The future of flight in a net-zero-carbon world: 9 scenarios, lots of sustainable biofuel

Steve Davis, Professor of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine 

Candelaria Bergero, Ph.D. Student in Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine

THE CONVERSATION
Mon, February 6, 2023

Some airlines are already experimenting with sustainable aviation fuel. 

Michael H/Stone Collection/Getty Images

Several major airlines have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by midcentury to fight climate change. It’s an ambitious goal that will require an enormous ramp-up in sustainable aviation fuels, but that alone won’t be enough, our latest research shows.

The idea of jetliners running solely on fuel made from used cooking oil from restaurants or corn stalks might seem futuristic, but it’s not that far away.

Several airlines are already experimenting with sustainable aviation fuels. These include biofuels made from agriculture residues, trees, corn and used cooking oil. Other fuels are synthetic, made by combining captured carbon from the air and green hydrogen, made with renewable energy. Often, they can go straight into existing aircraft fuel tanks that normally hold fossil jet fuel.

United Airlines, which has been using a blend of used oil or waste fat and fossil fuels on some flights from Los Angeles and Amsterdam, announced in February 2023 that it had formed a partnership with biofuel companies to power 50,000 flights a year between its Chicago and Denver hubs using ethanol-based sustainable aviation fuels by 2028.

In a new study, we examined different options for aviation to reach net-zero emissions and assessed how air travel could continue without contributing to climate change.

The bottom line: Each pathway has important trade-offs and hurdles. Replacing fossil jet fuel with sustainable aviation fuels will be crucial, but the industry will still need to invest in direct-air carbon capture and storage to offset emissions that can’t be cut.
Scenarios for the future

Before the pandemic, in 2019, aviation accounted for about 3.1% of total global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion, and the number of passenger miles traveled each year was rising. If aviation emissions were a country, that would make it the sixth-largest emitter, closely following Japan.

In addition to releasing carbon emissions, burning jet fuel produces soot and water vapor, known as contrails, that contribute to warming, and these are not avoided by switching to sustainable aviation fuels.

Aviation is also one of the hardest-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy. Small electric and hydrogen-powered planes are being developed, but long-haul flights with lots of passengers are likely decades away.

We developed and analyzed nine scenarios spanning a range of projected passenger and freight demand, energy intensity and carbon intensity of aviation to explore how the industry might get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Nine scenarios illustrate how much carbon offsets would be required to reach net-zero emissions, depending on choices made about demand and energy and carbon intensity. Each starts with 2021’s emissions (1.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent). With rising demand and no improvement in carbon intensity, a large amount of carbon capture will be necessary. Less fossil fuel use and slower demand growth reduce offset needs. Candelaria Bergero

We found that as much as 19.8 exajoules of sustainable aviation fuels could be needed for the entire sector to reach net-zero CO₂ emissions. With other efficiency improvements, that could be reduced to as little as 3 exajoules. To put that into context, 3 exajoules is almost equivalent to all biofuels produced in 2019 and far surpasses the 0.005 exajoules of bio-based jet fuel produced in 2019. An exajoule is a measure of energy.

Flying less and improving airplanes’ energy efficiency, such as using more efficient “glide” landings that allow airlines to approach the airport with engines at near idle, can help reduce the amount of fuel needed. But even in our rosiest scenarios – where demand grows at 1% per year, compared to the historical average of 4% per year, and energy efficiency improves by 4% per year rather than 1% – aviation would still need about 3 exajoules of sustainable aviation fuels.

Why offsets are still necessary

A rapid expansion in biofuel sustainable aviation fuels is easier said than done. It could require as much as 1.2 million square miles (300 million hectares) of dedicated land to grow corps to turn into fuel – roughly 19% of global cropland today.

Another challenge is cost. The global average price of fossil jet fuel is about about US$3 per gallon ($0.80 per liter), while the cost to produce bio-based jet fuels is often twice as much. The cheapest, HEFA, which uses fats, oils and greases, ranges in cost from $2.95 to $8.67 per gallon ($0.78 to $2.29 per liter), but it depends on the availability of waste oil.

Fischer-Tropsch biofuels, produced by a chemical reaction that converts carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons, range from $3.79 to $8.71 per gallon ($1 to $2.30 per liter). And synthetic fuels are from $4.92 to $17.79 per gallon ($1.30 to $4.70 per liter).

Realistically, reaching net-zero emissions will likely also rely on carbon dioxide removal.

In a future with similar airline use as today, as much as 3.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide would have to be captured from the air and locked away – pumped underground, for example – for aviation to reach net-zero. That could cost trillions of dollars.

For these offsets to be effective, the carbon removal would also have to follow a robust eligibility criteria and be effectively permanent. This is not happening today in airline offsetting programs, where airlines are mostly buying cheap, nonpermanent offsets, such as those involving forest conservation and management projects.

Some caveats apply to our findings, which could increase the need for offsets even more.

Our assessment assumes sustainable aviation fuels to be net-zero carbon emissions. However, the feedstocks for these fuels currently have life-cycle emissions, including from fertilizer, farming and transportation. The American Society for Testing Materials also currently has a maximum blend limit: up to 50% sustainable fuels can be blended into conventional jet fuel for aviation in the U.S., though airlines have been testing 100% blends in Europe.

How to overcome the final hurdles

To meet the climate goals the world has set, emissions in all sectors must decrease – including aviation.

While reductions in demand would help reduce reliance on sustainable aviation fuels, it’s more likely that more and more people will fly in the future, as more people become wealthier. Efficiency improvements will help decrease the amount of energy needed to power aviation, but it won’t eliminate it.

