Russia comes in from cold on climate, launches forest plan

By TANYA TITOVA and FRANK JORDANS

November 9, 2021 GMT



MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian island north of Japan has become a testing ground for Moscow’s efforts to reconcile its prized fossil fuel industry with the need to do something about climate change.

More than two-thirds of Sakhalin Island is forested. With the Kremlin’s blessing, authorities there have set an ambitious goal of making the island — Russia’s largest — carbon neutral by 2025.

Tree growth will absorb as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as the island’s half-million residents and its businesses produce, an idea the Russian government 4,000 miles to the west in Moscow hopes to apply to the whole country, which has more forested area than any other nation.

“The economic structure of Sakhalin and the large share of forestland in the territory and carbon balance distribution reflect the general situation in Russia,” said Dinara Gershinkova, an adviser to Sakhalin’s governor on climate and sustainable development. “So the results of the experiment in Sakhalin will be representative and applicable to the whole Russian Federation.”

The plan reflects a marked change of mood in Russia on climate change.

President Vladimir Putin joked about global warming in 2003, saying that Russians would be able to “spend less on fur coats, and the grain harvest would increase” if it continued.

Last year, he acknowledged that climate change “requires real actions and way more attention,” and he has sought to position the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporter as a leader in the fight against global warming.

The country’s vast forests are key to this idea.

“By aiming to build a carbon-neutral economy by no later than 2060, Russia is relying, among other things, on the unique resource of forest ecosystems available to us, and their significant capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen,” Putin said in a video address Nov. 2 to the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “After all, our country accounts for around 20% of the world’s forestland.”

Scientists say that natural forms of removing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere will indeed play a key role in tackling global warming.

Many of the countries at the climate summit rely on some form of absorbing emissions to achieve their targets of being “net zero” by 2050 — that is, emitting only as much greenhouse gas as can be captured again by natural or artificial means.

But experts say the math behind such calculations is notoriously fuzzy and prone to manipulation by governments, who have a vested interest in making their emissions figures look good.

“Russia makes an enormous contribution in the absorption of global emissions -– both its own and others’ -– by means of absorptive capacity of our ecosystems, firstly of forests, which is estimated at 2.5 billion (metric) tons of CO2 equivalent a year,” said Viktoria Abramchenko, deputy prime minister for environmental issues, speaking at a recent conference in St. Petersburg.

The figure came as a surprise to scientists contacted by The Associated Press. It constitutes a fivefold increase on the 535 million metric tons of CO2 absorption that Russia reported to the U.N. climate office for 2019.

Natalia Lukina, the director of the Center of Ecology and Productivity of Forests, a government-funded research institute, said the estimates are actually assumptions because “there is no real accurate data.”

“Unfortunately, our official information about forestland is 25 years old, then this data was updated somehow, but there were no direct measurements,” she said.

One problem is that nobody knows how many trees are in Russia’s forests.

Last year, its forestry body finished an inventory that took 13 years and cost at least $142 million, but it hasn’t been made public or shared with the scientific community.

Russia’s network of emissions monitoring stations is likewise limited, Lukina said.

Vadim Mamkin, a scientist who maintains one of the country’s 11 greenhouse gas measuring masts in the Tver region, said the carbon balance of such old forests is “usually about zero,” though figures vary about 10% from year to year.

Wildfires that burn millions of hectares of forest are another, increasingly pressing problem. Forests that have stored carbon for decades suddenly become big emitters when they burn, undoing an absorption effect, said Sergey Bartalev, head of the boreal ecosystems monitoring lab at the Space Research Institute.

Such fires are becoming increasingly frequent in Russia, partly due to climate change.

This year saw a record 13.1 million hectares burned, leading to emissions of 970 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, according to an estimate by the European Union’s Copernicus Programme — almost twice as much as the last reported absorption.

Fire protection is now a priority in Moscow’s new strategy of low-carbon development.

Ahead of the climate summit, Putin declared that Russia plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 — a goal similar to those set by China and Saudi Arabia — but a decade behind the midcentury deadline that the U.S. and EU are aiming for.

Scientists say that stopping additional emissions of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere by 2050 is the only way to achieve the Paris accord’s goal to keep the Earth’s warming below catastrophic levels of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century.

Russia sent a large delegation to the Glasgow summit, although Putin himself did not attend.

Environmental campaigns and other nations that are wary of giving Moscow a free pass while they ramp up their own efforts to cut emissions will be watching closely what Russian diplomats propose.

Vasily Yablokov, the head of Energy and Climate Sector at Russian Greenpeace, said Russia’s forest calculations will play a key role in its climate plan, and he fears that estimates would be made to “fit into the answer.”

One reason why Russia has a vested interest in minimizing its reported emissions in front of the United Nations is the prospect of a carbon tariff being mulled by the EU on imports from countries that are deemed to be not doing enough on climate.

