Toxic cities: Urban wildlife affected by exposure to pollutants

December 17, 2019 3.02pm EST

A coyote in Vancouver, B.C. Rodent pesticides in large cities kill and adversely affect the health of urban wildlife. 
CHICAGO HAS THE BIGGEST COYOTE POPULATION IN NORTH AMERICA

SOn Sept. 9, 2019, a mountain lion was found dead in the Santa Monica Mountains. It was the fifth mountain lion to die from consuming rat poison in that region since 2002.

While this may seem shocking, exposure to rodenticides — pesticides specifically designed to kill rodent pests — is increasingly common among predators because they sometimes feed on rodents that have consumed toxic baits. Because rodenticides are commonly applied in urban settings as a method of pest control, these exposures increase near urban areas.

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Read more: How we found out that rat poisons are killing wildlife in Cape Town

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Rodenticides aren’t the only health risks that urban wildlife face. Wildlife living in cities or suburban areas experience unique health challenges compared to their country cousins, often due to human activities.

In a study led by wildlife disease ecologist Maureen Murray and published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, we compiled and analyzed the results of over 500 previously published health comparisons of urban and non-urban wildlife.

We found that overall, urban wildlife had poorer health than wildlife in more natural areas. This was mostly due to urban animals having more toxicants in their tissues.

Toxic cities

Toxicants are toxic substances artificially introduced into the environment by human activity — for example, as a byproduct of mining — and include pesticides, industrial pollutants and heavy metals.

Higher toxicant loads in urban wildlife made sense to us: urban centres are known to have higher levels of pollution than rural areas. This is because pollutants are commonly associated with roads and industrial activity. It’s not always possible to pinpoint an exposure source, but a closer look at the health comparisons in our paper can be used to infer possible exposure routes.

For example, a study examining lead levels in kestrels in Spain found that urban and rural kestrels had lower lead levels after restrictions were placed on leaded gasoline. This suggests that pollution from leaded gasoline had been an important exposure source.

Lower levels of lead were found in European kestrels after once leaded gasoline became more regulated. (Shutterstock)

In another study that measured heavy metal concentrations in scallops in Chile, scallops collected at a site near an international shipping port had the highest concentrations of copper, lead and cadmium. This port has been used for loading metals since the 1940s, which is likely how the surrounding water was contaminated.

Effects of toxicants

Although it is difficult to predict the consequences of elevated toxicant levels on wild animals at the individual or population level, we know that toxicants can potentially harm animals’ reproduction, development and survival.

Exposure to heavy metals has been found to weaken the immune system of tree swallows, possibly making animals more susceptible to disease or less able to recover from infection.

Another study demonstrated that exposing amphibians to pesticides increased their susceptibility to infection with a parasitic worm. Amphibian populations are in decline globally, in part due to disease, and so it is important to understand how toxicants influence disease to conserve threatened populations.

Increased toxicants in urban wildlife could also give us information about our own exposure to pollution. Pollution in cities is a concern for human health — over 80 per cent of people in urban areas are exposed to air pollution above guidelines set by the World Health Organization. It’s possible to track how the air pollution in one urban area compares to others.

Toxicants were only one measure of health that we examined. For other health measures like stress, parasitism and body condition (like a BMI score), it was less clear whether urban animals had poorer health than non-urban animals. For example, white-footed tamarins living in the city were more likely to be overweight and have higher cholesterol levels, likely due to increased access to cholesterol-rich foods in cities. However, their rural counterparts had a greater incidence of parasites.

It’s important for scientists to assess wildlife health from multiple angles similar to how a doctor would evaluate various factors like diet, stress levels and sickness at a check-up.

Living with wildlife

Some species (like bears or mountain lions) are probably better suited to staying outside of cities. For these animals, it’s important to reduce food waste that attracts them into human-dominated areas. But for many other species, we should consider how to live alongside them in a way to keep them healthy.

Bears are drawn into urban centres because of the availability of food, so it’s important to dispose of food waste properly. (Shutterstock)

Higher toxicant loads in urban wildlife suggests that we need to reduce their exposure. Effective mitigation will require the development and enforcement of government regulations.

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Read more: Living with rats involves understanding the city as an ecosystem

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But there are steps that individuals can take to support healthy wildlife. Before using toxic chemicals to control one animal species, consider how these chemicals could affect other species. For example, in March 2017 goldfinches died in a residential neighbourhood of Modesto, Calif., because they were poisoned by eating seeds contaminated with an insecticide that had been applied to nearby trees.