Scaling up sustainable aviation fuel production could decrease its costs. Quotas, such as those introduced in the European Union’s “Fit for 55” plan, subsidies and tax credits, like those in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act signed in 2022, and a carbon tax or other price on carbon, can all help achieve this.

Additionally, given the role that capturing carbon from the atmosphere will play in achieving net-zero emissions, a more robust accounting system is needed internationally to ensure that the offsets are compensating for aviation’s non-CO₂ impacts. If these hurdles are overcome, the aviation sector could achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Candelaria Bergero, University of California, Irvine and Steve Davis, University of California, Irvine.

Read more:

Electric planes are coming: Short-hop regional flights could be running on batteries in a few years

Bucking the trend: Is there a future for ultra long-haul flights in a net zero carbon world?

Candelaria Bergero's research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Steven J. Davis's research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"JUST GET IN LINE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE"

Path to US citizenship elusive for longtime immigrant owners of popular Colorado Springs German restaurant

Debbie Kelley, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Sun, February 5, 2023 

Feb. 5—Sabine and Michael Berchtold came to Colorado Springs over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1996, she from Germany, he from Switzerland, on work visas that allowed the young married couple to own a business stateside if they met certain conditions.

Two weeks later, they opened Uwe's German Restaurant, which had been under previous ownership.

More than a quarter of a century later, a cloud of sadness rises above the whiffs of jaeger schnitzel, bratwurst and sauerbraten at their popular eatery.

Despite applying every year to obtain a green card and working with several attorneys to become permanent legal citizens, the Berchtolds have yet to succeed.

If they continue to fail, they will have to leave the United States when they sell the restaurant.

They're not sure when that might be. While they say they love what they do, with Michael, 55, manning the kitchen and Sabine, 56, running the front end for decades, they'd like to retire at some point and enjoy the fruits of their hard but rewarding labor.

"We're here now 26 years, and it's home," Sabine Berchtold said. "Knowing we cannot stay, it hurts. It weighs on your mind."

The Berchtolds are among an estimated 800,000 business owners living in the U.S. in the same unsteady boat.

"It seems crazy, but it happens," said Professor Violeta Chapin, co-director of the Colorado Law Clinical Program at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "This particular type of business-related immigration hurts business people who have invested a significant amount of money in our economy and are unable to transfer to green cards."

But the E-2 non-immigrant investor visa that the Berchtolds have — which requires holders to contribute $120,000 toward a business in America and employ at least two American workers — is designed to be temporary, said Zachary New, a lawyer with Joseph & Hall PC in Denver and a founding member of the Immigration Law and Policy Society at the University of Colorado School of Law.

The visa allows for "quasi-permanent residency," New said, and implies that the holder plans to return to the country of origin.

"The U.S. government gives you permission to operate the business and grow it, after you invest," he said. "It's difficult to convert it to permanent residency."

Sabine said that type of visa was the only chance for her and her husband to be able to come to the United States because they did not have relatives here.

At this point on their journey to become legal permanent residents, Sabine and Michael are angry about the massive influx of immigrants seeking asylum or improved economic conditions now crossing the southern border.

It's unfair, Sabine said, that thousands of people are being allowed in daily and immediately receiving some assistance and access to the same system that the Berchtolds have been steadfastly trying to crack for years.

"They can come in illegally and get a green card, and they're set to go," Sabine said.

Undocumented immigrants who enter the U.S. without a visa or other proper paperwork or authorization don't receive as many benefits as some people might think, Chapin said.

"Lots of people get nothing," she said. "They somehow make their way in the country, they have no work authorization, no access to federal benefits, it's very difficult for them to access health insurance. Yet they survive."

While only legal immigrants can qualify for federal subsidized housing and food assistance, Colorado and some other states provide undocumented people access to state-sponsored health insurance and help paying for college tuition. And many community nonprofits and faith-based groups help with basic necessities.

And, said Chapin, "Undocumented residents pay taxes, even though they don't have lawful status."

An estimated 11 million people live in the U.S. illegally, although some entities, including the Center for Immigration Studies of New York, say that number is undercounted by up to 1.5 million.

In many cases, new arrivals must follow the same procedures as people who have been here for years and are requesting legal status or citizenship, attorneys said.

However, New said, asylum seekers at the border who can immediately pass a screening proving "credible fear" as their reason for leaving their home country, can receive a work permit and be expedited for asylum consideration.

"It's not taking away from anybody else's ability to get their own lawful status," he said. "Having orderly and efficient border processing is only helpful, as immigration courts are increasingly backlogged."

Asylum cases can take years to be heard in court, though, New said.

"With the way the numbers are rising, it's going to take four to five years from getting into immigration court until a hearing, unless you're able to push something faster," he said.

Sabine believes that while new arrivals may have to get in line for backlogged immigration services, they are clogging what was already a notoriously sluggish system.

New agrees the laws are antiquated and "do not work in a lot of the ways they were intended to when they were written."

But each part of immigration law has an objective, he said. For example, the origin of asylum law dates to the Holocaust and is designed to protect people escaping persecution.

Work permits for skilled and unskilled laborers and investors such as the Berchtolds serve different needs, as do the allowances made for Ukrainian, Afghan, Cuban and Haitian nationals who are paroled into the U.S. on temporary stays and work authorization.

"There are a multitude of programs, and certainly things need to be fixed and tweaked, but it's unfair to say one group of individuals, especially vulnerable individuals, is being treated in a preferential manner as compared to individuals going through a lawful manner in a different way," he said. "Each process has its own purpose."

Obtaining green cards, also known as the diversity visa program, from among the 50,000 the U.S. issues each year — which includes 1,000 from Germany and 500 from Switzerland — would enable the Berchtolds to remain in the U.S. permanently and forgo the current complicated process that forces them to return to their native countries every four years to renew their visas through the American embassies.

