FRANCE 2 MOROCCO 0

Morocco World Cup wins stir mixed feelings in Western Sahara






A woman wearing a Sahrawis traditional outfit celebrates Morocco's World Cup victory against Portugal in the Morocco-administered Western Sahara city of Laayoune, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Noureddine Abakchou)


Wed, December 14, 2022 

LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara (AP) After the final whistle of every match Morocco won in its history-making World Cup run, crowds poured out of homes and cafes in the biggest city of Western Sahara, celebrating for hours.

The revelers included some Sahrawi people, members of an ethnic group that has sought independence for Western Sahara since Morocco annexed the disputed territory in 1975. Other Sahrawis rooted for Morocco's defeat on the soccer field or refused to take part in the celebrations.

They accuse Moroccan authorities of increasingly cracking down on independence activists, and of touting the World Cup team's success in Qatar to distract the population from economic challenges.

But the presence of some Sahrawi fans cheering for Morocco in the streets of Laayoune illustrates the unifying power of the first Arab or African team to advance so far in the world's biggest sporting event. Morocco's national team, known as the Atlas Lions, faces defending champion France in Wednesday's semifinal.

Al-Salik Al-Yazid, a young Sahrawi in Laayoune, said ''the historic success of the Moroccan national team'' has created a collective feeling of ''overwhelming joy that included all Arabs and Africans, despite the constant discontent with the Moroccan state.''

He called it a sign of gradually shifting mindsets among younger Sahrawis who grew up under Moroccan rule and under a 1991 cease-fire that ended a 16-year conflict between Moroccan forces and Algeria-backed Polisario Front independence fighters.

''With the growth of generations merging and coexisting in one common environment, it has become natural to find Sahrawi individuals celebrating the victory of the Moroccan national team,'' Al-Yazid said. ''Many Sahrawis have overcome the problem of identity caused by decades of political struggle.''

However, a long-promised referendum on the territory's future never took place. Low-intensity hostilities have reignited, leaving the truce at risk of unraveling in Morocco-controlled Western Sahara.

Sahrawi people make up a minority of the estimated population of 350,000 in the territory, a Colorado-sized region rich in phosphates and fishing grounds. The rest, following nearly a half-century of resettlement efforts are mainly Moroccans. Other Sahrawis live in the sliver of Western Sahara ruled by the Polisario, or in refugee camps in Algeria.

On World Cup game nights, the atmosphere is festive but complex.

In past tournaments, Sahrawis generally supported the Algerian team. Activists accused Moroccan police of violently suppressing celebrations of Algerian victories. Algeria didn't qualify for this year's World Cup.

When Morocco played Spain last week, some Sahrawis welcomed Morocco's win and others wore T-shirts supporting Spain, the Western Sahara's former colonial ruler. Some threw stones at people celebrating the Moroccan victory.

Mohamed El-Yousefi, a Moroccan resident of Laayoune, said he understands the resentment, calling it ''closely linked to the conflict in the desert.''

Some Sahrawi people, he said, rejoice in good faith, and others ''hate everything that comes from Morocco.''

''Happy Moroccans also sometimes fall into the trap of politics and chant phrases such as `We won out of spite against the enemy' in reference to Sahrawis who are dissatisfied with Morocco's victory,'' El-Yousefi said.

Sahrawi independence activists say it's not possible to separate the Moroccan team from the Kingdom of Morocco itself.

The team represents the Royal Football League and by extension the monarchy, ''which for us is the cause of the tragedy of our people through its forceful occupation of Western Sahara,'' said Mubarak Mamine, a Laayoune-based Polisario Front activist.

''Football is a tool used by the Moroccan regime to divert the attention of the Moroccan people from their basic issues, especially in light of the deteriorating economic and social conditions in the country,'' Marmine said.

Morocco denies there is an armed conflict in what it calls its ''southern provinces,'' and has grown increasingly assertive in defending its claim over the Western Sahara in recent years.

The kingdom received a major boost - and independence activists suffered a major blow - when the United States in 2020 recognized Morocco's sovereignty over the territory in exchange for Morocco normalizing ties with Israel.

Morocco's climb up the World Cup ladder has taken fans everywhere by surprise, including in Western Sahara.

Sports journalist Balfater Abdel-Wahhab said the celebrations he covered in Laayoune were unlike any the city had seen.

''All the masses in the city of Laayoune came out'' as Morocco beat rival after rival to make it to the semifinal. He called it a ''wonderful celebration of sportsmanship, decorated with national (Moroccan) flags and traditional (Sahrawi) desert costumes.''

---

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports

As MPs pass Liberal online news bill, Meta again threatens to pull content

OTTAWA — The House of Commons passed a Liberal bill on Wednesday designed to require web giants to compensate journalism outfits for reposting their content, and Meta is once again threatening to remove news content from Facebook in Canada.


