Coal still top threat to global climate goals: report

AFP - Yesterday 
© Ina FASSBENDER

The number of coal-fired power plants in the pipeline worldwide declined in 2021, according to research released Tuesday, but the fossil fuel most responsible for global warming still generated record CO2 emissions, threatening Paris climate goals.


© Noel Celis

The world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, China has vowed to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2060

Since the 195-nation treaty was inked in 2015, coal power capacity under construction or slated for development has dropped by three-quarters, including a 13-percent year-on-year decrease in 2021 to 457 gigawatts (GW).

Globally, there are more than 2,400 coal-fired power plants operating in 79 countries, with a total capacity of 2,100 GW.

A record-low 34 countries have new coal plants under consideration, down from 41 in January 2021, according to the annual Global Energy Monitor report, Tracking the Global Coal Plant Pipeline.

China, Japan and South Korea -- all historical backers of coal development outside their borders -- have pledged to stop funding new coal plants in other countries, though there remain concerns about possible loopholes in China's commitment.

And yet the worldwide operational fleet of coal-fired power grew in 2021 by 18 GW, and as of December an additional 176 GW of coal capacity was under construction -- about the same as the year before.

Most of that growth is in China, which accounts for just over half of new coal-fired power in the pipeline. South and Southeast Asia are responsible for another 37 percent.

Three-quarters of the new coal power plants that broke ground last year were in China, where newly commissioned capacity offset coal plant retirements in all other nations combined.

- Coal-free -

"The coal plant pipeline is shrinking, but there is simply no carbon budget left to be building new coal plants," said Flora Champenois of Global Energy Monitor. "We need to stop, now."

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency have warned that having a fighting chance of capping global warming at liveable levels means no new coal plants and a rapid phase-out of existing ones.

Rich countries must do so by 2030 and most of the rest of the world by 2040, they said.

Many emerging economies -- India, Vietnam, Bangladesh -- have cut back on plans for new coal-fired capacity.

"In China, plans for new coal-fired power plants have continued to be announced," said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst for the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and a co-author of the report.

By far the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, China has vowed to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2060.

In the United States, efforts to curtail coal use have slowed, the report showed.

The amount of US coal capacity retired in 2021 declined for the second year in a row, from 16.1 GW in 2019, to 11.6 GW in 2020, to an estimated 6.4 to 9.0 GW last year.

To meet its own climate goals, the United States would need to retire 25 GW annually between now and 2030.

The European Union retired a record 12.9 GW in 2021, including 5.8 GW in Germany, 1.7 GW in Spain and 1.9 GW in Portugal, which became coal-free in November 2021 -- nine years before its target phase-out date.

mh/imm

Humanity entering ‘spiral of self-destruction’, UN warns

Humanity is suffering from a “broken perception of risk”, spurring us into activities and behaviours that cause climate change and a surging number of disasters around the globe, the UN warned Tuesday.

© Jay Labra, AP

In a fresh report, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, or UNDRR, found that between 350 and 500 medium- to large-scale disasters took place globally every year over the past two decades.

That is five times more than the average during the three preceding decades, it said.

And amid the changing climate, disastrous events brought on by drought, extreme temperatures and devastating flooding are expected to occur even more frequently going forward.

The report estimated that by 2030, we will be experiencing 560 disasters around the world every year – or 1.5 disasters every day on average.

UNDRR said in a statement that the sharp rise in disasters globally could be attributed to a “broken perception of risk based on optimism, underestimation and invincibility”.

This, it said, had led to policy, finance and development decisions that exacerbate vulnerabilities and put people in danger.

Ignoring the towering risks we face “is setting humanity on a spiral of self-destruction”, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned in the statement.

“Raising the alarm by speaking the truth is not only necessary but crucial,” added UNDRR head Mami Mizutori.

“The science is clear. It is less costly to take action before a disaster devastates than to wait until destruction is done and respond after it has happened,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this year that climate change impacts, from heat to drought and flooding, are set to become more frequent and intense, damaging nature, people and the places they live.

But measures to slash planet-heating emissions and adapt to global warming are both lagging, the panel said.

Wait now, pay later

Ignoring risks has come at a high price.

Disasters around the world have cost roughly $170 billion (160 billion euros) each year over the past decade, the report found.

But most of that is incurred in lower-income countries, which on average lose one percent of their national GDP to disasters each year, compared to just 0.1 to 0.2 percent in wealthier nations.