Also, every two years, they must leave U.S. soil for an unspecified amount of time and have their passport stamped upon re-entry.

Only by sheer luck did those years of mandatory travel not come up during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, they say.

The immigration structure has not provided the path to citizenship they seek.

"Our only hope is to win the green card lottery," Sabine said.

Immigrants are more likely to be successful in America if they are granted legal citizenship, according to the Center for Migration Studies of New York, which held a webinar on immigration in January.

The progression to legalization enables immigrants to attain higher income, education level, English language proficiency and health insurance, said Donald Kerwin, co-author of a new report from the Center for Migration Studies of New York, "Ten Years of Democratizing Data: Privileging Facts, Refuting Misconceptions and Examining Missed Opportunities."

"It's important to move from one category to another," he said. "It benefits the entire U.S., not just the people impacted."

Immigration is an ongoing, hotly debated political issue, with both sides of the partisan coin blaming the other for the flood of immigrants entering the U.S., and the chasmic disagreement over how to handle the situation.

The report Kerwin co-authored with Robert Warren provides three recommendations for provisional federal changes to reduce the logjam of applications and provide what they think would be a more equitable method for people like the Berchtolds.

The process for long-term residents in good standing to gain legal status currently requires them to live here for 50 years.

Kerwin and Warren are calling for reducing that qualification to 15 years of U.S. residency. That would cover 42% of the undocumented population, Kerwin said.

"We recommend streamlining the naturalization process, making it a priority," he said during the January webinar. "We support more generous eligibility criteria — waivers of language and civics requirements for people who have been here for 15 years. We need to prioritize education, English language proficiency and earnings to increase naturalization rates."

This year could bring some changes. The legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA policy, which protects undocumented children from deportation and allows them work permits, is in limbo and expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision.

Title 42, a federal provision invoked during the pandemic to restrict the number of foreigners entering the country, also could be removed — the possibility of which last year brought throngs of people from numerous countries trying to gain entry to America.

Monthly migrant "encounters" at the southwest border — which include apprehensions by U.S. Border Patrol that result in temporary custody until adjudication and expulsions back to home countries — are near record high levels, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In 2022, 2.4 million enforcement encounters at the Mexico border were recorded, compared with 1.7 million in 2021 and 458,000 in 2020, the agency reports.

More than 700,000 encounters have been logged to date for 2023.

Under immigration law, it is a misdemeanor offense subject to fine or six-month imprisonment for anyone entering the United States illegally. And it's a felony offense for anyone to reenter or attempt to reenter the U.S. after being removed or deported.

Congress has not revised immigration laws comprehensively since the Immigration Act of 1990, a national reform of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

The Berchtolds note that they pay taxes and Social Security.

"We have to do everything like an American," Michael said.

But they personally cannot receive any Social Security payments from the federal government because they don't have green cards.

The unhappiness on their faces comes from deep within. If they do not receive green cards before they leave the restaurant business, they will have to leave America.

Many of Uwe's German Restaurant regulars know about their plight.

A few years ago, nearly 2,000 customers signed a petition calling for the Berchtolds to obtain permanent residency, which a proposed bill in Congress would have addressed.

The couple submitted the petition to U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado Springs.

"He said he would support it," Sabine said.

But then impeachment proceedings for former President Donald Trump began and COVID-19 hit, and progress on the proposal halted.

"I feel so bad for them," said Ralph Huber, who has been a patron of Uwe's restaurant for years. "People are crossing the border by the millions, and here we have these people who have been here legally for a long time and can't become citizens. It's not right."

What is carbon dioxide, anyway? How does it cause global warming?



Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
Mon, February 6, 2023 at 3:00 AM MST·6 min read

Chemically, carbon dioxide is incredibly simple – it is just one carbon atom linked with two oxygen atoms. Together they create a colorless gas that makes up just a tiny fraction of the Earth's atmosphere, about 0.04%.

That gas is critical to life on earth because plants use sunlight and carbon dioxide to create energy through the process of photosynthesis.

But carbon dioxide is also the primary reason the climate is warming, a long-term shift in temperature that threatens the delicately balanced ecosystems humans depend upon.

So how is something so necessary to life also so harmful? Here's what to know:


Why does carbon dioxide cause global warming?

Earth is heated by the sun — About 71% of the solar energy that arrives is absorbed by the atmosphere and surface and 29% is reflected back into space, according to NASA.

The energy that comes in from the sun alone is not enough to keep the Earth warm. For that we need the Earth's atmosphere, which acts like a blanket holding in some of the heat, said Scott Denning, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University.

How does climate change affect you?: Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter

READ MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY

That "blanket" is made up of several gases nicknamed "greenhouse gases" because they hold in heat, just like the glass panes of a greenhouse hold in the sun's heat.

The greenhouse effect is a natural process, said Denning. "It's really lucky for us that we have air." Without it, the Earth would just be a white frozen ball hanging in space – uninhabitable.

That natural process, however, has begun to change due to humans burning fossil fuels.
Is carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas?

Earth's atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with just 1% other things. Greenhouse gases are among those "other things."

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, one of the four main ones. In terms of US greenhouse gases emissions, here's a list by amounts from the Environmental Protection Agency:

Carbon dioxide, 79%


Methane (natural gas) 11%


Nitrous Oxide 7%


Fluorinated gases 3%

What does CO2 mean?

You'll often see carbon dioxide written with its chemical formula name, CO2. That simply means it's a molecule that contains one carbon and two oxygen atoms. In chemical texts it's written this way: CO₂ where the subscript numeral two means there are two oxygen atoms.

