and India were embracing change, he added. “We’re prepared to try to help China or provide whatever China is willing to accept in terms of assistance.”

He also pointed to India, currently suffering a massive heatwave, where a large expansion of renewable energy is planned that could enable the country to cut emissions in line with a global 1.5C temperature goal.

Kerry said he was hopeful that the climate legislation currently stuck in Congress, largely because of the refusal of a single Democratic senator to pass it, would soon be resolved. He said other countries were unlikely to be discouraged from taking action themselves by the US’s own internal difficulties.

“Maybe they’ll say ‘screw them, they can’t get their act together, we’re going to do it’,” he said. “I can’t predict, but I can tell you this: that President Biden is committed to moving forward and obviously he has administrative powers and can issue certain executive orders and do certain things.

“Even while Donald Trump was president, pulled out of Paris, 75% of the new power that came online in the US was renewable. So the truth is that a lot of what happens in the US will be governed locally and some nationally by governors of states and mayors of cities who are deeply committed.”

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Ending the War of Attrition in Ukraine

JEFFREY D. SACHS

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has degenerated into a savage war of attrition that each side believes it will win, but which in reality both sides will lose. Ukraine should intensify the search for a negotiated peace of the kind that was on the table in March, but which was abandoned following the Russian atrocities in Bucha.

NEW YORK – Wars often erupt and persist because of the two sides’ miscalculations regarding their relative power. In the case of Ukraine, Russia blundered badly by underestimating the resolve of Ukrainians to fight and the effectiveness of NATO-supplied weaponry. Yet Ukraine and NATO are also overestimating their capacity to defeat Russia on the battlefield. The result is a war of attrition that each side believes it will win, but that both sides will lose. Ukraine should intensify the search for a negotiated peace of the type that was on the table in late March, but which it then abandoned following evidence of Russian atrocities in Bucha – and perhaps owing to changing perceptions of its military prospects. 

The peace terms under discussion in late March called for Ukraine’s neutrality, backed by security guarantees and a timeline to address contentious issues such as the status of Crimea and the Donbas. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators stated that there was progress in the negotiations, as did the Turkish mediators. The negotiations then collapsed after the reports from Bucha, with Ukraine’s negotiator stating that, “Ukrainian society is now much more negative about any negotiation concept that concerns the Russian Federation.” 

But the case for negotiations remains urgent and overwhelming. The alternative is not Ukraine’s victory but a devastating war of attrition. To reach an agreement, both sides need to recalibrate their expectations. 

When Russia attacked Ukraine, it clearly expected a quick and easy victory. Russia vastly underestimated the upgrading of the Ukraine military following years of US, British, and other military support and training since 2014. Moreover, Russia underestimated the extent to which NATO military technology would counter Russia’s greater number of troops. No doubt, Russia’s greatest error was to assume that the Ukrainians would not fight – or perhaps even switch sides. 2

Yet now Ukraine and its Western supporters are overestimating the chances of defeating Russia on the battlefield. The idea that the Russian army is about to collapse is wishful thinking. Russia has the military capacity to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure (such as the rail lines now under attack) and to win and hold territory in the Donbas region and on the Black Sea coast. Ukrainians are fighting resolutely, but it is highly unlikely that they can force a Russian defeat. 

Nor can Western financial sanctions, which are far less sweeping and effective than the governments that imposed them acknowledge. US sanctions against Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and others have not changed the politics of those regimes, and the sanctions against Russia are already falling far short of the hype with which they were introduced. Excluding Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system was not the “nuclear option” that many claimed. According to the International Monetary Fund, Russia’s economy will contract by around 8.5% in 2022 – bad but hardly catastrophic. 

Moreover, the sanctions are creating serious economic consequences for the United States and especially Europe. US inflation is at a 40-year high and is likely to persist because of the trillions of dollars of liquidity that had been created by the Federal Reserve in recent years. At the same time, the US and European economies are slowing, perhaps even contracting, as supply-chain disruptions proliferate. 

US President Joe Biden’s domestic political position is weak and likely to weaken further as economic difficulties mount in the coming months. Public support for the war will also likely diminish as the economy sours. The Republican Party is splitover the war, with the Trump faction not much interested in confronting Russia over Ukraine. The Democrats, too, will increasingly resent the stagflation that is likely to cost the party its majority in one or both houses of Congress in the November midterm elections. 

