Endangered bears leave Lebanon for better life in US animal sanctuary

Homer and Ulysses had been trapped for more than 10 years in a zoo in Tyre. (Supplied)

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NAJIA HOUSSARI

July 25, 2021

The Syrian brown bear lived in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Turkey but, due to illegal and non-organized hunting in Lebanon, the species became extinct

BEIRUT: Two endangered bears who were living in poor conditions in a Lebanon zoo have been flown to an animal sanctuary in the US after they started to lose weight and suffered from other health issues.

Rights association Animals Lebanon said it managed to persuade their owner that “the bears deserved better” given the creatures’ deteriorating condition.

Lebanon’s economic crisis, considered the worst in its modern history, has affected animals as much as humans.

Families have given up their pets, unable to feed them in light of sharp rises in the dollar exchange rate. Zoos have also been affected, with animals facing malnourishment and owners no longer able to secure their basic needs.

Animals Lebanon said the two Syrian brown bears, called Homer and Ulysses, had been trapped for more than 10 years in a zoo in the southern city of Tyre.

“There are six bears still waiting to be rescued in the north of Lebanon, Bekaa and Beirut,” the association’s director, Jason Mier, told Arab News.

Previous attempts to get the bears to the Colorado Wild Animal Sanctuary had failed due to the pandemic, roadblocks, banks freezing assets, and the wait to obtain the sanctuary’s confirmation to receive the creatures.

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Families have given up their pets, unable to feed them in light of sharp rises in the dollar exchange rate. Zoos have also been affected, with animals facing malnourishment and owners no longer able to secure their basic needs.

The sanctuary cares for more than 650 lions, tigers, bears, wolves and other animals — including a fox and a wallaby rescued by Animals Lebanon.

Animal rescue organization Four Paws offered to help bear the cost of the animals’ trip to Colorado.

Mier said: “There are six zoos we are aware of in Lebanon. In 2017, we passed the Animal Protection and Welfare Law, which regulates zoos. These zoos hold endangered wildlife, local wildlife, and farmed or domesticated animals. There are about 30 lions, 10 bears, and 10 tigers. We believe conditions need to be drastically improved at all zoos.”

Dr. Assad Serhal, director of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon, told Arab News that the Syrian brown bear was an endangered species seen in the mountainous area of eastern Lebanon, near the Syrian borders.

In 2019, an environmental activist filmed a brown cub playing on the road in the outskirts of Ersal, in the Bekaa valley. That same cub was previously seen with his mother in 2017 in the same area. This species had not been seen in Lebanon for over 50 years.

The Syrian brown bear lived in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Turkey but, due to illegal and non-organized hunting in Lebanon, the species became extinct.

Serhal said Lebanon was home to several species of wild animal, but that most had been captured by zoo owners across the country.

Concern mounts about possible Turkish law on media funding

Press freedom groups expressed concern Friday about possible legislation to regulate foreign funding for media. (AP)

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Updated 23 July 2021
AP

Top aide to Turkey’s president said this week the country needs a regulation on media outlets that receive foreign funds

Negative social media campaign targeted independent press outlet Medyascope and its founder, veteran journalist Rusen Cakir

ISTANBUL: Press freedom groups expressed concern Friday about comments by Turkish officials about possible legislation to regulate foreign funding for media and the dissemination of fake news, saying it could further curtail independent journalism in Turkey.

A top aide to Turkey’s president said this week that the country needs a regulation on media outlets that receive foreign funds. Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun said foreign media funding merits scrutiny when it comes from countries that “openly express their intentions and efforts to design Turkish politics.”

“We will not allow fifth column activities under new guises,” Altun said.

Turkish journalists flying back from a state visit to northern Cyprus this week reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party planned to review later this year whether the country needs a law against disseminating fake news. They quoted Erdogan as saying Turkey would have to fight the “terror of lies.”

