The costs of climate change in 10 figures



The costs of climate change 10 figures © FMM Graphic Studio

Text by :Sébastian SEIBT

Issued on: 02/11/2021 - 11:57

World leaders' refrain ahead of the UN’s COP26 conference in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12 has been that it is our “last best chance” to stop catastrophic climate change. That might sound alarmist but scientists say it is warranted. In The Lancet's annual Countdown report, the medical journal tracks the effects of climate change across 40 different indicators. Its unequivocal conclusion? Things keep getting worse, for both the economy and human health. Here are some of the key findings.
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The costs of climate change in 10 figures © FMM Graphic Studio

Reinventing steelmaking for a green revolution



Reinventing steelmaking for a green revolutionLiquid iron is tapped into a chute from the blast furnace at steelmaker SSAB in Luleå, northern Sweden (AFP/Jonathan NACKSTRAND)

Issued on: 02/11/2021 - 07:42
Luleå (Sweden) (AFP)

In a gleaming new building in the northern Swedish town of Lulea, steelmaker SSAB is using a new manufacturing method that could revolutionise the highly-polluting industry by eliminating nearly all its CO2 emissions.

But making the method work at scale poses major challenges and the technique may not be the 'silver bullet' everyone is hoping for. Critics argue it may just push emissions elsewhere.

Finding ways to decarbonise steel, an indispensable component of modern industry, is one of the keys to drastically reducing carbon emissions to meet climate goals.

Among heavy industries, iron and steel production is the number one contributor to CO2 emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.

The World Steel Association estimates the industry accounts for about seven to nine percent of man-made emissions worldwide, with an estimated 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted in 2020.

In Lulea, the sterile appearance of the new building stands in stark contrast to the nearby soot-covered blast furnace it's meant to replace.

Alight with the signature orange glow of melted metal as liquid iron spews out, the blast furnace is the main method for producing steel today.

"By switching technology from a normal blast furnace where we use coal and emit CO2, we end up with regular water instead," SSAB site manager Monica Quinteiro tells AFP during a visit to the HYBRIT pilot facility.

"We can reduce the CO2 emissions from steelmaking by 90 percent," she adds.

Finding ways to decarbonize steel, an indispensable component of modern industry, is one of the keys to drastically reducing carbon emissions to meet climate goals Jonathan NACKSTRAND AFP

HYBRIT is a collaboration between steelmaker SSAB, state-owned utility Vattenfall and mining company LKAB.

Removing oxygen

The iron ore that comes out of a mine is usually rich in oxides, chemical compounds made up of iron and oxygen, the most well-known form of which is rust.

To make steel, that oxygen needs to be removed.

Air heated to more than 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 F) is fed into the blast furnace, causing coke to react with the oxygen which is then released as CO2, resulting in nearly two tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of steel produced.

In the HYBRIT facility, the oxygen is removed differently.

"Instead of using heated air, we are circulating hot hydrogen gas," Quintero explains.

The hydrogen, like the carbon in the coke, binds with the oxygen in the iron ore, instead creating water.

SSAB site manager Monica Quinteiro holds hot-briquetted iron

 Jonathan NACKSTRAND AFP

While so-called direct reduction of iron isn't totally new, HYBRIT distinguishes itself by using hydrogen -- produced from electrolysis -- and ensuring that all of the electricity in the production process is from renewable sources.

While steel is made up of mostly iron, some carbon needs to be added.

"But that's a very, very small amount that we need to add at the end of the manufacturing process," Martin Pei, SSAB chief technical officer and HYBRIT project initiator, tells AFP.

If the successful pilot scheme can be scaled up, "We can in principle solve the root cause of the CO2 emissions," Pei explains.

In August, SSAB shipped the first batch of steel plates -- 25 tonnes -- made with the new process -- which it labels fossil-free -- to truckmaker Volvo.

It's a drop in the ocean compared to the 1.86 billion tonnes of steel shipped by steelmakers in 2020, according to the World Steel Association.

But SSAB aims to make 1.5 million tonnes of "fossil-free steel" a year as of 2026, compared to its current production of 7.5 million tonnes a year.

The biggest hurdle to full-scale production is access to electricity, especially that produced from renewable sources.

To operate at scale, SSAB would need an estimated 15 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity a year, and for their mining operations LKAB needs 55 TWh.

Together that represents roughly a third of Sweden's total electricity consumption.

Hidden costs?

Not everyone is a fan of the approach.

"It takes such massive amounts of electricity, at a time when electricity production is already strained," Christian Sandstrom, an associate professor at the Jonkoping International Business School, told AFP.

Claims of producing fossil-free steel have been disputed by academics Jonathan NACKSTRAND AFP

Sandstrom and two colleagues wrote a paper criticising the project in October and questioning the "fossil-free" label.

"The net effect of this hydrogen-based steel is a higher consumption of electricity and from what we can see there are no signs that electricity is going fossil-free," Sandstrom said.

Scaling up SSAB's production would hardly make a dent in emissions from steel globally: in terms of tonnage, SSAB only ranked 52 among global steel producers in 2020, according to the World Steel Association.

But others are betting this may be the future.

In February, the newly formed Swedish company H2 Green Steel announced plans to build a facility that would be operational in 2024.

And China's HBIS, the world's third-largest steel producer, in May announced it had started production on a demonstration facility for its own direct reduction of iron using hydrogen.

© 2021 AFP

HOW DO YOU TELL YOUR KIDS KING JULIAN IS GONE

'Heartbreaking' Madagascar is wake-up call to climate crisis

FRANCES D'EMILIO

Tue, November 2, 2021, 

ROME (AP) — The drought-stricken island nation of Madagascar is a ’wake up call” to what the world can expect in coming years due to climate change, the head of the United Nations' food aid agency said Tuesday.

David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, told The Associated Press in an interview that what’s happening in the south of the Indian Ocean country is “the beginning of what we can expect” to see as the effects of global warming become more pronounced. 

“Madagascar was heartbreaking,” Beasley said, referring to his recent visit there. “It’s just desperate," with people reduced to selling their household pots and pans to try to buy food, he said. 

Some 38 million people worldwide were displaced last year because of climate change, leaving them vulnerable to hunger, according to Beasley. A worst—case scenario could an see that number soar to 216 million people displaced due to climate change by 2050.

That's the year many industrialized nations — but not China, Russia or India — have set as their target for achieving carbon neutrality, meaning reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the point where they can be absorbed and effectively add zero to the atmosphere. 

When Beasley, a former South Carolina governor, took the World Food Program helm in 2017, the top reason for people being on the brink of starvation was man-made conflict, followed by climate change, he said.