How does carbon dioxide work as a greenhouse gas?

CO2 is great at holding in heat partly because it's a bigger molecule than the nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%) that make up most of Earth's atmosphere. They are each composed of two, not three, linked atoms, two nitrogens or two oxygens.

That geometry means they only interact with a narrow wavelength of light. The more complex geometry of CO2 molecules means they can absorb a much wider range of light waves, including the infrared waves that carry heat.

So the more CO2 molecules in the atmosphere, the more heat they can trap.

DEFINITIONS: Is climate change the same thing as global warming? Definitions explained.


CAUSES: Why scientists say humans are to blame.


EFFECTS: What are the effects of climate change? How they disrupt our daily life, fuel disasters.

It's a delicate balance. Too little CO2 and the Earth wouldn't stay at a temperature suitable for life. Too much and the temperature starts to rise.

Note that CO2 is the greenhouse gas that's most discussed because, although it's less powerful than some such as methane (natural gas), it stays in the atmosphere for hundreds and even thousands of years.

Where does carbon dioxide come from?

Carbon dioxide is what people and animals breathe out after breathing in oxygen. But that's balanced by the plants we eat, so humans and animals aren't affecting the balance of atmospheric CO2. It's a cycle, humans and other animals exhale CO2 but it's the same carbon that was "inhaled" by the plants we eat, so it doesn't contribute to global warming.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from two primary sources, natural and human activities. Natural CO2 comes from outgassing from the ocean, decomposing plants, wildfires and volcanoes.

More: Humans responsible for more CO2 emissions than volcanoes, including Mt. Etna

Humans began to change the balance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere around 1750. That's when the Industrial Revolution began in England and factories started burning coal to power machines. This added new carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from fossil fuels that had been buried deep underground for millions of years.

Here's how much the balance has changed: For the last 400,000 years, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuated between 200 and 280 parts per million, according to NASA.

In 1750 the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was estimated to be about 280 ppm.

Today, it's risen to 418 parts per million, the highest it's been in 3.6 million years.

As people began burning more fossil fuels, the amounts have increased. According to NASA, half of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in the last 300 years has occurred since 1980, and one-quarter of it since 2000.

How can such a tiny amount of CO2 cause so much trouble?

The difference between 280 parts per million and 418 might not seem like a lot, but it means humans have generated an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide pollution in the last 150 years.

That means the blanket around the Earth has gotten thicker and it's having an effect. Since 1880, the global annual temperature has increased 1.9 degrees, with the majority of the warming occurring since 1975.

A 1.9 degree increase isn't that much, is it?

It takes a lot of energy to warm all the oceans, the atmosphere and the land by almost 2 degrees.

That additional heat is causing weather patterns to become more intense and more erratic.

It's also making things hotter. The past seven years were Earth's warmest on record "by a clear margin," according to new research released this week by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a group affiliated with the European Union.

Because CO2 stays in the atmosphere for anywhere from 300 to 1,000 years, the levels aren't going to come down quickly no matter how much humanity cuts production. But if they aren't cut, the temperature will rise even further.

More: Florida, Texas, Central US could see biggest increase in hot days

That means 2022 was probably one of the coolest years children alive today will remember.

Are carbon and carbon dioxide the same thing?

They're not. Carbon is a black, solid element while carbon dioxide is a colorless gas.

But when people talk about climate change, they use "carbon" as shorthand for "carbon dioxide." When someone says "carbon neutral" or "carbon free," they're actually talking about reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that's emitted.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is carbon dioxide? Does carbon cause climate change?

Yellen: 'You don't have a recession' when U.S. unemployment at 53-year low


 U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visits South Africa

Mon, February 6, 2023 
By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday said she saw a path for avoiding a U.S. recession, with inflation coming down significantly and the economy remaining strong, given the strength of the U.S. labor market.

"You don't have a recession when you have 500,000 jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years," Yellen told ABC's Good Morning America program.

"What I see is a path in which inflation is declining significantly and the economy is remaining strong."

Yellen said inflation remained too high, but it had been falling for the past six months and could decline significantly given measures adopted by the Biden administration, including steps to reduce the cost of gasoline and prescription drugs.

U.S. Labor Department data released Friday showed job growth accelerated sharply in January, with nonfarm payrolls up by 517,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropping to a 53-1/2-year low of 3.4%.

The strength in hiring, which occurred despite layoffs in the technology sector, reduced market expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve was close to pausing its monetary policy tightening cycle.

Yellen told ABC that reducing inflation remained Biden's top priority, but the U.S. economy was proving "strong and resilient."

Three separate pieces of legislation - the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act and a massive infrastructure law - would all help drive inflation down, along with a price cap imposed on the cost of Russia oil, she said.

Yellen called on Congress to raise the U.S. debt limit, warning that failure to do so would produce "an economic and financial catastrophe."

"While sometimes we've gone up to the wire, it's something that Congress has always recognized as their responsibility and needs to do again."

The U.S. government hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling last month, prompting the Treasury Department to warn that it may not be able to stave off default past early June.

Republican U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden met last week for talks on raising the debt limit and have agreed to meet again, but the standoff has unsettled markets.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Toby Chopra and Chizu Nomiyama)

Colombian military spots balloon-like object in its airspace

Sun, February 5, 2023 

(Reuters) - A day before a U.S. military jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, Colombia's military confirmed a sighting over its territory of an airborne object similar to a balloon.

Colombia's air force said in a brief statement on Saturday that a possible balloon had been detected in its air defense system on Friday morning.

U.S. military officials on Friday said a Chinese balloon was spotted somewhere over Latin America but did not specify its location.