Individual actions to support wildlife could include refraining from using pesticides on your lawn or choosing snap-traps over rat poisons to control rodent pests in buildings. In turn, this could reduce accidental poisonings of pets and children.

Finally, there is a growing link between the value of interacting with nature and mental health. Beyond the importance of promoting wildlife health for biodiversity and preserving ecosystem services, an extra benefit of healthy wildlife is that their presence can improve our health too.

By 2050, 68 per cent of the world’s population is expected to reside in cities. Let’s take steps to ensure that wildlife can safely and healthily live alongside us too.

Authors

1. Kaylee Byers
   Regional Deputy Director, British Columbia Node of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative; PhD Candidate Interdisciplinary Studies, University of British Columbia
2. Cecilia Sanchez
   Researcher in Ecology, University of Georgia

CRISPR CRITTERS 

A year after the first CRISPR babies, stricter regulations are now in place

It’s been just over a year since the dramatic announcement of the world’s first genome-edited babies using CRISPR technology. Since then, to the chagrin of some and the relief of others, there have been no more such announcements. This is due, in no small part, to discreet actions taken by the People’s Republic of China, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Russian Federation.

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Read more: What is CRISPR gene editing, and how does it work?

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The first CRISPR babies

In late November 2018, He Jiankui, a Chinese biophysicist, confirmed he’d created genetically modified twins in an effort to provide the children with resistance to HIV. A few days later, he presented some of his work at the Second International Summit on Genome Editing in Hong Kong. At this meeting, He mentioned another ongoing pregnancy involving the use of a genetically modified embryo. To this day, we do not know the outcome of this pregnancy.

He Jiankui’s YouTube announcement of the world’s first CRISPR babies.

What we do know is that China’s Ministry of Science and Technology condemned He’s actions and shortly thereafter, China’s National Health Commission drafted new regulations on the clinical use of emerging biomedical technologies, including human genome editing. The final text of the Administrative Regulations for the Clinical Application of New Biomedical Technologies is not yet available and it is not known when these regulations will come into effect.

Based on the draft text open to public comment, research of the type conducted by He would require approval from China’s highest administrative authority.

Ethics and global governance

In the wake of He’s controversial experiment, the WHO convened a multi-disciplinary Expert Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing to “examine the scientific, ethical, social and legal challenges associated with human genome editing (both somatic and germ cell).”

Specifically, the committee was tasked by the director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to advise and make recommendations on appropriate governance mechanisms. The committee (of which I am a member) met for the first time in March 2019.

In June 2019, Russian molecular biologist Denis Rebrikov announced his plans to follow in He’s footsteps. Rebrikov would genetically modify early-stage human embryos in his lab and use those embryos to initiate a pregnancy that hopefully would result in the birth of healthy HIV-resistant offspring. Unlike He, however, Rebrikov planned to involve HIV-infected women in his research in an effort to address the risk of transmission of the virus in utero from the pregnant woman to her fetus. (He’s research involved HIV infected men.)

In response, on advice from the WHO Expert Advisory Committee, the WHO director general issued a statement calling on regulatory and ethics authorities in all countries to refrain from approving research on heritable human genome editing until its ethical and social implications had been properly considered.

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Read more: Opening Pandora's Box: Gene editing and its consequences

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Editing for deafness

Undeterred by the WHO announcement, in September and October 2019 Rebrikov, confirmed his intention to apply for permission to proceed with heritable human genome editing, but with a different focus. Though it was initially reported that Rebrikov felt “a sense of urgency to help women with HIV,” he was unable to find HIV-positive women who did not respond to standard anti-HIV drugs and who wanted to get pregnant to participate in his research.

So, instead of modifying the CCR5 gene which would provide future offspring with resistance to HIV, Rebrikov planned to modify the GJB2 gene to correct a mutation that causes a type of hereditary deafness. According to Rebrikov, there were several couples interested in participating in this research.

Meanwhile, the Russian government issued a statement making it clear that Rebrikov would not get regulatory approval for the proposed research.

In October 2019, the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation affirmed that the use of heritable genome editing was “premature.” Further, the ministry officially endorsed the WHO position that it would be irresponsible and unacceptable to use genome-edited embryos to initiate human pregnancies.