The comments came as a negative social media campaign targeted independent press outlet Medyascope and its founder, veteran journalist Rusen Cakir, for receiving funds from the US-based Chrest Foundation. The private philanthropy group has also funded non-profit organizations and foundations working in arts, culture and diversity.

Media Freedom Rapid Response and 23 allied groups said in a statement Friday that foreign funding was a critical source of income for independent news outlets in Turkey as they face government pressure. Mainstream Turkish media is mostly run by businesses close to the government.

“Taken together, these statements create the impression that the Turkish government is preparing to introduce new legal measures that will further undermine media freedom and pluralism in the country,” the statement said.

But Altun said similar regulations apply in the United States, where media outlets funded by foreign countries must provide information on activities to US authorities. Turkey’s state-funded English-language broadcaster TRT World was required to register as a foreign agent last year under the Foreign Agent Registration Act for lobbyists and public relations firms working for foreign governments. TRT then said its performed new slathering and reporting like any other international media.

Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index ranked Turkey at 153 out of 180 countries in 2021. The Journalists’ Union of Turkey says 38 media workers remain behind bars.

Olympics 2021

Team Canada's Quinn Is The First CANADIAN Openly Trans Athlete To Compete At The Olympics

This historic moment has been 125 years in the making.

Quinn on Instagram: “This team is hard to put into words! They have embraced change and turned into uncomfortable conversations and I love them for it. Taking…”

Lea Sabbah 

 

July 23, 2021

 7 hours ago

Twenty-five-year-old Quinn, a Team Canada soccer player at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, is making history as the first openly transgender Olympian to compete in the modern Games' 125-year history.

Quinn, who uses they/them pronouns and goes by a single name, reflected on their historic presence at the Tokyo Summer Games in an Instagram post on July 22, after a match on July 21 against Japan ended in a 1-1 draw.

"I feel proud seeing 'Quinn' up on the lineup and on my accreditation," they wrote. "I feel sad knowing there were Olympians before me unable to live their truth because of the world."

The midfielder, who was born and raised in a Toronto "sports family," came out as transgender in 2020 through Instagram, raising awareness on how to be better allies to transgender people.

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is another openly transgender athlete at the Tokyo 2020 Games. But women's +87 kilogram weightlifting is scheduled for August 2, while Quinn has already played one game, with another against Chile on July 24.

G20 split on climate goals as China, India push back on coal phaseout

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July 24, 202117:52


Coal phaseout 2025 deadline too soon for some nations

Some wanted more aggressive global warming target than Paris 2015

NAPLES: Energy and environment ministers from the Group of 20 rich nations have failed to agree on the wording of key climate change commitments in their final communique after China and India refused to give way on two key points.

One of these was phasing out coal power, which most countries wanted to achieve by 2025 but some said would be impossible for them.

The other concerned the wording surrounding a 1.5-2 degree Celsius limit on global temperature increases that was set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Average global temperatures have already risen by more than 1 degree compared to the pre-industrial baseline used by scientists and are on track to exceed the 1.5-2 degree ceiling.

“Some countries wanted to go faster than what was agreed in Paris and to aim to cap temperatures at 1.5 degrees within a decade, but others, with more carbon-based economies, said let’s just stick to what was agreed in Paris,” said Italy’s Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani.

The G20 meeting was seen as a decisive step ahead of United Nations climate talks, known as COP 26, which take place in 100 days’ time in Glasgow in November.

Italy holds the rotating presidency of the G20, and Cingolani, as chairman of the two-day gathering, said negotiations with China, Russia and India had proved especially tough.

The G20 nations, which includes Saudi Arabia, collectively account for some 80 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and some 60 percent of the planet’s population.

At the Naples talks, the United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada made clear they “firmly intend to go faster than the Paris agreement by the (end of) the decade, and below 1.5 degrees,” Cingolani said.


Cingolani said the G20 had made no new financial commitments, but added that Italy would increase its own climate financing for underdeveloped countries.

The urgency of climate action has been brought home this month by deadly floods in Europe, fires in the United States and sweltering temperatures in Siberia, but countries remain at odds over how to pay for costly policies to reduce global warming.