The Colombian statement did not mention China or any other country as the balloon's origin.

According to the Colombian statement, an "object" was detected over its territory at an altitude of 55,000 feet that had entered the South American country's airspace to the north moving at an average speed of 25 knots, or roughly 29 miles per hour.

The statement added that the object exhibited "characteristics similar to those of a balloon," and that the air force monitored it until it left Colombian airspace.

"It was determined that it did not represent a threat to national security," the statement added.

No other official confirmation of unidentified balloons flying over other Latin American countries has been issued as of Sunday.

In recent days, however, balloon sightings have been made in Venezuela and Costa Rica by multiple social media users.

Costa Rican officials received reports of a balloon on Thursday and planes were notified, according to the head of the civil aviation agency.

"It was the same thing everyone else saw, a white ball," said Fernando Naranjo, Costa Rica's civil aviation director, adding that no further action was taken.

The saga of the Chinese balloon, downed off of the U.S. Atlantic coast on Saturday, captivated public attention for days, and was widely seen as worsening U.S.-China relations.

Chinese ally Venezuela in a statement on Sunday condemned the U.S. decision to shoot down the balloon.

(Reporting by Diego Ore and David Alire Garcia; Additional reporting by Alvaro Murillo in San Jose; Editing by Mark Porter and Grant McCool)

Second balloon over Latin America is ours - China

Mon, February 6, 2023 

The first balloon, which was spotted over the United States, before it was shot down off the South Carolina coast

The Chinese government has admitted a balloon spotted over Latin America on Friday is from China - but claimed it is intended for civilian use.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the aircraft had deviated from its route, having been blown off course.

A similar balloon was shot down in US airspace by military jets on Saturday amid allegations that it was being used for surveillance.

China has denied accusations of spying, saying it was monitoring the weather.

The incident has led to a diplomatic row between Washington and Beijing.

On Friday - before fighter jets brought down the balloon at the weekend - US military officials said a second Chinese balloon had been spotted over Latin America.

On Monday, China admitted an aircraft had "accidentally entered Latin American and Caribbean airspace".

Ms Mao told reporters the second balloon had "deviated greatly" from its intended route, citing the aircraft's "limited manoeuvrability" and the weather conditions.

"The unmanned airship in question that came from China is of a civilian nature and used for flight tests," she added.

"China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international law in order to inform and properly deal with all parties concerned, without posing any threat to any country."

At the weekend, Colombia's air force said an object with "characteristics similar to those of a balloon" had been detected on 3 February in the country's airspace at above 55,000ft.

Colombia said it had followed the object until it left the airspace, adding that it did not represent a threat to national security.

High-altitude spying marks new low for US-China ties


Was China balloon blown off course?


Why use a spy balloon instead of satellites?

Meanwhile, work by US Navy divers continues to recover the wreckage of the surveillance balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

US President Joe Biden first approved the plan to bring down the balloon on Wednesday, but decided to wait until it was over water so as not to put people on the ground at risk.

The US believes the balloon was being used to monitor sensitive military sites.

Adm Mike Mullen, former chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, rejected China's suggestion it might have blown off course, saying it was manoeuvrable because "it has propellers on it".

"This was not an accident. This was deliberate. It was intelligence," he added.

Relations between China and the US have been strained by the incident, with the Pentagon calling it an "unacceptable violation" of its sovereignty. A planned trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China was cancelled as a result of the row.

China has lodged a formal complaint with the US embassy in Beijing over the incident.

Graphic of high altitude balloon, showing helium filled balloon, solar panels and instruments bay which can include cameras, radar and communications equipment. They can fly at heights of 80,000ft-120,000ft, higher than fighter jets and commercial aircraft

How China's balloon over America steered its way into spying history


People photograph a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it floats off

the coast in Surfside Beach

Mon, February 6, 2023
By Phil Stewart and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When China's suspected surveillance balloon first passed into U.S. airspace north of Alaska's Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28, American officials believed there was a good chance it would keep traveling on a northern trajectory over sparsely populated areas.

But two days later the balloon did something unexpected: it slowed down, almost loitering, over Canada. Then it changed course and headed south on a new trajectory that would eventually take it over the U.S. state of Idaho, officials said.

"That's when we knew this was different," a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Chinese spy balloons have crossed into U.S. territory in the past but the way that this one maneuvered, steering toward sensitive U.S. sites, raised alarms at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), officials said.

The United States operates a military base and nuclear missile silos in Montana, a state bordering Idaho.

The appearance of the Chinese balloon caused a political uproar in the United States and prompted the top U.S. diplomat, Antony Blinken, to cancel a Feb. 5-6 trip to Beijing that both countries hoped would steady their rocky relations.

President Joe Biden asked for military options on Tuesday to deal with the growing - but still undisclosed - crisis.

Military officials developed a plan to shoot down the balloon on Wednesday as it flew over Montana.

Planning advanced to the point where Billings airport on Wednesday issued a ground stop to clear nearby airspace as the military mobilized F-22 fighter jets in case Biden ordered that the balloon be shot down.

"Even with those protective measures taken it was the judgment of our military commanders that we didn't drive the risk down low enough, so we didn't take the shot," a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Thursday.

Another U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the debris would have fallen at least in a seven-mile (11-km) radius, posing a mortal risk to Americans and potentially damaging infrastructure.

The best and safest option was instead to take the balloon down over water, officials concluded, a move that could also help U.S. intelligence recover the Chinese equipment for study.

BALLOON MANEUVERS

The U.S. government has declined to say which sites the Chinese balloon surveyed. It appeared to travel near sensitive U.S. bases including Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, which oversees 150 intercontinental ballistic missile silos, and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, home to U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of nuclear forces.

