World ‘sleepwalking into nuclear war’: What Doomsday Clock reveals

World News

Published on Nov 06, 2022 

Doomsday Clock: The clock was established in 1945 by the

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Doomsday Clock: The world is moving closer to a nuclear war. (File)

ByMallika Soni

A "Doomsday Clock" which measures how close humanity is to its end has warned that the world is "sleepwalking into nuclear war" amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The symbolic clock estimates how close humanity is to destroying itself with problems like nuclear war and climate change.

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Read more: Benjamin Netanyahu wrote a not-so-courteous note for successor: ‘Be right back'

The clock which was established in 1945 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit organisation, is "a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet", according to the organisation.

François Diaz-Maurin, the bulletin's associate editor for nuclear affairs told Newsweek, “Clearly, with the war in Ukraine, we were—and still are—concerned that the world could be sleepwalking into nuclear war.”

Read more: Vladimir Putin talked of Hiroshima nuclear bomb in chilling chat with Macron

The clock was first set up in 1947 and has since been reset 24 times since then. The clock was set at seven minutes to midnight in 1947, two years before the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union began. The clock has moved 24 times in the last 75 years and was the farthest from midnight in January 1991, following the end of Cold War. It was then at 7 minutes to midnight

At 100 seconds to midnight, the clock is closest to a prospective global catastrophe at this moment and was brought to this point in January 2020 as climate change, threat of a renewed nuclear race, information warfare, militarisation of space and the development of hypersonic weapons continue to cause worldwide concern.

OP-ED
Netanyahu, who mainstreamed Israel’s radicals, now the last obstacle to their agenda
The comeback PM will have no trouble assembling his coalition. The challenge will be reining in his allies, in the areas where he’d still want to, when he has no alternate partners

By DAVID HOROVITZ Today, TOI

Likud chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for coalition talks in Jerusalem on November 6, 2022, after his bloc won a majority in the November 1 elections. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)


Benjamin Netanyahu, who has always been most comfortable having parties both to the right and left of him in his coalitions, may not see it as ideal to set up a government only of right-wing hawks, Orthodox nationalists and ultra-Orthodox representatives.

He will be well aware that such a government will breed immense resentment from Israelis elsewhere on the political spectrum for entrenching the exclusion of ultra-Orthodox youngsters from military service and subsidizing Haredi full-time Torah study and large families at taxpayers’ expense.

He will be dependent on ideological hardliners who constantly push for more aggressive policies regarding the Palestinians, potentially sparking deeper military confrontations.

He will want to avoid sparking despair or even an exodus of Israelis who don’t see a place for themselves in a country ruled by a coalition that is so at odds with their approaches to Judaism and to democracy, and are consequently reluctant to serve or send their children to serve in its army.

In some areas at least, he would prefer not to advance policies that risk deeply harming Israeli ties with the Diaspora and with key allies, undermining diplomatic support, damaging the economy, and inviting new heights of international criticism.

Netanyahu, remember, is no military adventurer. Unlike an overwhelming proportion of the incoming MKs from his bloc, he served in the IDF — served heroically — and personally knows the costs of war and conflict with the death of his beloved elder brother Yoni at Entebbe. And Netanyahu is a secular Jew, whose Jewish identity is not expressed in the rigorous observance of the Orthodox and the Haredim.

As Netanyahu begins the process of building his sixth Israeli coalition government, the unusual simplicity of the task belies its potentially drastic consequences

But as he begins the process of building his sixth Israeli coalition government, the unusual simplicity of the task belies its potentially drastic consequences: Netanyahu’s Likud, the far-right Religious Zionism, and the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties together won a decisive majority in Tuesday’s elections — but no other party is remotely likely to join them. Even if he wanted them, no other party would consent to sit to Netanyahu’s left in government, his loyal partners would not sanction such an addition, and any such party would in any case have no significant leverage.

And thus it will fall to Netanyahu, increasingly hawkish himself, to try to moderate those demands of his allies and his own hawkish Likud slate that he still considers beyond the pale. Having ensured mainstream legitimacy for the Religious Zionism alliance — with its three component parties’ various radical demands for the expulsion of “disloyal Arabs,” the annexation of the entire West Bank without equal rights for Palestinians, Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, a pushback against LGBT rights and more — it will now fall to Netanyahu to rein in their most radical agenda items, should he be so inclined.