The adverse economic fallout from the war and sanctions regime will also reach dire proportions in dozens of developing countries that depend on food and energy imports. Economic dislocations in these countries will lead to urgent calls worldwide to end the war and sanctions regime. 

In the meantime, Ukraine continues to suffer grievously in terms of deaths, dislocation, and destruction. The IMF now forecasts a 35% contraction of Ukraine’s economy in 2022, reflecting the brutal destruction of housing, factories, rail stock, energy storage and transmission capacity, and other vital infrastructure. 

Most dangerous of all, as long as the war continues, the risk of nuclear escalation is real. If Russia’s conventional forces were actually to be pushed toward defeat, as the US is now seeking, Russia might well counter with tactical nuclear weapons. A US or Russian aircraft could be shot down by the other side as they scramble over the Black Sea, which in turn could lead to direct military conflict. Media reports that the US has covert forces on the ground, and the US intelligence community’s disclosure that it helped Ukraine kill Russian generals and sink Russia’s Black Sea flagship, underscore the danger. 

The reality of the nuclear threat means that both sides should never forgo the possibility of negotiations. That is the central lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took place 60 years ago this coming October. President John F. Kennedy saved the world then by negotiating an end to the crisis – agreeing that the US would never again invade Cuba and that the US would remove its missiles from Turkey in exchange for the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. That was not giving in to Soviet nuclear blackmail. That was Kennedy wisely avoiding Armageddon. 

It is still possible to establish peace in Ukraine based on the parameters that were on the table at the end of March: neutrality, security guarantees, a framework for addressing Crimea and the Donbas, and Russian withdrawal. This remains the only realistic and safe course for Ukraine, Russia, and the world. The world would rally to such an agreement, and, for its own survival and well-being, so should Ukraine.

Climate change: 'Fifty-fifty chance' of breaching 1.5C warming limit

Matt McGrath

The likelihood of crossing a key global warming threshold has risen significantly, according to a new analysis.

GETTY IMAGES I The recent heatwave in India has impacted millions of people

UK Met Office researchers say that there's now around a fifty-fifty chance that the world will warm by more than 1.5C over the next five years.

Such a rise would be temporary, but researchers are concerned about the overall direction of temperatures.

It's almost certain that 2022-2026 will see a record warmest year, they say.

The Met Office is the UK's national meteorological service.

As levels of warming gases in the atmosphere have accrued rapidly over the past three decades, global temperatures have responded by rising in step.

In 2015, the world's average temperature first went 1C above the pre-industrial levels, which are generally thought of as the temperatures recorded in the middle of the 19th century.

That was also the year that political leaders signed the Paris climate agreement, which committed the world to keeping the rise in global temperatures well below 2C while pursuing efforts keep them under 1.5C.

At COP26 in Glasgow last November, governments re-iterated their commitment to keeping "1.5C alive."

For the past seven years, global temperatures have stayed at or around that 1C mark, with 2016 and 2020 essentially tied as the warmest years on record.

VCG I Rising temperatures are linked to more extreme weather events such as these floods in China

Scientists say that with around 1C of warming the world is already experiencing significant impacts such as the unprecedented wildfires seen in North America last year, or the drastic heatwaves currently hitting India and Pakistan.

This update from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), carried out by the UK Met Office, says that the chances of temporarily going over 1.5C in one of the next five years have never been higher.

The study suggests that temperatures between 2022 and 2026 will be between 1.1C and 1.7C higher than pre-industrial levels.

The Met Office researchers predict that for any one year in the period, the likelihood of breaching the 1.5C level is around 48%, or close to 50:50.

"The basic thing that's changing is that the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, are slowly creeping up," said Dr Leon Hermanson from the Met Office, the lead author of the report. 

"I think people are already quite concerned about climate change and it is worrying, it is showing that we continue to warm the planet and we're getting closer to this first threshold that was set in the Paris agreement - and we need to continue doing everything we can to cut the use of fossil fuels."

The researchers say that going over 1.5C for one year isn't the same as a sustained rise where temperatures don't fall below this figure. The likelihood is that if it is exceeded in the next five years, it will fall below 1.5C again. However there is now little room for complacency.

"For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise," said Prof Petteri Taalas from the WMO.

"And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme," he said. 

According to the study, the Arctic region will likely feel a greater impact of warming over the next five years compared to the rest of the world. The researchers say that the difference in temperatures from the long-term average will be three times as large in these areas.