“The role of forest is overestimated, unfortunately,” said Alexey Kokorin, the head of climate and energy program at WWF-Russia. “It would be good to trust that Russia will be able to increase the absorption as it is in the draft strategy, and all of us will do the best to achieve it, but it looks like it’s too much.”

—-

Jordans reported from Glasgow, Scotland.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the climate summit at http://apnews.com/hub/climate

Owl habitat cuts by Trump appointees used ‘faulty’ science

By MATTHEW BROWN and GILLIAN FLACCUS

November 9, 2021 

 In this May 8, 2003, file photo, a Northern Spotted Owl flies after an elusive mouse jumping off the end of a stick in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Ore. The Trump administration has slashed more than 3 million acres of protected habitat for the northern spotted owl in Oregon, Washington and northern California, much of it in prime timber locations in Oregon's coastal ranges. Environmentalists are accusing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Donald Trump of taking a "parting shot" at protections designed to help restore the threatened owl species.

 (AP Photo/Don Ryan, File)


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Political appointees in the Trump administration relied on faulty science to justify stripping habitat protections for the imperiled northern spotted owl, U.S. wildlife officials said Tuesday as they struck down a rule that would have opened millions of acres of forest in Oregon, Washington and California to potential logging.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed a decision made five days before Trump left office to drastically shrink so-called critical habitat for the spotted owl. The small, reclusive bird has been in decline for decades as old-growth forests disappear.

The Associated Press obtained details on Tuesday’s action prior to it being made public.

Government biologists objected to the changes under Trump and warned they would put the spotted owl on a path to extinction, documents show.

But Trump’s Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and former Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith dismissed those concerns — instead adopting a plan to lift restrictions on more land than even the timber industry had sought.

Officials said in documents provided to AP that Bernhardt and Skipwith underestimated the threat of extinction and relied on a “faulty interpretation of the science” to reach their decision.

Bernhardt defended his handling of the matter, telling AP in an email that Congress gave the interior secretary authority to exclude areas from protection.

Bernhardt said the agency’s “reasonable certainty” the owl would go extinct did not match the law’s requirement that habitat be protected lest a species “will” go extinct.

If wildlife officials want to change that standard, Bernhardt added, “they should seek a change from Congress.”

“Any future Secretary can weigh the benefit factors differently, but they can not change the law or the legal standard,” Bernhardt wrote.

Officials twice delayed the changes after President Joe Biden took office and they never went into effect. That puts them among numerous Trump-era policies reversed or struck down by the Interior Department in recent months on issues ranging from oil and gas drilling on some public lands to protections for birds from wind farms.

Democratic lawmakers from Oregon, Washington and California in February called for an investigation into the removal of spotted owl protections, citing “potential scientific meddling” by Trump appointees.

Wildlife advocates, government agencies and the timber industry have sparred for decades over the northern spotted owl, which is now in precipitous decline and getting closer to disappearing from Washington and parts of Oregon, according to a rule published Tuesday that replaces the one under Trump.

Federal habitat protections imposed in 2012 were meant to avert the bird’s extinction. They’ve also been blamed for a logging slowdown that’s devastated some rural communities.

Of 9.6 million protected acres (3.9 million hectares), federal officials proposed in August 2020 to remove protections for about 2%.

The timber industry said the plan didn’t go far enough and called for removal of more than 28%. In January, Skipwith abruptly changed her agency’s recommendation and went even further, telling Bernhardt more than one-third of the protected land, or almost 3.5 million acres (1.4 million hectares), should be excluded from protection.

The land has huge swaths of timber and includes 2 million acres (809,000 hectares) spread in a checkerboard pattern across western Oregon.

Logging those lands might not have immediately killed off the owls immediately — they live up to 20 years on individual territories that can stretch across 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) — yet eventually they would have gone extinct, said Paul Henson, the wildlife service’s Oregon supervisor.

When Henson brought his concerns to superiors last December, Skipwith overrode them.

“You can’t remove over a third of an endangered species’ habitat and not expect it to go extinct,” Henson said in an interview. “There wasn’t much disagreement about the science. The disagreement was how much that risk constrains the secretary’s authority” to remove habitat protections.

The logging industry says more thinning and management of protected forests is necessary to prevent wildfires, which devastated 560 square miles (1,450 square kilometers) of spotted owl habitat last fall. Most of that area is no longer considered viable for the birds.

Timber interests also say some of the land set aside under Tuesday’s announcement isn’t actually spotted owl habitat or is broken up into parcels too small to support the owl. As such, the smaller habitat designation issued under Trump was “legally and scientifically valid,” said Nick Smith, a spokesman for the American Forest Resouce Council. The group represents about 100 manufacturing and logging operations in five western U.S. states.

“The federal government cannot set aside critical habitat unless it is habitat for the species. That’s the critical concern,” he said.

