PAKISTAN
The deaths to come

Rafia Zakaria Published September 20, 2023 

THE situation in the country has become dire. For the past year, nearly every month has brought with it a feeling of foreboding. This, many Pakistanis routinely tell themselves, is certainly the lowest and worst point.

To offset paying more than double the usual price for basic goods, they ration every drop of petrol by seeking alternative transportation options, buying less food, cheaper food, the cheapest food — but nothing seems to work. The continuing political instability, one government after another, the ever-looming threat of military intervention and the general uncertainty have not helped the situation.

All of this has happened, but there seems to be more in the offing. The regular hikes in the price of petrol, the imposition of electricity tariffs and increase in the sales tax have all turned an already unbearable situation into one that is potentially catastrophic.

Despite holding cabinet meetings on the issue of high electricity rates — a consequence of the deal with the IMF — the caretaker prime minister is unable to act against the exorbitant tariffs. Human Rights Watch has requested the IMF to review the impact of economic adjustments in countries where vulnerable groups will be affected. However, so far that help has not been forthcoming here.

There are only so many corners to cut, only so much water added to milk, sawdust added to flour and pebbles eaten with lentils. After some time, there is only water and no milk, only sawdust and no flour and only pebbles and no lentils. The latest increase in prices, which is apparently necessary to sustain the deal with the IMF, points to such a situation. For political scientists researching political decisions, matters proceed according to what people assess to be in their self-interest.

But such calculations break down when the people have nothing to lose. In Pakistan, there will soon be millions of people whose lives have been so utterly wrecked by unchecked inflation and the unaffordability of even basic goods that their reactions to hunger, homelessness and hopelessness will be entirely unpredictable.

Those whose lives are not immediately threatened by the unavailability of food and housing will possibly die in other ways. For instance, one of the major industries in Pakistan that is being affected by the economic crisis is the pharmaceutical industry. Banks are unwilling to open letters of credit due to the continuing lack of foreign exchange. For the current set-up, the pharmaceutical industry is an area of concern.

The foreign exchange shortage means that the country may be hurtling towards a dearth of lifesaving drugs and the raw material needed to manufacture them. One example of this was when Panadol became unavailable last year. While it is not a lifesaving drug, the fact that there was a shortage of such a commonly used medicine, which then persisted, reveals the weaknesses in the market.

After some time, there is only water and no milk, only sawdust and no flour and only pebbles and no lentils.

Add to this the fact that there has been an ongoing pricing dispute, with drug manufacturers saying that because of the increased price of imported raw material required to make drugs, they wanted to hike prices by almost 40 per cent across the board

The problem is that without material to make the drugs there simply will not be sufficient medicine available to the people who need them. It does not appear that anything else is being done to avert this crisis or solve the impasse. It is terrifying to consider what would happen if drugs required by diabetics or basic broad-spectrum antibiotics are suddenly off the shelves.

Pakistan’s poor are desperate and have been so for a long while now. This latest economic crisis is going to alter the class demographics of the country in irreversible ways. Those who belong to the lower middle class will likely fall into poverty and the poor will become desperately poor.

Only those in the middle or upper middle class who survive on remittances will manage to hold on for a while, but their investments in property or other Pakistani assets are likely to be devalued as Pakistani currency loses more and more value, despite making short-term recoveries. All of this will mean dependence on the black market for medicines and any kind of goods that are not manufactured in Pakistan using Pakistani materials. In fact, it is unfortunate that very little is manufactured in Pakistan from purely indigenous material.

Many analysts have sounded the alarm in recent months over the country’s dire political and economic situation. Not only have the warnings and assessments of these analysts been ignored but the crisis has exacerbated thanks to the ever-more reckless actions taken by existing government officials.

The switchovers from one to another and then another set-up has made accountability elusive. The possibility of future accountability via elections also seems remote given the political instability that has been witnessed for several months now. This means that the country has fallen into a state where people are doing whatever they can and get away with breaking the rules. For those who follow the rules, pay taxes, vote and hope for a democratic country run based on laws, this is terrible news.

The only class of Pakistanis that have been untouched and will remain untouched by the hell that has descended upon the people are the rich and the ultra-rich. With all their assets safely stowed away in Dubai or some similar financial haven, they can talk about the current circumstances as if they were just another topic for an after-dinner conversation.

As things become worse and worse, these people will leave for their offshore havens, so the poor who have nothing left to lose cannot come after them. Meanwhile, innocent, honest, good and worthy Pakistanis will die because they believed in a country that did not believe in them.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

Scientists Discover a Labyrinth of Life Hidden in the Deep

A deep-sea expedition in Central America uncovers symbiotic bacteria and tube worm nurseries thriving below the seafloor.