As MPs pass Liberal online news bill, Meta again threatens to pull content© Provided by The Canadian Press

Federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has argued the bill will "enhance fairness" in the digital news marketplace by creating a framework and bargaining process for behemoths such as Google and Meta, which owns social media sites Facebook and Instagram, to pay media outlets.

"On the surface, the bill we are debating now is simply about ensuring fair compensation for Canadian media, but the issue is actually much bigger than that," he said during a final speech on Tuesday.

"It is about protecting the future of a free and independent press. It is about ensuring that Canadians have access to fact-based information. It is about protecting the strength of our democracy."

The bill would create a system overseen by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which would have the power to impose administrative monetary penalties on companies that are not compliant with its provisions.

Companies could be exempt from the negotiation process set out in the proposed legislation, known as Bill C-18, if they already have agreements with media outlets that fulfil certain criteria.

Last week, the heritage committee sent the bill back to the House with 18 amendments to add clarity on Indigenous news, eligibility requirements, clearer timelines for the negotiation process and transparency.

As NDP heritage critic Peter Julian pointed out during a speech on Tuesday, 16 of those amendments came from his party during a weeks-long clause-by-clause process.

"There was much that was missing in the bill regarding transparency, supporting local community press and journalism, supporting non-profit journalism, and allowing Indigenous news outlets to have a role. There was radio silence regarding Indigenous news outlets," he said.

Several of the amendments explicitly created protections for Indigenous-led news outlets into the bill, including one that requires tech companies to have agreements in place with "a significant portion of Indigenous news outlets."

The same section was changed to make sure that the companies have agreements with a "range of news outlets in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors," and that reflect "all markets and diverse populations, including local and regional markets in every province and territory, anglophone and francophone communities, including official language minority communities, and Black and other racialized communities."

And it was also updated to allow for public consultations on any such exemptions.

With Conservatives taking issue with the fact that CBC online content would fall under the bill's provisions, another amendment stipulated that the national broadcaster would be required to publicly report any agreements it has with the tech giants.

Google and Meta have roundly criticized the bill.

Related video: Trudeau defends financial assistance programs after calls from Conservatives to reel-in spending (Global News)

Trudeau defends financial assistance programs after calls from Conservatives to reel-in spending

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Meta once again threatened to "consider removing news from Facebook in Canada rather than being compelled to submit to government-mandated negotiations that do not properly account for the value we provide publishers."

Google had previously warned that a provision requiring it to show no "undue" preference to certain outlets could lead to poorer-quality information being presented in search results. It also raised the prospect of misinformation becoming more visible for the same reason.

A Bloc Québécois amendment raised during the committee process sought to assuage concerns that outlets that are not committed to journalistic principles could still benefit from the bill.

It included to the bill's definition of "eligible news business" a requirement for the outlet to be a member of a recognized journalism association and to follow its code of ethics or have its own code that requires "adherence to the recognized processes and principles of the journalism profession, including fairness, independence and rigour in reporting news and handling sources."

Such a code would need to include measures to make sure that news content produced by the outlet does not promote "hatred or misinformation against any identifiable group" and that any errors of fact are promptly and transparently corrected.

Another amendment ensured that any companies that are headquartered outside of Canada would not be captured under the bill.

And the legislation was also updated to broaden the definition of eligible businesses so that owner-operators could be included as one of the two journalists the business employs.

It did not, however, remove a requirement for the two journalists to be employed, despite concerns that would exclude many small businesses. Rodriguez said that the government has other measures for supporting the news business. "As I have said many times, this bill is not a panacea."

Conservatives have argued that the bill would give regulators too much leeway to make decisions about what is and isn't real journalism.

"We want to keep the internet free and we do not want the government choosing what needs to be done there," Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu said on Tuesday.

"To do that, the best thing to do is get rid of Bill C-18 and allow the tech giants to fund something that small media outlets could themselves divide."

The Liberals and NDP have argued that such suggestions make the Tories seem like they are speaking for companies such as Meta.

Another Conservative MP, Brad Redekopp, had given a speech praising Elon Musk's recent purchase of Twitter as having breathed "fresh air" into the tech industry.

Redekopp also said that the people who work at Google are those who care about freedom of speech on the internet: "They may run worldwide organizations, but the Silicon Valley boys are still hackers at heart, living out of their mothers' basements playing Halo, sharing on Twitch and posting on Reddit."

In response, Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux emphasized that such companies bring in billions of dollars of revenue every year while media companies have struggled to keep up.

"The creators and news agencies are reporting on the news and their content is being utilized by these giants, which are not paying anything for it."

The vote ultimately passed 213 votes to 114 on Wednesday, with Conservatives the only ones to vote against it. It goes to the Senate for consideration next.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 14, 2022.

———

Meta funds a fellowship that supports journalism positions at The Canadian Press.

Marie-Danielle Smith, The Canadian Press

AUSTERITY BUDGET; TAX INCREASES & JOB CUTS

$60M cut in Edmonton operating budget could mean city job losses

Story by Natasha Riebe •CBC

The City of Edmonton is looking to cut $60 million over four years in services and programs which could mean eliminating redundant staff and middle and upper management positions.