But since then, climate change has been eclipsing conflicts as the bigger driver in displacing people and leaving them not knowing where their next meal will come from. Last year, about 38 million, he said, were displaced “strictly because of climate shocks, climate change,” Beasley said.

“I would like to think this is the worst-case scenario — 216 million people by 2050 that will be migrating or displaced because of climate change,” he said. 

According to updated WFP figures released Tuesday, close to 30,000 people on Madagascar will be one step away from famine by the end of the year, and some 1.1 million already suffer from severe hunger. The island is struggling with exceptionally warm temperatures, drought and sandstorms. 

Crops have wilted, and harvests are scarce. People have taken to eating cactus leaves, which usually are cattle fodder, the U.N. food agency said.

“Madagascar is not an isolated incident,'' Beasley said. ”The world needs to look to Madagascar to see what is coming your way and (to) many other countries around the world." 

He pointed out that Madagascar, a country of 27 million people, accounts for only the tiniest fraction of greenhouse gas emissions in global terms. 

"What did they do to contribute to climate change?'' he asked rhetorically. 

The World Food Program has been supplying some 700,000 people on the island with food and supplemental nutritional products for pregnant and nursing women and children. 

In Ethiopia, by contrast, famine is man-made, caused by conflict. 

The World Food Program estimates that 5.2 million people are in need of of emergency food assistance in Tigray, Ethiopia's embattled northern region. United Nations officials have warned in recent weeks that more than 400,000 people could face starvation and death if humanitarian aid isn't delivered quickly, but hardly any aid can get to those who desperately need to eat.

The Tigray forces say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to lift a months-long blockade on their region of around 6 million people, where basic services have been cut off and humanitarian food and medical aid denied.

Beasley says the WFP has been "messaging to all sides, including the Ethiopian government, the leadership, that this is a crisis"' needing immediate access for food aid. But “we're not making headway,” he said.

“We're not able to get (food aid) trucks in or get fuel in. We're not even able to get the cash to the people we need to pay,” Beasley told the AP.

As a result, Tigray's people “have to be dying at unprecedented numbers, but we can't get the access we need,” he said. “It's a disgrace.” 

He said the WFP should be moving in 30 trucks of day loaded with food, and another 70 full of medicine and other humanitarian assistance. “We're not even getting 10% of that in trucks a day," the agency director said. 

For many of Tigray's people, Beasley said, it has come down to "either die or migrate."

Paradoxically, Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers have allowed WFP access to food distribution centers and schools where many teachers are going unpaid, and protected WFP warehouses, while international donors haven’t been supplying sufficient funding, Beasley said. 

"You run into the issue of donors (who) do not want to be seen in any way as aiding or abetting or supporting the Taliban,'' Beasley said. 

In Afghanistan, 22.8 million people — half of the population — face acute food insecurity, or are “marching toward starvation,” as Beasley put it. 

Conflict and drought combined to create that impoverished nation's food crisis. 

The dire situation will grow even more critical starting in January, when the WFP’s food stocks for Afghanistan will run low, if more donors don’t come through.

“That price tag is $230 million a month feeding them” at only partial rations, Beasley said, adding: that “there are 8.7 million people in Afghanistan knocking of famine’s door,."

The U.N. agency was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

As Earth Warms, Human History Is Melting Away


Franz Lidz
Tue, November 2, 2021

An undated photo provided by the University of Aberdeen in Scotland shows a mask belonging to the Yup'ik people of Alaska emerging from the permafrost. (Rick Knecht/University of Aberdeen via The New York Times)

For the past few centuries, the Yup’ik peoples of Alaska have told gruesome tales of a massacre that occurred during the Bow and Arrow War Days, a series of long and often brutal battles across the Bering Sea coast and the Yukon.

According to one account, the carnage started when one village sent a war party to raid another. But the residents had been tipped off and set an ambush, wiping out the marauders. The victors then attacked the undefended town, burning it and slaughtering its inhabitants. No one was spared.

For the past 12 years, Rick Knecht has led an excavation at a site called Nunalleq, about 400 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska.

“When we began, the hope was to learn something about Yup’ik prehistory by digging in an average village,” said Knecht, an archaeologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. “Little did we know that we were digging in something approaching the Yup’ik equivalent of Troy.”

Their most astonishing discovery was the charred remnants of a large communal sod house. The ground was black and clayey and riddled with hundreds of slate arrow points, as if from a prehistoric drive-by shooting.

In all, the researchers and native Yup’ik people who live in the area unearthed more than 100,000 well-preserved artifacts, as well as the singed carrion of two dogs and the scattered bones of at least 28 people, almost all women, children and elders. Several of them had evidently been dragged out of the house, bound with grass rope and killed — some beheaded.

“It is a complex murder scene,” Knecht said. “It is also a rare and detailed archaeological example of Indigenous warfare.”

Until recently, the site had been deep-frozen in the subsoil known as permafrost. As global temperatures gather pace, permafrost and glaciers are thawing and eroding rapidly across vast areas of Earth, releasing many of the objects that they had absorbed and revealing aspects of life in a once-inaccessible past.

“The circumpolar world is, or was, full of miraculously preserved sites like Nunalleq,” Knecht said. “They offer a window into the unexpectedly rich lives of prehistoric hunters and foragers like no other.”

Glacial archaeology is a relatively new discipline. The ice was literally broken during the summer of 1991 when German hikers in the Ötztal Alps spotted a tea-colored corpse half-embedded on the Italian side of the border with Austria. Initially mistaken for a modern-day mountaineer killed in an accident, Ötzi the Iceman, as he came to be called, was shown through carbon-dating to have died about 5,300 years ago.

A short, comprehensively tattooed man in his mid-40s, Ötzi wore a bearskin cap, several layers of clothing made of goat and deer hides, and bearskin-soled shoes stuffed with grass to keep his feet warm. The Iceman’s survival gear included a longbow of yew, a quiver of arrows, a copper ax and a kind of crude first-aid kit full of plants with powerful pharmacological properties. A chest X-ray and a CT scan showed a flint arrowhead buried deep in Ötzi’s left shoulder, suggesting that he may have bled to death. His killing is humankind’s oldest unsolved cold case.

Six years later, in the Yukon’s snow fields, hunting tools dating back thousands of years appeared from the melting ice. Soon, similar finds were reported in western Canada, the Rockies and the Swiss Alps.