Finally — and most importantly — the Ministry of Health explicitly stated that the WHO position, “supported by the Russian Federation, should be decisive in the formation of country policies in this area.”

This strong statement by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation is reassuring. It sets an important example for regulatory authorities around the world who support the WHO’s efforts to develop “effective governance instruments to deter and prevent irresponsible and unacceptable uses of genome editing of embryos to initiate human pregnancies.”

One year later

In the last lines of my new book Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing I write:

“As a direct consequence of increasingly audacious moves by some scientists to engineer future generations, important decisions must now be made —decisions that will set a new course for science, society, and humanity. May these decisions be inclusive and consensual. May they be characterized by wisdom and benevolence. And, may we never lose sight of our responsibilities to ‘us all.’”

‘Altered Inheritance’ (Harvard University Press, 2019) examines the bioethics of genome editing.

Collectively, all of us (experts and non-experts) have a responsibility to make the best use of emerging technologies to improve the health and well-being of all people everywhere. This can only be achieved through collaborative effort on a global scale.

We need time to carefully consider the kind of world we want to live in and how human genome editing technology might or might not help us build that world. We can’t do this work properly if scientists brashly go about the business of making genome-edited babies.

Author

1. Françoise Baylis
   University Research Professor, Dalhousie University

Disclosure statement

Françoise Baylis is a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee on developing global standards for the governance and oversight of human genome editing. She is the author of Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing.

The human cost of nuclear weapons is not only a “feminine” concern

By Lilly Adams, November 22, 2019

A medical team conducting annual medical examinations of Marshallese

 people who were exposed to radioactive fallout from an atmospheric 

nuclear weapons test in 1954. Credit: US Dept. of Energy.

The nuclear weapons world is full of subtle and not-so-subtle misogyny, and I’ve had my share of experiences: Fighting my way onto an otherwise all-male panel, only to have my speaking time cut short. Meeting a male colleague at a conference for the first time, where he immediately told me that he liked the red dress I was wearing in my Facebook profile photo and that I should dress like that more. Having a male superior tell me he saw no problem with the all-male, all-white panel he was organizing and scoffing at the idea that we had a “gender problem.”

It would be easy to dwell in frustration on experiences like these, or similar ones I have seen my colleagues face. Instead, I’m inspired by the women who excel in this field despite these challenges. What’s more, I’m glad that these experiences led me to start poking holes in the received nuclear weapons wisdom and to seek new approaches. One such approach, which is often overlooked but increasingly gaining prominence, is to examine nuclear issues through a social justice lens. As with many social justice issues, women, indigenous communities, communities of color, and low-income and rural communities have often been those hit hardest by nuclear weapons production and testing.

The scope of suffering among these frontline communities—those directly impacted by US nuclear weapons production and testing—is shocking. A recent study very roughly estimates that atmospheric nuclear testing led to 340,000 to 460,000 premature deaths between 1951 and 1973. The US government has estimated that roughly 200,000 armed service personnel were involved in nuclear weapons tests, though others put that number as high as 400,000. The 67 nuclear tests conducted in the Marshall Islands, in total, had the equivalent power of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs exploded every single day for 12 years.

Through all of this, women have been and are still being harmed in unique ways. Women exposed to radioactive fallout have much higher risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, and birth defects in their children. In the most exposed areas of the Marshall Islands, it became common for women to give birth to “jellyfish babies”—babies born without bones and with transparent skin. Breast cancer rates in the Marshall Islands are also shockingly high, yet there is a severe lack of cancer care available to the Marshallese. In the United States, breast-feeding mothers exposed to atmospheric nuclear testing passed Iodine-131 to their children through their breast milk. A recent study from the University of New Mexico showed that in the Navajo Nation, 26 percent of women have “concentrations of uranium exceeding levels found in the highest 5 percent of the US population.” In Japan, women who survived the nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in addition to bearing the burden of physical health effects, were stigmatized and shunned, unable to marry because of the fear of radiation-caused illnesses and defects passing down to future generations. And overall, though the reasons are not fully understood, women at all ages are more vulnerable to ionizing radiation and seem more likely to get cancer from radiation exposure, and die, than men.