The researchers also believe that one of the coming years will likely break the 2016 and 2020 record for warmest year. 

GETTY IMAGES I At COP26 in Glasgow, political leaders reaffirmed their commitment to keep warming under 1.5C

That will happen, most likely in an El Niño year.

That's a natural, meteorological phenomenon associated with an unusual warming of the surface waters of the eastern Pacific ocean that can impact weather all over the world.

"The year we do exceed 1.5 degrees temporarily will probably be an El Niño year," said Dr Hermanson from the Met Office.

"It's on top of climate change, kind of like the wiggles on top of the trend, if you like, and the next record year will probably be an El Niño year, like 2016 was."

Crucial tropical forests were destroyed at a rate of 10 soccer fields a minute last year

Angela Dewan

A boat speeding on the Jurura river in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon Forest on March 15, 2020. The greatest tropical forest lost last year was in Brazil.

(CNN)The area of tropical forest destroyed in 2021 was enough to cover the entire island of Cuba, and sent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as India does in an entire year from burning fossil fuels, according to an analysis published Thursday.

Some 11.1 million hectares (around 43,000 square miles) of forest was destroyed, predominantly by logging as well as fires, the analysis by the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch and the University of Maryland found. Some of those fires were deliberately lit to clear land and many were exacerbated by climate change.

Tropical primary forest loss

The loss was less severe than in 2020, but deforestation is still occurring at an alarming rate in the tropics. Of the area lost, 3.75 million hectares were primary tropical forest -- sometimes called virgin rainforest -- at the equivalent of 10 soccer fields every minute, WRI reported.

Primary tropical forests in particular are crucial for the ecological balance of the planet, providing oxygen that supports life and as biodiversity hotspots.

They are also rich in stored carbon, and when these forests are logged or burned, they release carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. The destruction of primary tropical forest loss alone emitted 2.5 gigatons of CO2 last year, comparable to emissions from fossil fuel burning in India, which is the world's third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter.

"What's important to understand is that forests, especially tropical forests, are part of the global climate system," WRI senior fellow Frances Seymour told CNN. "So they're not mechanical carbon storage devices, they actually influence the energy transfer and the moisture content of the atmosphere in ways that affect rainfall, that affect global circulation patterns."

Fires are also playing an increasingly larger role in the tropical forest loss. Seymour said that there is a compounding effect between deforestation and climate change.

"When deforestation happens, when forests are lost, it not only contributes carbon to the atmosphere, but also disrupts rainfall patterns and increases local temperatures in ways that, for example, make remaining forests more vulnerable to fire, and the warmer, drier conditions that come with climate change," Seymour said.

The analysis looked primarily at tropical forests -- which can be found in countries from Brazil to Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) -- because more than 96% of deforestation, or human-caused removal of forest cover, occurs there.

The findings were based on satellite imagery that assessed how tree cover changed over time. A loss of tree cover, or canopy, in the tropics often means forest has been destroyed. In other countries, where logging is less common, it can mean that the tops of trees are destroyed, such as in the case of fire, but the forest remains otherwise intact

Nonetheless, Boreal forests -- which are found in particularly cold climates, including in Russia, Canada and Alaska -- experienced their highest loss of tree cover on record last year. More than 8 million hectares were lost, an increase of nearly a third from 2020.

That's largely because Russia experienced particularly severe fires, losing 6.5 million hectares of tree cover.

These fires can cause what scientists call feedback loops, "in which increasing fires lead to more carbon emissions, which leads to hotter, drier weather, which leads to more fires, and so on," the analysis says.

In the tropics, more than 40% of forest loss last year occurred in Brazil. Around 1.5 million hectares of forest in the country was wiped off the map, mostly from the Amazon. That's more than three times the DRC, which lost the second-largest amount of forest.

If Amazon reaches tipping point, climate goals 'blown out of the water'

In Brazil, a major driver for deforestation is agricultural expansion, which increased by 9% between 2020 and 2021.

The WRI analysis warns that forest loss is pushing the Amazon toward a tipping point, where it will no longer be able to serve as one of the world's most important carbon sinks and could even become a net emitter of CO2. The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest, and it plays a crucial role in biodiversity, regulating the climate, and providing ecosystem services to millions of people who live there.

If that tipping point is passed, the world's attempts to contain global warming to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels -- as laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement -- would be "blown out of the water," Seymour said.