The logging industry says the larger, non-native barred owl is a much greater threat than cutting trees. Skipwith echoed that contention when she said the most effective way to preserve spotted owls was to control barred owl numbers.

“The main threats faced by the northern spotted owl are the barred owl and the devastating forest fires,” Skipwith said, adding that she used sound science to reach her conclusion. “It’s not an issue of acreage; it’s an issue of the management of the land.”

The barred owls, native to the eastern U.S., began affecting spotted owl numbers in Washington and Oregon about a decade ago as they expanded their range west and south, Henson said.

Biologists beginning in 2009 studied the impact of barred owl removal in areas of northern California, Oregon and Washington with the smaller spotted owl. The pilot program, which wrapped up in August, showed spotted owl numbers stabilized when barred owl numbers were reduced. They continued to decline in areas without the removals.

Study authors cautioned that the results show habitat protections are also critical to the spotted owl’s survival.

In rejecting the Trump rule, federal officials said the dual threats of wildfires and competition from the barred owl underscore why more forest needs protection — to make sure there’s enough “redundancy” of habitat that a large fire won’t doom the species.

A large-scale barred owl removal program is not in place. Wildlife officials said the best science shows protecting older forests — where owls nest, roost and hunt — is crucial.

Owl expert R. J. Gutiérrez from the University of Minnesota agreed. He said setting aside forest habitat and naming the northern spotted owl as a threatened species in 1990 briefly boosted it before barred owls arrived.

Until barred owls are dealt with, “all habitat is critical” so spotted owls can find refuge from the aggressive newcomers, said Gutiérrez who lives in California and has spent several decades studying spotted owls along the West Coast.

Environmental groups cheered Tuesday’s move but expressed frustration that about 200,000 acres (about 81,000 hectares) of previously protected habitat were excluded from the new rule.

“In the past 20 years, there’s been accelerated loss of old-growth forest on state and private lands so it’s continued to lose habitat,” said Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity. Climate change adds to the threats, he said.

In December, federal officials determined that northern spotted owl’s continued decline means it merits a more critical listing as “endangered.”

The agency refused to do so immediately, saying other species took priority. That decision is facing a legal challenge.

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana

___

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter: @MatthewBrownAP

The AP Interview: Facebook whistleblower fears the metaverse
By RAF CASERT and KELVIN CHAN

1 of 7

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Brussels, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen spoke Monday to MEP's about the negative impact of big tech companies' business models on users and societies and how this could be tackled by the EU's digital legislation. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

BRUSSELS (AP) — Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen warned Tuesday that the “metaverse,” the all-encompassing virtual reality world at the heart of the social media giant’s growth strategy, will be addictive and rob people of yet more personal information while giving the embattled company another monopoly online.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Haugen said her former employer rushed to trumpet the metaverse recently because of the intense pressure it is facing after she revealed deep-seated problems at the company, in disclosures that have energized legislative and regulatory efforts around the world to crack down on Big Tech.

“If you don’t like the conversation, you try to change the conversation,” the former product-manager-turned-whistleblower said. The documents she has turned over to authorities and her testimony to lawmakers have drawn global attention for providing insight into what Facebook may have known about the damage its social media platforms can cause. She is in the midst of a series of appearances before European lawmakers and regulators who are drawing up rules for social media companies.



Meta, the new name for the parent company of Facebook, denied it was trying to divert attention away from the troubles it faces by pushing the metaverse. “This is not true. We have been working on this for a long time internally,” the company said in a statement.

It stressed that it’s working to responsibly build the metaverse — essentially a series of interconnected virtual communities that will merge online life with real life. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that users will, for example, be able to attend virtual concerts or fence with holograms of Olympic athletes in the metaverse — and he refocused the entire company on creating it, including renaming the business Meta.

Launching that new brand, in fact, draws attention to the company, it said in a statement, adding that if it didn’t want the scrutiny it would have delayed or scrapped the launch altogether.

But the new focus on the metaverse creates a whole new set of dangers, Haugen said. In “Snow Crash,” the 1992 sci-fi novel that coined the phrase, “it was a thing that people used to numb themselves when their lives were horrible,” she said.

“So beyond the fact that these immersive environments are extremely addictive and they encourage people to unplug from the reality we actually live,” she said, “I’m also worried about it on the level of — the metaverse will require us to put many, many more sensors in our homes and our workplaces,” forcing users to relinquish more of their data and their privacy.

In a presentation last month, Zuckerberg described how the metaverse would allow for mixed-reality business meetings where some participants are physically present while others beam in as avatars. The company has launched virtual meeting software called Horizon Workrooms for use with its virtual reality headsets, so co-workers can (hopefully) better communicate, brainstorm and socialize virtually, instead of, say, looking at one another on a Zoom call grid.

But Haugen said employees of companies that use the metaverse would have little option but to participate in the system or leave their jobs.