Tube worms wriggle at the Fava Flow Suburbs, a site in the mid-Pacific Ocean that’s 2,500 meters deep. Experiments testing the theory of species dispersal through cracks in the Earth’s crust were performed in this area.

Photo courtesy of ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute

by Jack Tamisiea
September 19, 2023 |
This story was originally published by Scientific American

There may be no ecosystem on Earth that seems less hospitable than hydrothermal vents. In the perpetual darkness, cold, and relentless pressures of the deep sea, these volcanic seeps spew piping hot water so loaded with particles and metals that it looks like black smoke billowing from a chimney. But even these hellish habitats are crawling with life, ranging from giant clams and ravenous crabs to spindly octopuses and ghostly eelpout fish.

And those are just the creatures lurking above the vents. Using a deep-sea remotely operated vehicle (ROV), researchers recently flipped over slabs of seafloor to uncover a hidden ecosystem teeming with tiny life beneath the vents themselves. According to Monika Bright, a zoologist at the University of Vienna in Austria who led the expedition, the assortment of worms, snails, and microscopic larvae and bacteria that reside down here adds a new layer of complexity to hydrothermal vent ecosystems, which scientists have studied since 1977.

“We’ve known about the vents above for a long time, but this is basically a completely new ecosystem below,” Bright says. “It’s especially strange that we found it in a place that is very well studied.”

Last month, Bright and an international team of collaborators boarded the nonprofit Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor (too) in Panama. The scientists plumbed the depths off Central America’s Pacific coast to study species ranging from symbiotic bacteria in deep-sea clams to the temperature limits of tiny copepod crustaceans.

Hydrothermal vents in the mid-Pacific Ocean crawl with crabs, octopuses, tube worms, and fish adapted to extreme conditions. Video courtesy of Schmidt Ocean Institute

The team focused its ROV dives on an area where diverging tectonic plates create a string of deep-sea volcanoes known as the East Pacific Rise. As the plates drift apart, magma bubbles up from the rift and cools to create new oceanic floor.

These volatile conditions fuel hydrothermal vents. Frigid water percolates through fissures in the splintering oceanic crust and meets the scalding magma below. When the seawater is heated to temperatures of more than 400 °C, chemical reactions create a supercharged fluid that is rich in chemicals such as sulfur, and it spews out of openings in the ocean floor.

These geyser-like vents are hotspots of deep-sea diversity that can thrive in the dark, thanks to bacteria that convert chemicals into energy-providing sugars. Some of these bacteria reside inside the elongated bodies of giant tube worms (Riftia pachyptila). These worms, whose exposed bright-red, feathery gills make them look like two-meter-long lipstick tubes, grow in dense patches around the vents and provide habitats for other vent dwellers.

When eruptions or earthquakes alter the area’s volcanic activity, these strongholds of hardy worms are wiped out. But when new hydrothermal vents pop up dozens or even hundreds of kilometers away, they are quickly colonized by towering thickets of giant tube worms within a few years.

Just how these worms arrive and anchor themselves at new vents remains unknown, Bright says. Scientists have found few tube worm larvae in the water column surrounding vents, and a constant stream of supercharged fluid would also make it difficult for the larvae to attach themselves from above. This led the researchers to hypothesize that tube worm larvae squirm through crevices below the seafloor to reach new vents.

To test this idea, the scientists sent the ROV down to the Tica Vent, a well-studied hydrothermal vent located 2,500 meters below the ocean’s surface. Initially, the team glued mesh boxes over cracks in the seafloor to collect animals that moved between the rocky floor itself and the subsurface below. But when the boxes proved cumbersome, the team employed a more direct method: flipping over heavy chunks of seafloor with the ROV’s robotic arm to collect what lay beneath.

This uncovered an underworld labyrinth. In a network of caves and crevices carved through the rock, the water was a balmy 25 °C. This provided the perfect conditions for a thriving microbial community of protists, bacteria, viruses, and even some larger creatures such as snails and worms.

While the team is the first to peer below the seafloor around these hydrothermal events, its discovery is not entirely surprising to Julie Huber, a geochemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who was not involved in the expedition. She notes that the oceanic crust along midocean ridges is porous, offering plenty of real estate for fluids, nutrients, and microbes. “Given most of the animals at hydrothermal vents require all three of these things to thrive, I suppose it makes sense that animals are carving out another niche to attach themselves to and make a living,” Huber says. She also thinks residing below the seafloor may help keep these tiny critters safe from prowling deep-sea crabs.

A rock crust sample, flipped upside down, reveals Oasisia and Riftia tube worms, as well as other organisms.