Asia-Pacific nations are worst hit, with a 1.6% annual GDP dent, said the report, published ahead of a global disaster forum on the Indonesian island of Bali next month.

In the Philippines, for example, millions of people are still recovering from Typhoon Rai which struck in December, killing over 300 people and leaving hundreds of thousands more displaced, along with about $500 million in damages.

And as the number of disasters increase, the costs will as well.

The report estimated that 37.6 million more people will be living in conditions of extreme poverty by 2030 due to the impacts of climate change and disasters.

Most disaster-related losses are meanwhile not covered by insurers.

Since 1980, only about 40 percent have been covered globally, but in developing countries the less than 10 percent of such losses had insurance coverage.

“Disasters can be prevented, but only if countries invest the time and resources to understand and reduce their risks,” Mizutori stressed in the statement.

However, she warned, “by deliberately ignoring risk and failing to integrate it in decision making, the world is effectively bankrolling its own destruction.”

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and the Thomson Reuters Foundation)

Top radio chief sees Russia 'thrown back 40 years'




'Alexei Venediktov has been a top figure of Russia's media scene for years, leading the flagship of liberal broadcasters radio station Echo. 

The Russian president believes 'the media is an instrument' of the state, says Venediktov

Echo of Moscow had survived for decades as one of Russia's leading independent voices 

(AFP/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)


Marina LAPENKOVA
Mon, April 25, 2022, 

It survived for decades as one of Russia's leading independent voices, but when radio station Echo of Moscow shut down last month, long-time editor Alexei Venediktov knew it was the end of an era.

"The country has been thrown back in every sense, for me it's been set back 40 years," said Venediktov, who joined the station at its founding in 1990 and steered it through the 20 years of Vladimir Putin's rule, until the Russian president sent troops into Ukraine two months ago.

"We are now somewhere around 1983... war is going on in Afghanistan, dissidents are in jail or kicked out of the country and Andropov is in the Kremlin," he said, referring to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, who like Putin served in the KGB.

With his mop of curly grey hair, 66-year-old Venediktov has been a top figure of Russia's media scene for years, leading the flagship of liberal broadcasters.


Echo of Moscow first took to the airwaves in August 1990, in the final months of the Soviet Union, becoming a symbol of Russia's new-found media freedoms.

Venediktov, a former history teacher, joined the station as a reporter and became editor-in-chief in 1998.

As pressure mounted on Russian media over the last 20 years and many other independent outlets fell under state control, Echo of Moscow survived -- a fact many chalked up to Venediktov's links with powerful officials, including in the Kremlin.

- 'Drinking buddies' -

He made no secret of having friends in high places, referring to them jokingly as his "drinking buddies", and was one of the few journalists in Russia who continued to openly criticise Putin.

The Kremlin chief even intervened when zealous officials wanted to shut the station down, Venediktov told AFP during an interview in a central Moscow restaurant.

"Putin said three times: 'No, let them work.'"

But that changed when Russia launched the military offensive in Ukraine on February 24 and Echo of Moscow described the campaign as a "political mistake".

Echo of Moscow was taken off the air on March 1, and then formally shut down by its board of directors, where the majority of votes were controlled by state energy giant Gazprom.

The station's frequencies in Moscow and several other cities were taken over by state-owned Sputnik Radio.

"I understand (Putin's) logic: he could not keep us because propaganda during such operations must be total," Venediktov said.

Russia in March also introduced prison terms of up to 15 years for publishing information about the army deemed false by the government and in late April Venediktov was designated a "foreign agent".

Last month, he posted images online of a pig's head wearing a curly wig that was left outside his apartment and an anti-Semitic sticker glued to his door.

Many journalists have fled Russia fearing for their safety, but Venediktov said he has no plans to leave.

"People will trust me more if I experience the same difficulties, walk the same streets as them and face the same sanctions," he said.

- Face-to-face with Putin -

Venediktov now hosts guests on a YouTube channel that has racked up half a million subscribers.

He wants to continue speaking about the Ukraine conflict, saying Russians need to know "why this happened" and "why you are hurting".

Venediktov said he had met Putin several times over the years, but "we never spoke the same language", with the Russian leader believing "the media is an instrument" of the state.

"I told him face-to-face that the main problem in the country was the absence of any form of competition: political, ideological and economic absolutism," Venediktov said.

