'Law and order returned' Hong Kong's US-sanctioned leader says at banking summit

Jerome Taylor and Holmes Chan
Tue, November 1, 2022 


Hong Kong’s US-sanctioned leader insisted Wednesday that political stability and business confidence in the city has been restored following the crushing of democracy protests, as he opened a financial summit attended by global bankers including leading Wall Street executives.

Hong Kong is hosting a week of high-profile events after years of political unrest and pandemic travel curbs tarnished the city's business-friendly reputation, sparked an exodus of talent and battered its economy.

The marquee event at the Four Seasons hotel was heralded by city leader John Lee as proof that the previously shuttered Asian finance hub is back in business.

"We were, we are and we will remain one of the world's leading financial centres. And you can take that to the bank," Lee told delegates.

Lee, a former police officer and security chief who took office this year, is among the Chinese officials sanctioned by Washington for cracking down on rights in Hong Kong after huge democracy protests. These blacklisted individuals are unable to hold accounts with the same banking giants attending the summit.

Most of the city's political opposition are either behind bars or have fled overseas since those protests.

"Social disturbance is clearly in the past, and has given way to stability to growth in business and community confidence in Hong Kong's future," Lee said in his summit speech.

"Law and order has returned. The worst is behind us," he added.

Among those due to speak at the summit are Goldman Sachs head David Solomon, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, Blackrock president Rob Kapito and JP Morgan Chase counterpart Daniel Pinto.

But their presence is not without controversy.

Last week, the leaders of the bipartisan US Congressional-Executive Commission on China called on Wall Street executives not to attend, accusing them of "whitewashing human rights violations" and giving political cover to Lee.

The row illustrates the tightrope faced by multinationals in Hong Kong, which is both a lucrative business gateway for China and a flashpoint in increasingly tense relations between Beijing and Western powers.

"Hong Kong's seamless connection with the mainland affords Hong Kong advantages available to no other economy," Lee declared in his speech.

- Unsettled economic waters -

The summit comes at a time of uncertainty over China's economy under President Xi Jinping.

Xi, who secured a norm-breaking third term last month, has overseen regulatory crackdowns clipping the wings of some major Chinese companies and is still sticking to a strict zero-Covid strategy.

Hong Kong's economy saw gross domestic product plunge 4.5 percent in the third quarter of this year, according to preliminary figures released Tuesday.

Its stock exchange is among the world's worst performers, down more than 50 percent this year to levels last seen in 2009.

Lee's opening speech will be followed by recorded interviews with three mainland officials involved in regulation, including Yi Gang, the governor of China's central bank.

That will be followed by a panel titled "Navigating Through Uncertainty" featuring senior executives from Morgan Stanley, Blackstone, UBS, Goldman Sachs and Bank of China president Liu Jin.

Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan is also expected to give a speech after he was cleared by health officials to attend the conference after testing positive for Covid-19 last week during an overseas trip.

Lee's speech made no mention of the labyrinthine pandemic rules maintained by both China and, to a lesser extent, Hong Kong.

While Hong Kong scrapped mandatory quarantine in September -- a key demand of businesses -- it maintains layers of pandemic restrictions long since abandoned by almost everywhere else.

Overseas arrivals must undergo frequent testing and are unable to go to bars and restaurants for their first three days in the city.

Restrictions on various gatherings remain and masks are compulsory, including outdoors.

In Hong Kong, world bankers urged not to ‘bet against’ China

By: Zen Soo, The Associated Press

Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese regulators downplayed China’s real estate slump and slowing economic growth while Hong Kong’s top leader pitched Hong Kong as a unique link to the rest of China at a high-profile investment summit Wednesday.

About 200 global financial executives gathered to network and discuss issues such as global risks and sustainable finance at Hong Kong’s first major conference since the city lifted COVID-19 quarantine restrictions.

Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, urged those attending to visit China to understand what is happening in the country and urged them not to “bet against” China and Hong Kong.

International media “don’t really understand China very well” and have a “short-term focus,” he said, drawing laughter and applause from the audience.

Fang and other Chinese officials addressed the conference in prerecorded interviews — travel to and from mainland China is constrained by strict quarantine requirements.

China’s central bank governor, Yi Gang, said that inflation remains subdued, at under 3% compared with 8% or more in many Western economies, and the country’s economic and reform policies will continue. Such comments appeared to be meant to counter worries that flared following a Communist Party congress last month, where leader Xi Jinping was awarded an unprecedented third five-year term and key reformers were excluded from top ruling party leadership.

“China has a super ‘long’ market, as there is still much room for urbanization and the demand of middle class consumers is still on the rise,” said Yi.

China’s economy grew at a 3.9% annual pace in the last quarter compared to a year earlier, well below an official target of more than 5%, and the vital real estate sector has languished as regulators have sought to curb debt mounting toward unsustainable levels.

Xiao Yuanqi, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, sought to reassure those attending the conference, saying property loans make up just 26% banks’ total lending and 90% of property loans were “good quality.”

The speakers lineup at the Hong Kong conference includes Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and other leading executives from institutions such as Citigroup and Blackstone.

It is designed to highlight the former British colony’s role as an attractive and competitive financial hub.

The city remains the “only place in the world where the global advantage and the China advantage come together in a single city,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said in opening the event.

“This unique convergence makes Hong Kong the irreplaceable connection between the mainland and the rest of the world as the center of economic gravity in the world shifts eastward,” he said.