Administration will look at streamlining management, finding redundant positions and analyzing fees paid to consultants to reduce spending $15 million each year.© Natasha Riebe/CBC

The decrease is part of a multi-pronged amendment of 12 decreases and 24 increases to the 2023-26 operating budget that council approved Tuesday night.

All amendments to the city's proposed $7.75-billion capital budget and the four-year operating budget need final approval from council, which is expected on Friday. The operating budget for services and programs in 2023 is $3.2 billion.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who proposed the omnibus amendment, said the $60 million involves a comprehensive review of all programs and services, city-wide.

"We're not talking about eliminating front-line services," Sohi told news media.

The amendment requires administration to reduce spending each year by a minimum of $15 million by "exercising hiring restraints into non-frontline vacant positions," the amendment reads.

Sohi said administration will determine the scope of the review early next year and report to council on a regular basis on proposed areas to cut.

"It will look at streamlining the management, it will look at layers of accountability within the organization," Sohi said. "It will look at redundant positions that exist within the organization that may be no longer be needed."

The review will analyze consultant fees and the city's use of consultants, he added

The Civic Service Union 52 (CSU 52), which represents about 6,800 workers in technical, professional, administrative, and clerical jobs, welcomed the move.

In a press release Wednesday, president of CSU 52 Lanny Chudyk, said he's pleased the city will evaluate the management structure.

"The City of Edmonton has far too many levels of management in too many departments," Chudyk said in the release.

"This comes at a cost to front-line staff who are overworked and understaffed, which impedes on their ability to serve Edmontonians efficiently and effectively."

Others see the $60 million review as cutting jobs.

As councillors continued to debate more proposed amendments Wednesday morning, Coun. Aaron Paquette said he wouldn't support more decreases in staffing.

"We just passed a massive cut to our workforce which I am personally not convinced it's not going to be without repercussions," Paquette said to council.

"I will absolutely not support any more cuts to the people that we're asking to do more and more and more with less and less and less."

Tax levy goes up

Coun. Erin Rutherford had proposed reducing the budget of the Expanding Diversity and Inclusion program by $253,000 in 2025 and coming years, which was defeated 6-7.

Rutherford said most of the amendments councillors have put forward have added money to the operating and capital budgets, instead of decreasing the budgets.

With amendments passed so far in capital and operating budgets, the property tax increase would rise to 5.1 per cent in 2023, up from the 3.9 per cent administration recommended.

Jodi Graham, director of budget planning and development in financial corporate services, calculated the tax levy would increase 5.5 per cent in 2024, 4.29 per cent in 2025 and 4.47 per cent in 2026.

Other omnibus amendments include $11 million for enhanced snow and ice removal, $11.9 million in permanent funding for on-demand transit service, $3.9 million for 24/7 Crisis Diversion, and expanding the base budget for Explore Edmonton by $5 million.

CSX revamps attendance policy as railroad unions push back on sick time


 A CSX freight train blasts through high snow at a crossing in Silver Spring


Tue, December 13, 2022 
By Lisa Baertlein and Rod Nickel

(Reuters) -Rail operator CSX Corp is changing its workforce attendance policy for unexpected, short-term medical absences next year after U.S. railroads' sick-time policies became a flashpoint in national labor talks.

CSX is among the railroads that used so-called points-based attendance policies to reduce unplanned absences. Under the long-established policies, workers are penalized with points for unscheduled absences, and risk being suspended or fired.

The scheme came under fire during the pandemic, when industry-wide job cuts meant to bolster profits left fewer workers to manage the COVID-related cargo surge.

Rail unions are protesting the lack of federal intervention on sick-time policies outside the U.S. Capitol and in cities around the country on Tuesday.

On Dec. 2, U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation that broke the impasse that could have halted shipments of food, fuel and medicine, stranded commuters and harmed the U.S. economy without making any changes to sick-time agreements.

When the pandemic struck and freight volumes surged, affected rail workers said those policies discouraged them from seeking medical care or taking time off to recover from illness.

Under the new policy effective Jan. 1, CSX said on Tuesday it will no longer assess points when an employee calls in sick shortly before a scheduled workday with an illness for which they saw a doctor.

CSX's new attendance rules will be "non-disciplinary and non-punitive," the company said in an email to Reuters.

Four of 12 unions involved in the latest railroad contract talks rejected a recently negotiated deal because it did not include any paid short-term sick days and failed to address the attendance points system used by CSX and the two largest U.S. railroads: Union Pacific and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF.

Under the new CSX policy, accrued points will expire on a rolling 12-month cycle rather than accumulate indefinitely, and employees will receive credit for working without an absence and can use those to expunge points. CSX said it does not apply points when employees miss work due to hospitalization or emergency treatment.