 Photo courtesy of ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute

Below the vents, the researchers also discovered a lot of tiny tubes, which revealed that these subsurface chambers serve as tube worm nurseries. The scientists posit that tube worm larvae traverse this subsurface maze, which Huber refers to as the “subseafloor conveyor belt,” to travel from vent to vent. The tube worms initially live down there before moving up toward the vents as they grow as much as 85 centimeters per year.

Many mysteries remain about the realm below hydrothermal vents, however. Bright and her colleagues plan to sequence the genetics of animals and microbes collected both above and below the seafloor to examine how these two ecosystems are connected. “As a scientist, you find out something, and then there [are] 10 more questions you have,” Bright says.

Bright and her colleagues hope that shedding more light on the inner workings of hydrothermal vent ecosystems will help shield them from development. These areas are of potential interest to deep-sea mining companies because of the minerals that leach out of the magma-heated water as it gushes from the vents.

That economic incentive could endanger one of the planet’s most unique environments, a realm that Bright says scientists still struggle to comprehend. “From our view, these vents are very extreme and exotic,” she says. “But for the animals, it’s not extreme to live at these pressures with fluctuating temperatures and fluctuating chemistry—it’s normal.”

UK

Sunak’s net zero U-turn is so toxic that it’s united Greens and car manufacturers against him

With climate change a top priority for the public, surely time is up for a prime minister who couldn’t seem to care less?

Caroline Lucas

Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion
Wed 20 Sep 2023 

It’s quite a moment when a Green party MP finds herself on the same side of an argument as the chair of Ford UK – but here we are. Claims reported by the BBC yesterday evening that Rishi Sunak is planning to weaken some of the government’s key climate commitments have managed to unite businesses, the energy sector, car manufacturers, environmental groups and the general public against him.

His leaked programme appears not to be a couple of minor delays here and there but instead a coordinated, calculated and catastrophic roll-back. According to the leak, energy efficiency targets for private rented homes will be dropped; the ban on new petrol and diesel cars will be pushed back to 2035; the phasing out of gas boilers will be delayed; plans for taxes to discourage flying ditched; recycling schemes cancelled.


The leak from the BBC was big enough news for the prime minister to make a highly unusual late-evening statement, anticipating – and seeking to defend himself from – an almighty backlash. Several lines from this proclamation are enough to make you rub your eyes in disbelief.

“Our political system rewards short-term decision-making that is holding our country back,” is one such line. For years now, the environment has been a priority – right up until it’s not. David Cameron was hugging huskies for years, until he decided to slash solar panel subsidies and impose a de facto ban onshore wind because of an ill-perceived lack of popularity. Not long after his election in October, Sunak created the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – a name which now rings hollow as we expect him to renege on crucial pledges that will help us deliver it. “Real change”, as Sunak’s statement puts it, is always thwarted in favour of appeasing a handful of rightwing Tory backbenchers.

“Politicians … have not been honest about costs and trade-offs,” laments Sunak – and they most certainly haven’t. I haven’t heard the prime minister once outline how green investment will not only pay for itself over time, but pay literal dividends – switching from fossil fuels to clean energy could globally save as much as £10.2tn by 2050.

But the even greater crime is that no politician is willing to outline what the cost of not tackling the climate emergency will be. Cameron’s decision a decade ago to cut the “green crap” ended up adding an average £150 annually to every household’s energy bill. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that continuing to rely on fossil gas for power and heating in the UK could end up costing double the public investment required to phase down gas use and reach net zero. Meanwhile, the Treasury currently supports the fossil fuel industry through tax breaks and subsidies to the tune of £10bn a year. Where’s the honesty about these costs?


Sunak’s claim that “Britain is leading the world on climate change” requires some serious scrutiny. Because where we are succeeding, it’s certainly not as a result of any of his efforts. Yes, we’ve passed the Climate Change Act; yes, we’ve increased offshore wind power; and yes, we were the first country to declare a climate emergency. That’s the easy stuff, and he didn’t do any of it.

England installed only two onshore wind turbines last year – Ukraine managed more. His government approved the first new coalmine in a generation. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) recently said the government’s climate progress is “worryingly slow”. This isn’t “world-leading”, by any stretch.

Sunak’s anti-green drive tells us this: we’re heading for the stupidest general election yet

Zoe Williams

Sunak will argue, as he does in his statement, that we must prioritise the “long-term needs of our country before the short-term political needs of the moment”. Oh, the irony! Thinking in the long term would mean rolling out a street by street, local authority-led, mass home insulation programme to cut energy bills and carbon emissions now and long into the future – yet he’s now rolling back measures to deliver it. It would mean providing climate finance to the global south – yet this pledge is teetering on the brink. It would mean adapting to the emergency – yet the CCC says the government is “strikingly unprepared” for this scenario.