The British handed control of Hong Kong to China in 1997 with the understanding that Beijing would allow the tiny territory autonomy in its legal system and economic policies for at least 50 years. In recent years Beijing has been expanding its influence. Such efforts gained momentum after mass protests in 2019 demanding a more democratic system of leadership, culminating in the implementation of a security law designed to quash dissent.

Combined with strict quarantine controls and a sharp downturn in tourism, that has compounded the economic impact from the pandemic.

Lee said the “worst is behind” Hong Kong. A former security chief, he told the conference “law and order has returned” and social disturbances were in the past.

Organizers pushed ahead with the long-planned conference despite tropical storm warnings that led authorities to close schools.

As tropical storm Nalgae drew closer to the city, the Hong Kong Observatory said that it would raise its T8 signal in the afternoon, which would effectively shut down the city and stop trading on the stock market.

Hong Kong pulled out all the stops for the financial conference, adjusting COVID-19 restrictions to allow participants to dine in at specific restaurants. Most other inbound travelers are banned from doing so for three days after they arrive in the city.

Attendees who test positive for COVID-19 are allowed to leave by chartered flights if they want to, instead of having to be isolated for at least seven days in Hong Kong.

Some U.S. lawmakers have urged American companies not to participate in the meeting given tensions with China over trade and human rights. The U.S. has been vocal about Hong Kong’s crackdown on dissent following implementation of the National Security Law.

Marine Scientist Almost Dives into Shark’s Mouth in Viral Video

Anna Kaplan

Tue, November 1, 2022 

Ocean Ramsey, a marine conservationist, says she's been swimming with sharks for so long, it feels like she's grown up with some of them.

So when Queen Nikki, a 16-foot tiger shark, jumped out of the water and bit at Ramsey's fins in a now viral video, the shark scientist laughed and greeted her by saying, "Hi Nikki! Aww..."

"I love that tiger shark," Ramsey told TODAY. "I grew up with that tiger shark, I think we were teenagers at the same time. And so I’ve known her for over 20 years."

Ramsey described the incident that occurred in Hawaii last week in an interview with TODAY, saying she went into the water too fast and Nikki "totally reacted to that."

"I saw her and she was she was close enough, with enough speed, that it looked like she was actually going at maybe my fin tips," Ramsey said. "There (were) a bunch of little schooling fish under, so I could see her speed and I knew that I needed to back off in that moment."

Ramsey waited for a few seconds before diving into the water, as she does nearly every day as part of her work in shark research and conservation. She also takes regular people into the water to help educate them about shark behavior.

"It’s just, like, 'That's Nikki,' you know, Queen Nikki, and she's such a fun and interactive shark," she said. "We were actually really excited for that moment. And I was just so excited to see her."

The shark scientist said she just wants people to know that sharks deserve respect.

"They are wild animals," Ramsey said. "They are apex predators, but they’re not monsters. And that’s what I want to make sure it doesn’t come across."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com

A way to get solar energy — no rooftop panels required — is making headway in Illinois: ‘Community solar is about to explode’




Nara Schoenberg, Chicago Tribune
Mon, October 31, 2022 

CHICAGO — There are no shiny black solar panels on the roof of his condo building, but Paul Dickerson is enjoying the benefits of clean energy just the same.

Dickerson, 73, of Oak Park, Illinois, has signed up for what is known in Illinois as community solar — a program in which residents subscribe to nearby solar farms, reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and receiving discounts on their electric bills.

Brandishing charts of their electricity costs during a recent interview, Dickerson and his fellow members of the building’s green committee, Elaine Johnson and Art Spooner, said they’re all paying less with community solar, as is their 28-unit building, which is saving about $40 a month on electricity for its common spaces.

“Try it you’ll like it,” Dickerson said. “You’ll save money and you’ll feel good about saving the planet — at least a little bit.”

Increasingly popular in Illinois, community solar was pioneered on the West Coast in the mid-2000s as a way to bring clean energy to the many American households — almost 50% by some estimates — that don’t have access to solar panels, often because residents can’t afford them, don’t own their homes or don’t get enough sun on their roofs.

The solar energy in community solar doesn’t actually flow into your home, but it flows into your area’s power grid, providing electricity to homes and businesses in your region of the state, and you reap the benefits of government solar incentives in the form of lower electricity bills.

Community solar is gaining ground in states such as New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maine and Illinois, which in 2021 had enough community solar to power about 44,000 homes, up from 17,000 homes in 2020.

“Community solar is about to explode in terms of access and truly being able to see it everywhere and in your community,” said Nicole Steele, a senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy’s solar technologies office. “It’s just another way to help in the clean energy transition, be part of the clean energy transition, and see the actual benefits.”

Community solar is taking off at a time when many states and the federal government have committed to ambitious plans to move to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with solar (in all its forms) expected to eventually generate up to about 45% of our electricity.

In interviews with the Tribune, some Chicago-area early adopters complained that they receive two electric bills a month under community solar — one from ComEd and one from a solar farm — a system they find cumbersome and difficult to understand.

But those with the time and skills to drill down on the numbers said they were satisfied with what they found, and a watchdog told the Tribune that in all the Illinois cases she knows of but one — an apparent billing error — customers really are seeing financial savings.

“Community solar is one of those things here in Illinois that might sound too good to be true,” said Sarah Moskowitz, deputy director of the Citizens Utility Board, an Illinois consumer advocacy group. “But for once, CUB is here to assure people that you can actually save money, and it’s a great program.”