Clark Ballew, a former CSX track worker and communications director for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED) rail union, said the changes are a step in the right direction, but fall short of repairing damage from industry cost-cutting.

Union Pacific told Reuters it expects to start working with unions on quality of life issues in the coming weeks. BNSF did not immediately respond to questions regarding its policy on health-related absences.

On Friday, more than 70 lawmakers urged Biden to take executive action to guarantee rail workers paid sick days.

Meanwhile, Canada on Dec. 1 granted workers at railroads and other regulated workplaces at least 10 days of paid sick leave annually. Canada's two biggest freight railways, Canadian National Railway Co and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd, have about 10,000 employees in the United States. Collective bargaining with U.S. workers will determine sick-day requirements, the railways said.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg;

Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Matthew Lewis and Kim Coghill)

Researching aged metals harvested from decommissioned nuclear power plants

Published date: 14 December 2022

Decommissioning International co-operation News brief …



Research in the field of aged materials harvested from decommissioned nuclear power plants can provide nuclear industry plant operators and national nuclear safety regulators with an improved understanding of the ageing mechanisms of these materials. This understanding can then support the management of plant ageing, the implementation of life extension programmes and serve as an input to operating licence renewals.

In this context, the Second Workshop on International Harvesting Co-operation was an occasion to review the status of aged metals harvesting and to discuss priorities and opportunities for international collaborative research in this field. During the workshop, held on 17 November 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden, participating experts noted that current decommissioning of nuclear power plants in a number of countries presents new opportunities for harvesting aged metals. Participants noted that recently shut down plants offer rich possibilities for the harvesting of ‘real’ aged material and the key role of utility companies in such harvesting activities.

Collaborative research on these materials, as more investment is directed towards the development of research techniques in the field and dedicated facilities for harvested aged materials are set up, is also becoming possible. The NEA Studsvik Material Integrity Life Extension (SMILE) joint project conducted by Studsvik Nuclear AB, with the support of Swedish utilities companies, was cited as one such successful collaborative venture in the field.

The workshop, which gathered 40 experts from 26 organisations in 15 countries, was co-organised by the NEA and the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC).

SOMEBODY HAD TO SAY IT
Colby Cosh: Despite U.S. 'breakthrough,' fusion power is still a pipe dream

Opinion by Colby Cosh • Yesterday 

Maybe you’re like me, you grew up on a steady diet of science fiction paperbacks and Omni magazine, and you would be absolutely thrilled to bits if it turned out that artificial thermonuclear fusion could be made a practical source of usable earthbound energy.


Technicians use a service system lift that allows them to access the target chamber interior for inspection and maintenance at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., in 2008.© Provided by National Post

I use the word “artificial,” of course, to distinguish sophisticated experimental fusion projects from the solar panels on your nerd neighbour’s roof, which are, strictly speaking, capturing energy from a big yellow fusion reactor in the sky. Harnessing the power of an artificial sun has been a vision of engineers for more than 60 years; to some, it seems to offer the promise of limitless nuclear power without the problems of waste-producing fission reactors.

On Sunday, Tom Wilson the Financial Times got what is likely to be the biggest news scoop in the plodding, hype-fraught history of fusion experiments. According to Wilson, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has achieved the first energy-positive “shot” in the history of artificial fusion.

Researchers fired the world’s largest laser at a small deuterium-tritium target about the size of a BB round, persuaded the hydrogen in the pellet to fuse for a few billionths of a second and got more energy out of the resulting reaction than they put in via the laser beam. This “target gain,” if the NIF pulled it off, would be the proof-of-concept that fusion researchers have been chasing for decades, having found over time that confining even a very small sun was a lot harder than they originally thought.

If you believe that the future of humanity involves ubiquitous nuclear-fusion power plants producing energy too cheap to meter, then today’s expected announcement will be a great moment — the equivalent, arguably, of the first artificial fission reaction, which was completed under a football stadium at the University of Chicago 80 years ago this month.

But reading Tom Wilson’s scoop actually made me sadder than I would have expected from the vantage point of that young man consuming 1980s hype about tokamaks and hohlraums. The Bloomberg energy reporter Javier Blas published a Twitter thread that explains why very well.

The breakthrough of deriving “net power” from a fusion shot is mostly a matter of accounting fictions: the real question, as any bean counter would know in his heart, is “net of what?” The NIF may be the first fusion plant to generate power net of the energy fired into the chamber by an enormous, elaborately tuned laser. But this doesn’t even count the power lost in the charging of the capacitors that fire the big laser.

To be useful for commercial power production, those lasers would have to be capable of firing repeatedly without destroying the equipment used to measure the reaction — as the NIF shot is reported by Wilson to have done. The output of the plant would, over the long run, have to cover implicit energy inputs involved in doing things like creating tritium (a form of “heavy water” not existing in nature), cooling the target pellet to near-absolute zero before firing and, well, building the plant itself, every part of which seems to require micrometric engineering tolerances, exotic materials and mind-blowing temperature ranges.