“If your employer decides they’re now a metaverse company, you have to give out way more personal data to a company that’s demonstrated that it lies whenever it is in its best interests,” she said.

And she cautioned the public not to expect more transparency.

“They’ve demonstrated with regard to Facebook that they can hide behind a wall. They keep making unforced errors, they keep making things that prioritize their own profits over our safety,” she said.

Haugen has said Facebook’s systems amplify online hate and extremism, fail to protect young people from harmful content, and that the company lacks any incentive to fix the problems, in revelations that shed light on an internal crisis at the company that provides free services to 3 billion people.

To back up her allegations, she has made a series of disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission that were also provided to Congress in redacted form by her legal team. The redacted versions received by Congress were obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including the AP.

In Tuesday’s interview, she expressed astonishment that the company would shift focus to a whole new realm while it is under such intense criticism about the areas where it is already working.

“They’re going to hire 10,000 engineers to work on video games when they haven’t actually gotten safety right on their main product,” Haugen said.

For that, she faulted Zuckerberg personally, saying he has exhibited a pattern of prioritizing growth over making sure Facebook is good for users.

“I think that is a failure of leadership,” she said. “Unless he wants to prioritize the safety of the platform, he should step aside and let someone else focus on that.”

The company denied that it’s putting profits over safety. “Yes, we’re a business and we make profit, but the idea that we do so at the expense of people’s safety or well-being misunderstands where our own commercial interests lie,” it said, adding that it plans to spend more than $5 billion in 2021 on safety and security and employs more than 40,000 people who work on keeping users safe.

Zuckerberg has previously dismissed Haugen’s claims as a “coordinated effort” to paint a false picture of the company.

But officials in Washington and European capitals are taking her claims seriously. European Union lawmakers questioned her intensely Monday, before applauding her at the end of the 2 1/2 hour hearing.

The EU is drafting new digital rules for the 27-nation bloc that call for reining in big “digital gatekeepers,” requiring them to be more transparent about algorithms that determine what people see on their feeds and making them more accountable for the content on their platforms.

Facebook has said it largely supports regulations, with legislative efforts in the EU and United Kingdom much further along than those in the U.S. New rules could squeeze advertising revenue, but Meta’s stock price appears to have so far weathered the recent storm.

Haugen has made stops in London and Berlin to speak to officials and lawmakers and spoke at a tech conference in Lisbon. She also will address French lawmakers in Paris on Wednesday.

___

Chan reported from London.

Buttigieg: Administration will keep fighting for family leave provision

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg talks to reporters during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday. Photo by Oliver Contreras/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 8 (UPI) -- The White House will keep fighting for workers' paid family leave even though it was eliminated from President Joe Biden's Build Back Better framework, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday.

HOMOPHOBIC CHAUVINIST CRITICISM FROM THE RIGHT
Buttigieg, who himself has faced criticism from Republicans over three weeks spent away from the administration after adopting twins, said family leave remains high on Biden's agenda even after it was stripped from the social spending proposal at the insistence of centrist Democrats.

"The president put forward a framework that he's confident can pass the House in the Senate," Buttigieg told reporters during a White House briefing to discuss the newly-passed, $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal.

"I think it's also no secret how I feel about family leave and how the president does, which is why he proposed it, campaigned on it and will continue to fight for it," he added.

Biden had initially proposed 12 weeks of paid family leave in the safety net proposal, which Democratic lawmakers are attempting to pass through the Senate by using the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process. The proposal, however, was first reduced and then eliminated completely from framework as a concession to centrist Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., announced last week that a four-week version of the provision had been added back into the $1.75 trillion deal.

Manchin, however, voiced continuing skepticism, making its chances of passing the Senate murky.

Buttigieg, the first openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet official in U.S. history, has fielded heavy criticism from conservatives after taking paternity leave following the adoption of newborn twins with his husband.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., accused him of abandoning the nation while it faces a supply-chain crisis, citing her own delivery of one of her four children while in the front seat of her truck.

"It's talked about as time off," Buttgieg said of family leave Monday. "It's time to do work -- good work, joyful work, meaningful work -- but it's time to do important work."

CONTRARY TO THE GOP WALL ST. LOVES GOVT SPENDING
S&P 500 surpasses 4,700 for the first time as infrastructure bill boosts markets


The S&P 500 exceeded 4,700 points for the first time on Monday, while the broader market was lifted by the House sending a $1 trillion infrastructure bill to President Joe Biden for his signature.

 File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo


Nov. 8 (UPI) -- The S&P 500 closed above 4,700 points for the first time on Monday as markets got a boost from Congress passing a $1 trillion infrastructure bill over the weekend.

The broad index gained 4.17 points, or 0.087%, to reach 4,701.70 at the end of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 104.27 points, or 0.29%, for an intraday record, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.067%.