Given that they know he has no coalition without them, this will constitute a formidable task.

But it will be him or nobody, especially if Israel’s judicial checks and balances are removed, as Religious Zionism proposes and this nascent coalition widely endorses.

Likud chief Benjamin Netanyahu (center) meets with UTJ head Yitzchak Goldknopf (second from left) and other party officials, with Likud negotiator Yariv Levin (right) in a Jerusalem hotel on November 6, 2022. (Courtesy)

A surprisingly comfortable victory

The Likud leader and his allies won an unexpectedly solid majority on Tuesday thanks to a combination of factors within his control and without.

He brokered the merger of the Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit and Noam parties because he feared Religious Zionism’s Bezalel Smotrich and Noam’s Avi Maoz might fail to clear the electoral threshold, wasting precious far-right votes, and had no compunction in ensuring the Kahanist disciple Itamar Ben Gvir’s return to the Knesset.

He may not have anticipated how potent an election draw Ben Gvir would become. And he could not have known that the National Unity party of Benny Gantz, with Orthodox candidates Chili Tropper and new recruit Matan Kahana available to reach out to non-extreme modern Orthodox Jews, would instead choose to play up its other new recruit, Gadi Eisenkot, an outspoken advocate of a two-state solution.

With its populist promises to restore Jewish Israelis’ sense of security, Religious Zionism, led by Smotrich (who did limited military service) and Ben Gvir (who was rejected by the IDF because of his extremist activities) won the votes of 1 in 5 serving soldiers, according to a calculation by Channel 12 news on Friday, more than National Unity, with its two ex-military chiefs of staff, one of them the serving defense minister who has been presiding over the most proactive IDF campaign for years against Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank.

Crucial to the Netanyahu bloc’s larger-than-most-expected majority, furthermore, were the delusions and the ineptitudes on the other side of the political spectrum. The Arab anti-Zionist Balad party appears to believe it achieved a stirring victory by scoring 138,093 votes after breaking off from Joint List partners Hadash-Ta’al to run solo. Since this represented only 2.9% of valid votes cast, and the threshold for Knesset representation is 3.25%, however, such “success” is pyrrhic.

Likewise, the insistent refusal of Labor’s Merav Michaeli to parallel the Religious Zionism technical merger and join forces with Meretz on the left, and outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s evident inability to find sufficient carrots or sticks to change her mind, meant Meretz also slipped below the threshold — with 150,715 votes, or 3.16% of the national vote.

The disunity among parties in the outgoing coalition saw Yesh Atid and National Unity vying for the same votes rather than focusing on the Netanyahu bloc. And Lapid seemed to run a defensive, understated campaign for fear of being accused of seeking to siphon off votes from Labor and Meretz — who accused him of doing so anyway.

Yair Lapid and Merav Michaeli speak on the sidelines of the Knesset on June 22, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

It is being argued, including by expert pollsters, that had Labor merged with Meretz, and Balad not split away from Hadash-Ta’al, the election would have ended with 60 seats for the Netanyahu bloc and 60 for all his opponents. That would not have given Lapid a route to power, but it would have thwarted Netanyahu for a fifth time in less than four years, with unknowable consequences for his hold on the leadership of his party and bloc.

But the 60-60 assessment strikes me as extremely problematic. While it is reasonable to assume that Labor and Meretz running together would have scored several more than the four seats Labor managed alone, it’s not a certainty; Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope merger with Gantz didn’t do much for the National Unity alliance’s showing. Some Labor voters might have been deterred from voting for a merged list by Meretz’s markedly more left-wing positions on the Palestinian conflict, by the role played by Meretz’s Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi in bringing down the outgoing coalition, and a host of other factors.

The Balad breakaway, meanwhile, plainly boosted Arab turnout — which rose to 53.2% from a predicted 40% or thereabouts earlier in the campaign — drawing in voters who would not have voted for the Hadash-Ta’al-Balad combination. It seems unlikely, therefore, that those three parties running together would have garnered as many votes as they did with Balad going solo.

Still, if 60-60 seems like an exaggeration, more unity of purpose and more effective organization in the anti-Netanyahu camp could plainly have reduced his bloc’s overwhelming (by recent Israeli standards) margin of victory, as the near-parity in the popular vote totals further underlines.