Gender matters when it comes to the physical effects of nuclear weapons, but also the way we do and don’t talk about them. In a recent study on women in national security, I was stunned to read that “the consideration of differential group effects is often dismissed by policymakers who do not consider civilian impacts to be important or useful.” Reading that I had to ask: not “important or useful” for whom? Perhaps they’re not important to policymakers, though I find that incredibly cynical. But surely they’re important to the people suffering and dying from these effects.

In her classic “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” Carol Cohn describes the ways that discussion of nuclear weapons is informed by and perpetuates toxic gender norms. In this world, strength, force, rationality, and destruction are masculine. Things like weapon design, targeting, and nuclear strategy fall into this category. Weakness, emotion, the very concept of peace, and the human costs of nuclear weapons are feminine. She found that the reality of human death was not even a part of the language that policymakers use when discussing nuclear weapons—it’s been scrubbed out. If you feel conflicted discussing war plans involving nuclear weapons that could kill tens of millions, you’re a “wimp.” Maybe you don’t have the “stones” for war.

The arms control community has largely bought into this mindset. At a recent meeting about how we might reach new audiences, a woman suggested using more emotion and storytelling in our work. Someone else quickly responded that this was not what our work was about, that we didn’t have time to dwell on emotions. I think sticking to strategy, budgets, and warhead and missile design feels safer and more acceptable to this male-dominated field.

Because of this, I often feel as if I must work twice as hard to prove my credibility and make my voice heard. Not only am I a woman—already a strike against me—I also want to talk about the human impacts of nuclear weapons, apparently an emotional and irrelevant topic. At a recent nine-day conference for aspiring nuclear professionals, I attended 33 lectures on everything from stockpile stewardship to Russia’s nuclear doctrine to ballistic missile defense. There were no lectures on the human costs of nuclear weapons; it was barely mentioned.

It is long past time for the nuclear nonproliferation and arms control community to work with these affected communities and center them in our advocacy. The arms control community is small, but it has resources, access, and in many cases the labels of “expertise” and “credibility.” The communities affected by nuclear weapons creation and testing have in many cases been denied all of these things as part of a larger history of marginalization. When the traditional arms control community also denies them credibility and access, sidelines their stories, and does not support their goals, we are perpetuating the systems of oppression that caused them to be harmed in the first place. People in these communities are dying today, and we are ignoring it.

This is the motivation behind my new project, “Sharing the Stage with Nuclear Frontline Communities,” funded by the Ploughshares Fund Women’s Initiative. My project works to put the voices of these communities front and center, share the work of local leaders and experts, and help find opportunities for collaboration with those in the more traditional arms control and nonproliferation sphere.

As a first step, I will create a database of leaders and experts that are interested in partnering with those in the arms control and nonproliferation world. Ultimately, I hope to find opportunities for genuine, mutually supportive collaboration. Could those with contacts in congressional offices help atomic veterans organize a lobby day to call for expanding compensation from the government? Could a community watchdog group share their expertise on the ins-and-outs of a nuclear lab and help inform the work of nuclear policy groups? Can the grassroots advocacy and storytelling happening in frontline communities be coordinated with policy work happening on the Hill in Washington, D.C.?

The database will also include entries for organizations in the nuclear policy and arms control world. Those interested can support the project by including an entry of their own. An even better way to get involved is to get in touch with frontline community members themselves for suggestions—as the ones directly impacted, they know best what kind of collaboration is most effective and helpful.

Over the years, nuclear weapons policy has been made largely without input from the people who actually have a first-hand understanding of the effects of these weapons: the communities harmed by nuclear weapons production and testing. Though there is much work to be done to right the wrongs these communities have endured, a good first step for those in the nuclear policy community is to embrace their perspectives and knowledge: listen to their stories, build relationships, and find ways to meaningfully work together.

Fact-check: Five claims about thorium made by Andrew Yang


By John Krzyzaniak, Nicholas R. Brown, December 18, 2019
Andrew Yang at the 2019 Iowa State Fair.Photo credit: Gage Skidmore


Andrew Yang, like many of the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, has an ambitious plan to wean America off of fossil fuels. Unlike many of the other candidates, however, a key piece of his plan to address climate change involves harnessing nuclear power—in particular thorium. According to Yang, thorium is “superior to uranium on many levels.” But Yang isn’t alone; thorium boosters have been extolling its supposed virtues for years.