Despite the two points of disagreement, Cingolani said the G20 had put together a 58-point communique and that all the countries agreed that decarbonization was a necessary goal.

All G20 members agreed to at least meet the Paris goals.

US President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, participated in the Naples talks. Earlier in the week, Kerry called on China to join the United States in urgently cutting greenhouse gases.

The majority of the countries at the conference also backed a goal of moving faster to reduce the use of coal, the Italian minister said, without naming all of the nations.

But during the talks, China, as well as Russia and India, were “more prudent” in embracing more ambitious goals, Cingolani said.

“For those countries, it means putting into question an economic model,” he said.

Exactly what commitment nations, including those which heavily pollute, are willing to make toward fighting climate change will be also on display at UN climate conference taking place in Scotland in November.

The national leaders of the G20 countries will have the opportunity to thrash out the sticking points that emerged in Naples when they meet in Rome at the end of October.

Neptune Energy awarded subsidy by Netherlands Enterprise Agency for its offshore green hydrogen project

By George Heyneson Jul 22, 2021

 

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The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) is set to award a subsidy to the PosHYdon project, an offshore green hydrogen pilot on a working platform being led by Neptune Energy.

The subsidy, revealed today (July 22), has been awarded under the RVO’s Demonstration Energy and Climate Innovation (DEI+) scheme, which invites funding applications for investments in renewable energy developments, including hydrogen pilots.

Read more: Neptune Energy selected for offshore hydrogen pilot

Read more: Neptune Energy joins European Clean Hydrogen Alliance

PosHYdon, which will be hosted on the Neptune Energy-operated Q13a-A platform, aims to validate the integration of offshore wind, offshore gas and offshore hydrogen in the Dutch North Sea.

It will see the installation of a green hydrogen-producing plant on the Q13a-A platform.

The plant will convert seawater into demineralised water, then into green hydrogen via electrolysis, which will be blended with natural gas and transported to shore via an existing pipeline.

Lex de Groot, Managing Director for the Netherlands at Neptune Energy, said, “We welcome the award of this subsidy and look forward to progressing with this exciting project on our Q13a-A platform.

“PosHYdon will provide the insights necessary to develop large scale green hydrogen production at sea.

“The Dutch North Sea sector has an exciting future as a ‘new energy hub’ and can play a leading role in large-scale green hydrogen production for northwestern Europe, given its infrastructure that connects offshore with onshore.”

Groot continued, “The integration of energy systems supports net zero goals in a smart, efficient, and cost-effective manner and without disturbing existing sea ecosystems.

“The extensive infrastructure network is connected to international grids and can easily accommodate wind farms further out at sea by converting the production of green electricity into green hydrogen and transporting it to the grid onshore.

“PosHYdon will be the key to making this happen and we are excited to consider future opportunities that the pilot can help unlock.”

Hitting global climate target could create 8m energy jobs, study says


Researchers suggest net increase would mostly occur in renewables sector, with decline in fossil fuels

A worker inspects solar panels at a manufacturing plant in Singapore. 

Photograph: Edgar Su/Reuter 

Natalie Grover 

Fri 23 Jul 2021

If some politicians are to be believed, taking sweeping action to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement would be calamitous for jobs in the energy sector. But a study suggests that honouring the global climate target would, in fact, increase net jobs by about 8 million by 2050.

The study – in which researchers created a global dataset of the footprint of energy jobs in 50 countries including major fossil fuel-producing economies – found that currently an estimated 18 million people work in the energy industries, which is likely to increase to 26 million if climate targets are met.

Previous research suggests that pro-climate polices could increase net energy jobs by 20 million or more, but that work relied only on empirical data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and generalised the results for the rest of the world using a multiplier. But the data varies dramatically across regions, driven by differences in technology and rates of unionisation, among other factors. For instance, extracting 1m tonnes of coal in India takes 725 workers, versus 73 in the US.