What this all reveals is that Sunak really doesn’t seem to care about the climate in the slightest – it’s little more than an afterthought. When asked by ITV recently if it was one of his top five priorities, he brushed the question aside, as if it would be ridiculous to make it so. Yet polling shows it has long been one of the public’s top three priorities, let alone top five.

If Sunak mistakenly thinks the climate is merely a political device to draw dividing lines between his party and Labour, he will fail on his own terms. All it will do is draw an ever-greater divide between him and the people he seeks to govern.

Morocco’s earthquake and Libya’s floods highlight obstacles to relief efforts, from botched disaster diplomacy to destroyed infrastructure


Moroccan women cook at a camp for earthquake victims in Amizmiz on Sept. 15, 2023. 

Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images


Published: September 20, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Morocco on Sept. 8, 2023, causing widespread damage in mountain villages. Three days later, an unusually severe Mediterranean storm caused two poorly maintained Libyan dams to collapse, resulting in massive floods in and around the port city of Derna.

By Sept. 19, more than 3,000 people had died in Morocco, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. And the World Health Organization was saying that nearly 4,000 people had died in Libya, with another 10,000 missing – casualties that are unprecedented for a flood in Africa. More than 46,000 Libyans have become displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The Conversation asked William Lawrence, a professor of political science and international affairs who has served as a senior diplomat at the U.S. embassies in Morocco and Libya, to explain why responding to these disasters has been especially hard.

Is enough aid reaching communities harmed by these disasters?

No. With Morocco, there’s strong government bureaucracy, and in Libya, the authorities are weak. But the results are the same: Not enough aid has gotten where it needs to go.

Thousands of Moroccan villages have been damaged and hundreds destroyed, according to sophisticated mapping and eyewitnesses. The government is responding, but this is beyond its capacity. Even if the country’s entire army and everyone providing social services in Morocco were deployed, it wouldn’t be enough.

Morocco has so far declined aid offers from the United Nations, France and dozens of other countries. From the U.S., Morocco had only accepted, as of Sept. 19, President Joe Biden’s condolences. It had accepted aid from only Spain, the U.K., Qatar and the United Arab Emirates within a week of the earthquake.

Usually, with huge disasters like these, problems arise over the coordination of aid, rather than its acceptance.

Libya is contending with another unimaginable disaster. One quarter of the city of Derna, which previously had a population of 100,000, was completely flattened. In the first week, very little of the aid that arrived was getting where it needed to go because the access roads and bridges to Derna were wiped out.

It’s macabre and devastating, but what Libya most desperately needs right now is specialized equipment to extract bodies from the flood plain and rubble – and body bags. Islam, Libya’s dominant religion, normally requires a speedy burial, but local people can’t do that and dispose of corpses properly.

And Libya has little ability to coordinate the aid that’s getting there.

Rescue teams assist in relief work in Libya’s eastern city of Derna on Sept. 18, 2023, following deadly flash floods. 

Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images

Do these countries need assistance?

King Mohammed VI, Morocco’s monarch, is reportedly a billionaire. But he can’t pay for everything the country needs to recover – and shouldn’t.

Moroccans aren’t necessarily angry that he’s rejecting some of the aid the international community is offering, due to a history and psychology around the monarchy that I’ve studied extensively. They refer to the monarchy in ways that go beyond what the monarch can accomplish. They want their king to do everything even when he can’t.

With Libya, there’s a different constellation of problems. Although it’s an oil-rich country that exports about 1 million barrels of petroleum on a good day, there’s poor governance. There are two governments fighting for power. Both sides are asking for foreign aid, while blaming each other for not doing anything to protect people from danger before, during and after the disaster.

How will initial aid restrictions affect later recovery efforts?

There are long-term benefits from good disaster diplomacy.

Spanish rescue teams saved a few lives in Turkey following its devastating February 2023 earthquake. Given that more than 50,000 people died in that disaster, it might not sound like much. But in addition to their contributions and provision of expertise, foreign rescuers’ success can inspire organizations and communities at home to get invested in longer-term recovery and reconstruction.

Because of Morocco’s wonderful tourism, there’s a lot of goodwill toward the nation and a lot of people who want to invest in the rescue – and a feeling now that they are being shut out. I believe that rejecting assistance may create the impression the government didn’t do everything it could in the earthquake’s immediate aftermath.

To be sure, something like this happened in the United States following Hurricane Katrina in 2004. I served on the State Department’s Katrina Task Force. Countries around the world were offering us aid that was very hard for us to accept psychologically and bureaucratically. The U.S. gives assistance better than it receives it. That assistance was hugely impactful – front page news in the donor countries that had previously only received U.S. aid and were now able to give back.

What are the Red Crescent and the Red Cross doing?