Despite their differences, he said Putin had twice asked the former teacher what place he would occupy in history books -- once in 2008 at the end of his first two presidential terms, and again in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.

Even with the dramatic events of the last few weeks, Venediktov said he is not sure.

"We are still in the middle of the chapter and we can't turn the page yet."

bur/bp

REDUX

Report calls out rising extremism in Canada military

Canada's Prime minister Justin Trudeau talks with soldiers during a visit of the Adazi military base, north east of Riga, Latvia, in March 2022.

 (AFP/Toms Norde) (Toms Norde)


Mon, April 25, 2022

The number of white supremacists and other violent extremists within Canada's military is growing at an "alarming rate" and commanders are not doing enough to root it out, a report said Monday.

The report by a four-member government advisory panel also found widespread anti-Indigenous and Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, as well as gender bias and prejudice against gays and lesbians within military ranks.

A failure to address these issues, it concluded, "negatively impacts operational capabilities, undermines the well-being of (military) members, and puts the security of Canada in peril."

"The reality is that systemic racism exists in our institution and we need to root it out and eliminate it," Defense Minister Anita Anand told a news conference.


She noted that a total of Can$326.5 million (US$256 million) had been earmarked in the last two federal budgets "for culture change in the military."

The report found that "in addition to sexual misconduct and domestic violence, hate crimes, extremist behaviours and affiliations to white supremacy groups are growing at an alarming rate."

It noted that members of extremist groups are becoming better at hiding their activities and affiliations, for example using encryption and Darknet, while the military's efforts to detect extremist pockets or individuals are "still very much siloed and inefficient."

And despite a zero tolerance for hateful behaviour, when it is found out, the consequences for such conduct or affiliation with hate groups "is not standardized," it said.

Advisory panel member Ed Fitch said military leaders "still don't know enough about these groups, who they are, where they are" and that a concerted effort is needed "to completely clean out this nasty area."

Over the past 20 years, some 258 recommendations stemming from dozens of inquiries were made to address diversity, inclusion, respect and professional conduct in the military.

But when the panel tried to identify progress on those recommendations, it found that many of them were "poorly implemented, shelved or even discarded," noted Sandra Perron, another panel member.

The advisory panel made 13 of its own recommendations.

Chief of the Defense Staff, General Wayne Eyre, said the top challenge is that "once the spotlight goes on (these groups), they change their names, they change their symbology."

"As hate groups become mainstream in our society we have to be very vigilant and continue to educate ourselves as to what these signs and symbols are," he said.

amc/jh

Somalia affair - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Somalia_affair

The Somalia affair was a 1993 Canadian military scandal. It peaked with the beating to death of a Somali teenager at the hands of two Canadian soldiers ...

‎Background · ‎Canadian Airborne Regiment · ‎Airborne in Somalia · ‎Somalia Inquiry

Missing: 101ST ‎| Must include: 101ST

Rites of Passage and Group Bonding in the Canadian Airborne

https://www.jstor.org › stable

by D WINSLOW · 1999 · Cited by 232 — As one soldier put it: "I am proud to have done it, it proves to myself and others that as a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, I will face

Right-Wing Extremism, Radicalization, and the Canadian ...

https://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca › Boire

PDF

by MS Boire — Right-wing extremism spreads hate and causes hateful conduct, incites radicalization, fosters disenfranchisement and dissent, and challenges ...

• 
  

  Manifestation of Hateful Conduct to Radical Extremism as a ...

  https://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca › csc › mds › Vandor

  PDF

  by MAT Vandor — extremist acts of violence continue to be both consistent and persistent. ... numerous members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR). ... 101-113).

Far-right infiltration of Canada's military poses a serious threat ...

https://www.cbc.ca › radio › day6 › far-right-infiltratio.

.

.

Sept 18, 2020 — Earlier this week, Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre of the Canadian army told CBC News that he plans to issue a special order that will give Canadian army ...

Missing: 101ST ‎AIRBORNE

Drop in Vaccines Exposes Latin American Children to Disease, Report Shows

April 25, 2022
Agence France-Presse

A Venezuelan woman and her baby are vaccinated against measles in Cucuta, Colombia, at the international brigde Simon Bolivar on the border with Venezuela, on March 21, 2018.

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA —

One in four children in Latin America and the Caribbean does not have vaccine protection against three potentially deadly diseases, a U.N. report said Monday, warning of plummeting inoculation rates.