A longtime environmentalist, Spooner put “installing solar panels on the roof” at the top of his to-do list when he retired from his job as a manufacturing and quality manager in 2016.

Unfortunately, his home at the time had a clay-tile roof.

Seated in the carefully restored lobby of his Greek Revival condo building — a former YMCA with two-story limestone columns — Spooner chuckled at the memory.

“The (solar panel) companies said they never did solar panels on clay tiles before. And it’s like, c’mon, what kind of song and dance are you givin’ me?” he said.

Dickerson smiled. “They certainly have it in California,” the retired electrical engineer said dryly.

Spooner looked for alternatives and found community solar but couldn’t subscribe. The option wasn’t yet widely available in Illinois.

“The more I learned, the more frustrating it got,” he said.

When the village of Oak Park offered a community solar option to residents, he finally got his chance. He and his wife signed up in 2020, as did Johnson, a retired school and children’s librarian, and her husband.

Dickerson and his wife opted to consider the plans available to the general public and went with Nexamp.

Spooner and Dickerson calculate they’re saving about 10% on their total electric bills, when taxes, fees and delivery charges are included.

“You can see here, this is for the condo association and this is for our unit,” said Dickerson, pointing to a graph he had printed out. “I save between $3 and $4 a month, depending on which month it is and which 12-month period I’m averaging, and the condo saves $40 a month.”

Community solar plans benefit Illinois utilities like ComEd, which are required to obtain 40% of their electric power from renewable resources by 2030 and 50% by 2040. To meet those state requirements, utilities purchase certificates that represent the environmental benefits of renewable energy. Community solar farms are one source of those certificates.

Illinois offers particularly strong consumer protections for low- and moderate-income residents who sign up for community solar through the state’s Illinois Solar for All program. Participants in this program, who must meet income eligibility requirements, can’t be charged upfront costs and must get a discount of at least 50% on the portion of their electricity covered by the credit on their ComEd bill. (The credit covers a large portion of the electricity used but generally not quite all of it due to factors such as variations in the amount of energy the customer uses and variations in the total energy produced by the solar farm.)

Higher-income people who sign up for community solar under what is known as Illinois Shines don’t get a guaranteed level of savings. But they do get several other important customer protections, according to Illinois Power Agency consumer protection counsel Rachel Granneman.

Approved vendors, who are listed at the Illinois Shines website, have to meet a range of state requirements, including a standard disclosure form solar farms have to give to consumers. The form allows consumers to make side-by-side comparisons of offers from companies. In addition, contracts have to include relevant information such as prices and fees. And misrepresentations — such as overstating customer savings — are prohibited.

“We have a hotline and an email address and a complaint form on our website,” said Granneman. “If there are issues a customer can’t resolve with their approved vendor we may take disciplinary action.”

The Illinois Power Agency, which administers state programs supporting the development of new solar energy, has the power to suspend community solar farms from its programs, which offer significant financial incentives.

In theory, a solar vendor could offer you a subscription that would cost you more than staying with ComEd, but in practice, Granneman and CUB’s Moskowitz said they aren’t seeing that.

At this point, all of the community solar offers that Granneman is seeing are set up in the same way: Customers get 10% to 20% off the electricity covered by the credit on their utility bill. She isn’t seeing a separate subscriber fee — although there’s nothing to prevent companies from charging that additional fee, as long as they disclose that they are doing so.

Moskowitz said she has only seen one case of a person in Illinois paying more under community solar than they would have otherwise — and that was due to an apparent error in calculating the person’s energy needs.

“So far, so good,” Moskowitz said.

In northern Illinois, community solar customers generally get an initial bill from ComEd, with a credit equal to most of the electricity they have used. You don’t pay for the energy covered by the credit, just for the other portions of your ComEd bill.

Then comes step 2: a bill from your community solar company. At this point, you actually do pay for the electricity covered by the credit on your ComEd bill, but typically at a 10% to 20% discount. The difference between what you would have paid for electricity under ComEd, and what you end up paying under community solar, is your savings.

For instance, you might get a credit for $50 of electricity on your ComEd bill. You wouldn’t pay ComEd for any of that electricity; instead, you’d pay your solar company, but at a discount. So you’d save about 10% to 20% of $50, or $5 to $10.

Find that confusing? You’re not alone.

“It’s not very transparent to me,” said Kay Perry of Oak Park. A beamline scientist who works at Argonne National Laboratory, Perry signed up when Oak Park offered a community solar option to residents.

She said she feels good about supporting clean energy but doesn’t like the two-part billing process and had trouble signing up, in part because her workplace computer is behind a strong firewall. She’d like to see community solar offered the same way wind energy was offered under a previous Oak Park program, with just one easy-to-understand bill showing the discounted electricity rate.

“You have to make it as easy as possible for people if you want them to do it — lower that activation energy,” Perry said.

Laurel Passera, senior director for policy and regulatory affairs at the Coalition for Community Solar Access, acknowledged that Illinois’ community solar model is “rather complex,” but she said it has its advantages, including that it’s less contentious and more acceptable to utilities.

“We spent months and months diving into the details on this to make sure it worked for all the parties,” she said of talks in 2016 and 2021 involving industry, utilities, diversity advocates and advocates for low-income consumers.

Passera added that auto-pay can eliminate the need to deal with two separate bills.

With community solar on the rise in Illinois, there are now credible online sources that can help you compare the various options. CUB, for instance, breaks down Illinois community solar offers on its website.