The latest analysis, published in the journal One Earth, combined such employment factors across a global dataset (including key fossil fuel, non-OECD economies such as Russia, India and China) with an integrated assessment model, which combines climate and economic estimates to predict the costs of climate change.

“This dataset makes the analysis more grounded in … reality, rather than using a multiplier,” said one of the study’s authors, Dr Sandeep Pai, who led the analysis as part of his PhD at the institute for resources, environment and sustainability at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Under the target scenario of global temperatures being held well below 2C of pre-industrial levels, of the total jobs in the energy sector in 2050, 84% would be in the renewables sector, 11% in fossil fuels, and 5% in nuclear, the analysis found. Although fossil-fuel extraction jobs – which constitute the lion’s share (80%) of current fossil fuel jobs – will decline steeply, those losses should be offset by gains in solar and wind manufacturing jobs that countries could compete for, the researchers estimated.

However, while most countries will experience a net job increase, China and fossil fuel-exporting countries such as Canada, Australia and Mexico could have net losses.

Undoubtedly, there will be winners and losers. The winners will be people who take these jobs in the renewable sector, and there are the health benefits of fresh air and cleaner cities – but there will also be people, companies and governments who lose out, said Pai.

“That’s why … we want to work towards a ‘just’ transition, make sure nobody’s left behind,” he said. “The point is that unless politics and social context of different countries align, I think this technological transition will not happen soon.”

Johannes Emmerling, an environmental economist at the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment in Italy, another author of the study, acknowledged that the analysis did not account for the gaps in skills.

People working in the fossil fuel industry do not necessarily have the expertise or the experience to carry out jobs in the renewable sector, but given that there are few estimates of jobs as the world aims to forge a greener future, the focus was on firming up estimates, he said, adding that skills were the next avenue of research.

Solar-Powered Desalination Device Aims to Deliver Water to 400,000 Kenyans

Turning seawater into drinking water is typically an expensive and polluting process, but this group hopes to change that.

By Sarah Marquart

Jul 23, 2021

Solar Water Solutions


Turning seawater into potable water is typically an expensive and polluting process. Now, Climate Fund Manager and Solar Water Solutions have a revolutionary solution with zero carbon footprint.

The groups are working together to install up to 200 desalination units in Kitui County, Kenya. The project's long-term goal is to provide clean water to 400,000 Kenyans by 2023. The total funding opportunity is estimated to be up to USD 15 million.

Typically, desalination requires a lot of electricity to keep the water at a constant pressure. This solar-powered technique, however, works without connecting to a grid - no batteries or chemicals, ever.

In a press release, Antti Pohjola, CEO of Solar Water Solutions explained, “this project marks a breakthrough in solar-powered water infrastructure. It wouldn’t have happened without the four key elements: A sustainable technology that brings down the cost of clean water, access to finance with a leading institutional investor, local partners, and a market-based business model.”

The stations themselves might not be visually impressive, but they are an ideal solution for remote areas. The standalone system is installed in a 20ft container. According to a press release, "The production capacity from 3500 L/h up to 7000 L/h treated from seawater, with total dissolved solids (TDS) 36,000 ppm. From brackish water sources, the production capacity is up to 10,000 liters per hour."

These shipping-container solutions offer hope to Kenyans who are suffering due to the effects of climate change on their homes, including severe droughts.

BC New plans in wildfire fight

Wildfire report author says heat dome highlights need for new plans in wildfire fight

The Canadian Press - Jul 24, 2021  | Story: 340951

Photo: The Canadian Press

The Tremont Creek wildfire burns on the mountains above Ashcroft, B.C.

One of the authors of a report examining what went wrong during British Columbia's extraordinary wildfire season in 2017 says this year's unprecedented heat dome demands new ways of approaching extreme weather events.

George Abbott, co-author of "Addressing the New Normal: 21st Century Disaster Management in British Columbia," said the current fire season shows more extensive efforts are needed than have been used in the past.

"I just think there's a new element of complexity in the challenge that was not there even three years ago when we did our report," Abbott said in an interview.