Industrials and materials stocks led the way Monday after the House late Friday voted to send the bill that seeks to modernize roads, public transit, bridges, broadband, water ports, airports, and doing other things to address the "climate crisis," to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature.

"Investors have waited for a significant step-up in infrastructure spending for decade's," Citi's Anthony Pettinari said in a note, according to CNBC. "We view this generational investment as a significant catalyst for growth for a number of our stocks."

Caterpillar stock gained 4.06% to lead the Dow, while chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices rose 10.14% to lead the S&P and Nasdaq as it announced Meta, formerly known as Facebook, would use its chips while also revealing new products.


Tesla stock fell 4.92% after CEO Elon Musk over the weekend pledged to sell 10% of his holdings based on the results of a Twitter poll.

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida on Monday said he was confident "imbalances" in the market leading to inflation will realign with the central bank's forecast next year, allowing it to refrain from raising interest rates until the end of 2022

"Inflation so far this year represents to me, much more than a 'moderate' overshoot of our 2% longer-run inflation objective and I would not consider a repeat performance next year a policy success," he said. "Second, as always, there are risks to any outlook and I and 12 of my colleagues believe that the risks to the outlook for inflation are to the upside."

Crow Nation members perform at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier centennial

(13 images)

Members of the Crow Nation perform during a centennial commemoration event at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday. 

The plaza at the tomb was open for the public to lay flowers for the first time in almost a century. 

The original burial took place November 9 and 10, 1921.


Members of the Crow Nation perform in the Memorial Amphitheater during a opening ceremony centennial commemoration event at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday Nov 8

IN CANADA NOV 8 IS CELEBRATED AS INDIGENOUS VETERANS DAY

Harry Rock Above, of the Crow Nation and descendent of Crow Nation Chief Plenty Coups, speaks in front of the Grand Staircase. Chief Plenty Coups attended the original burial 100 years ago. 

IN THIS CASE COUP IS A REFERENCE TO TRIBAL WARFARE AKA COUNTING COUP, THE STRIKING BLOW THAT FELLS YOUR OPPONENT BUT DOES NOT KILL THEM



A member of the Crow Nation prepares to perform. 


Members of the Crow Nation perform in the Memorial Amphitheater. 


The ceremony also coincides with National Native American Heritage Month. 

A tomb guard of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as "The Old Guard," walks in front of members of the Crow Nation.

Members of the Crow Nation perform in the Memorial Amphitheater. 

Pool Photo by Alex Brandon/UPI
License photo | Permalink



Members of the Crow Nation line up to place flowers during a centennial commemoration. 

Pool Photo by Alex Brandon/UPI
License photo | Permalink



The opening ceremony leads up to a flyover and procession on Thursday to honor Veterans Day, replicating elements of the World War I Unknown Soldier's 1921 burial.

A woman arrives to place flowers during a centennial commemoration event.

A U.S. Army soldier holds flowers to be placed during a centennial commemoration.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and his family place flowers during a centennial commemoration event.

A group of U.S. Navy sailors hold flowers to be placed during a centennial commemoration event.

 Pool Photos by Alex Brandon/UPI
License photo | Permalink

Ethiopia's war triggers fears in Kenya, South Sudan

As the yearlong civil war in Ethiopia's Tigray region escalates, Kenya and South Sudan are on high alert.

Ethiopia's federal forces, pictured here, have been battling Tigrayan fighters since November 2020

Kenya's government has announced the tightening of security along its 800-kilometer (500-mile) northern border with Ethiopia.

Police have also set up additional roadblocks to monitor the movement of firearms and foreigners who may try to enter Kenya illegally.

Local communities and the government fear an influx of Ethiopian refugees, as the war raging in the country's northern Tigray region spills into other areas of Ethiopia and Tigrayan fighters and their allies advance on the capital, Addis Ababa.

Northern Kenya is already home to the refugee camps of Kakuma in the northwest and Dadaab in the northeast. They are among the world's largest refugee settlements.

For the past few years, Kenyan officials have been pushing hard to have the camps completely closed by mid-2022 — a plan that could be scuttled by new refugees from Ethiopia.

Kenya's police service has already cautioned citizens to report cases of undocumented persons and unprocessed immigrants in the country.

Most Ethiopian refugees so far have fled north over the border to Sudan but Kenya fears that may change

Northern Kenya already under stress

"There is a likelihood [of] hundreds of thousands, if not millions of refugees, flocking into Kenya," the director of the Nairobi-based Institute for Strategic Studies, Hassan Khannenje, told DW.

This will "impose heavy costs on Kenya," he said, adding it could trigger a humanitarian situation that Kenya isn't prepared for.

The large numbers of refugees in northern Kenya have stressed local resources in the region, and are fueling tensions with local communities.

Two million people are currently facing food insecurity in Kenya's north, where the United Nations has described the situation as "particularly drastic" because of poor rainfall.