Brazil primary forest loss hotspots

Amid its sobering findings, the analysis gave some reason for optimism. Indonesia and Malaysia, which had for decades battled rampant deforestation, have both seen a reduction in the amount of tree cover it loses annually for five years in a row. In Indonesia, the amount of forest lost fell by 25% last year.

This is a sign that corporate commitments and government actions are working, according to Hidayah Hamzah, Forest and Peat Monitoring Senior Manager from WRI in Indonesia.

"This indicates that corporate commitments and government actions are clearly working," she told journalists at a briefing. "Indonesia is heading in the right direction to meet some of its climate commitments."

Malaysia, however, has already lost one-fifth of its primary tropical forest since 2001 and up to a third since the 1970s.

Hamzah added that the Indonesia's success was due in part to the government's moratorium on logging licenses for primary forests and peatland, as well as improved fire monitoring. A policycalled NDPE -- No Deforestation, No Peatland, No Exploitation -- now covers more than 80% of palm oil refining capacity in Indonesia and Malaysia, which are the world's biggest exporters of the oil, and over 80% of the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia.

But WRI warns too that as palm oil prices hit a 40-year high, these countries' forests could come under increasing pressure. Indonesia also lifted a temporary freeze on new permits for palm oil plantations.

While there was an overall reduction in tree cover loss last year, the annual improvement is not consistent enough to meet global commitments, including a declaration signed by more that 140 countries at climate talks in Glasgow last year to "halt and reverse forest loss by 2030."

Seymour also warned against relying too much on forests to offset greenhouse gas emissions, saying companies and countries should be using them to go above and beyond decarbonization efforts -- by dramatically reducing fossil fuel use -- or to offset emissions that are impossible to cut with current technology.

The airline industry is one example, as technology to fly carbon-free does not exist yet at scale.

"So, yes, we want them to be reducing those emissions as quickly as possible and investing in new technologies that will allow flights without carbon, but in the meantime, they are 'unabated' emissions," she said. "And compensating those with purchase of carbon credits can can provide a source of finance that we desperately need to incentivize the protection of the world's forests."

Ocean life projected to die off in mass extinction if emissions remain high

Evan Bush

Marine animals could die at levels rivaling the biggest mass extinctions in history, a study found, if seas become too warm and hold too little oxygen.

A green sea turtle swimming over coral reef in Indonesia.Georgette Douwma / Getty Images

Marine animals could die off at a level rivaling the biggest mass extinctions in geologic history if people don’t curb greenhouse gas emissions. 

That’s the takeaway from a study published Thursday in the journal Science, which found that many ocean creatures could face conditions too warm and with too little oxygen to survive if we don't turn things around. The more warming, the fewer species are likely to survive, the results show. 

The new analysis applies what the research team previously learned about the "Great Dying" 252 million years ago — when more than two-thirds of all marine life in the Permian Period went extinct — as well as other historic extinctions to today’s climate projections. Under a high emissions scenario, the results were disturbing. 

"If we don’t act to curb emissions, that extinction is quite high. It registers on the geological scale among the major biotic collapses of diversity in the Earth’s history," said Curtis Deutsch, an author of the paper and a professor of geosciences at Princeton University.

The new models suggest Earth could approach Permian levels of marine extinction by 2300 if emissions continue to increase. As temperatures rise, according to the research, species richness will decline near the tropics, with some animals migrating toward higher latitudes. Polar species are most at risk, as their habitat becomes a "disappearing climate niche," the paper explains. 

But that fate is far from sealed. If emissions stay near the levels world leaders set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, marine animals would fare far better, the study says.

"Extinctions are largely avoided" under that scenario, said Justin Penn, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton who co-authored the study. 

Still, the analysis is a reminder that the pace of change on Earth today may be comparable to the most extreme events in history. 

"In the next few decades, we're determining if we’re really going to go deep into a mass extinction again — because of us, because of what we’re doing," said Eric Galbraith, a professor at McGill University studying human and Earth system dynamics, who was not involved in the new study. "It’s hard to wrap our heads around the importance of what we choose to do as a species in the coming decades."

Previous work from the team behind the new analysis revealed runaway global warming and a loss of oxygen in the ocean to be the causes of the Great Dying. Their model’s results matched patterns paleontologists had observed in Permian fossil records, giving it credibility. 