The Red Crescent, as the Red Cross is known in Muslim-majority countries, is assisting disaster survivors in Morocco. Its volunteers are providing first aid and counseling, helping move injured survivors to hospitals and evacuating others.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization. It’s also making a difference in Libya, where three Red Crescent volunteers have died in rescue efforts.

The problem in both cases is that there still aren’t enough staff and volunteers who are trained in large-scale disaster operations to meet the demand.

The IFRC has issued an appeal for 100 million Swiss francs (US$111.5 million) to assist Morocco. There is also a U.N. appeal for $71.4 million to help Libya deal with this disaster and its aftermath.

Author

William Lawrence
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, American University
Disclosure statement
William Lawrence is affiliated with and a founding member of Friends of Morocco, the primary Returned Morocco Peace Corps Volunteer Group, for which is also has volunteered as its earthquake relief coordinator.

NATO NATION BUILDING

The other culprit in Libya’s floods

The climate crisis intensified the floods, but it was conflict that rendered Libyans unprepared for them.

Karim Elgendy
Sustainability consultant based in London
Published On 19 Sep 2023
Overturned cars lay among other debris caused by flash floods in Derna, eastern Libya on September 11, 2023 [AFP]


In early September, Storm Daniel hit the Mediterranean, causing catastrophic flooding. Heavy rains poured over parts of Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece. The Greek province of Thessaly saw a staggering 18 months’ worth of rain in just one day. Swollen rivers claimed flooded villages and towns, taking 15 lives, damaging buildings and infrastructure, and wiping out crops.

Then the storm moved south, making landfall in Libya on September 10. It dumped as much as 400mm of rain in just 24 hours on areas that normally receive 540mm annually

The fallout of the flooding in Greece paled in comparison to the utter devastation and loss of life that Daniel inflicted on the Libyan coast and especially the port city of Derna. The heavy downpour caused two dams to burst, leaving behind more than 11,000 dead and many missing, wiping out whole neighbourhoods and destroying civilian infrastructure.

But there is a reason why oil-rich Libya fared much worse under the torrential rains than Greece did. Since 2011, the country has suffered from an internal conflict that has periodically flared up and subsided, but ultimately continued to fester, sowing death and destruction and undermining state institutions, including those that could have taken action to mitigate the effects of the flooding. The tragedy in Libya illustrates just how much worse a conflict can make the human suffering that the climate crisis is bringing about.

Turbo-charged climate

Storms like Daniel are rare, yet they represent a new normal as climate change intensifies Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones, also known as Medicanes. Though such storms occur only once to three times annually, and mostly in the north and west Mediterranean, climate change is expected to strengthen them and bring them to the eastern and southern Mediterranean shores, according to the United Nations’ IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.

Climate change is already weakening jet streams, stalling pressure systems, and extending both heatwaves and storms. Hotter seas are enhancing cyclone moisture uptake, while hotter air holds more water, spurring more intense downpours.

Longer droughts that precede more intense rainfall make matters worse. When parched land finally receives rainfall, it is less able to absorb it, which worsens flooding.

Though detailed attribution studies on how climate change influenced Daniel are pending, it likely played at least a partial role. The three months preceding the floods have been the warmest on record, by far. Sea surface temperature in the eastern Mediterranean this summer was also 2-3 degrees warmer than usual, reaching a record 28.7 degrees Celsius.

A Mediterranean warming up this fast means that local governments should be intensifying their climate resilience efforts. They should be assessing climate risks and developing adaptation plans that include long-term measures to reduce disaster impacts, such as infrastructure investment and strengthening civil society. They should also deploy emergency response measures to address immediate needs, such as drawing up evacuation plans and ensuring the functionality of essential infrastructure.
Laying the foundations for climate disaster

None of these measures were in place in Libya ahead of Storm Daniel’s landfall.

The lack of unified governance and the protracted civil conflict between the internationally-recognised government in Tripoli in Western Libya and renegade commander Khalifa Hafter and the Tubruk-based House of Representatives he backs in Eastern Libya have increased the vulnerability of the country to climate crisis-fuelled disasters.

Libyan authorities on both sides of the conflict have done little to build climate resilience. Despite being a signatory to the Paris Agreement, Libya has failed to submit any national plans for mitigating or adapting to climate change.

Derna itself has been mired in conflict for years after the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 which took a toll on its infrastructure. The city fell under the grip of militant groups for a while until it was captured by Hafter in 2019.

Since then, the authorities in Eastern Libya have treated the city’s residents with suspicion, which has led to poor Investment in roads and public services, let alone disaster risk reduction measures.

The fragmented governance has also meant poor regulation and enforcement of construction codes, which led to civilian housing appearing within and near the flood plain of an intermittent river that cuts through the city.