It is hard to imagine anyone building a second NIF; the one that exists was really built to study nuclear explosions for military purposes, still the chief raison d’être of the Livermore lab. It has gone to a lot of trouble, one has to say, to “prove” that nuclear fusion is possible and produces net energy; both the sun and the original American fusion weapons can be used to demonstrate that much.

The question facing policymakers in 2022 is whether the problems of fission are really so great compared to the engineering challenges of trying to control fusion.

The basic question raised by conventional fission reactors is, “If we dig a really, really deep hole someplace geologically stable in order to store nuclear waste, is there a chance that an unknown species of molemen might get cancer?” Fusion asks, “Can you ignite a star and harness its output, preferably downtown?” I will grant that you have to be impressed that the human species’ answer to this question may now be: “Yes, you can, very, very briefly.”

National Post
Twitter.com/colbycosh

BC SCI FI TECH

Nuclear fusion could power homes by 2030
ROFLMAO

Instead of using lasers like the California scientists, a Vancouver company is compressing the hydrogen plasma with high-powered pistons until the mixture reaches 180 million degrees Fahrenheit.

California scientists announced a breakthrough that could commercialize nuclear fusion in a few decades, but a Vancouver-based company has a method that claims to power homes with the technology by the early 2030s.

Unlike at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which used lasers to achieve net gain energy, General Fusion compresses hydrogen plasma inside a large cylinder to increase density and temperature.

General Fusion's method uses high-powered pistons to squeeze liquid metal around the plasma to build pressure until the mixture hits 180 million degrees Fahrenheit - and fusion occurs.

The firm has set the early 2030s for when it plans to have its first commercial power plant online, but is targeting 2027 to demonstrate fusion on a power plant level.

General Fusion is developing a massive plasma injector that uses pistons to compress the mixture in a new process that claims to commercialize the clean energy by the early 2030s

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California announced Monday that they had achieved 'net energy gain' by producing more energy in fusion than was used to activate it.

The experiment saw the high-energy lasers converge on a target about the size of a peppercorn, heating a capsule of hydrogen to more than 180 million degrees Fahrenheit and 'briefly simulating the conditions of the sun,' said the facility's director, Dr Kim Budil.

'I think it's moving into the foreground — and probably with concerted effort and investment, a few decades of research on the underlying technologies could put us in a position to build a power plant,' she added.

General Fusion, however, claims it will beat the scientists with its new method called Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF).

Historic 'breakthrough' in nuclear fusion: Scientists achieve 'holy grail' by replicating power of the sun,…

By Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com

COP15's key aim: protect 30% of the planet


Issued on: 14/12/2022 -

The Boreal Forest, above The Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland, has increasingly been affected by wood bugs in the past 20 years, due to longer summers 

© Olivier MORIN / AFP/File


Montreal (AFP) – Headlining the COP15 biodiversity talks is a drive to secure 30 percent of Earth's land and oceans as protected zones by 2030 -- the most disputed item on the agenda.

Some campaigners say the so-called "30x30" target is nature's equivalent of the landmark 1.5C global warming target set at climate talks under the Paris Agreement.

But delegates negotiating a broad accord for protecting nature are divided over how to pay for "30x30" and how the measure would be applied.

Here are some facts about the initiative, one of numerous targets under discussion at the talks taking place in Montreal until December 19.

Too much?

Fearful that COP15 will end with a less ambitious agreement, scientists and environmentalists insist 30 percent must be a minimum target for protecting nature, not a ceiling.

Currently, 17 percent of land and eight percent of the seas have protected status.

South Africa, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have argued for a target of 20 percent. Other countries, such as China, Japan and South Korea support 30 percent for land but want a less arduous target of 20 percent for the seas.

The target would be applied worldwide, so countries with big populations or small shorelines would not be obliged to contribute a disproportionate share.

Some countries would shoulder higher percentages, particularly ones that are home to areas of rich biodiversity, or places of strategic importance for arresting climate change -- such as the Amazon and the Congo Basin.

Not enough?

Some say the 30 percent target is not ambitious enough.

"Thirty percent would be a laudatory goal if the year were 1952. But it's 2022 and we don't have the luxury of waiting," said Eric Dinerstein, a biologist who authored "Global Safety Net," a study on areas in need of protection.

"The simplest way to say it, as we biologists would like to put it, is that 50 percent is our 1.5 degrees."

Oscar Soria of the civil campaign group Avaaz called too for a 50-percent target, in line with other NGOs such as Wild Foundation and One Earth.

He argued that if governments recognized indigenous peoples' and other communities' rights over their territory, the 30 percent protection target would have already been achieved.

Accounting for six percent of the world's population and occupying 25 percent of its land, indigenous people are key players in the Montreal talks.

"We are here to send the message that we cannot achieve ambitious conservation aims unless our rights are fully taken into account," said Jennifer Corpuz, a lawyer and member of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

Subject to conditions

Many NGOs say they will accept a 30 percent target if certain criteria are met, such as only including ecologically significant land in the protected areas and ensuring effective protection measures.