EnergySage, an online comparison-shopping marketplace that has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, offers customer ratings of local community solar plans.

Moskowitz said she advises those comparing community solar plans to consider the length of the contract, whether there’s an exit fee if you leave early, and how much you’ll save on electricity. The best deals she’s seeing offer 20% off the ComEd rate for electricity.

You may also want to check whether the community solar company accepts checks or electronic payments, and whether automatic billing is required.

“We want people to be cautious, read the contract, and call us if they have any questions and let us know if they have any issues,” said Moskowitz. “We haven’t heard of issues, really, but if there are we want to be on top of them.”

When it comes to protecting the planet, Johnson, Spooner and Dickerson are accustomed to being ahead of the curve.

Dickerson traces his commitment to protecting the natural world back to his days as a Boy Scout, when leaders emphasized that you should “leave no trace” in the forest.

For Spooner, the first Earth Day, in 1970, made an impression.

“I was a senior in college and they said, ‘Think globally, act locally,’ ” recalled Spooner. “I was like ‘Well, I can kind of manage that.’ ”

After experiences such as sorting recyclables in the 1980s (Dickerson), forgoing harmful detergents in the 1960s (Johnson) and volunteering with an interfaith environmental group (Spooner), subscribing to community solar wasn’t a big leap. And even in their larger community at their condo building, the program was a fairly easy sell, Dickerson said.

Residents wanted information, he said, so members of the condo association’s green committee called solar company representatives and made a chart.

The big pushback was on the issue of contracts, which can be as long as 20 years, so the condo association went with a company that allowed them to cancel their contract with no penalty.

Now, the building’s green newsletter, edited by Johnson, is trumpeting community solar savings, and the green committee is moving on to other projects, including electric vehicle chargers and composting.

“As a parent and then a grandparent, it’s kind of like a legacy,” Johnson said of this work. “How could I do something that’s bad for the world in which my grandchildren are going to live?”

THE THING OF CONSPIRACY NIGHTMARES

Wild Experiments Are Trying to Bounce Radio Signals Off the Moon and Jupiter

Passant Rabie
Mon, October 31, 2022 

The facility’s antenna array includes 180 antennas spread across 33 acres.

An antenna field in Alaska that’s spawned no shortage of conspiracy theories has been carrying out a series of experiments that include sending radio signals to the Moon and Jupiter and waiting for pings back.

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) kicked off a 10-day science campaign that ran through October 28. On the agenda were 13 experiments that are pushing the limits of what the facility can do. “The October research campaign is our largest and most diverse to date, with researchers and citizen scientists collaborating from across the globe,” Jessica Matthews, HAARP’s program manager, said in a release.

HAARP is made up of 180 high-frequency antennas, each standing at 72 feet tall, stretched across 33 acres near Gakona, Alaska. The research facility transmits radio beams toward Earth’s ionosphere, the ionized part of the atmosphere that’s located about 50 to 400 miles (80 to 600 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. The ionosphere is filled with electrically charged particles, a result of being blasted by solar energy. HAARP sends radio signals to the ionosphere and waits to see how they return, in an effort to measure the disturbances caused by the Sun, among other things.

In one recent experiment, known as the “Moon Bounce,” a group of researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Owens Valley Radio Observatory, and the University of New Mexico transmitted a signal from the HAARP antennas in Alaska to the Moon and then waited to receive a reflected signal back at the observatory sites in California and New Mexico.

The purpose of the experiment is to study how the three facilities in Alaska, California, and New Mexico can work together for the future observations of near-Earth asteroids. The facility may be able to transmit a signal to an asteroid flying by Earth and receive a signal back that will hint at the space rock’s composition.

Another experiment sent a radio beam to Jupiter, currently located about 374 million miles (600 million kilometers) from Earth. The hope is that the beam would reflect off Jupiter’s ionosphere and then be received at the New Mexico site.

The Jupiter experiment is run by the John Hopkins Applied Physics Labarotory and aims to provide a new way of observing the ionospheres of other planets. Considering how far Jupiter is from Earth, this experiment is a true test of HAARP’s signal-transmitting capabilities.

Another experiment is more on the artsy side. “Ghosts in the Air Glow” beamed video, images, spoken word, and sound art to the ionosphere and waited for the signal to bounce back to test the transitional boundary of the atmosphere.

HAARP was originally a project of the U.S. Air Force to study solar flares, which can disrupt Earth’s communications and electric grid. But in 2015, the Air Force decided it was no longer interested in maintaining HAARP, and ownership transferred to the University of Alaska. While it was under the purview of the Air Force, HAARP inspired some wild conspiracy theories, including that its antennas were being used to alter the weather, create deadly hurricanes, and even control minds.

More from Gizmodo

Extreme Heat Is Stressing Cows, Imperiling Global Dairy Supply

Elizabeth Elkin and Pratik Parija
Tue, November 1, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Heat and drought are inflicting perilous strain on dairy cows across the globe, drying up their milk production and threatening the long-term global supply of everything from butter to baby formula.

Volumes of dairy are forecast to sink by nearly half a million metric tons this year in major exporter Australia as farmers exit the industry after years of pressure from heat waves. In India, small-scale farmers are contemplating investing in cooling equipment they’d have to stretch to afford. And producers in France had to pause making one type of high-quality cheese when parched fields left grass-fed cows with nowhere to graze.