In 2006, a long, hot autumn in Norway resulted in an explosion of discoveries in the snowbound Jotunheimen mountain range, home to the Jötnar, the rock and frost giants of Norse mythology. Of all the dislodged detritus, the most intriguing was a 3,400-year-old proto-Oxford shoe most likely fashioned out of reindeer hide.

The discovery of the Bronze Age shoe signified the beginning of glacial surveying in the peaks of Innlandet County, where the state-funded Glacier Archaeology Program was started in 2011. Outside of the Yukon, it is the only permanent rescue project for discoveries in ice.

Glacial archaeology differs from its lowland cousin in critical ways. Researchers with the program usually conduct fieldwork only within a short time frame, from mid-August to mid-September — between the thaw of old snow and the arrival of new.

“If we start too early, much of the snow from the previous winter will still cover the old ice and lessen the chance of making discoveries,” said Lars Holger Pilo, co-director of the program. “Starting too late is also hazardous. We might get early winter snow, and the field season could be over before we begin.” Glacial discoveries tend to be limited to what archaeologists can glean on the previously ice-locked ground.

When the program started, the finds were mainly Iron Age and medieval, from 500 to 1,500 years ago. But as the melting widens, ever older periods of history are being exposed. “We have now melted back to the Stone Age in some places, with pieces as old as six millenniums,” Pilo said. “We are speeding back in time.”

To date, the Glacier Archaeology Program has recovered about 3,500 artifacts, many preserved in extraordinary delicacy. Norway has more than half of the prehistoric and medieval finds from the ice globally. A freshly unfrozen alpine pass at Lendbreen — in use from about 600 to 1,700 years ago — yielded evidence of the tradespeople who traversed it: horseshoes, horse dung, a rudimentary ski and even a box filled with beeswax.

Over the past decade, the relics melting out of the Alps have included the mummified remains of a Swiss couple missing since 1942 and the wreckage of a U.S. military plane that crash-landed during turbulent weather in 1946. In Russia, scientists have regenerated reproductive tissue from unripe fruits of a narrow-leafed campion freeze-dried under the tundra for 32,000 years. A farsighted arctic ground squirrel had stored the fruit in its burrow.

Spectacular glacial finds invariably involve luck, as Craig Lee, an archaeologist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, can attest. Fourteen years ago, in the mountain ice outside Yellowstone National Park, he spotted the foreshaft of a throwing spear called an atlatl dart, carved from a birch sapling 10,300 years ago. The primitive hunting weapon is the earliest organic artifact ever to be retrieved from an ice patch.

“In the Yukon, ice patch discoveries have given us new insights into the pre-European tradition of copper-working by Indigenous peoples,” said William Taylor, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder. “In the Rockies, researchers have recovered everything from frozen trees that document important changes in climate and vegetation to the hunting implements of some of the first peoples of the continent.”

Taylor’s own work focuses on the relationship between climate and social change in early nomadic societies. His continuing survey of melting ice margins in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia has produced artifacts that upended some of the most basic archaeological assumptions about the area’s history.

Although people in the region have long been classified as herders, Taylor’s team discovered an icy killing ground of argali sheep, along with the spears and arrows used to slay them. Laboratory analysis revealed that big-game hunting has been an essential part of pastoral subsistence and culture in the Eastern Steppes for more than 3,500 years.

About 10% of the planet’s land mass is covered with glacial ice, and as the world defrosts, ancient creatures great and small are being unburied as well. In southern Chile, dozens of nearly complete skeletons of ichthyosaurs were disgorged near the Tyndall Glacier. The marine reptiles lived between the Triassic and Cretaceous periods, which extended from 66 million to 250 million years ago.

Three-million-year-old insect fossils have been recovered in eastern Alaska (blind weevils of the genus Otibazo) and the western Yukon Territory (the species Notiophilus aeneus, better known as brassy big-eyed beetles).

The flashiest archaeological finds in Yakutia, a republic in northeastern Siberia, have been the carcasses of woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, steppe bison and cave lions — big cats that once roamed widely across the northern hemisphere. The extinct beasts had lain suspended in their refrigerated graves for nine millenniums or more, like grapes in Jell-O.

In 2018, a perfectly intact 42,000-year-old foal — a long-gone species known as the Lena horse — was found entombed in the ice of Siberia’s Batagaika Crater with urine in its bladder and liquid blood in its veins.

That same year, in other parts of Yakutia, mammoth hunters chanced upon the severed head of a vanished subspecies of wolf, and researchers dug up an 18,000-year-old puppy that looked like nothing alive today. “The canine may have been an evolutionary link between wolves and modern dogs,” said Love Dalén, a Swedish geneticist who has sequenced the creature’s genome. “It is named Dogor, which means ‘friend’ in the Yakut language and is also a clever play on the question ‘dog or wolf.’ ”

Dogor was exhumed in an icy lump of mud near the Indigirka River.

Ice patches turn out to be where most discoveries are made. The basic difference between a glacier and an ice patch is that a glacier moves. An ice patch does not move much, which makes it a more reliable preservationist.

“The constant movement inside glaciers damages both bodies and artifacts, and eventually dumps the sad debris at the mouth of the ice floe,” Pilo, of the Glacier Archaeology Program in Norway, said. “Due to the movement and the continuous renewal of the ice, glaciers rarely preserve objects more than 500 years.”

Lee, of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, likens the destruction wrought by glacial degeneration to a library on fire. “Now is not the time to stand around pointing fingers at one another trying to lay blame for the blaze,” he said. “Now is the time to rescue what books can be saved for the edification of the future.”

It’s a grim inside joke among glacial archaeologists that their field of study has been one of the few beneficiaries of climate change. But while retreating ice and snow makes some prehistoric treasures briefly accessible, exposure to the elements threatens to swiftly destroy them.

Once soft organic materials — leather, textiles, arrow fletchings — surface, researchers have a year at most to rescue them for conservation before the items degrade and are lost forever. “After they are gone,” Taylor said, “our opportunity to use them to understand the past and prepare for the future is gone with them.”

E. James Dixon, former director of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, agreed. “The sheer scale of the loss relative to the number of archaeologists researching these sites is overwhelming,” he said. “It’s like an archaeological mass extinction where certain types of sites are all disappearing at approximately the same time.”

Climate change has brought with it a cascade of consequences. Oceanfront erosion has been devastating. In some parts of Alaska, as much as 1 mile of coastline has receded over the past 80 years, and with it the entire archaeological and fossil record. “Sites are not just being washed away, but literally rotting in the ground,” Knecht said.

“Saving what we can isn’t just a matter of safeguarding Yup’ik culture or northern prehistory, but the heritage of all humanity,” he said. “After all, hunting and foraging is how all humans lived for the vast majority of our collective existence on Earth.”