Some are demanding that a fixed percentage of the land be classed as strongly or totally protected -- with barely any human activity.

Most of these elements have yet to be approved in the draft agreements under discussion.

Campaigners are therefore pressing for action from one of the negotiating blocs at COP15: the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People. The bloc is jointly led by Costa Rica, France and Britain and backed by 130 countries that support the 30 percent target.

Some are limiting the scope of these demands, however.

"If the criteria are too restrictive, countries will go and protect areas that are not of great interest for biodiversity," said one Western negotiator who asked not to be named.

"But the richest areas are also the ones with the best resources: they have to be managed sustainably but not prohibited," the negotiator added.

"There is a lot of talk about 30 percent, but what is key is also what is done to nature in the remaining 70 percent."

Other key aims at stake in the talks are defending biodiversity in land management, reducing the use of pesticides, and restoring damaged land.

© 2022 AFP

COP15: Protecting the right 30% of the planet by 2030

Key Biodiversity Areas are critical to the future of life on Earth

By Penny Langhammer on December 13, 2022

Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta overlaps with five Key Biodiversity Areas. 

(Photo by Fundación Atelopus)

In the mid-2000s, I became extremely concerned about the number of amphibian species that were experiencing drastic population declines—and even extinctions—because of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis. Species were even disappearing from well-protected areas. At the time, I had been focused on identifying and protecting Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), which are the most important sites on the planet for species and ecosystems. I had co-authored many scientific papers and even a book about KBAs. But given these drastic amphibian declines, I started to worry that our efforts to identify and protect KBAs were not working, at least for amphibians, and I wanted to help uncover a solution.

So I pursued a PhD on the impacts of chytridiomycosis on the frogs of Puerto Rico, where three species extinctions had been recorded since the mid-70s. After five years of study, I came back around full circle. I realized that the most effective way to address this disease crisis was to prevent the pathogen’s spread to new places and to give the amphibians a better chance at surviving disease outbreaks and potentially evolving resistance or tolerance to the pathogen by protecting their habitat.

Harlequin toads are among the amphibians that have been hardest hit by the fungal disease chytridiomycosis. (Photo by Jaime Culebras/Photo Wildlife Tours)

I have been working to help identify and protect KBAs globally for 20 years, nearly my entire conservation career. We have limited time and resources to address the biodiversity crisis, and as a scientist, I have been drawn to this approach, which aims to identify the most important sites on the planet in a rigorous, data-driven and transparent way, according to a global standard. And as a conservationist, I appreciate that KBAs provide a practical, bottom-up approach for countries to identify sites that can guide multiple sectors of society in their efforts to minimize the further loss of the Earth’s biodiversity.

Identifying and protecting KBAs, especially sites that are home to the last remaining population of a Critically Endangered or Endangered species (called Alliance for Zero Extinction sites), is of critical importance even for species impacted by threats that are not related to habitat destruction, like disease. While I have many other responsibilities as Re:wild’s executive vice president, I remain firmly committed to advancing our work as part of the KBA Partnership. This includes our current participation in the UN’s 15th biodiversity summit, known as the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15).

Forest canopy in Java's Ujung Kulon National Park, a Key Biodiversity Area. (Photo by Robin Moore, Re:wild)

Since last week, the nearly 200 countries that are party to the Convention on Biological Diversity have been convening in Montréal, Canada to finalize, and hopefully adopt what is called a Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to set the course for biodiversity conservation for the next 10 years. Given that the interrelated crises of biodiversity loss, climate change and human well-being are worsening each year, it is critical that the parties adopt a framework with ambitious goals and targets that can halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030.

Of particular interest to me is Target 3, of 20 total, which aims to increase the proportion of the Earth’s land and ocean that is under protection to 30% by 2030. This is the so-called ‘30 by 30’ target that has already been embraced by more than 100 countries that comprise the High-Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, along with dozens of NGO partners.

The Philippines' Mounts Iglit-Baco Natural Park, a Key Biodiversity Area. (Photo by James Slade/Re:wild)

What is often overlooked in 30 by 30 is that there are other elements to the target that are equally essential to helping achieve the goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss. This includes, for example, a focus on the protection and conservation of areas that are particularly important for biodiversity, rather than on sites that have little economic value to people. This also includes ensuring that protected and conserved areas are effectively and equitably managed, ecologically represented and well-connected.

Between 2010 and 2020, a similar target outlined in the last decade’s global biodiversity framework, included both an area coverage goal (i.e. 17% of land and inland water and 10% of coastal and marine areas) and these other elements, but the only goal achieved was the percent coverage of land and sea. In fact, during the past decade, the expansion of protected areas was biased toward locations that were remote and simply less suitable for agriculture, rather than covering areas of global importance for species and ecosystems, regardless of suitability for agriculture.