Do the claims about thorium actually hold up? The Bulletin reached out to Nicholas R. Brown, an associate professor in the department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, to examine five common claims about thorium and next-generation nuclear reactors. Brown’s responses are below.

Overall, although existing and new nuclear reactors may indeed be part of a long-term carbon-free energy mix in the United States, the public has good reason to be skeptical that thorium can or should play any role in the future.

Claim: Thorium reactors would be more economical than traditional uranium reactors, particularly because thorium is more abundant than uranium, has more energy potential than uranium, and doesn’t have to be enriched.

False. Although thorium is more abundant than uranium, the cost of uranium is a small fraction of the overall cost of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy economics are driven by the capital cost of the plant, and building a power plant with a thorium reactor is no cheaper than building a power plant with a uranium reactor. Further, using thorium in existing reactors is technically possible, but it would not provide any clear commercial benefit and would require other new infrastructure.

Additionally, there is technically no such thing as a thorium reactor. Thorium has no isotopes that readily fission to produce energy. So thorium is not usable as a fuel directly, but is instead a fertile nucleus that can be converted to uranium in a reactor. Only after conversion to uranium does thorium become useful as a nuclear fuel. So, even for a reactor that would use thorium within its fuel cycle, most energy produced would actually come from uranium fissions.

Claim: Next generation thorium reactors would be safer than current reactors.

True but misleading. Nuclear energy is already very safe, and Yang is correct about that. The current US nuclear fleet generates about 20 percent of all electricity in the United States and has an excellent safety record—despite accidents such as Three Mile Island. When it comes to new reactors, although some next-generation designs offer potential safety benefits relative to current reactors, they could be operated in either thorium-uranium or uranium-plutonium fuel cycles. Consequently, the benefits are a function of the inherent safety in the next-generation designs, not the utilization of thorium.

Claim: The waste from thorium reactors would be easier to deal with than waste from today’s uranium reactors.

False. A comprehensive study from the US Energy Department in 2014 found that waste from thorium-uranium fuel cycles has similar radioactivity at 100 years to uranium-plutonium fuel cycles, and actually has higher waste radioactivity at 100,000 years.

Claim: Thorium would be more proliferation-resistant than current reactors—you can’t make nuclear weapons out of it.

False. A 2012 study funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration found that the byproducts of a thorium fuel cycle, in particular uranium 233, can potentially be attractive material for making nuclear weapons. A 2012 study published in Nature from the University of Cambridge also concluded that thorium fuel cycles pose significant proliferation risks.

Claim: Building new nuclear reactors will likely be necessary if the United States wants to achieve net-zero emissions by 2049.

True. Nuclear energy is already the primary ultra-low carbon energy source for base-load electricity generation. Although solar and wind have their place in the energy mix, the primary benefit of nuclear energy is that it is not intermittent, as solar and wind are, so it is almost always available without needing energy storage. So new nuclear reactors will be necessary to both replace aging ones and to meet a net-zero carbon emissions goal. But thorium-uranium fuel cycles provide no inherent benefits relative to uranium-plutonium fuel cycles, so the new reactors need not be thorium-powered.

John Krzyzaniak

John Krzyzaniak is an associate editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Before joining the Bulletin, he was an associate editor at the journal Ethics & International Affairs, based...

Nicholas R. Brown

Nicholas R. Brown is an associate professor in the department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee with significant experience studying thorium fuel cycles in both current r...

How climate-related tipping points can trigger mass migration and social chaos


By Perry World House, November 8, 2019

Water turns to sun-baked earth. Illustration courtesy of Shutterstock


As anyone who takes a quick scan at newspaper headlines can see, climate change has the potential to trigger major social transformations. Extreme weather events, such as bomb cyclones, can lead to food insecurity, riots, and mass migration, to name just a few effects.

But this is not a simple, one-to-one relationship. Sometimes, even limited climate change can generate major social transformations, while at other times major climate events can have only limited social impact—due to the built-in resiliency of social, political and economic systems.

To understand why, it makes sense to borrow a concept from the world of physics, and consider the question as what is known as a “tipping point” problem, where a small quantitative change triggers a much larger, non-linear change. Social tipping points are reached when a community shifts from a state of stability to instability: from peace to violence, from a democracy to an authoritarian regime, or from a sedentary lifestyle to emergency migration, among others. They are defined as points within a socio and ecological system at which the social components, driven by self-reinforcing feedback loops, inevitably and often irreversibly lead to a qualitatively different state.