© 2021 The New York Times Company

The world just experienced one of its warmest Septembers on record

Scott Sutherland 2021-10-20 WEATHERNETWORK

Temperatures around the world continued to soar following the record hot meteorological summer the world just suffered. According to NASA and NOAA, September 2021 was one of the hottest months of September we've experienced so far.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued their latest global climate report this past week. Based on their data, it was one of the hottest months of September in the record books, at 0.90°C above the 20th century average of 15.0°C. Although that ranks it as fifth warmest, overall, it is second only to a four-way tie between the Septembers of 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2020 (which were all at +0.94°C). It was also the 441st consecutive month — that's over 36 years — where global temperatures were above the 20th century average.

 Provided by The Weather Network

Global Temperatures for the month of September, from 1880 to 2021. Credit: NOAA

Counting temperatures recorded only over land, September 2021 jumps up into the second warmest spot, according to NOAA. Only September 2020 was warmer for the continents, in their books.

Notably, last month was the warmest September experienced in the southern hemisphere in 142 years of record keeping. This is particularly remarkable, given that it was winter at the time. Plus, La Niña conditions have been developing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, lowering the temperatures across a wide swath of the region.

© Provided by The Weather Network

This map shows the hottest regions of the planet during September 2021. Credit: NOAA

Much of the heat across the southern hemisphere was concentrated over South America and Africa. Both continents saw their hottest September on record. Meanwhile, North America had its third warmest September, after 1998 and 2019. The outlier was Europe, which had its coolest September since 2013.

According to NASA's temperature records, last month was tied as second warmest with September 2019. Only September 2020 was warmer.

 Provided by The Weather NetworkThe seasonal cycle is captured in this climate graph. The black line represents 2021 so far. Credit: NASA GISS

Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service generally agrees with these assessments. Based on their data, September 2021 definitely landed in the top four hottest months of September (along with 2016, 2019 and 2020). They also said that it most likely came in as second warmest, although they added that "only limited significance can be attached to rankings as the four warmest years differ in global-average temperature by less than 0.08°C."
CONTRASTS OVER ANTARCTICA

Due to weather patterns surrounding the south polar region, the continent of Antarctica experienced a strange duality. According to NASA, the Antarctic Peninsula suffered through the strongest temperature anomaly on the planet in September. In contrast, the continent's interior just saw its coldest winter on record.


With what we've seen so far this year, NOAA scientists are now over 90 per cent confident that 2021 will come in as the sixth warmest year on record.

 Provided by The Weather NetworkThis graphic compares the year-to-date temperature anomalies for 2021 (black line) to what were ultimately the ten warmest years on record: 2016 (1st), 2020 (2nd), 2019 (3rd), 2015 (4th), 2017 (5th), 2018 (6th), 2014 (7th), 2010 (8th), 2013 (9th), and 2005 (10th). Each month along each trace represents the year-to-date average temperature anomaly. In other words, the January value is the January average temperature anomaly, the February value is the average anomaly of both January and February, and so on. Credit: NOAA

COP26 COMING SOON

At the end of October, climate scientists and government officials from around the world will be meeting in Glasgow, UK, for the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26.

The 2015 Paris Agreement set out the framework and commitments for the world's nations to tackle climate change and to make the necessary switch to clean and renewable energy. Now, six years later, world leaders must honour those commitments and become even more ambitious towards our goals.

"COP26 is not a photo op, nor a talking shop," Alok Sharma, the President for COP26, said in a speech on October 12. "It must be the forum where we put the world on track to deliver on climate. And that is down to leaders."

"It is leaders who made a promise to the world in Paris six years ago, and it is leaders that must honour it. Responsibility rests with each and every country, and we must all play our part, because on climate, the world will succeed, or fail, as one."

COP26 runs from October 31 to November 12, 2021.

'Blah, blah, blah': Protesters push for action at COP26

GLASGOW, Scotland — Across the river from where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, United States President Joe Biden and more than 100 other world leaders are meeting to discuss how to tackle climate change, protesters dressed up as the summit's key political players and mimicked a giant game of tug of war.

At other times, people wearing masks of Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping play-fought over an inflatable beach ball of Earth.

The Glasgow Actions Team, which organized the Tuesday demonstration, said it hopes the over-the-top antics send a clear message to politicians: "Stop playing climate games with our future."

The activities were part of a "Squid Game"-themed protest and featured people dressed in jumpsuits and helmets like guards from the hit Netflix show. The event was one of a number of demonstrations planned around the city over the next two weeks, as Scotland hosts the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also called COP26.

On the second full day of the global summit, activists vowed to keep pressuring world leaders to put politics aside and take aggressive steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"What we want world leaders to do is take their rhetoric, take their promises, pack them away and take action instead," said Fatima Ibrahim, co-executive director of Green New Deal U.K.

Ibrahim said some progress has been made early on in the conference, including a landmark commitment signed Tuesday by more than 100 world leaders to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. But she added that addressing the climate crisis demands more than piecemeal promises.

"It means stopping all new fossil fuel infrastructure, rapidly decarbonizing our economies, delivering millions of green new jobs for ordinary working people who need a stake in this transition and securing a livable future for people and the planet," Ibrahim said.

Eighteen-year-old activist Greta Thunberg took part in a protest Monday outside the conference venue, lambasting leaders for failing to uphold aggressive climate pledges. "No more blah, blah, blah," she chanted along with the crowd

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© Adrian Dennis Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in a protest at Festival Park in Glasgow on the sidelines of the COP26 UN Climate Summit on Nov. 1, 2021. (Adrian Dennis / AFP - Getty Images)

Thunberg and other well-known youth climate activists — including Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, Dominika Lasota from Poland and Mitzi Tan from the Philippines — released an open letter Monday saying political leaders have betrayed young people by failing to address climate change. The letter, which has more than 1.4 million signatures, urged world leaders to "face up to the climate emergency."

"This is not a drill. It's code red for the Earth," they wrote in the letter. "Millions will suffer as our planet is devastated — a terrifying future that will be created, or avoided, by the decisions you make. You have the power to decide."

Ibrahim added that activists need to continue to push governments even after the climate summit wraps up next week.

"A two-week negotiation will never deliver something that satisfies us," she said. "This is going to be the fight of our lives, and what we need is for that work to be done every day."

Hope for a 'eureka' moment on climate change persists as COP26 begins in Scotland

© Stephanie Jenzer/CBC A leafy display of #COP26 welcomes delegates to Glasgow.