The Lapid camp did not want to campaign with the vicious ferocity employed by the other side — extending to Netanyahu’s cynical assault on Gantz’s IDF bona fides — but it also failed to match Netanyahu and Ben Gvir for energy and sheer relentlessness. As so often in the past, Netanyahu, ably assisted by all of his partners, simply wanted it more.
From most diverse coalition to most hardline

Helped back into power by his far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies, however, Netanyahu can build his coalition only with them, and cannot attract a potentially moderating additional component as he did in past years with the likes of Gantz, Lapid, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hatnua party leader Tzipi Livni at the joint press conference where Livni announced she was joining Netanyahu’s government as minister of justice, February 19, 2013. (Photo credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

There is no question of Lapid ever partnering with him, as he did in 2013. Gantz chose to do so in 2020 at the height of the COVID crisis and swears blind that he will never do so again. Avigdor Liberman said Friday that he had firmly rebuffed post-election Likud overtures.

It is not inconceivable that Netanyahu could pick up a defector or two from the soon-to-be-opposition ranks, but it’s not an extra vote or two he would need. It’s a full-fledged party that he might have sought to woo, in the spirit of his election night pledge to “heal the rifts” and “look after all the citizens of Israel” — or at least to slightly diversity the ideological mix. He might just have attempted to impose this additional party on his partners in deference to the deep Israeli divide all these elections have shown — a divide he had hitherto exploited.

But there are no such parties — no more potential, unscarred allies remaining for Netanyahu to utilize.

After the demise of the most diverse coalition in Israeli history, we are now about to witness the most hardline coalition in Israeli history

After the demise of the most diverse coalition in Israeli history, therefore, we are now about to witness the most hardline coalition in Israeli history. The most Orthodox. And possibly the most ideologically uncompromising.

Several analysts have ventured to suggest in recent days that, once seated in their ministerial fiefdoms, the likes of Smotrich and Ben Gvir will melt a little. “What you see from here is not what you see from there,” as Ariel Sharon, who made that kind of shift when installed as prime minister, once explained.

But this seems particularly improbable in the case of the leaders of Religious Zionism.

Smotrich forced Netanyahu into the opposition last year because he wouldn’t tolerate any reliance for a majority on the support of the conservative Islamist party Ra’am. Ben Gvir has been peddling his brand of provocation politics since he brandished the Cadillac symbol from prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car shortly before the assassination, exactly 27 years ago.

Victorious, and dependent

With his fifth attempt, Netanyahu has extricated Israel from its political paralysis.

He might — should he choose to break his slew of pledges to the contrary — utilize the Knesset majority he now has to extricate himself from his legal problems.

Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich arrives for coalition talks with Likud chief Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, November 6, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Smotrich said before the elections that he would not join the coalition unless it advances his program to render the judiciary subservient to the political majority of the day — a program that includes abolishing the fraud and breach of trust charge common to all three of Netanyahu’s corruption cases, and radically limiting the High Court’s powers to override legislation deemed non-democratic. While Smotrich said his proposed legal changes would not be retroactively applied to Netanyahu’s trial, Ben Gvir said the opposite — promising to advance legislation barring the prosecution of a serving prime minister, and to have it applied retroactively to extricate Netanyahu.

In this specific area of judicial “reform,” manifestly of great personal interest for Netanyahu, the unstoppable clout of this particular coalition could therefore prove highly beneficial. In many other areas, however, his allies’ agendas will be less convenient.

He will find himself on the moderate edge of a radical coalition, challenged by his partners when he tries to rein them in, and presiding over a bitterly divided nation.

The cries are already going up: Heaven forbid that you give Smotrich a senior office of state, least of all defense. Don’t capitulate to the Haredim and widen the ultra-Orthodox secular rifts.

And, most plaintive of all, don’t entrust pistol-waving Ben Gvir with authority over the police. This is a man who was convicted of incitement to racism. How can he be allowed to set the agenda for the forces of law enforcement? How can he be allowed to participate in security briefings regarding Jewish extremists he has allied with and in some cases defended as a lawyer? How can he be allowed to set policy on the Temple Mount?

Religious Zionism MK Itamar Ben Gvir on a campaign stop in Sderot’s open market on election day, November 1, 2022. (Jacob Magid/Times of Israel)

Think of your legacy, the incoming prime minister is being urged. Think of the Israelis who didn’t vote for you, whom the departing alternate prime minister Naftali Bennett is seeking to assure that Tuesday’s elections did not mark “the end of the country.” Think of Israel’s wider interests.