While 90% of children in the region in 2015 had received the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP3), by 2020 coverage had dropped to three-quarters, according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a regional office of the World Health Organization.

This means that some 2.5 million children were not fully protected — and 1.5 million of them have not had even one dose in the three-shot regimen.

Globally, according to WHO, 17.1 million infants did not receive an initial dose of the DTP3 vaccine in 2020, and another 5.6 million were only partially jabbed.

Outbreaks of preventable diseases "have already occurred" in Latin America and the Caribbean, the agencies said.

A health worker applies a vaccine against diphtheria to a baby in Lima, on Oct. 28, 2020.

In 2013, only five people in the region contracted diphtheria — a bacterial disease that can cause breathing difficulties, heart failure and potentially death.

Five years later, the number was nearly 900.

There has also been a rise in cases of measles — another disease that can be prevented with inoculation — from nearly 500 cases in 2013 to more than 23,000 in 2019, said the statement.

"The decline in vaccination rates in the region is alarming," said UNICEF regional director Jean Gough.

The reasons were multifold.

"The context in the region has changed in the last five years. Governments have focused their attention on other emerging public health issues such as Zika, chikungunya and more recently COVID-19," UNICEF neonatal expert Ralph Midy told AFP.

"The existence of migrant populations that are difficult to locate and do not always have access to regular health services, in addition to people living in isolated or hard-to-reach areas, also hinders the vaccination process," Midy said.

The downward trend started even before the COVID-19 epidemic, which worsened the situation by interrupting primary health care services and causing some people to avoid clinics and hospitals for fear of the virus.

"As countries recover from the pandemic, immediate actions are needed to prevent (vaccine) coverage rates from further dropping, because the re-emergence of disease outbreaks poses a serious risk to all of society," said Gough.

Overuse and climate change kill off Iraq's Sawa Lake




A meagre pond is all that remains of the once flourishing wetlands 

known as Sawa Lake in southern Iraq's al-Muthanna province 

(AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

Tony GAMAL-GABRIEL
Mon, April 25, 2022

A "No Fishing" sign on the edge of Iraq's western desert is one of the few clues that this was once Sawa Lake, a biodiverse wetland and recreational landmark.

Human activity and climate change have combined to turn the site into a barren wasteland with piles of salt.

Abandoned hotels and tourist facilities here hark back to the 1990s when the salt lake, circled by sandy banks, was in its heyday and popular with newly-weds and families who came to swim and picnic.

But today, the lake near the city of Samawa, south of the capital Baghdad, is completely dry.

Bottles litter its former banks and plastic bags dangle from sun-scorched shrubs, while two pontoons have been reduced to rust.

"This year, for the first time, the lake has disappeared," environmental activist Husam Subhi said. "In previous years, the water area had decreased during the dry seasons."

Today, on the sandy ground sprinkled with salt, only a pond remains where tiny fish swim, in a source that connects the lake to an underground water table.

The five-square-kilometre (two-square-mile) lake has been drying up since 2014, says Youssef Jabbar, environmental department head of Muthana province.

The causes have been "climate change and rising temperatures," he explained.

"Muthana is a desert province, it suffers from drought and lack of rainfall."

Bottles and plastic bags litter what were once the banks of Sawa Lake

 (AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

- 1,000 illegal wells -

A government statement issued last week also pointed to "more than 1,000 wells illegally dug" for agriculture in the area.

Additionally, nearby cement and salt factories have "drained significant amounts of water from the groundwater that feeds the lake", Jabbar said.

It would take nothing short of a miracle to bring Sawa Lake back to life.

Use of aquifers would have to be curbed and, following three years of drought, the area would now need several seasons of abundant rainfall, in a country hit by desertification and regarded as one of the five most vulnerable to climate change.

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, a global treaty, recognised Sawa as "unique... because it is a closed water body in an area of sabkha (salt flat) with no inlet or outlet.

"The lake is formed over limestone rock and is isolated by gypsum barriers surrounding the lake; its water chemistry is unique," says the convention's website.

A stopover for migratory birds, the lake was once "home to several globally vulnerable species" such as the eastern imperial eagle, houbara bustard and marbled duck.

The dried-up bed of Sawa Lake

 (AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

- 'Lake died before me' -

Sawa is not the only body of water in Iraq facing the perils of drought.

Iraqi social media is often filled with photos of grotesquely cracked soil, such as in the UNESCO-listed Howeiza marshes in the south, or Razzaza Lake in the central province of Karbala.