As the UN climate summit began in Scotland, an event billed as the "last, best hope" to save the planet from catastrophic consequences, there were more than enough reasons to feel as gloomy as the Glasgow weather that welcomed delegates.

Harmful greenhouse gas emissions keep rising in spite of 25 previous UN Summits aimed at holding them at bay.

The Conference of Parties (COP), as it's known, meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in the early 1990s, and subsequent climate agreements.

The leaders of two of the world's biggest polluters, Russia and China, stayed away from the event, and while Australia's prime minister will be here, environmental critics say the country's stance on abandoning coal production lacks ambition, to put it charitably.

Even the world's richest nations, those in the best position to reposition their economies to a low-emissions future, failed to ante up enough money to cover a $100-billion US fund to help poorer nations make the same transition.

Still, longtime COP watchers and participants told CBC News there may still be room for pleasant surprises and even some "eureka" moments at COP26 as the two-week event plays out and international pressure to show progress takes hold

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© Stephanie Jenzer/CBC Delegates take a timeout in a conference room featuring a replica of Earth. COP26 is expected to draw more than 21,000 delegates from all over the world.

"I think the big opportunity we have at this COP26 is in getting a 'eureka' moment around countries coming back with more ambition for the 2020s — right now," said Alex Scott, climate diplomacy leader at E3G Consultancy, an energy think-tank based in London.

"We will definitely see from this COP26 a series of deals on moving faster in key sectors," she said, referencing finance, green energy and the protection of natural spaces in particular.

"We will see countries coming together in small coalitions around faster action in those sectors."

Scott, who has advised the U.K. government on climate issues and has attended several COP events, says even when a national leader is not present at the event, there can be intense pressure on national delegations to produce deals once negotiations begin.

Canadian climate campaigner Catherine Abreu of Destination Zero, a Canada-based NGO that's pushing to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, agreed.

"We bring all these countries together to declare one to another what their commitments are and then they sit across the table and say is that good enough … and I think those processes are really, really key," she said.

Her group is pushing nations and industry for a faster transition away from fossil fuels.

"I think we will see some significant progress on coal phase-out. That's one of the things [U.K. Prime Minister] Boris Johnson has been saying — coal, cash, cars and trees," said Abreu, who arrived in Glasgow Sunday as the first sessions were beginning.

"We have a pact that will be announced on coal phase-out later in the COP process."

More than 21,000 delegates, 13,000 observers and 3,000 members of the media have registered for COP26. Although weather delayed many arriving trains, on Sunday the halls and conference rooms at the venue were crowded with delegates from all over the world. All around the venue, artwork and signs promote the net-zero goal.
China crucial to global success

The case of China is especially crucial to success on climate change.

It's currently the world's largest polluter, but its climate plan, released on the eve of the summit, contained no new initiatives.

While China has slowed the growth of its emissions over the past several years, it has recently increased the use of coal for energy generation and has failed to set a timetable for hitting net-zero emissions.

Even so, Scott believes new, smaller developing nations will be pushing for more aggressive targets to phase out fossil fuels as the conference goes on. As the second week begins, she says even the Chinese delegation will be under pressure to "raise its ambition."

"We'll start to see coalitions forming around a high ambition outcome that really puts countries under the thumb to revisit their 2020s climate action so that we get on that pathway to 1.5 degrees," she said

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© Stephanie Jenzer/CBC A masked woman listens to speakers at a plenary session on Day 1 of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Building on 2015 Paris Agreement

The key goals of COP26 have been to deliver on major promises from the 2015 Paris Summit.

They include securing the $100-billion US global finance agreement, agreeing on a roadmap to get to net zero by mid-century and keeping 1.5 degrees within reach and signing agreements to help communities adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts.

Successive reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) along with a new one released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Sunday collectively paint a bleak picture of efforts so far to hold the line on global emissions.

The WMO reports that in 2020 greenhouse gas concentrations reached new highs.

Temperatures were about 1.09 C above the 1850-1900 average — almost two-thirds of the way to the 1.5 degree threshold after which climate scientists say the world risks catastrophic consequences from fires, drought, and other extreme climate events.
'We will succeed or fail as one'

To hit that mid-century target requires cutting global emissions in half by 2030 with yet more drastic cuts in the decade following that

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© Yves Herman/Reuters A man works in a lookalike phone box during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26), where world leaders discuss how to tackle climate change on a global scale in Glasgow on Sunday.

Nonetheless, as COP26 host British MP Alok Sharma launched the event, he too stressed that room for a breakthrough remains.

"We know what we need to do," Sharma told the opening plenary session.

"We will succeed or fail as one."

COP26 was cancelled last year because of COVID-19. Though the logistics for the Glasgow event have been complicated to work though, tens of thousands of delegates and members of civil society groups planning major demonstrations will nonetheless make their way here over the next two weeks.

They will include 95-year-old Sir David Attenborough to 18-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

World leaders to speak Monday

© Henry Nicholls/Reuters A person walks past 'Messy the COP Ness Monster', a sculpture made with recycled jeans, in London's Grosvenor Square on Sunday.

The world leaders' segment of the conference begins Monday with speeches from heads of state and prime ministers, including Canada's Justin Trudeau.

His government has promised to cut emissions over the next decade to a level representing a 40 to 45 per cent reduction compared to 2005.

At the same time, however, the Liberals continue to support the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to B.C. and other other fossil fuel initiatives, which critics claim is incompatible with the goals of COP26.

Trudeau and other G20 leaders finished their meetings in Rome with a lacklustre communique that stopped short of committing nations to hit the 1.5-degree target.

"We recognize that the impacts of climate change at 1.5 C are much lower than at 2 C. Keeping 1.5 C within reach will require meaningful and effective actions and commitment by all countries," G20 leaders said in a communiqué.

Slashing methane emissions key for keeping Earth cool

The pledge taken by about 100 countries at the COP26 climate talks on Tuesday to slash emissions from methane by 30 percent before 2030 could help cap global warming at liveable levels, but key emitters are missing, experts say

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© MARIO TAMA All told, the 100 or so nations that signed on to the Global Methane Pledge account for about 40 percent of global emissions of the odourless, invisible gas

"Methane is one of the gases that we can reduce most quickly," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

This would "immediately slow down climate change," she added, noting that this potent greenhouse gas -- which absorbs 80 times more solar radiation over short periods than CO2 -- accounts for about 30 percent of warming since the industrial revolution.

In September the United States and the European Union spearheaded the agreement, which has since been joined by Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Colombia and Argentina, among others.