Trade between the two countries has also fallen because of the Tigray conflict, according to Kenyan authorities. Earlier this year, Kenya and Ethiopia set up the Moyale Ones Stop Border Post, a free trade area to make cross-border business dealings easier.

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta appealed last week for a stop to the war between the forces of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and fighters from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

"The men and women of the government of Ethiopia, led by my dear brother in leadership, Abiy Ahmed, as well as the men and women who constitute the leadership that is fighting the government must find reason to cease the conflict immediately and talk," Kenyatta said in a statement released last Wednesday.
South Sudan's peace deal at risk

The conflict in Ethiopia seems to have indirectly weakened the implementation of a peace deal in neighboring South Sudan.

Ethiopia, in recent years, has played a mediating role between the rival factions of President Salva Kiir and the former opposition leader Riek Machar.

South Sudan's two main peace deals, signed in 2015 and 2018, were both negotiated in Ethiopia.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir holds a copy of a signed peace agreement

In addition, the international community is diverting more time and energy on Ethiopia, says political analyst Boboya James from the Juba-based Institute for Social Policy and Research.

"Traditionally the international community used to urge the government of South Sudan to fully implement the peace agreement, but now it appears their attention has been diverted to resolving the conflict in Ethiopia," James told DW.

"You can see the Americans now spending a lot of time in asking the two factions in Ethiopia to dialogue and bring about peace."

He fears that South Sudan's peace process could become more elusive as Ethiopia's war drags on.

Uncertainty for South Sudanese in Ethiopia

Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing South Sudan's war have taken refuge in Ethiopia's Gambela region on Sudan's western border with Ethiopia.

The communities living on both sides of the border have great cultural affinity and there is a brisk flow of goods across the border there, mainly from Ethiopia into South Sudan.

"The majority of South Sudanese on the border get food from Ethiopia," James said.

So if Ethiopia's war continues, it will "definitely bring economic destabilization to the border between South Sudan and Ethiopia," he said.

Diplomatic efforts

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has called an extraordinary summit of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, known as IGAD, in Kampala on November 16.

Ethiopia is a member of the eight-member bloc which also includes Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti.

IGAD, which helped broker South Sudan's peace deal, is hoping for a similar role in Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts are ongoing to try to resolve the war in Ethiopia.

US and African Union envoys have been holding urgent talks in Ethiopia in search of a cease-fire.

The UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, visited the Tigray region on Sunday, using the occasion to plead for greater access for aid to civilians.

The UN is warning that some 7 million people in Ethiopia, including 5 million in Tigray, are facing famine-like conditions because of the war.

NET ZERO IS NOT ZERO

Net zero by 2050: 9 charts showing the world's progress

The pressure is on for leaders attending the 26th climate conference to prevent global warming from accelerating further, but there is still a long way to go.

The focus has to be on renewables if we are to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)


To reach net zero CO2 and create carbon-neutral economies, countries have to ensure that for all the CO2 they emit, they remove an equal amount from the atmosphere — or not emit any in the first place.
#1 How much do we rely on fossil fuels?

Turning away from coal, oil and gas would be an important first step towards carbon neutrality. However, most economies are still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, while the share of renewables in the mix is growing only slowly.


According to British oil and gas major BP's 2021 Statistical Review of World Energy, the current regional leaders in energy consumption from renewable sources are Norway in Europe (70%), Brazil in the Americas (46%), New Zealand in the Asia & Pacific region (37%), Morocco in Africa (8%) and Israel in the Middle East (5%).

Meanwhile, countries like Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkmenistan still rely on fossil fuels for more than 99% of their energy. At 93%, Poland consumes the highest share of fossil fuel in Europe.

However, the hot spots for coal-fired power plants are located elsewhere. Of the 6,593 operational sites, China is home to 2,990, followed by India (855) and the US (498). Their top three positions are untouched by the fact that they have collectively mothballed, retired and cancelled 3,700 coal-fired plants since 2000, according to the Global Energy Monitor.


To uphold the Paris Agreement, the world needs to withdraw from coal fast. According to the Berlin-based think tank Climate Analytics, it would require an 80% reduction of 2020 levels — around 9,300 terawatt-hours — to 1,700 TWh before the end of the decade.
#2 Where is the energy for heating and electricity coming from?

The overall energy consumption outlined above is divided into three sectors: energy used for transport, electricity and heating.

Heat is the largest energy end use, according to an analysis by Paris-based intergovernmental organization, the International Energy Agency (IEA). "Providing heating for homes, industry and other applications accounts for around half of total energy consumption."

Currently, about 10% of heat is produced from renewable sources and the IEA projects this share will double by 2030.


In shared rental apartment buildings, choosing the energy source used for heating is not always an option, but consumers generally have a choice when it comes to sourcing electricity.