But it’s too late for that now. Netanyahu’s political opponents sought to boot him out of politics once and for all, setting up a government united only in that goal. But he outlasted, outmaneuvered and outcampaigned them, shamelessly mainstreaming some of Israel’s most extreme ideologues in the process.

And now only Netanyahu — victorious but in their debt, self-interested in some of their “reforms,” and with no other forces to call upon — stands between them and their radical agenda for Israel.

Related:

Netanyahu, Ben Gvir win marks the elevation of Jewish Israel above democratic Israel

With rise of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, Israel risks a catastrophic lurch to extremism

Why this election is a defining moment for Israel, how it’s run, what it stands for

Some of Netanyahu’s most bitter adversaries have smoothed a path for his return

Beware Itamar Ben Gvir, rising far-right star with a destructive vision for Israel

In Pictures: The Annual Argentina Pride March

The annual pride march was held on Saturday in Buenos Aires Argentina. The march is organised annually by the LGBTQ community. People wore rainbow-coloured clothes and make up and waved rainbow flags at the march, which represents the LGBTQ community. This year, participants called for trans rights and a more diverse society.

UPDATED: 06 NOV 2022 

Argentina Pride March | Photos: AP/Natacha Pisarenko

People walk near a chalk drawing of two men wrapped in a rainbow flag during the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

Members of the "Latin American Movement of Mothers with LGBT Children" pose for a photo during a Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

People take part in the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

A woman with a rainbow-colored mark on her face smiles during the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

A man stands wrapped in a rainbow flag during the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

A trans-person takes part in the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

A couple embraces during the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

People attend the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

A person holds a rainbow flag during the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

Two women embrace during the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.


People take part in the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

A man wearing rainbow-colored angel wings takes part in the Pride March, organized by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

No Hindutva or RSS extremism involved in Leicester violence; influencers spread false narrative: UK think tank

By Oneindia Staffer
| Updated: Sunday, November 6, 2022, 

London, Nov 06: A UK-based think tank has denied any possible role of the Hindutva extremism or the RSS in the recent Hindu-Muslim clashes in Leicester and Birmingham. It has blamed a few social media influencers for peddling fake narratives to instigate the violence, which erupted after an Asia Cup cricket match between India and Pakistan on August 28.

"Contrary to press reports at the time, the investigations did not find Hindutva extremist organisations operating in Leicester, but instead discovered a micro-community cohesion issue falsely presented as an issue of organised Hindutva extremism and terrorism," the UK think tank Henry Jackson Society said in its report.

No Hindutva or RSS extremism involved in Leicester violence (Photo credit: PTI)

How Influencers Spread False Narrative?

The report written by Charlotte Littlewood, who is a former counter-extremism coordinator, points out an influencer with over 6 lakh followers calling people to stand against Hindus in Leicester. In the clip, he denigrates Hindus, celebrates street confrontations and calls for the crowd to come out against the 'Hindutva'.

The report states that influencers, one who has been convicted on terrorism charges, one who praised the suspected mastermind of the Bombay bombings and one who has offered prayers to the Taliban and was reported to have offered prayers to the brothers of an ISIL fighter, have inflamed community tensions spreading fake news.

In another clip, an influencer with over 800,000 followers asked the Muslim community to "protect themselves against Hindu fascism" and wrote, "Muslim patrol in Leicester."

Further, another influencer, who has over 1.5 lakh followers and boasted in the past about having links with D Company in Pakistan, peddled fake news that Hindus had kidnapped a Muslim girl. "Mainstream media outlets have relied on two of the noted influencers who have been providing misinformation. In the immediate aftermath of the protests mainstream media outlets put early emphasis on Hindutva extremism in the UK, further perpetuating the threat against the Hindu community," Littlewood in the 39-page report.

Anjem Choudhary, a radical preacher, jailed for inviting support for the Islamic State group was also linked to the Leicester unrest.

Key Point of Contention

"Evidence points towards a particular community cohesion/ territorial issue between the relatively recent immigrant Hindu Diu Daman community in Leicester and their Muslim neighbours. A key point of contention centres on Diu Daman immigrants moving into an area (LE5) and holding festivals that are perceived to be disruptive by existing residents, including the public consumption of alcohol," the report highlights.