All told, the 100-odd nations that signed on to the Global Methane Pledge account for about 40 percent of global emissions of the odourless, invisible gas.

"This is a historic moment, this is huge," said Fatih Birol, head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), estimating that reaching the goal would cancel out the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from all the ships, planes and other vehicles in the world.

"Today’s pledge... would reduce the temperature rise by about one-third of a degree Celsius by 2045," said Joanna Haigh, emeritus professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London.

Methane (CH4) is the gas most responsible for global warming after CO2. While more short-lived in the atmosphere, it is 29 times more potent than CO2 over a 100 years, and 82 times more potent over a 20-year period.

Human-induced sources are roughly divided between leaks from natural gas production, coal mining and landfills on one side, and rice paddies along with livestock and manure handling, on the other.

CH4 levels are at their highest in at least 800,000 years.

Reducing the amount of methane seeping into the air would quickly translate into a slowdown of rising temperatures, and help close the so-called emissions gap between the Paris Agreement target of a 1.5C cap on warming, and the 2.7C we are heading for even if all nations honour their carbon-cutting promises.

Video: World leaders commit to curbing methane emissions (CNBC)

- A start but not good enough -

The reductions targeted can be made with existing technology, according to the UN Environment Programme.

The oil and gas industry -- just behind agriculture as the major source of methane -- has the biggest potential for rapid reductions, notably through the detection and repair of gas leaks during production and transport.

"A 75 percent reduction in methane from the oil and gas sector is possible, and 50 percent of this could be done at no net cost," said UNEP, which recently launched, along with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, a Global Methane Assessment platform.

Methane emissions are also a significant byproduct of bovine digestion, so a shift in human diets away from beef could also make a significant dent. Renewable energy replacing fossil fuels likewise reduces potential sources of the gas.

Taken together, these measures could shave an additional 15 percent off today's emissions by 2030.

The sum total of a 45 percent decline of methane escaping into the atmosphere could keep the 1.5C target alive.

Some climate campaigners say that's what the pledge should have aimed for.

"World leaders are right to target methane emissions but today’s announcement falls short of the 45 percent reduction that the UN says is necessary to keep global warming below 1.5C," said Murray Worthy, gas campaign leader at Global Witness.

"Thirty percent cuts are a start but it’s not enough for 1.5C," agreed Dave Jones, global lead for NGO Ember.

"Coal mine methane super-emitters need to take the first step and admit the scale of the problem. And that they can be part of the solution."

China, India, Australia and Russia did not join the pledge.

"For emissions from oil and gas, one would have hoped to see Russia join this initiative too," said Jim Watson, professor of energy policy at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources.

"These emissions are relatively cheap to plug, so really should be addressed as a matter of urgency."

ab/mh/pbr

AFP

Biden: Plan to cut methane emissions 'one of most important things we can do'

"It's one of the most potent greenhouse gases there is," U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday of methane emissions.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers a speech during a session on clean innovation and technology at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on Tuesday. 

Photo by Robert Perry/EPA-EFE

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Amid its push to tackle climate change, the Biden administration unveiled sweeping plans on Tuesday to drastically reduce the nation's methane emissions, a leading greenhouse gas and a major contributor to climate change.

The rules were announced as this year's U.N. Climate Change Conference was being held in Glasgow, Scotland, where President Joe Biden on Monday pledged the United States will hit its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The plan announced Tuesday is a whole-of-government approach that focuses on cutting methane from the United States' largest emitting sources with emphasis on the oil and gas industry, which accounts for 30% of methane emissions, followed by enteric fermentation at 27%, landfills at 17%, manure management at 10%, other sources at 9% and coal mining at 7%.

"One of the most important things we can do in this decisive decade -- to keep 1.5 [degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels] in reach -- is reduce our methane emissions as quickly as possible," Biden told reporters at an event marking the pledge.

RELATED Kamala Harris, Energy Department announce $200M to reduce vehicle emissions

"It's one of the most potent greenhouse gases there is. It amounts to about half the warming we're experiencing today -- just the methane exposure."

The new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would reduce methane emissions by about 75% or 41 million cumulative tons of methane between 2023 and 2035, the administration said.

Under the clean Air Act, the EPA proposes updates and strengthening of current requirements for new sources, broadens the types of sources covered and encourages the development of technologies to reduce pollution from the oil and natural gas sources.

It would also set limits for the first time on existing oil and gas sources, as well as targeting leaks and repairs.

"It's going to improve health, reduce asthma, respiratory-related emergencies," Biden added. "It's going to improve the food supply, as well by cutting crop losses and related ground-level pollution. It's going to boost our economies -- saving companies money, reducing methane leaks, capturing methane to turn it into new revenue streams, as well as creating good-paying union jobs."

The Department of Interior will be proposing rules regulating excessive venting and flaring of gas by requiring oil and gas operators to pay royalties and strengthening "financial assurance requirements" to ensure operators properly plug wells to prevent long-term leaks.

The EPA estimates that 40% of the nation's 2.7 million abandoned oil wells and 600,000 gas wells are unplugged, emitting an estimated 263,000 metric tons of methane in 2019.

The Department of Transportation plans to reduce methane emissions through reducing leaks throughout the some 3 million miles of oil and gas pipelines and hundreds of underground gas storage facilities through the imposition of new requirements and an automatic shut-off valve rule, among other new rules.

A senior official told reporters during a teleconference on background that the new safety regulations will cover some 400,000 miles of previously unregulated gathering lines, as well as 2.3 million miles of pipelines networking cities that have not been regulated.

The U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan also includes new regulations over methane emissions from landfills and the industries of agriculture and transportation and other so-called need-to-abate sectors.

The White House also said Tuesday that more than 90 governments will announce later in the day that they have joined the United States and the European Union in pledging to reduce the world's methane emissions 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.

Biden said the United States could "probably go beyond" the 30% target.

The White House said it is tackling methane as its warming impact on the globe is about 80 times that of carbon dioxide.

The United Nations Environment Program said in August that methane alone has accounted for 30% of global warning since pre-industrial times.


In its yearly assessment on global methane, the agency said more than half of global methane emissions come from human activities in three sectors: agriculture at 40%, fossil fuels at 35% and waste at 20%.

During the meeting in Glasgow on Tuesday, Biden also announced a plan to conserve global forests and a platform to speed up clean the development of energy technology.

COP26: Trudeau says world needs a ‘standard’ for pricing carbon. What might that look like?

Amanda Connolly , GLOBAL NEWS

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used his platform before world leaders gathered for the COP26 climate summit this week to urge the creation of global standards when it comes to pricing pollution.