Some of the world’s biggest milk-making regions are becoming less hospitable to these animals due to extreme weather brought on by climate change: Cows don’t yield as much milk under the stress of scorching temperatures, and arid conditions and storms compound the problem by withering or destroying the grass and other crops they eat.

In the US alone, some scientists estimate climate change will cost the dairy industry $2.2 billion per year by the end of the century — a financial hit not easily shouldered by a sector that already struggles to make money. If greenhouse gas emissions remain high, one study estimates that the dairy and meat industries will lose $39.94 billion per year to heat stress by that same date.

At the same time, a swelling middle class in many developing nations is adding to demand for dairy items, while policies aimed at helping the environment are discouraging farmers in some areas from expanding their production. That collision portends higher prices and potential shortages of grocery-list staples such as cream cheese or yogurt.

“Climate change adds to the volatility or the variation in your supply, and the knock-on effect to that can be increased food insecurity,” said Mary Ledman, global dairy strategist at Rabobank.

Cows Under Stress

Despite expensive efforts to keep their cattle cool, dairy farmers can’t escape the impact heat has on their herds.

Tom Barcellos, who has been raising and milking the animals for 45 years in Tipton, California, has a complex cooling system at his farm. Complete with fans and misting machines, it even plans around the direction of the wind. But he finds warm nights can sap production.

"If you have higher temperatures in the evening, and it's a little more stressful on the cows, there's a potential to lose 15%, or maybe even 20%, in the most extreme cases," said Barcellos, who has 1,800 cows.

It's a similar story on the other side of the world, where Sharad Bhai Harendra Bhai Pandya and his brother have more than 40 cows in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

Pandya houses his cattle in a shed with a fogger system, which pumps in water and converts it to mist. But he still sees milk production at his farm decline more than 30% during the sweltering heat of summer.

Rising temperatures are likely to make such conditions a reality for more farmers, for longer stretches of time. That makes for difficult investment decisions.

Ranu Bhai Bharvad, a dairy farmer in India, doesn't even own a shelter for his herd of 35 animals. His cattle only have the shade of a neem tree to fend off heat stress.

"I can't afford to build a shed for my cattle," said Bharvad, who supports his family of 15 with the profits from his farm.

Bharvad is hardly unique: India is by far the world's biggest milk producer, accounting for almost a quarter of all supplies. Its massive volumes are produced in large part by tens of millions of small farmers who maintain modest numbers of animals.

Amul Dairy, which buys milk from Bharvad and other farmers like him, is responding to the challenging conditions by taking steps to protect supply.

“During winter when production is more, we conserve extra milk in [the form] of powder and use that defense in case of deficit during the summer,” said RS Sodhi, the managing director of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., which owns the Amul brand.

Australia’s Drought

Australia, the driest inhabited continent on Earth, offers a preview of how the global dairy industry could crack under the pressure of climate change.

The country was once a heavyweight in the business, but milk production has trended sharply downwards and its share of global dairy trade has dropped from 16% in the 1990s to around 6% in 2018.

The downscaling was fueled by a succession of extreme heat waves, including a drought that lasted from 1997 to 2010 and another that spanned 2017 to 2020. The more recent one was the nation’s worst on record, and the pressure it put on prices for water and cattle feed squeezed farmers’ bottom lines. Those difficult business conditions added to a mass exodus from the sector: The number of dairy farms Down Under shrunk by almost three quarters from 1980 to 2020.

Now, dairy farmers still face the risk of punishing weather, but fresh pressures have been layered on that are driving still more of them out of the business. In 2022, Australia's milk volumes are forecast to sink by more than 4% to 8.6 million metric tons, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The USDA says that reflects dry conditions in key milk-producing regions, but also challenges associated with worker shortages, including some farmers opting to switch to beef cattle production, which is less labor-intensive.

Government policies, too, could end up weighing on global dairy production. In neighboring New Zealand, the world’s biggest dairy exporter, farmers will start paying a levy on agricultural emissions by 2025. While dairy farmers have done much to mitigate emissions, necessities such as manure, fertilizer and feed production still make them fairly heavy emitters of greenhouse gases. Farm groups are sounding the alarm that the tax might nudge dairy producers to repurpose their land for forestry or other uses.

French Cheese

The challenges facing dairy farmers are already affecting availability of certain products. In France, a type of premium cheese called Salers isn’t being produced this year. It must be made using milk from cows that are grass-fed — a hurdle when pastures were destroyed as a heat wave swept the country this year.

While the absence of fancy cheese is hardly an emergency, similar production issues could roil the market on a grander scale amid extreme temperatures.

“If you’re talking about a five- to 15-year time horizon, we will probably see production peak and flatten out in regions with a lack of water,” said Nate Donnay, director of dairy market insight at StoneX Group Inc. “In the 15- to 30-year horizon, we could see production trend lower in those regions.”

All of this could mean higher prices or even shortages of some dairy products.

Melvin Medeiros, a farmer in the leading US dairy producer, California, says extreme weather is likely to reshape farming operations in his state over the next decade. He expects to see fewer cows and a reduction in farmable land — a dynamic he partially chalks up to a lack of government intervention.

“We've failed to address a situation that's been occurring for over 50 years,” said Medeiros. “Now our back’s against the wall, and we have no other option, but to reduce production or do something to address the current situation.”