The revelation that extreme changes to the climate were the likely causes "was a real eureka moment," Deutsch said. 

Before that die-off, there was only one landmass — Pangea —  and the Permian ocean teemed with marine creatures. Scientists think these animals had similar traits, like metabolisms and oxygen needs, as those today. 

Scientists knew from prior studies of fossilized teeth that surface temperatures during this period soared about 10 degrees Celsius in the tropics, leading many sea animals to go extinct. The researchers suspected volcanic eruptions triggered the changes, so they modeled those conditions.

The results showed that many species were pushed past their physiological limits.  

As the climate warmed, animals needed more oxygen to perform bodily functions like breathing. But warmer water doesn’t contain as much dissolved oxygen — which made it more difficult for species to survive.

"Imagine facing inflation while your hours are also being cut or your salary is going down," Deutsch said. "The ocean is giving less oxygen to organisms in spite of the fact they have this inflationary need." 

A similar process is happening now, Penn said: "The Permian event was caused by climate warming and ocean oxygen loss — two environmental changes underway today."

The question driving Deutsch and his colleagues’ latest research was "how much of the same phenomenon would manifest" in Earth’s future.

They found stark differences depending on how much warming takes place. Extinctions grow at a linear rate in the model as temperatures increase, Deutsch said. 

"There’s a strong sentiment out there, probably among some of your readers and viewers: 'It's too late or the window is closed,'" he said. "That’s not what our results show." 

Currently, the world’s average surface temperatures are on pace to rise roughly 3.2 degrees Celsius (5.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century relative to preindustrial times. But limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius — a goal agreed to in the Paris accord — would lower the severity of extinctions by more than 70 percent, the paper found. 

"There’s still time to conserve the diversity that evolution has gradually built up in the ocean," Deutsch said. 

However, if emissions continue to increase, nations remain divided on climate goals and temperatures soar by nearly 5 degrees Celsius by century’s end, marine biodiversity would start to trend toward rates observed in previous mass extinctions.

Galbraith said the research relied on "mature" models, with conclusions based on simple, "reliable" equations.

"I hope this is a fairy tale — these terrible impacts on the marine ecosystem," he said. "It's just a question of building new infrastructure that gets us off fossil fuel infrastructure. We should be able to do that in the next couple decades." 

Galbraith added that the future of ocean life also depends on addressing other harmful human activity, such as intensive fishing or pollution, that could cause cascading effects in combination with climate change. 

“This is really just looking at one dimension of pressure,” he said. 

Sir David Attenborough named Champion of the Earth by UN

Sir David Attenborough has been named a Champion of the Earth by the UN's Environment Programme.

The prestigious award recognises the 95-year-old's commitment to telling stories about the natural world and climate change.

Accepting the award, Sir David said the world must take action now to protect nature and the planet.

His celebrated documentaries include The Green Planet and A Plastic Ocean.

Sir David said that environmental success stories should give us hope that change is possible.

"Fifty years ago, whales were on the very edge of extinction worldwide. Then people got together and now there are more whales in the sea than any living human being has ever seen," he suggested.

"We know what the problems are and we know how to solve them. All we lack is unified action."

UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said that the UN chose to recognise Sir David because of his devotion to broadcasting the natural world.

Image caption, The story of saving whales should give us hope that change is possible, Sir David says

"If we stand a chance of averting climate and biodiversity breakdowns and cleaning up polluted ecosystems, it's because millions of us fell in love with the planet that he captured on film and writing, in his voice," said Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director. 

Sir David began working on natural history programmes in the 1950s, and his programmes filmed in far-flung parts of the world became immensely popular. In the past four years, his warnings about the damage that climate change is causing the planet and humans have become more stark.

Sir David is particularly popular with children and teenagers worried about climate change. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has said that meeting the broadcaster was "indescribable" and that everyone should strive to be like him. 

Asked about Sir David, children visiting the London aquarium told BBC News they love watching him on TV and even have books about him. 

"He does loads of things to support our planet and the animals. On his show, he tells us the natural world might be in danger if we don't make a difference," explains 10-year-old Raya.

She worries about the planet, saying she's learned that "we need to stop using plastic, start using more electric cars, and we should plant more trees instead of cutting them down."

Benjamin, 13, said watching Sir David's programmes has inspired him to become a marine biologist. But they've also taught him about the danger we face from climate change and biodiversity loss.