In Sawa, a sharp drop in rainfall -- now only 30 percent of what used to be normal for the region -- has lowered the underground water table, itself drained by wells, said Aoun Dhiab, a senior advisor at Iraq's water resources ministry.

And rising temperatures have increased evaporation.

Abandoned hotels that once catered for lakeside tourists

 (AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

Dhiab said authorities have banned the digging of new wells and are working to close illegally-dug wells across the country.

Latif Dibes, who divides his time between his hometown of Samawa and his adopted country of Sweden, has worked for the past decade to raise environmental awareness.



The former driving school instructor cleans up the banks of the Euphrates River and has turned the vast, lush garden of his home into a public park.

He remembers the school trips and holidays of his childhood, when the family would go swimming at Sawa.

"If the authorities had taken an interest, the lake would not have disappeared at this rate. It's unbelievable," he said.

"I am 60 years old and I grew up with the lake. I thought I would disappear before it, but unfortunately, it has died before me."

tgg/gde/hc/fz/dwo

Ancient goddess sculpture found by farmer in Gaza Strip

Mon, April 25, 2022

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian farmer found a rare 4,500-year-old stone sculpture while working his land in the southern Gaza Strip, ruling Hamas authorities announced Monday.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the 22-centimeter (6.7-inch) tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat and is estimated to be dated to around 2,500 B.C.

“Anat was the goodness of love, beauty, and war in the Canaanite mythology,” said Jamal Abu Rida, the ministry’s director, in a statement.

Gaza, a narrow enclave on the Mediterranean Sea, boasts a trove of antiquities and archaeological sites as it was a major land route connecting ancient civilizations in Egypt, the Levant and Mesopotamia.

But discovered antiquities frequently disappear and development projects are given priority over the preservation of archaeological sites beneath the urban sprawl needed to accommodate 2.3 million people packed into the densely populated territory.

In 2017, the militant Hamas group, which had seized control of the Gaza Strip a decade earlier, destroyed large parts of a rare Canaanite settlement to make way for a housing development for its own employees.

And to date, a life-size statue of the Greek god Apollo that had surfaced in 2013 and then disappeared has yet to be found.

In January, bulldozers digging for an Egyptian-funded housing project unearthed the ruins of a tomb dating back to the Roman era.

Image: pinterest.com

Anat or Anath is the Canaanite warrior Goddess, the maiden who loves battle, the virgin Goddess of sacrifice, a warrior and archer. She is famous for having a violent temperament and for taking joy in slaughter.

Anat, the Canaanite Goddess of War and Sacrifice

thaliatook.com/AMGG/anat.php

Anath: Bible - Jewish Women's Archive

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/anath-bible

Anath (Anat) is a prominent figure in the Canaanite mythological texts, dating to c. 1400 BCE, discovered at Ugarit on the Syrian coast. She is a maiden/warrior goddess, the sister or consort of the fertility and storm god Baal. She plays a major role in the Ugaritic myths, rescuing Baal from the underworld and defeating Mot, the god of death.

Anat - Ancient Egypt Online

https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/anat

Anat (also known as Anant, Anit, Anti, Anthat and Antit) was an ancient Canaanite 

Anat - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anat

• Overview
• In Egypt
• In Ugarit
• In Mesopotamia
• In Israel
• In Phoenician and Cyprian inscriptions, Athene
• Possible late transfigurations
• See also

Anat is sporadically attested in Egypt since the 18th century BCE, and is found in the name of Anat-her, a fragmentarily attested figure (possibly a Hyksos ruler) of the 12th, 15th or 16th dynasty whose name means "Anat is content" and is taken to indicate Canaanite descent. As a warrior-goddess, Anat was one of several Syrian / northwest Semitic deities who was prominently worshipped by the warrior-pharaohs of the 16th Dynasty. She was often paired with the goddess

Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license

ANAT Meaning- Palestinian Mythological Goddess – ANAT ...

https://anat-international.com/blogs/news/goddess-anat

2020-02-11 · Anat was a revered Goddess in Canaanite mythology. Before we explain what the Goddess Anat represents, it is integral to first briefly highlight key aspects of Canaanite 

ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact

BEN GITTLESON
Mon, April 25, 2022,

ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact


The coronavirus response coordinator for President Donald Trump's COVID task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, told ABC News in an exclusive interview that she became "paralyzed" when Trump raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant into people to treat the virus – and revealed how she thinks data meant to keep New York City playgrounds open led the president to make that ill-advised jump.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, speaks with President Donald Trump and members of the coronavirus task force during a briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, April 23, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Birx, who spoke with Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News' chief medical correspondent, before the Tuesday release of her new book, also said she had a pact with other doctors on Trump's team – including Anthony Fauci – that if one of them was fired, then they would all resign.