Most critically, the two rockfill dams that collapsed had not been maintained since 2002, despite the allocation of more than 2 million euros ($2.14m) for that purpose and despite warnings by local experts that a major storm could lead to collapses.

The fragmented governance also weakened disaster preparedness. Libya’s National Meteorological Center in Tripoli had issued a storm warning three days in advance. Separately, officials in Eastern Libya also warned the public and declared a curfew. Neither presented a contingency evacuation plan in the days leading to the storm’s landfall. Even as the water swelled behind the dams, there was no clarity on whether residents should evacuate.

Governance failures and the protracted conflict also created challenges for emergency responses. The Tobruk-based authorities are leading the relief efforts and coordinating with allies such as Egypt. The Tripoli-based government, lacking full access to the city and to developments on the ground, was delayed in spelling out Derna’s relief needs to international donors. However, it did manage to allocate $412m for reconstruction.

Battening down the hatches

The starkly higher death toll in Libya compared with Greece underscores how climate change disproportionately harms the unprepared.

The floods in Libya spotlight how climate threats are amplified in conflict zones lacking resilience and infrastructure. Other nations in the Mediterranean basin threatened by climate change also lack resilience and adequate infrastructure and struggle with conflict and political and economic instability.

In Syria, the civil war has weakened critical infrastructure and disaster preparation, while Egypt faces rising seas and increasing extreme weather in the context of economic turmoil.

Adaptation and disaster preparedness require stable governance and cooperation. The entire Mediterranean region needs support to build peace, strengthen communities, and prepare for inevitable climate shocks. Addressing climate change requires tackling conflict and governance as linked challenges. Peacebuilding should be part of climate crisis responses.

For countries sharing climate risks in the region, the Derna disaster should serve as a reminder that it is always prudent to fix the roof while the sun is shining.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance

.
Karim Elgendy
Sustainability consultant based in London
Karim Elgendy is a sustainability consultant based in London. He is an Associate Fellow with Chatham House and the founder of Carboun, an advocacy initiative promoting sustainability in cities of the MENA region.

As eastern Libya reels from disastrous floods, a new threat emerges

Health officials warn of the danger of water contamination in the aftermath of catastrophic floods in Libya’s east.
Rescuers and relatives search for bodies of victims in Derna [File: Abdulaziz Almnsori/AP Photo]
By Kim Makhlouf
Published On 20 Sep 202320 Sep 2023



More than a week after floods caused by Storm Daniel devastated eastern Libya, killing thousands and displacing many more, survivors are faced with another threat: water contamination.

Health authorities have been sounding the alarm over the spread of waterborne diseases in the affected areas, particularly in the hard-hit city of Derna.

KEEP READING
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Photos: One week after Libya flood, aid arrives for survivors

A week after deadly Libya floods, aid effort gathers pace

‘Desert turned into a sea’: Eastern Libya flood survivors recount horror

Experts have warned that floodwaters have severely contaminated water sources with sewage, rendering them unsafe for consumption and exposing communities to grave health risks.

Here are the answers to some key questions about the situation.
What is water contamination?

Water contamination occurs when germs and chemicals enter drinking water at its source – for example, groundwater or water from lakes or rivers – or during water’s course through a distribution system.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to the transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio.
How is the problem dealt with in crisis-hit areas?

Essentially, through a combination of short-term and long-term measures, said Jessica Moussan, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The first step, Moussan explained, is to provide water that is safe for consumption – whether it is for drinking, cooking or hygiene purposes.

In the long run, the focus is mainly on repairing necessary infrastructure, in addition to other measures that include the chlorination of public water sources and the dissemination of information on safe water practices.

What is the scale of water contamination in Libya?

Libya has been mired in political turmoil and fighting since the removal of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country has been run for nearly a decade by two feuding entities divided between western and eastern Libya, each backed by different militias. This has left its infrastructure in tatters, making it more vulnerable to disasters.

Moussan said the recent floods have caused severe disruptions, including to the water infrastructure, which “further compound [the country’s] challenges”.

While specific figures are hard to come by, the effect of the disaster on sewage systems means that there is “an elevated risk of the population coming into contact with unsafe water”, she added.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 150 people have become sick due to water contamination in the 10 days since the flooding, including some 55 children in Derna.

“The situation in Derna and other flood-affected areas of Libya is dire,” the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement. “Access to clean water is a basic human right, and we are deeply concerned about the health and well-being of those affected by this contamination crisis.”

How is it being dealt with?

Several local and international aid groups, including the Libyan Red Crescent and UN agencies, have responded to the disaster by providing immediate relief efforts.