"I want to be able to have a family and I want them to live a nice world. But if we start trying very hard, we can save the natural world," he explained.

Sir David's emphasis on success stories like bringing back whales from the point of extinction is important, Prof Rick Stafford, marine biologist at Bournemouth university, told BBC News.

"He really brought climate change and biodiversity loss to the forefront. Optimism is important but the major problems to be solved are not scientific - they are economic and political," he explained.

Asia is home to some of climate change’s biggest culprits and victims

Chelsea Ong

• Asia, one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, is also home to the biggest contributors of global warming.

• In 2021, over 57 million people were affected by climate disasters in the region — and the risk Asia faces is only going to grow.

• Asia plays a crucial role in global efforts to decarbonize because it accounts for almost half of global greenhouse gas emissions, but the region presents an uneven picture.

Asia, one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, is also home to the biggest contributors of global warming.

In 2021, over 57 million people were affected by climate disasters in the region, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported.

And the risk Asia faces is only going to grow.

In a worst-case scenario, by 2050, a substantial majority of people living in areas with a probability of lethal deadly waves will be in Asia, according to a 2020 report by McKinsey Global Institute.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a highly anticipated report on Monday, stating that current efforts to tackle climate change are simply not enough.

“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C,” IPCC Working Group III co-chair Jim Skea said. “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.”

And yet, efforts to mitigate that risk haven’t been adequate on several fronts — especially when it comes to China and India, two of the top three contributors to global emissions in addition to the U.S.

Asia plays a crucial role in global efforts to decarbonize because it accounts for almost half of global greenhouse gas emissions. However, the region presents an uneven picture, with culpability and vulnerability varying significantly with each country.

China and India

At the U.N. COP26 summit last year, China and India weakened their pledge to “phase out” coal. Instead, they proposed to “phase down” the leading source of climate change.

As the climate crisis intensifies, such moves are setting off alarm bells. The IPCC reiterated in February that incremental and reactive changes are no longer enough — a view scientists have echoed.

In 2019, China’s greenhouse gas emissions exceeded that of the whole developed world for the first time, according to a 2021 report by research and consulting firm Rhodium Group.

Dimitri de Boer, chief representative of ClientEarth China, an environmental charity, acknowledged that China has stepped up efforts to fight climate change — by pledging to stop building coal power plants overseas, and supporting other countries in developing renewable energy systems.

However, he noted that the Chinese economy continues to be heavily reliant on coal, which may impede its progress.

Similarly, Gabriel Lau, professor emeritus at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, also recognized the progress China has made. But he said more attention must be given to renewable energy resources, more widespread conservation measures, and educating the public.

India, for its part, is expected to see the largest increase in energy demand globally over the next 20 years. And none of the country’s cities met the World Health Organization air quality guidelines, according to a report by IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology firm.

“Setting a deadline 50 years away is by no means a cop-out — we don’t have that option anymore.”

— Avinash Kumar (GREENPEACE INDIA)

While India’s net-zero emission target by 2070 is in the right direction, the country still needs “rigour, good practice and equity” to achieve its targets, Avinash Kumar, climate campaign manager at Greenpeace India, a non-profit organization told CNBC in an email.

On top of government incentives, the country’s energy transition must also be driven by big industries, he added.

“Setting a deadline 50 years away is by no means a cop-out — we don’t have that option anymore,” he said. “It cannot be business as usual with new fossil fuel projects, open-cast mines and dilution of environmental laws.”

Asia’s developing countries

Many of Asia’s most vulnerable countries, however, lie elsewhere.

“There isn’t necessarily one Asia — we have many different parts of Asia ... that are all quite different in their economic structures, their degree of integration, and with that, their exposure to climate change,” said Jonathan Woetzel, director of McKinsey Global Institute.

Southeast Asia, for example, has sea levels rising faster than any other part of the world and bears the brunt of many climate hazards. That’s in part because the region is home to a significant number of low-lying countries with lower levels of per capita GDP, such as Cambodia and Myanmar.

Though every country in Southeast Asia signed the Paris Climate Agreement, most have few strategies to prevent the most severe climate risks.

If climate change is left unchecked, Southeast Asia’s economy could shrink by 11% by the end of the century, according to the Asian Development Bank.

“Developing nations in Asia [will] need to invest more than the global average, as a share of GDP, to secure low-emissions growth and to decarbonize,” said McKinsey’s Woetzel.