Heat scorched much of B.C. in late June, setting a Canadian record of 49.6 C in the village of Lytton the day before fire destroyed much of the community. The so-called heat dome and a lack of rain launched the fire season weeks earlier than normal.

Abbott, a former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, co-chaired the independent review with Skawahlook First Nation Chief Maureen Chapman, who could not be reached for comment.

They made 108 recommendations, ranging from using prescribed burns for prevention to closing the spending gap between wildfire response and mitigation efforts of planning, preparedness and prevention.

As of July 6, the B.C. government says it has implemented 99 of the recommendations, although it did not respond directly to a question about which recommendations remain outstanding.

The BC Wildfire Service was overwhelmed on July 7, 2017, when a massive lightning storm sparked 160 simultaneous wildfires across the Cariboo region. More than 1.2 million hectares were burned that season and about 65,000 people were displaced by fire, while another 2,500 were forced from their homes by flooding from the spring runoff.

"The fires were of a magnitude the BC Wildfire Service simply couldn't cope with," Abbott said.

The review found there was untapped potential to partner on the ground with First Nations communities in particular, as well as ranchers, logging contractors, local firefighters and other community resources.

Criticism from local Indigenous leaders about the 2021 response suggests some of the same problems remain.

Chief Matt Pasco of the Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council described the communication from the government during the fast-moving fire in Lytton on June 30 as "abysmal."

Pasco, who operates a ranch north of Lytton near Ashcroft, said the first contact he received from the government came 12 hours after evacuations began, and it was regarding his cattle, not affected community members.

"They had processes in places for our cattle but none for Nlaka'pamux people," Pasco said in an interview days after the fire.

Abbott said he believes the government still has work to do improving partnerships, particularly with First Nations, although he noted progress was likely stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Forests Ministry and BC Wildfire Service say in a joint statement that they are making progress on Abbott and Chapman's recommendations, as well as those from subsequent reviews, with a focus on preparedness, prevention, mitigation and response.

Among the steps forward, they say the government has invested $129.5 million in the Community Resiliency Investment Program, trained 147 Indigenous firefighters and introduced a Wildfire App to better communicate with the public.

The First Nations Emergency Services Society has been working on an inventory of existing First Nations crews and to identify others interested in establishing crews, while the wildfire service has updated its procurement and contracting processes to identified resources before emergencies happen, the statement says.

Updated predictive services also meant that on Tuesday, the wildfire service was able to provide wind and weather warnings that assisted local authorities in putting evacuation orders in place, it says.

"We recognize that in a changing climate, we need to do more to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from emergency events like wildfires and floods," the statement says.

By Friday, more than 3,600 square kilometres of land had been charred and evacuation orders covered more than 5,000 properties, while another 17,500 were on alert.

Governments are facing overlapping crises this season, with COVID-19 and simultaneous wildfires in other provinces and U.S. states limiting the help that's available, Abbott said.

However, he said it's the heat dome that policy-makers should heed.

"That should be hugely alarming to us," Abbott said.

"If that is going to be a phenomenon that repeats itself in future years, and I have no reason to suspect that it won't, we are going to be vulnerable not only on the fire side of the equation, but also on the flood side," he said.

Abbott said he's concerned that if future heat waves arrive even earlier in the season they will cause catastrophic floods through a fast snowmelt, in addition to prematurely drying the forest.

The new threat means governments should be drawing together the best science and looking at what's happened in other places like Australia, he said.

"I hope that we will not look at our work in the months ahead as a blame-casting exercise, but rather look at it as our province trying to come to grips with what appears to be a faster paced rate of climate change."

Grim CO2 forecast by International Energy Agency puts Paris Agreement targets almost out of reach 

By Euronews • Updated: 20/07/2021

Smoke rises from the chimneys of Poland's Turow power plant in November 2019. The International Energy Agency warns record levels of CO2 emissions could be recorded by 2023 - Copyright Petr David Josek/AP


The highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions in human history are set to be recorded in the next two years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

Forecasts newly released by the IEA on Tuesday predict carbon emissions will rise again this year and next, with the level in 2023 expected to surpass the record set in 2018.