In recent years, significant research has been made to identify the early warning signals for social tipping points. The challenge is that knowledge about the nature of a tipping point does not necessarily make crises more predictable.

Origins. The term ‘tipping point’ commonly refers to the critical threshold where a tiny perturbation alters the state of a system. In physics, the concept was used to designate the exact, precise, minuscule point where a small weight added to a balanced object was enough for the object to topple suddenly. The term was popularized by sociologist Morton Grodzins, who studied race relations in American neighborhoods in the early 1960s.

More recently, climate change experts such as Tim Lenton, who pioneered research on this topic at the University of Exeter, have used the term to refer to abrupt and irreversible changes in the climate system. But in addition to helping us understand the climate itself, the concept of tipping points is useful for understanding the consequences of climate change.

At present, assessments of the social impacts of climate change are often rooted in a deterministic and Malthusian perspective, which assumes that human actions and behavior are determined by external causes—in this case, environmental disruptions—and overlooks the social determinants of changes. In particular, the role of inequalities in shaping the social impacts of climate change is often overlooked. On the contrary, it is often assumed that social transformations, such as migration or conflicts, are unavoidable by-products of climate change, whose magnitude would depend first and foremost of the magnitude of climate impacts. This is especially evident when assessing the future human dimensions of climate change. Numerous studies have attempted to predict the magnitude of future migration: Will there be hundreds of thousands, millions, or billions of so-called climate refugees? And studies have tried to predict the size and scale or any conflicts or pandemics on the basis of different climate scenarios.

But such assessments typically overlook not only the role of inequalities, but also of perceptions and (mis)representations, governance systems, solidarity networks, and cultural values in their evaluation of the future social impacts of climate change. The concept of a social tipping point would enable a more accurate assessment of the future social impacts of climate change—especially for migration and conflict. Consequently, thinking about climate change in terms of social tipping points would advance the understanding of the social impacts of climate change, and our ability to forecast them.

And it’s important to note that climate tipping points do not automatically translate into social tipping points; they are two distinct, independent processes. And that social tipping points can be triggered long before climate tipping points are reached, and are more dynamic.

The recent upheaval in Sudan is a good example of this idea of social tipping points: Lower-than-usual agricultural yields led to a sharp increase in food prices—the price of bread tripled in a matter of weeks. This, in turn, led to a massive upheaval against the regime, which took observers by surprise.

So, social tipping points should be not be confused with the carrying capacity of a community. While the carrying capacity of a community is a fixed, pre-determined limit, social tipping points are constantly evolving.

What matters here is the breach of linearity.

Policymaking at the intersection of climate change and migration. Many studies on the social impacts of climate change adopt a global perspective, seeking to produce global projections for migration flows in particular. But social tipping points can’t be understood at the individual level, nor at the global level, as these scales do not allow for an assessment of the social impacts of climate change—which shouldn’t be confused with the human impacts of climate change.

Many predictions and forecasts of climate migration assume that the magnitude of future climate impacts is the key determinant of future migration flows. Yet the perception of such impacts are just as important—and were usually not considered.

Research has shown that there were very significant differences between actual environmental changes and the perceptions of these changes among the local population. The decision to migrate is usually determined by the perceptions of changes rather than by the changes themselves, and yet this is an aspect that is difficult to consider.

Similarly, the concept of social tipping points can be essential to assess the influence of mitigating factors such as solidarity networks—where members of a social group can rely on each other—on the environmental drivers of migration. Here again, the concept helps us determine when a threshold is reached, and why such thresholds are different according to different people, places, and contexts—including for seemingly similar environmental disruptions.

Policy responses to address the social consequences of climate change, and migration in particular, are quickly shaping up. The Global Compact for Migration, adopted in December 2018, recognizes climate change as a major driver of migration worldwide and suggests a number of steps that can be taken to address the migration challenges arising from climate change and natural disasters. The Task Force on Displacement, established by the Paris Agreement in 2015, has also made a number of recommendations to policymakers in the international climate change negotiations, while the Platform on Disaster Displacement was established in 2016 to supervise the implementation of the Protection Agenda from the Nansen Initiative, which seeks to protect the rights of those displaced by disasters.