He noted that large shares of these economies are in industries with high emissions or are dependent on fossil fuels.

However, these developing regions may face challenges such as lack access to capital markets, and owning young high-emissions assets, he said.

“People are losing their lives to floods, heatwaves, droughts, cloudbursts and more. They cannot wait for another 50 years to see real climate action on the ground.”

— Avinash Kumar (CLIMATE CAMPAIGN MANAGER, GREENPEACE INDIA)

Kumar of Greenpeace India pointed out that developed countries will need to assume greater financial accountability. 

“The $100 billion commitment promised by rich countries to developing countries back in 2009 is yet to be delivered,” Kumar said. “At the current state, developing countries are far too short of the funds needed for climate mitigation.”

What the future holds

Despite Asia’s efforts thus far, climate model simulations indicate it will still be difficult to limit global warming to below 1.5°C even if targets are met, said Lau.

Still, integrating climate policies into national development plans is of “immediate importance” to mitigate harmful effects of rising temperatures, said the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Kumar warned that the next 10 years will be crucial, and stricter plans to halve emissions by 2030 need to be made in COP27, the next UN climate summit.

“People are losing their lives to floods, heatwaves, droughts, cloudbursts and more,” he added. “They cannot wait for another 50 years to see real climate action on the ground.”

Wildflower believed to be extinct for 40 years spotted in Ecuador

Safi Bugel

A South American wildflower long believed to be extinct has been rediscovered.

The Gasteranthus extinctus has an underside pouch where pollinators can enter and exit.Photograph: Riley Fortier

Gasteranthus extinctus was found by biologists in the foothills of the Andes mountains and in remnant patches of forest in the Centinela region of Ecuador, almost 40 years after its last sighting.

Extensive deforestation in western Ecuador during the late 20th century led to the presumed extinction of a number of plant species, including Gasteranthus extinctus – the reason scientists gave it that name.

Despite reports that more than 97% of forests in the western half of Ecuador have been destroyed or converted to farmland, including most of the Centinela Ridge, the researchers began searching last summer, starting by scouring satellite images to identify intact primary rainforest.

“Centinela is a mythical place for tropical botanists,” said Nigel CA Pitman, one of the researchers behind the discovery. “But because it was described by the top people in the field, no one really double checked the science. No one went back to confirm that the forest was gone and those things were extinct.

“We walked into Centinela thinking it was going to break our heart and instead we ended up falling in love.”

The tropical wildflower is characterised by its neon-orange petals and big underside pouch, where pollinators can enter and exit.

The researchers identified the plant within the first few hours of searching, using only images of dried herbarium specimens, line drawings and a written description for reference.

Careful to not harm the rare remaining plants, they took photos and collected some fallen flowers before receiving confirmation of its identity from a taxonomic expert.

Despite its endangered status, Gasteranthus extinctus will keep its name.

The research group is now working with Ecuadorian conservationists to protect some of the remaining fragments where the Centinelan flowers live.

“Rediscovering this flower shows that it’s not too late to turn around even the worst-case biodiversity scenarios, and it shows that there’s value in conserving even the smallest, most degraded areas,” said Dawson White, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum in Chicago and joint lead author of the paper published in the PhytoKeys journal.

“New species are still being found, and we can still save many things that are on the brink of extinction.”

WHO welcomes initiative to combat noncommunicable diseases, responsible for 7 in 10 deaths worldwide

UN NEWS

WHO/Ernest Ankomah I A two-year old girl with cancer gets her vitals taken by a nurse at a hospital in Ghana.

The decision was taken at the inaugural International Strategic Dialogue on Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and the SDGs, held in Accra, Ghana, where a new Global Compact on NCDs was launched. The dialogue was co-hosted by WHO, together with Ghana and Norway. 

National leaders highlighted the urgency of what WHO refers to as the NCD pandemic, which kills 7 out of 10 people globally from risk factors like tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and air pollution. 

Close to 7 million lives could be saved from deaths from diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart & lung disease for just US$0.84/person/year from now until 2030.
WHO, #Ghana & #Norway agree to accelerate actions to save lives from noncommunicable diseases https://t.co/OLVnJIx5mB pic.twitter.com/fxp5sbumvr

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 12, 2022

7 million lives saved, at low cost

NCDs are largely preventable and treatable, nearly seven million lives could be saved for just US$ 0.84 per person per year from now until 2030, says the UN health agency.