© Provided by Global News Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is greeted by United Nations Secretary Executive Patricia Espinosa as he arrives to COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Touting the domestic carbon price policy put in place by his Liberal government, Trudeau said the world can no longer act as if climate change does not exist because the devastation wrought on communities, like the town of Lytton, B.C., is only going to keep happening as the world heats up.

"Just as globally we’ve agreed to a minimum corporate tax, we must work together to ensure it’s no longer free to pollute anywhere around the world," Trudeau said.

"That means establishing a shared minimum standard for pricing pollution."

On Tuesday, he said there are "many different ways" of pricing pollution in different sectors, and that what is crucial is "to establish a principle of stringency and equity to make sure that everyone is pricing at the same level."

Putting in a carbon price domestically proved to be a battle, fraught with both political and legal fights that culminated in multiple provinces — led by conservative premiers — challenging the policy before the Supreme Court of Canada, which ultimately upheld the pricing.

But putting one in place globally could be an even tougher fight given the differing approaches being taken in many jurisdictions.

Here's what you need to know about the ideas being discussed right now.

What is a carbon price?

A carbon price is a concept most Canadians will be familiar with, given the country has had one in place since 2019 as a federal backstop for provinces without their own systems for pricing carbon emissions.

Under the program, every tonne of carbon emitted in a province where the federal carbon price applies costs an industrial emitter a set price. In Canada, the price will hit $170 per tonne in 2030, up from the $65 set to take effect in 2023. It is currently set at $40 per tonne, going up to $50 per tonne next year.

That translates into higher prices for things like gasoline, which the federal government tries to offset with a tax rebate for citizens. The essential thinking behind carbon pricing is that by making pollution more expensive, emitters will have an incentive to adopt lower-emission alternatives.

Canada's program is still new and there has been debate about whether it is having the desired effect, though many economists say it will take time to see the results.

But could it be replicated globally at this point?

"A shared common price is not feasible," said Chris McDermott, Canada's former lead negotiator on the carbon trading rules proposed under the Kyoto Protocol.

“The best you can hope for [at COP26] is that you actually get a deal on Article 6."

What is Article 6, and why does it matter to these talks? It's a section of the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, that proposes the creation of an international carbon market where parties to that agreement can trade credits to hit their emissions reductions targets — and it appears to be picking up steam.
Carbon price vs. carbon market?

Under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the signatory parties agreed on mechanisms where they could cooperate voluntarily to work toward hitting their climate goals under the deal.

Two sections of that article effectively lay out how a country that beats its own climate targets under the agreement could sell credits to other countries that haven't yet met their own climate targets.

Those credits would count toward those targets, and could be basically traded among parties to the agreement on an international carbon marketplace that would be governed by the United Nations, via an as-yet-undetermined governance body.

READ MORE: Canada joins more than 100 countries vowing to end deforestation

McDermott said while the rough shape of that proposal has been laid out in the agreement, the details have not been hammered out. That is one area where leaders likely have a realistic shot at reaching a consensus during the COP26 meetings, he said.

Effectively, it would lay out the terms for a model similar to cap-and-trade in order to help countries meet their targets under that deal — and cap-and-trade has proved a popular model for roughly half the countries in the world that already have some form of pricing on pollution in place.

Video: COP26 summit: Trudeau reiterates call for global carbon pricing by 2030

According to the United Nations, 40 national governments around the world have put in place some kind of carbon price in their jurisdiction, as well as another 25 "sub-national" governments.

Those cover roughly 15 per cent of global emissions.

Forty-six others are currently in the works.

Roughly half of the programs are in the form of a carbon price and half are in the form of an emissions trading system — otherwise known as a cap-and-trade system — the latter of which includes China and will cover about 40 per cent of its industrial emissions.

It's all part of the global push to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and prevent an average global temperature increase of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius as a result of climate change.

Why is this coming up now?

Although the proposals in Article 6 were laid out in 2015, the COP26 climate summit taking place this week in Glasgow, Scotland, is the first time the calls for an international standard for pricing carbon seem to be really breaking through in a big way.

The increased focus comes as the world is grappling with the devastating effects of climate change in a very real, very immediate, and very expensive way.

The question now appears to be on the best way to move forward for those countries that have already put some kind of pricing system in place, be it carbon price per tonne or a cap-and-trade system.

READ MORE: U.S. aims for global plan to cut down on methane emissions, seen as key in climate fight

The challenge facing calls for a global standard price is, as McDermott explained, the fact that countries that have put in place cap-and-trade systems already have prices on carbon that are set by the market, rather than by governments.

At the same time, businesses are looking for clarity on the rules of play, and for stability that they can plan longer-term forecasts and strategies around.
Why does this matter for businesses?

Martha Hall Findlay, chief sustainability officer at Suncor, said she is hopeful the conversations happening at COP26 will result in "practical and realistic direction towards solutions."

"Those discussions are increasing," she told Global News on Friday.

"My hope is that they end up becoming prominent at COP, that we move away from the extremes and that we actually focus on, OK, we have a really big challenge here — how do we reduce emissions and how do we get there together?"

In an open letter to world leaders this month, the secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce said those conversations are "critical" for businesses, and urged leaders to come to an agreement on how to turn the proposals under Article 6 for an international carbon market into action.

"A further failure to agree on a robust set of rules to implement Article 6 risks driving up the costs of climate action in the years to come," wrote John W.H. Denton in the letter.

"Many businesses in our network already report that the fragmented nature of existing domestic carbon pricing regimes poses increasing operational challenges and risks—particularly smaller businesses with limited administrative or technical capacities."

He added the business community recognizes Article 6 would not itself "lead to a global carbon price," but that it could be a necessary first step to creating more transparent, multilateral pricing policies.

As the world works to navigate what is hopefully the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, those pathways are more needed than ever, he added.

"From a real economy perspective, this is clearly vital to avoid the unintended consequences of unilateral climate policy measures— which increasingly risk triggering damaging climate-related trade frictions which could place a significant drag on any post-pandemic recovery."

— with a file from Global News' Heather Yourex-West.

Alberta government, Opposition say the province should be consulted on emissions caps

EDMONTON — Alberta politicians are warning the federal Liberal government that caps on greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas will have to be set in consultation with the province.

  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Both Premier Jason Kenney and New Democrat Opposition Leader Rachel Notley say Alberta has to be at the table when the emissions caps announced Monday by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are discussed.

"I don't know why they would make an announcement like this without consulting with the province that actually owns the overwhelming majority of Canada's oil and gas reserve," said Kenney.