Countries in the Middle East source the smallest share of their electricity from renewables (3%). Other regions like Africa (22%) and particularly South America (66%) fare much better — especially considering that all three regions produce similar amounts of energy.


Electricity generation is also relevant to the transition of the transportation sector to a carbon-neutral future. Electric vehicles would not be climate friendly if the energy used to charge them was generated using fossil fuels.
#3 How is the transport sector changing?

Progress is slow. While overall car sales are declining, the vast majority of those sold are still combustion engine models. Of the 66 million cars sold in 2020, just 4.3% (almost three million vehicles) were electric.


For other means of polluting transportation, such as aviation — which accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions alone — no noteworthy alternatives exist yet. That said, Airbus has said it is planning to develop a zero-emission aircraft for commercial travel by 2035.
#4 How well are we protecting ecosystems?

In short: not well enough. While there have been various forest expansion efforts around the world over the past few decades — peaking between 2000 and 2010, with 10 million new hectares (24.7 million acres) per year — deforestation has occurred at a faster rate.


The net change in forest area over the past number of decades shows how current efforts to plant new trees in South America and Africa fall far short of making up for those felled.


This is particularly noteworthy since both regions have a leading share in the area of forests within protected areas — calling into question how effective protective areas really are.


#5 How has investment in renewables evolved?

Renewables are on an upward trajectory. According to the International Energy Agency, they have attracted more investment than fossil fuels or nuclear in recent years.

DW RECOMMENDS

Climate Change Performance Index: Scandinavians top of the class

CANADA AN EMABARRASSMENT;#61

Climate protection in some countries is improving. 

But the world's 61 biggest emitters are failing to take action needed to stick to 1.5 degrees Celcius warming, according to the latest Climate Change Performance Index.

Renewables are intrinsic to reaching climate goals

Developments in renewable energy expansion, climate policy and a coal phase-out offer reasons to hope, but the pace of transformation is still worryingly slow and far behind what's required to stop runaway global heating, according to this year's Climate Change Performance Index.

The top three spots on the index remained empty again this year as not a single country is on a pathway to keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) — the Paris Agreement threshold for warming — according to an assessment of 60 countries plus the EU, who are collectively responsible for 90% of global CO2 emissions.

German-based NGO Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute, which supports countries to design, evaluate and implement sustainable energy policies, publish the index yearly as a way to compare countries' climate performance using common criteria. Scientists score nations based on CO2 emissions, the percentage of renewables in the energy mix, the pace of clean expansion, and what lawmakers are doing to implement climate change policy.
Scandinavia, the UK and Morocco ahead of the curve

Norway scored the first-ever "very high" in any of the index categories for its progress in renewable energy. And 15 countries were awarded "high" in the overall ratings table that takes in all four categories — that's up from 14 states last year.

Denmark, Sweden and Norway were top of the class, placing fourth, fifth and sixth respectively thanks to the strides made in green energy expansion and climate policy. Scandinavia is a role model for ambitious climate protection, according to the report.


"We're at the beginning of a decade that will mainly be about implementing the climate targets that have been set," said Niklas Höhne of the Cologne-based NewClimate Institute and one of the report's authors. "Denmark, Sweden and Norway, like Great Britain and Morocco, are doing much better than the rest of the world.
Germany moves up to spot 13

France, Luxembourg and Germany have moved into the "green zone" on the index's rating table thanks to improvements in their performance. Europe's economic powerhouse, Germany, had been languishing mid-table since 2013 but has bounced back up the ranks to place 13.

Still, index co-author Jan Burck from Germanwatch warns that it's too early to celebrate as the rating also includes the rather fuzzy climate policy category. The country has set itself ambitious goals but "politics hasn't provided a sufficient answer on how to reach those climate targets."

High per capita emissions and the long-stalled expansion of renewable energy are Germany's main stumbling blocks.

Protest against new powerlines: Germany lags behind in the expansion of renewable energy

"We need a 100-day plan under the new German government right at the beginning of its term and then serious progress across all sectors," said Thea Uhlich from Germanwatch, who co-authored the index. That, she added, includes phasing out coal by 2030, a turbo-charged expansion of green energy sources and emissions cuts in the transport sector.
COP26: Speedier coal phase-out raises hopes

The EU taken as one is at the upper end of the mid-table rankings when it comes to climate performance. But some member states, namely Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic, are performing poorly.

Announcements coming out of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, are raising hopes that could change though, Germanwatch's Jan Burck told DW. Several countries have said they plan to phase out coal within the next 15 years and that is not reflected in the current index.

"Most interestingly, many Eastern European countries that are extremely dependent on coal, including Poland, have signed onto this agreement. And South Africa is coordinating with some Western states like Germany to phase out coal more quickly with their support," Burck said.

Dirty power: Poland's Belchatow coal-fired power plant is one of the biggest in Europe

Under the new plans, these countries could move up the index ranking next year. Right now, South Africa is considered "low" and Poland "very low."