As these initiatives yield their first concrete results, it will be of crucial importance to account for the perceptions of climate change impacts in the scenarios for future climate-induced migration. How people will migrate in reaction to climate change impacts will depend not just on these impacts or the policies that are implemented to mitigate them, but also on how those affected perceive these impacts. For this reason, it is essential that policy responses do not consider migration as an unavoidable byproduct of climate change, but rather as a social response induced by a wide array of factors, themselves influenced by climate change.

(This column is by François Gemenne, director of the Hugo Observatory at the University of Liège, in Belgium, a research center dedicated to the study of the interactions between environmental changes and migration. Gemenne is also a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This column is based on a piece drafted for Perry World House and made possible in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The views expressed are solely the author’s.)

COP25 climate change meeting gets global thumbs down


By Thomas Gaulkin, December 16, 2019


The reviews are in: The United Nations’ COP25 climate conference was a flop. If the two weeks of talks were a holiday movie, it would probably be pulled from theaters before Christmas.

DISAPPOINTMENT AS MARATHON CLIMATE TALKS END

…major polluters resisted calls for ramping up efforts to keep global warming at bay and negotiators postponed debate about rules for international carbon markets for another year… (AP)
A ‘LOST’ OPPORTUNITY

…widely denounced as one of the worst outcomes in a quarter-century of climate negotiations… (New York Times)

HARD FEELINGS, FEW RESULTS AND NEW DOUBTS ABOUT GLOBAL UNITY

“We are not satisfied,” said the conference chair, Chilean Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt. (Washington Post)



I am disappointed with the results of #COP25.

The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis.

But we must not give up, and I will not give up.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) December 15, 2019



The unimpressive showing began December 2 with nearly 200 countries and regional groups meeting on key efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions, like defining global carbon markets, financial support for developing states most affected by climate change, and setting more ambitious CO2 reduction targets.

But none of those efforts panned out. Despite thousands of hours of negotiation, resistance from high-emissions countries like the United States (which is on track to be out of the Paris Agreement by the time COP26 convenes in Glasgow next November) helped scuttle other participants’ plans. In the end, the strongest agreement that emerged was that these same issues should be taken up at future meetings, and that there is an “urgent need” to get national commitments in line with the goals set in the Paris Agreement—not exactly breaking news.

Displaying a mastery of diplomatic understatement, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators, Mohamed Nasr, took stock: “This is becoming very worrying for some countries.”

MADRID CLIMATE CONFERENCE ENDS IN FAILURE

…The talking was endless: more than 70,000 hours were spent failing to define a “market instrument,” something that was meant to have been decided at last year’s conference in Katowice, Poland… (Real Clear Energy)

MAJOR STATES SNUB CALLS FOR CLIMATE ACTION

“There are millions of people all around the world who are already suffering from the impacts of climate change,” Ian Fry, Tuvalu’s representative, told delegates. “Denying this fact could be interpreted by some to be a crime against humanity.” (NYTimes)
WAS ANYTHING ACHIEVED?

“…The can-do spirit that birthed the Paris agreement feels like a distant memory today…” (The Guardian)

So was there anything to feel good about after two weeks of failure?

Well, if you were a fossil fuel company, you might have thought it was a success. One observer described the event as a “corporate trade show.” “A gantlet of greenwashing ads on the walkway from the metro,” wrote Taylor Billings for the climate newsletter Heated. “Huge billboards featuring the likes of gas-giant Iberdrola, global water privatizing giant Suez, and energy utility Endesa, Spain’s biggest polluter. They’re all sponsors of this years’ COP.”

The lack of progress on pricing carbon was also considered a positive result by those who worried a bad agreement would have been worse than none at all. “Thankfully the weak rules on a market based mechanism, promoted by Brazil and Australia, that would have undermined efforts to reduce emissions has been shelved and the fight on that can continue next year at COP26 in Glasgow,” said Mohamed Adow, with the group Power Shift Africa.

And despite the deep frustrations expressed by climate activists like Greta Thunberg, demonstrators found ways to make their opinions known about the disappointing proceedings and still come away with some kind of optimism…


"Protesters dump manure outside COP25 climate summit in Madrid #NewsVideo #BreakingNews #Youtube #GlobalNews #CBSN #FoxNews #ABCNews #NBCNews #CNN" : https://t.co/7lR6WOc5KX

— Global News Report (@robinsnewswire) December 14, 2019