A Mountain Gorilla in Virunga National Park, a Key Biodiversity Area (Photo by Bobby Neptune for Re:wild)

One possible reason for this failure is ambiguity about which sites are of ‘particular importance for biodiversity’ that should be the focus of conservation efforts. This is why Re:wild, and other members of the Key Biodiversity Areas Partnership, have been arguing for the explicit inclusion of Key Biodiversity Areas within the targets and indicators of the Global Biodiversity Framework, in particular Target 3.

At present, KBAs cover only 9% of the terrestrial land surface of the planet, and much less in the marine realm. Thus, as the world works to achieve a 30 by 30 target, including protecting “the right 30%,” KBAs represent the minimum of what needs to be protected or conserved, and effectively managed. Other areas will certainly be needed, and we make that clear in our recommended language for Target 3.

Less than 20% of the world’s 16,000 KBAs are protected and only 42% are partially protected. And many of the world’s KBAs have not yet been identified, especially in the aquatic realms. We now need the ambition from governments, donors, NGOs and the private sector to scale up the identification and conservation of KBAs so that all countries can meet the goal of halting and reversing global biodiversity loss. Not only is this the best way forward for saving our planet’s amphibians, but for safeguarding all life on Earth.

About the author   

Penny Langhammer
As Executive Vice President, Dr. Penny Langhammer oversees all Re:wild programs across the world. She is responsible for developing and implementing Re:wild’s strategy through both regional and cross-cutting programs.

All numerical targets including '30x30' pledge remain unsettled in COP15 negotiations

Monday

MONTREAL — Many key goals in a proposed agreement on protecting the planet's biodiversity remain unsettled as debate continues over who will pay for the ambitious pledges, delegates at a UN meeting in Montreal said Monday.


All numerical targets including '30x30' pledge remain unsettled in COP15 negotiations© Provided by The Canadian Press

Delegates to the UN meeting told reporters Monday that the pace of negotiations appears to have picked up in recent days, but more progress needs to happen if an agreement is to be reached by the time the COP15 biodiversity conference ends.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, said there has still been no agreement on numerical targets, how the deal will be implemented and who will pay for those pledges.

"Good progress has been made," Mrema told reporters. "But if you look specifically at the Global Biodiversity Framework negotiations, it's still a bumpy road."

Among the targets that remain unsettled is a proposal championed by Canada and a number of other countries to protect 30 per cent of the world's land and water by 2030, as well as targets around the reduction of species extinction and harmful pesticide use.

But Mrema said she's optimistic a deal can be reach before the conference is scheduled to end Dec. 19.

Ladislav Miko, who represents the European Commission, said discussions need to move "dramatically forward" before ministers and other high-level delegates arrive later this week to finalize the text. Otherwise, he said, they risk being bogged down in technical details and won't have time to negotiate the bigger issues.

"We do believe the crucial thing is we leave the ministerial segment with several main political issues to discuss, and we should make progress on the other issues as much as possible," he said.

Mrema said around 130 environment ministers and around 40 deputy or vice ministers are expected to participate in the high-level negotiations that begin Thursday.

Canada's environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, told The Canadian Press in an interview Monday that after formal negotiations on Saturday, the text outlining 22 biodiversity targets is about 35 per cent cleaner — meaning there are fewer bracketed words indicating text that is still under discussion.

Both Canada and China, which is the official host of the event, told the secretariat overseeing the conference they have to stop allowing more brackets or new text to be added to the draft and focus on cleaning it up. "Our hope is that by the time ministers arrive on Wednesday, we have a text that is about 80 per cent clean," Guilbeault said.

Mrema praised the behind-the-scenes co-operation between Canada and China to ensure a deal is reached at the conference, adding that Guilbeault and his Chinese counterpart have been meeting regularly.

"The ministers have been meeting almost every other day just to take stock of how the negotiations are going, and are already strategizing how they can continue to lead this process moving forward," she said.

A spokesperson for the World Wildlife Fund said there are positive conversations happening around some goals, including a proposal to conserve 30 per cent of the planet's land and water by 2030.

But Lucia Ruiz Bustos, the biodiversity and finance co-ordinator for WWF Mexico, said progress on that goal could be compromised by the current impasse over how the world will finance its goals and targets, and, in particular, how much money richer countries need to transfer to developing ones.

Marco Lambertini, the WWF's director, said the negotiations are caught in a back-and-forth between ambition and cost. "It's absolutely true that in order to deliver the ambition, we need the right commensurate resources," and that most of those resources need to go to the global South, he said.

Guido Broekhoven, another WWF spokesman, said some have estimated the cost of implementing the biodiversity framework at US$700 billion, although the actual cost will depend on the final agreement. Both Lambertini and the representatives of the European Union said those resources cannot come from governments alone.

Florika Fink-Hooijer of the European Commission said that calls for more financing from developing nations are "legitimate" but finding the money won't be so easy.