--With assistance from Sybilla Gross, Diego Lasarte, Andrea Bossi, Vivian Iroanya and Megan Durisin.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

CANADA

Milk price expected to increase for 2023 amid rising costs

Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press

Milk prices in Canada are expected to go up again in the new year. 

The Canadian Dairy Commission said Tuesday it has approved an increase in farm gate milk prices of about 2.2 per cent, or just under two cents per litre, effective Feb. 1, 2023.

The Crown corporation, which oversees Canada's dairy supply management system, said the increase is based on the rising cost of production.

It comes after the commission approved two price hikes in 2022: A 2.5 per cent increase, or roughly two cents per litre, in September and an 8.4 per cent increase, or six cents per litre, in February. 

Altogether, the total 12-month farm gate milk price increases amount to roughly 10 cents per litre, or 13.1 per cent.

The increase planned for February will become official once approved by provincial authorities.

The price hike will see all dairy products — including butter, cheese, ice cream and yogurt — increase in price though some products will be affected more than others. 

"It applies to all products but not all products will be impacted the same way because they use a different mix of fat and protein in the final recipe," said Matthew Gaudreau, the dairy commission's director of policy and economics.

 "The 2.2 per cent applies to milk going into all dairy products, but it won't impact all dairy products in the same way."

The farm gate milk price is just one factor that goes into the retail price of milk, he added. 

Other factors along the supply chain could affect the final product price of dairy products, Gaudreau said. 

His comments came during a virtual news conference to discuss the approved price increase — the first time the commission has presented its decisions in such a format. 

Jennifer Hayes, chairperson of the Canadian Dairy Commission, said the decision to hold a news briefing comes in response to public requests for more transparency. 

"Canadians in general and the media have been asking for more openness on the part of the dairy commission — who we are, what we do, our processes, what our role is in the supply management system — so this is really in response to that," she said.

"We hope that we're rising to meet that particular need and challenge."

EGYPT, ETHIOPIA, DAM, WAR

Nile is in mortal danger, from its source to the sea


Menna ZAKI in Sudan, Grace MITSIKO in Uganda and Bassem ABOUALABBAS and Sarah BENHAIDA in Egypt

Tue, November 1, 2022 


The pharaohs worshipped it as a god, the eternal bringer of life. But the clock is ticking on the Nile.

Climate change, pollution and exploitation by man are putting existential pressure on the world's second longest river, on which half a billion people depend for survival.

All along its 6,500-kilometre (4,000-mile) length, alarm bells are ringing.

From Egypt to Uganda, AFP teams have gone out on the ground to gauge the decline of a river that drains a tenth of the African continent.

At its mouth on the Mediterranean, Sayed Mohammed is watching Egypt's fertile Nile Delta disappear. In Sudan, fellow farmer Mohammed Jomaa fears for his harvests, while at its threatened source in Uganda, there is less and less hydroelectric power for Christine Nalwadda Kalema to light her mud and wattle home.

"The Nile is the most important thing for us," said Jomaa, who at 17 is the latest generation of his family to work the river's rich banks at Alty in Gezira state.

"We certainly do not wish for anything to change," he said.

But the Nile is no longer the unperturbable river of myth. In half a century its flow has dropped from 3,000 cubic metres (10,600 cubic feet) per second to 2,830 cubic metres.

Yet it could get much, much worse. With multiple droughts in east Africa, its flow could fall by 70 percent, according to the United Nations' most dire predictions.


Every year for the past six decades, the Mediterranean has eaten away between 35 and 75 metres (38-82 yards) of the Nile Delta. If the sea level rises even by a metre, a third of this intensely fertile region could disappear, the UN fears, forcing nine million people from their homes.

What was once a bread basket has become the third most vulnerable place on the planet to climate change.

Lake Victoria, the Nile's biggest source of water after rainfall, could also dry up due to drought, evaporation and slow tilts in the Earth's axis.

With such grim scenarios in store, governments have scrambled to capture its flow. But experts say dams are only hastening the coming catastrophe.

- Land lost to sea -

At the mouth of the Nile, the promontories of Damietta and Rosetta that once stuck out into the Mediterranean in northern Egypt have disappeared.

The concrete barriers that were supposed to protect them are half covered by water and sand.


The sea ate three kilometres into the Nile Delta between 1968 and 2009, with the river's weaker flow unable to hold back the Mediterranean, which rose some 15 centimetres (six inches) over the last century due to climate change.

The silt that for millennia formed a barrier to protect the land no longer makes it to the sea.

This rich dark sediment that was once swept along the river's bed has struggled to get beyond southern Egypt since the Aswan dam was built in the 1960s to regulate the Nile's floods.

Before its construction "there was a natural balance", Ahmed Abdel Qader, the head of Egypt's coast protection authority, told AFP.

"Every Nile flood would deposit silt bulking up the promontories at Damietta and Rosetta. But this balance has been disturbed by the dam," he said.

If temperatures keep rising, the Mediterranean will advance a further 100 metres a year into the Delta, the UN's environment agency UNEP has warned.

- Poisoned by salt -

Fifteen kilometres inland, the bustling farming community of Kafr El-Dawar seems as yet far from danger.

But all is not well, said Sayed Mohammed, 73, who supports his 14 children and grandchildren growing rice and corn in fields sandwiched between the Nile and a road cacophonous with car horns.

Salt from the Mediterranean has already seeped into large swathes of land, killing and weakening plants. Farmers say their vegetables no longer taste the same.

To compensate for the salination of the soil, they have to pump more fresh water onto it from the Nile.