"Evidence of a Hindu nationalist presence in the UK is tenuous. Some organizations have been accused of links to RSS and RSS-linked individuals have visited the UK, this is problematic for community relations and requires further investigation." She added, "Accusations of RSS terrorists lead to a number of Hindu youth temporarily relocating for their safety. There has never been a Hindu extremist terrorist attack in the UK and the youth in question had no affiliation to RSS," Charlotte Littlewood said.

No Organised Involvement of Hindu Extremist

The report clearly states that there was no organised involvement of any Hindu extremist or terrorist groups. However, the false narrative led to the attack on the properties and cars of the Hindus. " "The methods employed have included projections including a false claim of a BJP organized bus, whilst car sharing of anti-Hindutva protestors were in fact taking place; claims of racists, terrorists, extremists, etc; misinformation regarding crimes being committed; attempts to have the uptake of their narrative by the mainstream press and collaborating with political leaders to gain sympathy for their narrative and potentially influence future policy. The successful spread of these claims has led to a security threat posed to the Hindu community and attacks on their places of worship," the report stated.

Media Relied on Influencers

It has also highlighted how the media depended on the said social media influencers instead of providing accurate analysis. "The media has at times conflated the issue by regularly relying on influencers included in this report for comment and focusing on an issue of Hindutva extremism and India politics rather than providing nuanced and accurate analysis of the incidents."

Allegations of Hindutva extremism and RSS terrorism in the UK has resulted in incitements to violence and anti-Hindu hate online, vandalism of Hindu temples, and reports of assaults on the Hindu community and those who have professed support for the Hindu community.

According to interviews conducted by the author of this report, some members of the Hindu community in Leicester are imposing a voluntary a curfew, some have relocated to stay with family or friends until they feel safe to return, some were unable to return to work owing to fears for their personal safety in the wake of the unrest in Leicester, the report claims.

Analysis-Brazil's Lula hopes to unite rainforest nations, tap funding at COP27

By Michael Taylor - 


KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A new alliance of rainforest nations - sought by Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - could be key to unlocking conservation funding and bolstering a flagging global forest pact at the COP27 climate summit, environmentalists say.

Before narrowly winning Brazil's run-off election vote on Oct. 30, Lula began reaching out to Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) about forming a united front of tropical forest countries, according to a top aide of the leftist leader.

In the run-up to the COP27 U.N. climate summit, taking place in Egypt from Nov. 6-18, green groups urged Brazil and other forest nations to team up to increase their bargaining power during talks with potential donors over rainforest protection.

"An alliance of countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the DRC - who all face similar threats - can put pressure on richer countries to accelerate efforts to stop deforestation," said Annisa Rahmawati, head of Indonesian conservation group Satya Bumi, noting Lula's pledge to put forest protection at the heart of his economic plans and policies.

Cutting down forests has major implications for global goals to curb planetary warming, as trees absorb about a third of the climate-heating carbon emissions produced worldwide, but release the carbon they store when they rot or are burned.

Forests also provide food and livelihoods, clean the air and water, support human health, are an essential habitat for wildlife, regulate rainfall and offer flood protection.

But as forest-rich countries grapple with energy and food price pressures linked to Russia's war on Ukraine, on top of fiscal pain from the COVID-19 pandemic, tapping into natural resources is seen by many as a solution.

Last year, an area of tropical forest the size of the Netherlands was lost, according to monitoring service Global Forest Watch, with Brazil seeing the highest rates of deforestation.

Lula hopes to turn that around, promising in his election victory speech to tackle the illegal logging, mining and land-grabbing that have driven surging Amazon deforestation over the past four years under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

"Having such a strong voice (like Lula) in any future alliance would amplify and accelerate efforts to shift to just and climate-friendly economic development, while ensuring our forests remain standing," said Rahmawati.

NORWAY CASH RETURNS

Brazil, Indonesia and the DRC were among more than 140 nations that agreed to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030 at last year's COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Related video: Lula vows to unite Brazil in tight win over Bolsonaro

Duration 1:54 View on Watch

The deal, which has seen slow progress so far, was underpinned by $19 billion in public and private funding commitments to invest in protecting and restoring forests.

Since then, Germany has pledged 1.5 billion euros ($1.5 billion) per year in international biodiversity finance, while Norway agreed a new funding pact with Indonesia to cut its carbon emissions by conserving the rainforest - potentially opening the door to more support from other donors.