It also appeared to drift over Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, which operates the Air Force's B-2 bomber.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the balloon was able to linger in the winds over specific areas.

"We saw it do that. It loitered over certain sites. It went left, right. We saw it maneuver inside the jet stream. That's how it was operating," the official said, adding that the craft had propellers and rudders.

China says the balloon was a civilian craft used for meteorological and other purposes, and strayed into U.S. airspace "completely accidentally."

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman met with senior officials from the embassy of China to convey "a strong set of messages," a senior administration official said.

Biden had already directed his team to protect sites from Chinese collection of sensitive information as NORAD tracked the balloon's movements across the continental United States.

The United States also started gathering information about the balloon itself, including how it operated.

After sightings along the balloon's path, and public uproar swelled, Blinken decided on Thursday to officially postpone his trip to China, according to an administration official. On Friday, the Pentagon said it expected the balloon to keep flying over the United States for several more days.

SHOOT DOWN PREPARED

But after those public remarks, the balloon gathered speed, heading toward South Carolina's coast. Officials said it wasn't clear how much of that acceleration was due to the jet stream or the use of the balloon's own steering.

Biden approved a plan to shoot down the balloon on Friday night while he was in Wilmington, Delaware, setting off round-the-clock military preparations to coordinate the mission.

NASA analyzed and assessed the debris field, based on the trajectory of the balloon, weather and estimated "payload" of sensors, and a U.S. military operation unfolded at sea and in the skies.

Multiple fighter and refueling aircraft joined the mission to take down the Chinese balloon, but only one - an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia - took the shot at 2:39 p.m. (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.

It punctured the balloon as it hovered at between 60,000 and 65,000 feet (18-20 km), and the payload came crashing down to the sea. The debris field stretched for some seven miles (11 km), as predicted, but most landed in relatively shallow water, just 47 feet (14 metres) deep.

"That will make it fairly easy, actually," a military official said of the recovery operation in the Atlantic.

Once the mission was complete, the U.S. government notified China while the State Department briefed American allies.

China condemned the action, saying America was "obviously overreacting."

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Jeff Mason; Editing by Don Durfee and Grant McCool)

ABC anchor calls out Sen. Marco Rubio during tense exchange over Chinese spy balloon: 'This happened 3 times under the previous president

Cheryl Teh
Sun, February 5, 2023

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

ABC's Jonathan Karl called out Sen. Marco Rubio during a tense exchange about the Chinese spy balloon.


Rubio said Biden should not have "waited so long" to tell people about the balloon.


But Karl said Trump did not disclose three balloon sightings that happened during his term.

ABC anchor Jonathan Karl called out Sen. Marco Rubio during a tense exchange on Sunday about the Chinese spy balloon.

During Rubio's appearance on ABC's "This Week," the Florida senator was asked if President Joe Biden should have acted against the military's advice and shot the suspected spy balloon down over the US mainland. The balloon was spotted floating over Montana, near a nuclear missile base.

Rubio conceded that falling debris from the balloon "could hurt, harm, or kill people." But the senator also hit out at Biden for what he said was weakness in the face of China's provocations.

"I don't know why they waited so long to tell people about this, and they knew the trajectory that it was on it seems from late last week, or early last week," said Rubio, the vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.

In response, Karl said former President Donald Trump did not disclose three different sightings of Chinese balloons during his term.

"And we're also told, by the way, that this happened three times under the previous president," Karl said. "Obviously, there were no public notifications there."

Rubio did not respond to Karl's rebuttal on-air and thanked Karl before the segment ended.

The Chinese balloon in question was shot down by the Air Force over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday. And while Republicans have argued that Trump would have shot down the balloon sooner to send a message to China, senior Pentagon officials said on Saturday that balloons from China moved into US air space at least three times during Trump's term. The officials did not say if these balloons were shot down.

"PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time," a senior defense official said at the Pentagon's news conference.

Trump has denied that any balloons crossed into US airspace during his term.

"It never happened with us under the Trump administration and if it did, we would have shot it down immediately," Trump told Fox News Digital. "It's disinformation."

Trump has also been ranting about the Chinese balloon on his Truth Social page.

"The Chinese would never have floated the Blimp ("Balloon") over the United States if I were President!!!" Trump wrote on Sunday night.

Representatives for Rubio and Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Donald Trump Tries to Deny That Spy Balloons Also Flew Over U.S. During His Presidency

Corbin Bolies

DAILY BEAST
Sun, February 5, 2023 

Gaelen Morse/Reuters

Donald Trump tried to deny reports on Sunday that China launched spy balloons over the U.S. during his presidency, saying the claims were an attempt to deflect embarrassment over the half-week debacle.

Three other spy balloons have traveled over the continental U.S. in the past, officials told the Associated Press, including twice during the Trump administration. That has not stopped Trump and his acolytes, such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, from claiming otherwise.

Video Shows Chinese Balloon Being Shot Down Over Atlantic Ocean

“The Chinese Balloon situation is a disgrace, just like the Afghanistan horror show, and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration. They are only good at cheating in elections, and disinformation,” Trump said in a post on his social network Truth Social.

“And now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the ‘heat’ off the slow moving Biden fools. China had too much respect for ‘TRUMP’ for this to have happened, and it NEVER did.”

But U.S. officials said Saturday that the Chinese spy balloon—which spawned the most-watched news event since last year’s Super Bowl—was not the first of its kind.

Still, that did not stop Trump from employing his tried-and-true line of defense: labeling facts he does not care for as fake news.

“JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!” he wrote.