For 40 years Mohammed and his neighbours used pumps that guzzled diesel and electricity. The cost strangled villagers whose income was already being eaten up by inflation and devaluations of the Egyptian pound.

So much so that in some parts of the Delta fields were abandoned.

But the old man, who sports a djellaba and a traditional woollen cap, has been helped by a new irrigation system driven by solar energy which aims to increase farmers' incomes to stop more people fleeing the land.

Thanks to the 400 solar panels the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization financed for Kafr El-Dawar, he can water his half hectare (1.2 acres) of ground.

Solar power saves "farmers about 50 percent" of pumping costs, local irrigation chief Amr al-Daqaq told AFP. And they can also sell the surplus power the panels produce to the national grid.

Even so, none of Mohammed's descendants want to take on the farm.

For the Mediterranean may eventually swallow up 100,000 hectares of the region's prime agricultural land, according to UNEP, covering an area nearly 10 times the size of Paris.

Which would be a disaster for Egypt, with the Delta the source of between 30 and 40 percent of the nation's agricultural output.

- Power cuts -

All but three percent of Egypt's 104 million people live along the river on just eight percent of the country's territory. It is a similar story in neighbouring Sudan, with half its 45 million people living along its banks, and the Nile supplying two-thirds of its water.

By 2050 the population of both countries will have doubled, and it will be two or three degrees hotter.

The UN's group of climate experts, the IPCC, say the impact on the Nile will be catastrophic. They predict it will lose 70 percent of its flow by the end of the century, with the water supply available to every person along it plummeting to a third of what they have now.

Floods and other violent storms likely to lash East Africa as the climate warms will only make up 15 to 25 percent of that lost water, the IPCC has warned.

Which will leave the 10 countries who rely on the Nile for their crops and power in dire straits.

More than half of Sudan's power comes from hydroelectricity, with 80 percent of Uganda's generated from the river.

It is thanks to the Nile that Christine Nalwadda Kalema, a 42-year-old single mother, can light her humble shop and home in a poor part of the village of Namiyagi near Lake Victoria.

- Source threatened -

But the electricity that radically changed her life in 2016 may not last, said Revocatus Twinomuhangi, from Makerere University's Center for Climate Change in Kampala.

"If we have a reduction in rainfall... it will translate into reduced hydroelectric power potential," he said.

Already over "the last five to 10 years we have seen an increase in the frequency and intensity of drought, intense rainfall and flooding and also heat intensity, so it is becoming hotter and hotter".

Indeed, Lake Victoria could disappear entirely within the next 500 years, according to a study by British and American scientists based on geological data from the last 100,000 years.

But for Kalema, who grows bananas, manioc and coffee in her little garden to feed her family, such statistics remain abstract.

What concerns her are more and more frequent power cuts.

"Because of the cuts my son struggles to keep up with his homework. He has to read before nightfall," she said, dressed in colourful local "kitenge" cloth. "Candles are very expensive to me as a single mother with limited income."

- Mega dams -

More than half of Ethiopia's 110 million people have no choice but to live without electricity despite the country's having one of the fastest growth rates in Africa.

Addis Ababa is hoping that its GERD mega dam project on the Nile will remedy that, and is ready to burn bridges with its neighbours if it has to.

Begun in 2011, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile -- which joins the White Nile in Sudan to form the Nile -- already holds nearly a third of its 74-billion-cubic-metre capacity.

Addis Ababa claims it is the biggest hydroelectric project in Africa.

"The Nile is a gift of God given to us for Ethiopians to make use of it," Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed insisted in August.

But for Cairo it is a major headache, calling into question a deal signed with Sudan in 1959 which gave 66 percent of the Nile's annual flow to Egypt and 22 percent to Khartoum.

Although Ethiopia was not part of the accord, advisers to former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi publicly floated bombing the dam back in 2013 to protect Cairo's vital interests.

The Egypt of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi still fears a drastic fall in the Nile's flow because of the GERD dams.

And how much water Egypt is losing has sparked a heated debate within the scientific community, with some Egyptian researchers who minimise the effects accused of "betraying" their country.

- Disappearing silt -

But having already seen how the Aswan dam has reduced the flow of silt, farmers worry about being deprived of this precious natural fertiliser.

Over the years, Sudanese farmer Omar Abdelhay has found it harder and harder to grow the cucumbers, aubergines and potatoes in his luxuriantly green fields watered by the brown Nile water that passes close by his mud-brick home.

Eight years ago when this 35-year-old father began to cultivate his family's land, "there was good silt" to nurture his crops, he told AFP.

But little by little as dam-building has increased, "the water has got clearer. Even if the water level rises" during floods, it "comes without silt", he added.

Stuck in a political and economic slump, and with ongoing protests against its military leaders, Sudan is struggling to manage its water resources.

- Stalked by hunger -

Every year the country is lashed by rainstorms that killed 150 people this summer and washed away entire villages. But the deluges are no help to its agriculture because of the lack of a system to store and recycle rainwater.

Famine now threatens a third of its people despite Sudan long being a major player in world markets for peanuts, cotton and gum arabic.

Modest irrigation canals built during the colonial era mean even a small flow is enough to water its fertile land. But the development of this system through the Gezira Scheme has been long delayed.


Vast fields cultivated under the corrupt command economy of dictator Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown in 2019, have fallen fallow, and in their place families grow peppers and cucumbers on small parcels of land.