The response has ranged from evacuating stranded residents and providing medical aid and essential supplies to securing safe water and sanitation equipment in order to prevent diseases from taking hold.

Humanitarians have also appealed for additional funding to scale up operations response and reach more affected residents in Derna and its surrounding areas.

THANKS ALBERTA

Canada will exceed its methane reduction targets, Trudeau says

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UN official notes Canada was 'one of the largest expanders 

of fossil fuel last year'

David Thurton · CBC News · Posted: Sep 20, 2023

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listens to a speaker as he participates in the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Ambition Summit at the United Nations in New York on Sept. 20, 2023. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that Canada's methane reduction efforts are ahead of schedule and it's in a position to exceed its targets for reducing one of the most potent planet-warming gases.

Speaking at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Trudeau confirmed Canada is on track to meet and even exceed its methane emissions targets.

"Canada has committed to reduce by 2030 methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by at least 75 per cent below 2012 levels," Trudeau told world leaders. "Today, I can announce that the draft regulations we will share soon will be designed to help us exceed this ambitious target."

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Trudeau did not elaborate further on how far Canada might surpass its targets. Further details are expected when the federal government releases its upstream oil and gas methane regulations this fall. 

A news release from Environment and Climate Change Canada says that when the regulations are enacted, "they will achieve significant methane emissions reductions" through performance standards and increased stringency for sites at "highest risk of unintentional releases (fugitive emissions.)"

An oil producer burns methane gases by flaring. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

In 2021, Environment and Climate Change Canada confirmed that under current federal and provincial methane regulations, the country was on track to meet its interim 2025 target of a 40 to 45 per cent reduction by 2025.

On Wednesday, Trudeau also promised to deliver "a framework to cap emissions" from the oil and gas sector by the end of this year.

UN ranks Canada among the 'first movers and doers'

The 2016 Paris Agreement commits countries to working toward limiting warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels. The planet is inching closer to surpassing that target; the United Nations says the world already has warmed by at least 1.1 C.

According to the UN, global climate pledges have placed the world on track for a temperature rise of between 2.4 C and 2.6 C by 2100.

Canada was among more than 30 select countries that were allowed to speak at the Climate Ambition Summit. The summit featured the work of "first movers and doers," according to the UN. The United States and the United Kingdom were not invited to speak.

"I think if we were to ask the question if Canada would have been here ten years ago under a Stephen Harper government, the answer is, obviously, no," said Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault at a news conference outside the event.

• Industry group says emissions from Canadian oil and gas extraction down 24%, but that doesn't include oilsands

• Guilbeault not giving up on getting a global commitment to phase out unabated fossil fuels

• Cheaper for industry to meet methane reduction targets than to pay carbon tax on emissions: study

But as Trudeau was being introduced, some voices suggested some of Canada's actions ran counter to the values of the climate ambition summit.

"Canada was one of the largest expanders of fossil fuel last year," United Nations Under-Secretary-General Melissa Fleming noted as she introduced Trudeau.

The David Suzuki Foundation welcomed the prospect of Canada exceeding its methane targets. Still, the foundation's senior climate policy adviser Tom Green said the real work lies in better methane emissions accounting. 

"We have a bigger problem in Canada, which is that we're very poor at actually measuring and knowing how much methane we have today and how much we had in the past," Green said. "So we've got to improve on what's called measurement, reporting and verification."

Green noted both the natural resources and innovation ministers have a shared mandate to establish a global centre for excellence on methane detection and elimination. He called on the government to fulfil that promise.

RUSSIAN DIAMONDS
Alrosa suspends diamond supply for Sept-Oct – India’s trade body

Reuters | September 20, 2023 | 

The main markets for Alrosa, which employs about 32,000 people, are the US and Asia (Photo: Dmitry Amelkin, Transformation Director of Alrosa’s Polishing Division. Courtesy of Alrosa | Twitter. )

Russian diamond producer Alrosa has suspended rough diamond supply for September and October after a request from India’s leading trade body, the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) said on Wednesday.


The move aims to avert a supply glut in the global market and aid diamond prices amid weak demand, GJEPC chair Vipul Shah told Reuters. The trade body had reached out to several global mining companies earlier this month to raise concerns on issues impacting diamond trade, he added.

Shah also said the GJEPC had communicated with top diamond producer De Beers, a unit of Anglo American, which had pledged to “provide complete flexibility to all their clients.”

De Beers said separately it “will continue to take a responsible approach to rough diamond sales, supplying to demand, and will focus on additional supply flexibility.”

Flexibility includes purchase deferrals and buybacks.

Sanctions-hit Alrosa said the suspension would “strengthen the stability of the supply chain of rough and polished diamonds already by the beginning of next year.”