Suspected Chinese Spy Balloons 

Crossed Into U.S. 3 Times During 

Trump Administration

Mary Papenfuss

HUFFPOST

Sun, February 5, 2023 

Suspected spy balloons from China crossed into the continental United States at least three times while Donald Trump was president, according to a statement Saturday by the Department of Defense citing an unnamed “senior defense official.”

“Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration,” the statement said. The Associated Press also reported that one other balloon crossed into the U.S. earlier in the Biden administration.

None of those four incursions reportedly lasted as long as the trip by the suspected spy balloon that the U.S. military shot down Saturday. And none of the other balloons were apparently blown out of the sky, though that was not immediately confirmed.

In spite of the visits from possible spy balloons while Trump was in office, many Republicans have complained that President Joe Biden didn’t order the most recent balloon shot down quickly enough — or that he shouldn’t have allowed the balloon to enter U.S. airspace to begin with.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed that Trump would never have allowed a Chinese spy balloon to reach the U.S.

“Would Trump have let China fly a spy balloon over our country?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked on Twitter.

Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told AP that Chinese surveillance balloons were sighted several times in the past five years. Some of them have been spotted near U.S. military bases in Hawaii, he said, though he did not specify when.

In a message Friday on Truth Social, Trump himself joined the call for the Biden administration to destroy the most recent craft, saying: “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON.” But he did not discuss his own administration’s experience with suspected Chinese spy balloons.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and likely Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley also beat up on Biden for not taking more immediate action, but likewise failed to address incidents involving balloons in the last administration.

The time a wayward Canadian balloon caused an international stir — and thwarted 3 air forces

Sun, February 5, 2023 

A U.K. newspaper took aim at Canada's inability to shoot a massive weather balloon down, only for the Royal Air Force to also miss the target. (CBC archive - image credit)

China isn't the only country to face questions about a curious balloon. Back in 1998, a 25-storey high runaway weather balloon proved to be an international headache for Canada.

The helium-filled balloon — about five football fields long when deflated— was launched out of Vanscoy, Sask. on Aug. 24 with an innocent-enough task: measure ozone levels.

But according to reports at the time, the instruments on the balloon failed to detach at the end of the test.

The backup system also failed — sending the balloon aloft. Once it hit the sky's jet streams it was able to pick up speeds of 100 km/h, according to a CBC report.

Canadian CF-18 fighter jet pilots caught up with the balloon off the coast of Newfoundland and took aim, firing more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition at it.

But the balloon survived the assault, soldiering on over the North Atlantic.

A spokesperson for the air force told the Associated Press that the fighter jets were equipped with air-to-air missiles but the pilots restrained from using the heavier firepower.

"Citizens would not have appreciated having a missile blowing over their heads,″ said Maj. Roland Lavoie.

"Also, it might be overkill, spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars on a missile to shoot down a balloon that's drifting away.″

Undeterred, the balloon meandered into British airspace, forcing air traffic controllers to divert transatlantic flights and catching the attention of the British press.

"The top guns who couldn't pop a balloon," read one newspaper headline at the time, taking aim at the Canadian pilots.

But the snark was premature.

"It's a bit of a case of the pot calling kettle black," shot back Canadian Maj. Bernard Degagne on television. "In that the [Royal Air Force] also tried to bring the balloon down and were also unsuccessful."

Even the muscle of the U.S. Air Force couldn't bring the balloon to Earth, according to a BBC report.

The rogue balloon was spotted in Norweigian and Russian airspace before eventually crashing in Finland, more than a week after its chaotic journey began.

The balloon, and its more than half a million dollars worth of equipment, was later returned to the Canadian government.

While the balloon withstood a fighter jet hit, a spokesperson for the Canadian space agency said the shots fired at the balloon likely caused the craft to gradually lose altitude.

U.S. shot suspected spy balloon down Saturday

U.S. authorities had better luck shooting down a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it floated off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

U.S. defence officials said the balloon first entered a U.S. identification zone on Jan. 28, entered Canadian airspace three days later and then re-entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 31.

Beijing said the downing of the balloon violates international norms and it reserves the right to take further action in response.

"The U.S. in insisting on the use of force is an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice," according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sunday morning.

Previously, China expressed regret that an "airship" used for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes had strayed into U.S. airspace.

The politics of blasphemy: Why Pakistan and some other Muslim countries are passing new blasphemy law

Ahmet T. Kuru, Professor of Political Science, San Diego State University

THE CONVERSATION
Mon, February 6, 2023 

People gather around the body of a man who was killed when an enraged mob stoned him to death for allegedly desecrating the Quran, in eastern Pakistan in February 2022. AP Photo/Asim Tanveer

On Jan. 17, 2023, Pakistan’s National Assembly unanimously voted to expand the country’s laws on blasphemy, which carries the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The new law now extends the punishment to those deemed to have insulted the prophet’s companions, which could include thousands of early Muslims, with 10 years in prison or life imprisonment.

Human rights activists are concerned that the expanded laws could target minorities, particularly Shiite Muslims who are critical of many leading early Muslims.

Pakistan has the world’s second-strictest blasphemy laws after Iran. About 1,500 Pakistanis have been charged with blasphemy over the past three decades. In a case covered by the international media, Junaid Hafeez, a university lecturer, was sentenced to death on the charge of insulting the prophet on Facebook in 2019. His sentence has been under appeal.

Although no executions have ever taken place, extrajudicial killings related to blasphemy have occurred in Pakistan. Since 1990, more than 70 people have been murdered by mobs and vigilantes over allegations of insulting Islam.

My research shows that blasphemy laws historically emerged to serve the political and religious authorities, and they continue to have a role in silencing dissent in many Muslim countries.
Blasphemy and apostasy

Of the 71 countries that criminalize blasphemy, 32 are majority Muslim. Punishment and enforcement of these laws vary.