From the start, she wrote in the book, "Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of the Trump Administration, COVID-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It’s Too Late," she was unequipped to deal with the toxic political atmosphere that was the Trump White House.


MORE: Birx on Trump's disinfectant 'injection' moment: 'I still think about it every day'

And even though she was the only one on Trump’s team with on-the-ground experience dealing with a deadly pandemic, she was constantly sidelined, she said.
’I wanted it to be “The Twilight Zone”’

But many Americans have come to associate Birx with her failure to more forcefully correct Trump during that White House press briefing on April 23, 2020.

New York City had recently closed its playgrounds and, according to Birx, a Department of Homeland Security scientist had just briefed Trump on how it appeared sunlight made them safe.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx is interviewed by ABC's Dr. Jennifer Ashton, April 24, 2022. (ABC News)

"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous -- whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light -- and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing," Trump said. "And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too."

"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that," the president continued.

“I wanted to be able to reassure the parents that the natural disinfection activity of the sun, with its ability to produce those free radicals that eat these viruses and bacteria and fungi, their membranes, that that would work,” Birx told Ashton. “And that they could get their children outside to play on the playground.”

But when Birx said she saw Trump and the government scientist informally continue their conversation before cameras – and the president make the leap to publicly question whether humans could be treated with disinfectant – she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"I just wanted it to be 'The Twilight Zone' and all go away," Birx said. "I mean, I just-- I could just see everything unraveling in that moment."

MORE: More than 100 million Americans have received 1st COVID booster shot since August

Birx also addressed that moment in a Monday interview with "Good Morning America."

"This was a tragedy on many levels," she told co-anchor George Stephanopoulos.

"I immediately went to his most senior staff, and to Olivia Troye, and said this has to be reversed immediately," she said; Troye was an adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, listens as President Donald Trump speaks with members of the coronavirus task force during a briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, April 23, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

"And by the next morning, the president was saying that was a joke," Birx said. "But I think he knew by that evening, clearly, that this was dangerous."

Birx said she was concerned Americans thought Trump had been speaking directly to her, when in reality he was mainly speaking with the Homeland Security scientist. Trump did at one point, though, ask her: "Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?"

"Not as a treatment," she replied. "I mean, certainly fever is a good thing. When you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But not as — I’ve not seen heat or (inaudible)."

Birx now says she regretted not saying more.

"We had spent so much time getting everyone to take the virus seriously, and we had these whole series of actions that were critical to saving American lives in that moment," Birx said. "And I could see everything would be unraveled after that moment
Birx: Doctors had pact to resign

Birx also wrote in her book about how she had a pact with other doctors on Trump's coronavirus task force that if one of them was removed from the task force, then all of them would resign from it.

She said the doctors included Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx is interviewed by ABC's Dr. Jennifer Ashton, April 24, 2022. (ABC News)

"I actually wasn't worried about myself being fired because I was dual-hatted, and I would go back to the State Department and my PEPFAR job, full time," Birx told Ashton, referring to her role as the coordinator of the U.S. government's program to combat HIV/AIDS, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

MORE: Trump claims 'virus is receding' one day after Birx says pandemic 'extraordinarily widespread'

"I was very worried about Bob and Steve-- because you can hear in the hallways how people were talking about them," she said, referring to Redfield and Hahn. "And so, I went to the vice president multiple times to call Bob and Steve because I was worried about them feeling like they were--at that risk. And I was very clear to the chief of staff that if anything happened to Bob or Steve, we would all leave."

Asked if that ever came close to happening, Birx said "there were times that I felt like Steve particularly was under a lot of pressure" over vaccine development.

"I wanted him to know that I had his back, no matter what," she said. "And I think all of us knew-- all of us knew what it was like to be there and in the trenches. Although, they got to go home after the task force and back to their agencies. I was still in the White House.

"But," she continued, "they had enough understanding about what was happening in the White House to understand that all of us were at risk at one time or another."

ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact originally appeared on abcnews.go.com