This investment would realize more than $230 billion in economic and societal benefits and head off nearly 10 million heart attacks and strokes globally, by 2030. 

The group will now convene annually at the UN General Assembly, with the first meeting expected to take place in September 2022. 

The Compact will focus on five key areas: 

1) Saving the lives of 50 million people by 2030, who could die prematurely of NCDs by implementing the most cost-effective prevention measures.

2) Protecting 1.7 billion people living with NCDs by ensuring that they have access to the medicines and care they need during emergencies.

3) Integrating NCDs within primary health care and universal health coverage.

4) Comprehensive NCD surveillance and monitoring.

5)And finally, meaningfully engaging 1.7 billion people living with NCDs and mental health conditions in policy-making and programming.

Nana Addo Dankwa Afuko-Addo, President of Ghana, outlined his country’s success in implementing tobacco demand-reduction measures and introducing guidelines for NCD management, but also highlighted the challenges for lower-income countries in accelerating action.

“Tackling the phenomenon of NCDs requires leadership to provide visibility to NCD issues”, he said. “I ask my Heads of State colleagues to join hands…as we find solutions to NCDs with a roadmap of universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals. In our time, this will be our legacy”.

Lives cut short

WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that apart from the death toll, “NCDs take a heavy toll on economies, cutting down people in their most productive years. Overcoming this challenge requires technical, financial, and above all, political commitment. I thank the Governments of Norway and Ghana for establishing the first Global Heads of State and Government Group on NCDs, and launching the Global NCD Compact”.

Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of Norway, said investing in stronger health systems, service delivery and the prevention of NCDs would make vulnerable populations more resilient to COVID-19 and future pandemics.

“This is also vital for promoting universal health coverage. NCD prevention, and access to treatment and medicine must be a core component in the efforts to enhance pandemic preparedness and response, and in building back better in the post-pandemic recovery." 

And Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, told the meeting that NCDs account for nearly a third of all deaths in Africa, “where they not only pose a grave threat to health and well-being, but also blunt socioeconomic development. The commitment reached today marks a crucial step in speeding up the progress against these diseases and their risk factors as well as the suffering and deaths they cause.”

Sunscreen chemicals accumulating in Mediterranean seagrass, finds study

Safi Bugel

Posidonia oceanica segrass meadows in the calanques in the Mediterranean Sea near Marseille, southern France. Photograph: Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images

Chemicals found in sunscreen lotions are accumulating in Mediterranean seagrass, a study has found.

Scientists discovered ultraviolet filters in the stems of Posidonia oceanica, a seagrass species found on the coast of Mallorca and endemic to the Mediterranean Sea.

The researchers believe the contamination is the result of recreational activities and waste discharges in the tourist destination.

“This marine enclave is impacted by port activities, water discharge and tourism,” said Dr Silvia Díaz Cruz, co-author of the study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin. “Since the Mediterranean Sea is shallow, small and very enclosed, concentrations of UV-absorbing chemicals can reach high [levels].”

Samples found varying concentrations of sunscreen components, including oxybenzone, avobenzone 4-methyl, benzylidene camphor, benzophenone-4 and methyl parabens.

While the full impact of these chemicals on seagrass remains unknown, the researchers are concerned about potential harmful effects.

“If we find that sunscreens affect the photosynthesis and productivity of seagrasses beyond accumulation, we will have a problem since these seagrasses play important ecological roles in the Mediterranean coasts,” said co-author Prof Nona Agawin.

Posidonia oceanica forms extensive meadows in the coastal Mediterranean and plays a crucial role in maintaining a healthy ocean ecosystem. Seagrass meadows are home to diverse marine species and act as carbon stores, while also helping buffer coastal areas against erosion. 

Previous research has found that certain UV-filtering sunscreen chemicals can have damaging effects on fish, turtles and dolphins, including disrupting their reproductive systems and harming their development.

Coral reefs are also affected and these chemicals have been prohibited in tourism destinations such as Hawaii, Florida and Palau. Similar legislation has yet to be introduced in Mediterranean countries.

The researchers emphasise the need for further research on the effects of UV-filtering chemicals in seagrass meadows. “If we find which sunscreen components are harmful for seagrasses, then we should better regulate and provide alternatives to protect the beach-goers and also the seagrasses,” said Agawin.