Norway's environment minister said in a social media post this week that it is also set to resume a deal to pay Brazil for results in Amazon forest protection, frozen after destruction of the world's largest rainforest soared under Bolsonaro.

Carbon markets, meanwhile - which are another tool to slow deforestation - have been hampered by low prices, said James Deutsch, CEO at Rainforest Trust, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

If the three most important potential government sellers of forest carbon credits join forces, however, that could help boost the price paid per tonne of avoided CO2 emissions, he added.

"It is an intriguing and potentially powerful strategy to increase monetary flows, reduce deforestation, and slow climate change," he said.

The three countries also have a tremendous amount to teach the world on forest conservation, said Amy Duchelle, a senior forestry officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Brazil was the climate-change success story of the early 2000s when its government - led then by Lula - slashed deforestation rates in the Amazon, she said.

"Indonesia has (also) shown recent success in reducing deforestation," noted Duchelle, adding that there is a huge opportunity for these countries to lead by example and demand more forest-friendly policies from other governments.

SHARED CHALLENGES

Another positive factor in forging a new rainforest alliance is that net-zero targets and climate action are far stronger than ten years ago, when a first effort to form such a partnership failed, said Rod Taylor, global director for forests at the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based think-tank.

There could now be a larger pool of finance and political momentum for the three countries to tap into "if they play their cards right", he added.

But enforcing forest protection laws in remote areas is a problem for all three, conservationists said, while Bolsonaro's allies form the largest bloc in Brazil's Congress, which could hinder Lula's policy push.

Toerris Jaeger, executive director of the Oslo-based Rainforest Foundation Norway, said the potential partners "face many of the same issues", including how to monitor deforestation, stop illegal activity and support forest peoples.

Other forest nations - like Colombia - could also take part in talks and join any new alliance at COP27 to create a "more robust and effective" coalition, he added.

"Done right, collaboration and exchange of experience between rainforest countries can help in tackling deforestation," Jaeger said.

($1 = 1.0227 euros)

Originally published at:

(Reporting by Michael Taylor; Editing by Megan Rowling. The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit https://www.context.news/)

Populists vs. the planet: How climate became the new culture war front line

US midterms show populism is now the ‘biggest obstacle’ to addressing global warming, say greens.

Right-wingers around the world have co-opted climate change into their culture war | Lukas Schulze/Getty Images

BY KARL MATHIESEN
NOVEMBER 6, 2022

Delegates landing in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for U.N. climate talks this week are a global elite bent on tearing down national borders, stripping away individual freedoms and condemning working people to a life of poverty.

That dark view is held by a range of far-right or populist parties — among them Donald Trump’s Republicans, who are seeking to retake control in Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections. Some of these radicals are rampaging through elections in Europe while others, such as Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro last week, have been defeated only narrowly.

Republican and Trump acolyte Lauren Boebert derides the environmentalist agenda as “America last;” Britain’s Brexit-backing Home Secretary Suella Braverman says the country is in thrall to a “tofu-eating wokerati;” and in Spain, senior figures in the far-right Vox party dismiss the U.N.'s climate agenda as "cultural Marxism."

Right-wingers of various strains around the world have co-opted climate change into their culture war. The fact this is happening in countries that produce a large share of global greenhouse gas emissions has alarmed some green advocates.

“Reactionary populism is now the biggest obstacle to tackling climate change,” wrote three climate leaders, including Brazil’s former Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira, in a recent commentary.

In the U.S., Republicans are eyeing a return to power in one or both houses of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Many at the COP27 talks will be reliving the first week of the U.N. climate conference in Morocco six years ago when Trump’s election struck the climate movement like a hurricane.

A Republican surge would gnaw at the fragile confidence that has built around global climate efforts since President Joe Biden’s election, raising the specter of a second Trump term and perhaps the withdrawal — again — of the U.S. from the landmark 2015 Paris climate deal.

“I don't want to think about that,” said Teixeira’s co-author Laurence Tubiana, a former French diplomat who led the design of the Paris Agreement and who now leads the European Climate Foundation.

Some on the American right are pushing a more conciliatory message than others. “Republicans have solutions to reduce world emissions while providing affordable, reliable, and clean energy to our allies across the globe," said Utah Congressman John Curtis, who will lead a delegation from his party to COP27.