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia. Among non-Muslim-majority countries, the harshest blasphemy laws are in Italy, where the maximum penalty is two years in prison.

Half of the world’s 49 Muslim-majority countries have additional laws banning apostasy, meaning people may be punished for leaving Islam. All countries with apostasy laws are Muslim-majority. Apostasy is often charged along with blasphemy.

Laws on apostasy are quite popular in some Muslim countries. According to a 2013 Pew survey, about 75% of respondents in Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia favor making sharia, or Islamic law, the official law of the land. Among those who support sharia, around 25% in Southeast Asia, 50% in the Middle East and North Africa and 75% in South Asia say they support “executing those who leave Islam” – that is, they support laws punishing apostasy with death.

Firefighters in a factory torched by an angry mob in Jhelum, Pakistan, after one of the factory’s employees was accused of desecrating the Quran, Nov. 21, 2015. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The ulema and the state

My 2019 book “Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment” traces the roots of blasphemy and apostasy laws in the Muslim world back to a historic alliance between Islamic scholars and government.

Starting around the year 1050, certain Sunni scholars of law and theology, called the “ulema,” began working closely with political rulers to challenge what they considered to be the sacrilegious influence of Muslim philosophers on society.

Muslim philosophers had for three centuries been making major contributions to mathematics, physics and medicine. They developed the Arabic number system used across the West today and invented a forerunner of the modern camera.

The conservative ulema felt that these philosophers were inappropriately influenced by Greek philosophy and Shiite Islam against Sunni beliefs. The most prominent name in consolidating Sunni orthodoxy was the respected Islamic scholar Ghazali, who died in the year 1111.

In several influential books still widely read today, Ghazali declared two long-dead leading Muslim philosophers, Farabi and Ibn Sina, as apostates for their unorthodox views on God’s power and the nature of resurrection. Their followers, Ghazali wrote, could be punished with death.

As modern-day historians Omid Safi and Frank Griffel assert, Ghazali’s declaration provided justification to Muslim sultans from the 12th century onward who wished to persecute – even execute – thinkers seen as threats to conservative religious rule.

This “ulema-state alliance,” as I call it, began in the mid-11th century in Central Asia, Iran and Iraq and a century later spread to Syria, Egypt and North Africa. In these regimes, questioning religious orthodoxy and political authority wasn’t merely dissent – it was apostasy.
Wrong direction

Parts of Western Europe were ruled by a similar alliance between the Catholic Church and monarchs. These governments assaulted free thinking, too. During the Spanish Inquisition, between the 16th and 18th centuries, thousands of people were tortured and killed for apostasy.

Blasphemy laws were also in place, if infrequently used, in various European countries until recently. Denmark, Ireland and Malta all recently repealed their blasphemy laws. But they persist in many parts of the Muslim world.

In Pakistan, the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled the country from 1978 to 1988, is responsible for its harsh blasphemy laws. An ally of the ulema, Zia updated blasphemy laws – written by British colonizers to avoid interreligious conflict – to defend specifically Sunni Islam and increased the maximum punishment to death.

From the 1920s until Zia, these laws had been applied only about a dozen times. Since then, they have become a powerful tool for crushing dissent.

Some dozen Muslim countries, including Iran and Egypt, have undergone a similar process over the past four decades.

Dissenting voices in Islam

The conservative ulema base their case for blasphemy and apostasy laws on a few reported sayings of the prophet, known as hadith, primarily: “Whoever changes his religion, kill him.”

But many Islamic scholars and Muslim intellectuals reject this view as radical. They argue that Prophet Muhammad never executed anyone for apostasy, nor encouraged his followers to do so. Criminalizing sacrilege isn’t based on Islam’s main sacred text, the Quran, either. It contains over 100 verses encouraging peace, freedom of conscience and religious tolerance.

In Chapter 2, Verse 256, the Quran states, “There is no coercion in religion.” Chapter 4, Verse 140 urges Muslims to simply leave blasphemous conversations: “When you hear the verses of God being rejected and mocked, do not sit with them.”

By using their political connections and historical authority to interpret Islam, however, the conservative ulema have marginalized more moderate voices.
Reaction to global Islamophobia

Debates about blasphemy and apostasy laws among Muslims are influenced by international affairs.

Across the globe, Muslim minorities – including the Palestinians under Israeli occupation, Chechens of Russia, Muslim Kashmiris of India, Rohingya of Myanmar and Uyghurs of China – have experienced persecution.

The Rohingya of Myanmar are among several Muslim minorities facing persecution worldwide. Rakhine state, Myanmar, Jan. 13, 2020. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Alongside persecution are some Western policies that discriminate against certain Muslims, such as laws prohibiting headscarves in schools.

Such laws and policies can create the impression that Muslims are under siege and provide an excuse for the belief that punishing sacrilege is a defense of the faith.

Instead, blasphemy laws have served political agendas of populist politicians and their religious supporters in Pakistan and some other Muslim countries.

Moreover, these laws contribute to anti-Muslim stereotypes about religious intolerance. Some of my Turkish relatives even discourage my work on this topic, fearing it fuels Islamophobia.

But my research shows that criminalizing blasphemy and apostasy is more political than it is religious. The Quran does not require punishing sacrilege: Authoritarian politics do.

This is an updated version of a piece first published on February 20, 2020.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

It was written by: Ahmet T. Kuru, San Diego State University.

Read more:

At 75, Pakistan has moved far from the secular and democratic vision of its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah


Execution for a Facebook post? Why blasphemy is a capital offense in some Muslim countries