Sudan, like other countries along the Nile -- and many other east African states -- is near the bottom of Notre Dame University's GAIN rankings, which measure resilience to climate change.

For Callist Tindimugaya, of Uganda's ministry of water and the environment, rising temperatures will impact not just the country's ability to feed itself but to generate electricity to power homes and industry.

"Short heavy rains can cause flooding. Long dry periods will bring loss of water... And you cannot survive without water," he said.

gm-bam-mz/sbh/dp/fg/smw

What mortgage owners need to know about the Bank of Canada rate hike

Daniel Johnson , BNN Bloomberg

The Bank of Canada’s latest interest rate hikes will continue to impact some Canadians looking to pay off their mortgage, according to one expert. 

On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada increased its policy rate by half a point to 3.75 per cent, marking its sixth consecutive interest rate increase. In the central bank’s most recent Monetary Policy Report, it said individuals renewing a mortgage are seeing some of the largest increases in borrowing costs over any tightening cycle of the past 30 years.

In the report, the central bank noted that a homeowner looking to renew a five-year fixed-rate mortgage, obtained in October of 2017, would now face a mortgage rate around 1.5 to two percentage points higher. 

Amid the recent hike, Rob McLister, a mortgage strategist with MortgageLogic.news, said individuals who have an adjustable-rate mortgage might experience their payments increase. 

“People with an adjustable rate mortgage, that's the floating rate mortgages with payments floating to prime, there's an almost 50 per cent hike in many cases if they got a mortgage in the last year or so,” McLister said. 

Many individuals with a variable rate mortgage, where the payment is fixed, may experience their trigger rate being hit, according to McLister. The trigger rate is hit when a mortgage owner's regular payment no longer covers the interest accrued since the previous payment. 

“So the bank or the lender is going to increase their payment to at least cover the interest due and in some cases, depending on the lender's policy, they might raise the payment even more,” McLister said.

The impact on fixed-rate mortgage owners will depend largely on when they are renewing or refinancing, he said. 

Currently, McLister said there has been a 25-basis-point dip in the five-year bond yield after the central bank’s announcement. 

McLister said the five-year yield is coming down based on expectations set by the Bank of Canada. The central bank stated Wednesday that it anticipates growth to slow for the remainder of the year. 

“So what that means for mortgages is there's less upward pressure on fixed mortgage rates right now,” he said. 

Individuals with a home equity line of credit (HELOC) could experience sharp payment increases, according to McLister. At the beginning of March, he said there were various lenders offering HELOCs at 2.45 per cent. He said that effective Thursday, that rate will hit 5.95 per cent. 

“Per $100,000 of HELOC down, you're looking at a roughly a $204 a month payment back on March 1 before the rate hike cycle began. And now we're going up to $496 effective tomorrow, assuming you have a HELOC at prime,” McLister said. 

“So that’s…[around a] two and a half times increase in your interest-only payment on a HELOC in about eight months. That's incredible,” he said.

Embracer Group shuts down Montreal video game studio

Jason Schreier, Bloomberg News

Video game publisher Embracer Group AB is shutting down Onoma, a Montreal, Canada-based video game studio that it acquired just months ago.

Onoma, formerly known as Square Enix Montreal, was best known for creating the Go series of mobile games such as Hitman Go.  The company informed employees Tuesday that some staff would be transferred to a sister studio, Eidos Montreal, said people familiar with the situation.

A representative for Embracer confirmed Tuesday that the company is closing Onoma and said the move would impact around 200 employees.

The shutdown is unusual because of the timing. Onoma was purchased in May and on Oct. 10 announced a new name and branding.

Sweden-based Embracer has been on a video game industry shopping spree, buying companies both big and small over the past few years. Onoma was part of a large acquisition earlier this year, alongside Eidos Montreal, San Francisco-based Crystal Dynamics and a handful of franchises including Tomb Raider and Deus Ex.

The move appears to be part of a larger cost-cutting initiative. Eidos Montreal has reduced the scope of one unannounced project and will cancel another one, said the people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The company also plans to work with Microsoft Corp. to help develop some games, including one in the Fable franchise led by U.K.-based Playground Games.

Canadians have never felt worse about their

finances, poll shows

Theophilos Argitis, Bloomberg News

Canadians say their personal finances haven’t been this bad in more than a decade, as they cope with falling prices for homes and rising prices for everything else.

In weekly polling by Nanos Research for Bloomberg News, 47 per cent of respondents said their finances have worsened over the past year. 

That’s the highest-ever reading for this question in surveys going back to 2008, surpassing the depths of the pandemic and the global financial crisis. Only 13 per cent said their finances have improved.

Every week, Nanos Research surveys 250 Canadians for their views on personal finances, job security, the economy and real estate prices. Bloomberg publishes four-week rolling averages of the 1,000 telephone responses.

Highlights from the latest data:

• The Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index, a measure of sentiment derived from the polling, declined for a ninth straight week to 42.1, the lowest on record outside of the last two economic crises.
• Canadians are extremely pessimistic about the outlook for the economy, with 64 per cent saying they expect it to deteriorate over the next six months and only 9 per cent seeing an improvement.
• Sentiment around real estate has been sliding since March, when interest rates began to rise; 40 per cent of Canadians currently anticipate falling home prices over the next six months. That’s little changed from last week but is well above the single-digit levels from earlier this year.
• Job security remains at about historic averages, with 13 per cent of respondents saying they are at least somewhat concerned about losing their job.