Russia and Australia are trailing behind the US and Algeria at the bottom of the table in the "red" zone. Only South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan perform worse.
China weak, small boost for the USA

The world's biggest emitter China is designated "low" and has slipped four places to 37. High emissions and poor energy efficiency are the biggest problems for the People's Republic. But one area in which it is doing well is renewable energy expansion. At 23rd on the index, it's ahead of Germany.

The first year of Joe Biden's presidency has had some positive impacts on the world's second-largest emitter, the USA. It climbed up from last place to 55 but still has a long way to go. The country scored "very low" in greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy expansion, and energy use.

It was an improved climate policy and the country's new 2030 climate targets that gave the US a bump, said NewClimate Institute's Niklas Höhne.

"We have to see in the coming years whether Biden's policies actually bear fruit," Höhne said.

China is ahead of Germany when it comes to the expansion of green energy sources
Could India slip down the rankings?

There are fears that India is at a turning point for the worse. Currently listed as "good" and in tenth place, the country has benefited from relatively low per capita emissions. But these are on the rise and only strong climate targets coupled with ambitious implementation will prevent it crashing down the index rankings, according to the authors.

Still, the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a revised climate protection plan for 2030 during the World Leaders Summit at the COP26.

"If these new goals are backed up with sector targets and well implemented, India would be well on its way," the index authors wrote.

This article was translated from German

 

'We're pioneers': Barca's La Masia finally opens its doors to women

Agence France-Presse

15h ago

PAU BARRENA / AFP / Getty

Barcelona, Nov 9, 2021 (AFP) - When Claudia Riumallo Pineda wakes up, it does not take her long to know where she is.

From her bedroom window she can see the Johan Cruyff Stadium inside Barcelona's Ciutat Esportiva training ground, where she dreams of one day playing for the women's first team.

She is on the right track. The 18-year-old is one of nine trailblazers who this season became the first female players to enrol at La Masia, Barca's famed football academy and proving ground for the likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez.

Since its opening in 1979 as an old house next to Camp Nou, La Masia has never had female residents.

But the women's team has been knocking on the door for a long time, with Barcelona Femeni winning the Champions League, Liga Femenina and Copa de la Reina last season.

"This year they have given us La Masia, which is a gift," says Claudia, who for years had to travel an hour by car from her town of Girona just to be able to train with girls.

After playing for local rivals Espanyol, she now represents Barca B and in the afternoons studies chemistry at university.

Shaken by financial crisis and the unexpected departure of Messi, most of the good news around the club these days comes from the women's team.

As well as last season's treble, Barca's captain, Alexia Putellas, was chosen as UEFA's best player of the year and is now also nominated, along with four teammates, for the Women's Ballon d'Or.

"It's a huge responsibility because we are the pioneers but it's also nice to know that you are one of the first women to go to La Masia," says Laura Coronado, an 18-year-old goalkeeper.

Coronado's photo, like that of the 105 others at La Masia spread across the club's five professional sports, now hangs in the reception of the more modern complex that took over from the original in 2011.

Gavi, the latest gem of the men's team, arrived when he was eleven years old and continues to live there. The 19-year-old Ansu Fati is also a former resident.

"The good thing we have at this club is the mirror is very clear," explains Markel Zubizarreta, sporting director of Barcelona Femeni. "We just have to look at the men's side to see what we have to aim for."

From strength to strength

In the corridor heading towards the games room is another reminder: a mural on the wall in tribute to the game between Levante and Barca on November 25, 2012.

It was another win that contributed to Barca winning the title that year but also a milestone for La Masia, after Barcelona had 11 homegrown players on the pitch, not to mention the coach, the late Tito Vilanova.

At that time it was difficult to imagine how the female team could find breathing space at a club where the men's team was so dominant - but the women's game continues to go from strength to strength.

In 2020, there were 77,400 licensed female players in Spain, 7.2 percent of all the federated footballers, according to statistics from the Ministry of Sports.

It is still a small figure, but a clear improvement from 2011, when there were only 36,200, 4.3 percent of the total.

"There are many things that are still missing, such as professionalisation in the league," says Coronado.

"We know the salaries are not going to be equal, but we would like to be able to live more comfortably from football, and that's what we're fighting for."

Spain's Ministry for Sport approved the professionalisation of La Liga Femenina in June but negotiations to see it through are proving complicated.

For all

Like many of her generation, Barca defender Jana Fernandez started out playing with boys.

At six years old, she convinced her parents to let her join her local team and, now 19, she has already won the treble. But the road has not been easy.

"I try to remind the girls who are at La Masia now to take advantage as much as possible because I would have loved to be here," explains Fernandez, who combines professional football with a career in advertising.

Women's sport has taken a big leap in recent years, but there is still work to do.

"We want to fight to get more and more for those playing now," says Fernandez. "And for those that are still to come."