While the EU is a "reliable" donor of development assistance, the magnitude of the challenge will require more than foreign aid. She urged decision-makers to look to domestic financing, banks, industry and philanthropic sources to secure additional funds.

Despite the differences, the delegates who spoke Monday said they felt the pace of the talks had picked up after a slow start, and they were encouraged by the progress that has been made.

"I'm confident," said Guilbeault. "I think we are getting there."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 12, 2022.

— With files from Mia Rabson and Jacob Serebrin

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press

MINING IS NOT SUSTAINABLE NOR IS IT GREEN
Canada, other G7 nations launch sustainable mining alliance at COP15 nature meeting

Monday

MONTREAL — Canada and other G7 countries have formed a new alliance to compel mining companies to adopt more environmentally sustainable and socially responsible standards, as the Western world ramps up its critical mineral supply chains.


Canada, other G7 nations launch sustainable mining alliance at COP15 nature meeting© Provided by The Canadian Press

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced the agreement on Monday at the COP15 biodiversity talks in Montreal. The deal involves countries that are trying to reduce China's dominance in the critical mineral field.

Critical minerals refer to about three dozen metals and minerals needed for most modern technology, including laptops and cellphones. But they are also essential to rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles, as well as energy storage, and renewable energy production in solar panels and wind turbines.

"There is no energy transition without critical minerals," Wilkinson told reporters. "Critical minerals are the building blocks for the green and digital economy."

The announcement came three days after Wilkinson published Canada's critical mineral strategy, which aims to expand Canada's production in a way that is environmentally sustainable, ensures Indigenous equity and improves global security.

Canada and the United States are among the Western democracies that have made clear that China cannot be allowed to dominate critical minerals in a way that gives it political influence similar to Russia's leverage over oil and gas exports to Europe. China is the dominant player in critical minerals, particularly in the refining and processing and manufacturing uses.

Asked if the alliance was aimed at China, Wilkinson said, "It's a call to action to all countries that they should be actually doing this in a manner that is environmentally sustainable, that respects labour rights and that respects the rights of Indigenous Peoples."

All G7 countries but Italy have joined the alliance, as has Australia.

"We understand that net-zero by 2050 will involve more mining, not less," said Katherine Ruiz-Avila, the Australian deputy high commissioner to Canada, adding that her country joined the alliance to help ensure "critical minerals are mined, processed and recycled in ways that make a positive contribution to the lives of local communities, to First Nations people and to the quality of our natural environment."

The Canadian strategy is focused only on domestic mining, and Wilkinson acknowledged it is silent on the sustainability of raw materials that are mined elsewhere and brought to Canada for further processing or used in the manufacturing of batteries.

The alliance is an attempt to extend the Canadian strategy globally, though it is not clear how heavy-handed Canada or any of the others will be about ensuring imported critical minerals follow the same environmental and social standards as those mined at home.

The agreement also does not specify what role the alliance members will play in ensuring that their own companies follow the standards when operating on foreign soil. Canada's mining companies have a good reputation for sustainable mining practices at home, but internationally it is a different story. There have been several lawsuits — for environmental damage, health impacts and human rights violations — filed against Canadian companies operating in other countries.

Asked how the alliance would change the practices of Canadian mining companies, Wilkinson defended the industry.

"Canada's mining companies, actually both domestically and internationally, have some of the highest standards in the world. That's not to say that we don't need to do more; we do need to do more in the context of ensuring that we are stemming the decline in biodiversity that exists here and around the world," he said.

The alliance members are also not clear on whether they will limit exports to China of raw materials mined in their territories. Canada has already begun enforcing a new policy to limit the role state-owned enterprises in non-democratic countries play in Canadian critical minerals, forcing three Chinese companies to sell their ownership stakes in some small Canadian mining developments.

Wilkinson said, however, that the alliance will influence where Canada sources its critical minerals.

"We're all, essentially, committing ourselves to certain standards that relate to how we produce the minerals, but also where we buy minerals from," he said. "If you are a country that has critical mineral resources, and you want to sell it to the United Kingdom, or to Japan or to Canada, you need to respect those principles."

The COP15 nature talks are an effort by most countries in the world to agree to policies that will both halt and repair the destruction that human activities, including mining, have brought on global ecosystems and wild species. Some environmental advocates aren't pleased the Canadian government is announcing a strategy that expands mining.

Caroline Brouillette, national policy director at the Climate Action Network Canada, said the strategy is disconnected from conversations happening at COP15 and reinforces "our dependence on destructive business models that exhaust resources and harm communities."

Aimee Boulanger, executive director of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, said governments have an essential role to play in ensuring that the extraction of minerals used in the transition away from fossil fuels is done responsibly.

"We need to make sure that the solutions to the problems we're trying to deal with don't themselves cause greater harm," she said in an interview.

But Boulanger said that even in the countries that are members of the alliance, local laws are currently not strong enough to prevent significant harm from industrial mining.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 12, 2022.

— Mia Rabson in Ottawa and Jacob Serebrin in Montreal.

Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press