Notley pointed out oil and gas isn't the only part of the economy that emits carbon dioxide.

"If the federal government is going to be talking about emissions caps for the oil and gas industry, they need to be talking about emissions caps for all sectors," she said. "The government of Alberta needs to be at the table advocating for the best deal for Alberta."

On Monday, Trudeau told the global climate conference taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, that Canada would impose a hard cap on emissions from the sector — the source of about a quarter of all Canada's greenhouse gases.

Trudeau said the government is now moving on its election promise to cap those emissions. The pledge would see emissions limited to around current levels and ratcheted down every five years until they are carbon neutral by 2050.

"We'll cap oil and gas sector emissions today and ensure they decrease tomorrow at a pace and scale needed to reach net zero by 2050," Trudeau said.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson on Monday formally asked the government's net-zero advisory board to help them accomplish this goal.

Kenney said his government isn't necessarily opposed to a cap. A 100-megatonne emissions cap already exists for the oilsands, although that limit allows for expansion and has never been reached.

"We need to know what the cap is. We are willing to discuss with them the proposed 100-megatonne cap."

Kenney said a better move from Ottawa would be a $32-billion transfer of tax dollars to help industry pay for carbon capture, utilization and storage — facilities that would collect carbon and pump it underground for long-term storage. Such facilities already exist in Alberta.

Tim McMillan of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said in a statement that such policies can help Canadian oil and gas reduce global carbon emissions.

"The world will need increased access to lower emission natural gas and oil," he said. "Canada, under the right policy environment, can position ourselves as a preferred global supplier."

Recent studies have suggested that Canada is already the largest subsidizer of oil and gas in the G20. The federal Liberals and federal agencies have promised to reduce those subsidies.

Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank, said carbon capture is unlikely to play as big a role in reducing emissions as Kenney would like.

"There is a role for a certain degree of public support for carbon capture," he said. "I think what Jason Kenney and the companies are talking about is that plus a whole lot more money."

Severson-Baker said other federal regulations will apply across Canada's economy. But an oil and gas cap is justified because that's the sector where emissions are rising.

"This is the sector that (Trudeau) needs to focus on."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2021.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

ETHIOPIA IS THE AGGRESSOR 
Ethiopia declares state of emergency as Tigray forces claim advances

ITS A WAR OF AGRESSION

The Ethiopian government has declared a national state of emergency amid fears that Tigray insurgents are preparing to march on the capital, Addis Ababa. The UN called for an "immediate cessation" of hostilities.


Rebel fighters in Ethiopia's war-hit Tigray say they have seized control of more territory

Ethiopia's cabinet on Tuesday declared a nationwide state of emergency after fighters from the northern province of Tigray claimed to have seized two strategic towns, state-affiliated media said.

Fana Broadcasting Corporate said the state of emergency was aimed at protecting civilians from possible atrocities.

"Our country is facing a grave danger to its existence, sovereignty and unity. And we can’t dispel this danger through the usual law enforcement systems and procedures," Justice Minister Gedion Timothewos told a state media briefing.

The state of emergency will have immediate effect and last for six months. It will allow the government to impose a curfew, allow conscription of "any military age citizen who has weapons" or close media outlets believed to be "giving moral support directly or indirectly" to the Tigrayan fighters, Fana said

The measures would first need to be implemented by law. Lawmakers were expected to convene and approve the measures within the next two days.
Tigray insurgents claim advances, UN urges peace

The insurgent Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) claimed two important towns some 250 kilometers (just over 150 miles) to the north of Addis Ababa, in the Amhara region, in recent days.

The group claimed it had captured the town of Kombolcha on the main road that links landlocked Ethiopia to the port in Djibouti. It also said it had taken the town of Dessie, putting the insurgents in a position to move down a major highway toward the capital.

The government has denied the TPLF claims of its territorial gains. If confirmed, however, these would represent a significant strategic advance in the eleven-month conflict.

The faction has not ruled out marching on the capital, which has so far been spared from any fighting.

Additionally, insurgents from the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) claimed they defeated government forces in Kemise, which lies even closer to the capital.

On Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called "for an immediate cessation of hostilities, unrestricted humanitarian access to deliver urgent life-saving assistance, and an inclusive national dialogue to resolve this crisis and create the foundation for peace and stability throughout the country," according to spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.
Locals urged to defend neighborhoods

Authorities in Addis Ababa on Tuesday encouraged residents to prepare to defend their neighborhoods, amid concerns about a possible advance.

The city administration said in a statement carried by the Ethiopian News Agency that people should register their weapons and gather in their local districts.

"Residents can gather in their locality and safeguard their surroundings," the statement added.

"Those who have weapons but can't take part in safeguarding their surroundings are advised to hand over the weapon to the government or their close relatives or friends."

The statement added that house-to-house searches were being conducted to find and arrest "troublemakers."
US imposes trade sanctions on government, warns TPLF

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that he had decided to cut out Ethiopia from a US free trade program over the government's failure to end a conflict that has lasted nearly a year.

Biden said the war in the Tigray region has led to "gross violations" of human rights.

The program requires countries to eliminate barriers to US trade and investment and to make progress towards political pluralism. However, the sanction would only go into effect on January 1.

Biden's announcement coincided with the US Horn of Africa envoy Jeffrey Feltman telling reporters that the parties to the conflict "don't seem anywhere near" a ceasefire or talks. Feltman called the humanitarian conditions in Tigray "unacceptable."

TIGRAY: WAR AT THE EXPENSE OF WOMEN
Hundreds of thousands on the run
The civil war between the Tigray regional government and the central government of Ethiopia under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed continues to escalate. Hundreds of thousands are now on the run, living in hunger and threatened by war crimes. After the self-proclaimed Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) recaptured Tigray's regional capital Mekele, many are fleeing from the contested areas to Mekele.
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The envoy also stressed to the TPLF that Washington would take a dim view of it moving on the Ethiopian capital.

"Let me be clear: We oppose any TPLF move to Addis or any TPLF move to besiege Addis," he said. "This is a message we've also underscored in our engagement with TPLF leaders."

Both the US and United Nations say Ethiopian troops have prevented the passage of trucks carrying food and other aid.

Ethiopian military airstrikes on Friday that hit Mekele, the capital of the Tigray region forced a United Nations humanitarian flight to abandon its landing there.
In September, Biden threatened to levy sanctions against Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other leaders involved in the conflict.

Ahmed sent troops into Tigray ago to detain and disarm the TPLF. Although he promised a swift victory, the group had regrouped by late June and retaken most of Tigray.

rc/wmr (AFP, Reuters, dpa, AP)