Tubiana and others in the environmental movement are trying to put on a brave face. They argue Republicans won't want to tamper too much with Biden’s behemoth Inflation Reduction Act, which contains measures to promote clean energy.

"You might see railing against it, and I'm sure there'll be lots of political talk and rhetoric, but I don't expect that would be a focus for the Republicans," said Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a green NGO based in Arlington, Virginia. Nevertheless, if Republicans take both houses, "we certainly won't make any progress," Keohane said.

Trump’s first term and the presidency of Brazil’s Bolsonaro — which ended in a narrow defeat in last month's election — now look like the opening skirmishes in a struggle in which the planet’s stability is at stake.

In parts of Europe, the right present their policies as sympathetic to the risks of climate change while dismissing internationally sanctioned action as sinister elitism that threatens their voters' prosperity.

“The Sweden Democrats are not climate deniers, whatever that means,” Swedish far-right leader Jimmie Åkesson told a crowd days before a September election that saw his party win big. But Sweden’s current climate plans, Åkesson said, were “100 percent symbolic” rather than meaningful. "All that leads to is that we get poorer, that our lives get worse.”

This is the gibbet on which the far right are hanging environmentalism: depicting them as the witting or unwitting cavalry of global elites.

“We consider it to be a globalist movement that intends to end all borders, intends to end our freedom, intends to end our freedom for our identities,” Javier Cortés, president of the Seville chapter of Spain’s far-right Vox party, said in an interview with POLITICO. “We are not in favor of CO2 emissions. On the contrary, we want to respect the environment. All we are saying is that the European Union has to clarify that it wants to sell us a climate religion in which we cannot emit CO2, while we make our industries disappear from Europe and we need to buy from China.”

To describe this as climate denial — a common but often inaccurate charge — would be to miss the point that this is now just another front in the culture wars.

Online disinformation about the last U.N. climate talks was largely focused on the hypocrisy and elitism of those attending, according to research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). The main spreaders weren’t websites and figures traditionally associated with climate denial, but culture war celebrities such as psychologist Jordan Peterson, Rebel Media’s Ezra Levant and Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams.

Populist attacks on globalism "rely on a well-funded transnational network," said Tubiana. "It warrants serious scrutiny."

But while economic interests may be powering parts of the movement, there is also a sense of political opportunism at work. Huge changes to the economy will be needed to lower emissions at the speed dictated by U.N.-brokered global climate goals. There will be winners and losers — and the losers may gravitate toward populists pledging to take up their cause.

“Far-right organizations are recognizing this as a potentially lucrative topic that they can win votes or support on,” said Balsa Lubarda, head of the ideology research unit at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.

Loving the losers

The far right's focus on the losers has been "turbo charged" by the energy crisis, said Jennie King, head of civic action and education at ISD, which populists have wrongly argued is the fault of green policy. The European Parliament’s coalition of far-right parties has grown and capitalized on the energy crisis by joining with center-right parties to vote down environmental legislation.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson — newly elected with Åkesson's support — aims to dilute the country's ambitions for cutting some greenhouse gas emissions, a move center-right Liberal Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari justified in familiar terms: “That is a reaction to the reality people are facing.” And in Britain, Brexit leader Nigel Farage retooled his campaign to become an anti-net zero mouthpiece.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says she wants to reclaim environmentalism for the right |

 Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

Strains of right-wing ecology may also mean that not all groups are actively hostile to the climate agenda, said Lubarda. Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is a huge fan of the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, which center on the Shire, an idealized bucolic homeland. Meloni says she wants to reclaim environmentalism for the right, but the protection of national economic interests still comes first.

“There is no more convinced ecologist than a conservative, but what distinguishes us from a certain ideological environmentalism is that we want to defend nature with man inside,” she said in her inaugural speech to parliament last month.

While Meloni has announced that she will attend COP27, she has also renamed the Ministry for the Ecological Transition the Ministry for Environment and Energy Security. The governing program of her Brothers of Italy party includes a section on climate change, but it strongly emphasizes the need to protect industry.

It’s this broad sense of demotion and delay that alarms those who are watching these ideas grow in stature among populists on the right. They say that while it may not sound like climate denial, the result is effectively the same.

“You can say that you are climate friends,” said Belgian Socialist MEP Marie Arena. “But in the act, you are not at all. You are business friends first.”

Jacopo Barragazzi, Charlie Duxbury and Zack Colman contributed to this report.

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