The grim projections come as governments were criticised for having failed to invest in green energy as part of efforts to rebuild economies after COVID-19.


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In the aftermath of the 2020 lockdowns, the IEA has warned, global carbon emissions are "already bouncing back, along with the overall economy, with 2021 on course for the second-largest yearly increase in history".

Even if action taken is now, the body said that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, a key stated target of the Paris Agreement, could still be out of reach.

If countries proceed according to the same policies as they had in place in 2020, net emissions are expected to rise to a vast 34.7 gigatonnes of CO2 by 2025 - up from lows of 31.4 last year.

But even if every state perfectly followed the sustainable recovery plans set out by the IEA, emissions could still stand at a record 33.9 gigatonnes of CO2 in three years' time, the body said.

The IEA has launched a new 'sustainable recovery tracker' to measure how governments’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis were affecting clean energy investment and CO2 emissions.

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It found that so far, just 2 per cent of all coronavirus-related fiscal support - a total of about $380 billion worldwide - has been committed to clean energy transitions from 2021 to 2023. This is only 35 per cent of what the IEA says is needed to be on track for net-zero emissions by 2050.

The IEA has also warned of sharp disparities between developed nations and emerging ones, with wealthier countries earmarking an average of $76bn a year from 2021 to 2023 for clean energy, compared to $8bn in developing nations. About 90 per cent of the forecast growth in emissions is expected to come from the developing world.

Executive director Fatih Birol said: “Since the Covid-19 crisis erupted, many governments may have talked about the importance of building back better for a cleaner future, but many of them are yet to put their money where their mouth is.

"Despite increased climate ambitions, the amount of economic recovery funds being spent on clean energy is just a small sliver of the total. Governments need to increase spending and policy action rapidly to meet the commitments they made in Paris in 2015."

Scaled down SMR pilot project remains on course

23 July 2021

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) now expects to build six 77 MWe NuScale Power Modules on a site at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), rather than 12 units as previously planned. A 2030 start-up date for the plant - known as the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) - is still envisaged.

How a NuScale SMR plant could look (Image: NuScale)

The CFPP, launched by UAMPS in 2015, was initially envisaged as a 12-unit power plant using 50 MWe NuScale Power Modules. The capacity of the NuScale module - a pressurised water reactor with all the components for steam generation and heat exchange incorporated into a single unit - has since been uprated, firstly to a 60 MWe version and then, in November last year, to 77 MWe per module. UAMPS said it would evaluate options for power plant size - the so-called 4-pack, 6-pack, 8-pack or 12-pack module configurations - to ensure the best overall way to meet the needs of its members.

According to a report by the American Nuclear Society (ANS), UAMPS' participants have now decided that the plant will contain six 77-MWe modules giving an overall capacity of 462 MWe. This is about 64% less than the 720 MWe that could have been generated from 12 of the 60-MWe modules.

UAMPS plans to submit a combined licence application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2024, and the change to six modules is not expected to delay the overall schedule, UAMPS spokesperson LaVarr Webb told ANS publication Nuclear News. "The project is in great shape and is on schedule … The first module is still scheduled to be operational in 2029, and the full plant in 2030," Webb said.

The number of participants in CFPP has also reduced from the original 33. "There are 28 project participants, with a number of outside utilities expected to join the project over the next several months to reach full subscription," Webb said.

UAMPS is a political subdivision of the State of Utah that provides wholesale electric-energy, transmission, and other energy services to community-owned power systems throughout the Intermountain West region of the USA. Its members are located California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming as well as in Utah. Energy from the CFPP will replace electricity from coal plants that are nearing the end of their life cycles. UAMPS has previously said the CFPP will enable its members to add significantly higher amounts of intermittent renewable energy, especially wind and solar, to energy portfolios, allowing many to completely decarbonise.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News