The news comes as the Group of Seven (G7) countries is expected to announce an import ban on Russian diamonds in the next two or three weeks to tighten a squeeze on Russia’s capacity to finance the war in Ukraine.

The plan could transform the global diamond supply chain, but implementation will depend heavily on India, whose diamond industry employs millions of people who cut and polish 90% of the world’s diamonds.

India’s gems and jewellery exports fell nearly 4.4% by value between April to August this year to $12.4 billion from last year, according to government data released last week.

Exports fell on relatively muted demand for polished diamonds from major consumers the United States and China, Shah said.

It’s too early to say whether the two-month halt will help prevent overstocking adequately, he added, amid the shutdown of manufacturing centres in India during the Diwali festival in November.

(By Shivangi Acharya, Clara Denina and Polina Devitt; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Mark Potter)

NO SEABED MINING

Norway’s Aker BP may explore for seabed minerals, CEO says

Reuters | September 20, 2023 |

Norway is opening its Arctic waters to commercial mineral exploration. (Photo: Maris Maskalans | Stock image)

Norway’s second-largest listed oil and gas company, Aker BP, said it would consider applying for licences to mine minerals from the seabed if parliament approves a plan for such exploration.


Norway could become the first country to start commercial deep sea mining if parliament gives the go-ahead to explore the remote Mid-Atlantic ridge for minerals such as copper, cobalt and rare earth elements, in a vote expected early next year.

“If parliament opens (oceans for seabed mining), we will consider applying for licenses,” Aker BP CEO Karl Johnny Hersvik told Reuters on the sidelines of an energy conference in Oslo on Wednesday.

Aker BP has a group of about 10 people working on seabed minerals.

“We are currently monitoring the situation. We still need to understand whether it can be economic, and how to explore,” Hersvik added.

Norway’s government says deep sea mining could help Europe reduce its dependence on China for the supply of critical minerals needed to build electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.

The move is controversial with conservationists, who warn that mining the ocean floor would threaten the biodiversity of vital ecosystems.

Mineral-rich massive sulphide deposits have been formed by so-called hydrothermal vents along mid-ocean ridges, where unique species are also found living near active vents.

“If there’s a ‘go’ for seabed minerals, we will definitely not target the active hydrothermal wells, because of potential environmental impact,” Hersvik said.

So far, several Norwegian seabed mineral startups, such as Green Minerals and Loke Marine Minerals, have said they would seek permits to explore Norwegian waters.

Loke, established in 2019, has attracted Anglo-French engineering firm TechnipFMC and shipping company Wilhelmsen, as investors.

But Aker BP would be by far the biggest player, if it goes ahead. It is also a part of the larger Aker Group, which includes oil service company Aker Solutions.

“We are looking at seabed minerals as part of the whole group,” Aker Solutions CEO Kjetel Digre told Reuters.

(By Nerijus Adomaitis, Editing by Terje Solsvik and Sharon Singleton)

Looming strike by miners raises worry about India coal supplies

Bloomberg News | September 20, 2023

Indian coal miners. (Image from archives)

The world’s biggest coal producer, state-owned Coal India Ltd., is facing a potential three-day strike across its core and subsidiary units, according to a stock exchange filing, prompting fears of supply disruptions across the country.


The mining giant said it wrote to India’s Chief Labour Commissioner asking to take necessary action to maintain uninterrupted coal supply, stressing that the industry is a “Public Utility Service”. Coal India’s average daily production is nearly 2 million tons, which includes both coking and non coking coal. The fuel provides around 70% of India’s electricity needs.

A Coal India spokesperson didn’t immediately reply to a phone call seeking comment.

A.K. Jha, general secretary of the Indian National Trade Union Congress, said that the workers affiliated with five national trade unions have been forced to threaten a strike due to a wage dispute. He said that the workers will neither produce coal nor allow its dispatch for three days. Negotiations with management for a possible solution haven’t yet started, he added.

The strike would come as India enters the month-long Hindu festive season, during which power usage increases as factories crank up production to meet a spending surge. The season follows a particularly hot and dry summer which caused demand spikes across the country. Erratic weather also affected hydropower production, another key energy source India relies on to maintain grid stability.

As a result, state-run power producers have extended coal import mandates to replenish stockpiles.

Vikram Reddy, vice president of the rating agency ICRA, said it’s difficult to quantify the impact of a potential strike on coal production, but after the September rains lowered power demand the country’s plants should have sufficient stocks to weather the disruption, and power supply should remain unaffected.

Reddy added that given a number of state generators are currently running on low reserves, Coal India should cooperate with the government and smaller players to ensure that all plants are well stocked ahead of the strike.

A Ministry of Coal spokesperson didn’t’ immediately reply to comment requests by phone and email.

(By Rakesh Sharma)