‘Profoundly disturbing’: The PR firm for the COP27 climate summit has a long history with Big Oil

PUBLISHED WED, NOV 16 2022

CNBC
Sam Meredith@SMEREDITH19

KEY POINTS

Hill and Knowlton Strategies has been sharply criticized for what critics say is a long track record of spreading disinformation on behalf of its Big Oil clients.

“There is almost no more inappropriate agency to bring on to lead communications for a climate summit,” Duncan Meisel, campaign director at Clean Creatives, told CNBC via telephone.

A peer-reviewed study published late last year in the journal Climatic Change was the first to comprehensively document the role that PR firms have played in helping the world’s most profitable oil and gas companies improve their environmental image and block climate action.


Around 35,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries are expected to convene on the southern tip of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to discuss collective action on how to tackle the climate emergency.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Environmental campaigners see a deep irony in Egypt’s choice to hire U.S. public relations firm Hill and Knowlton Strategies to lead communications at the biggest climate-related conference on the planet.

The host country of the COP27 summit, which runs for nearly two weeks until Nov. 18 in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, sees Hill and Knowlton take charge of handling briefings and news conferences at an event designed to galvanize collective action on the climate emergency.

The public relations company, however, has been sharply criticized for what critics say is a long track record of spreading disinformation on behalf of its Big Oil clients.

“Hill and Knowlton is the main lobbying communications firm for the oil industry,” said Duncan Meisel, campaign director at Clean Creatives, a U.S.-based group working to disentangle the PR industry from the fossil fuel sector.

“There is almost no more inappropriate agency to bring on to lead communications for a climate summit,” Meisel told CNBC via telephone.

A spokesperson for Hill and Knowlton did not respond to a request for comment, and Hill and Knowlton’s parent company WPP did not provide an answer to CNBC’s questions.

There is a particularly deep irony of Hill and Knowlton, with this decades-long track record of supporting and facilitating corporate deception and corporate malfeasance, being a critical voice for the global climate negotiations.

Carroll Muffett

CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT CIEL

Hill and Knowlton, in addition to working with major tobacco companies in the 1950s, is known to have worked for fossil fuel clients such as Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil and the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative — a consortium of 12 of the world’s largest oil and gas companies.

For example, Hill and Knowlton in 2017 and 2018 helped to create ads that showcased Shell’s role in powering London’s buses with biofuels partly made from coffee waste. The PR firm said the campaign “exceeded all expectations” as it became a global story, with nearly 1,200 news stories and 11.9 billion media impressions. Critics, however, called this out as “greenwashing” with Shell having significant oil and gas operations across the globe.

In the run-up to COP27, a group of more than 400 scientists wrote to Hill and Knowlton and WPP and said that the firm’s work for Big Oil clients was “incompatible with its role leading public communications at the annual United Nations climate talks.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based non-profit science advocacy group, also urged Hill and Knowlton “to end its relationship with fossil fuel clients that are worsening the climate crisis, and commit fully to the climate action the world desperately needs.”

On its website, Hill and Knowlton says it manages public affairs, digital and brand strategies for clients across the energy sector. It says it has “experience with Fortune 500 companies, trade associations, government agencies, start-ups and investors across all sectors,” including oil and gas, nuclear, renewables and clean technology.
‘A particularly deep irony’

Carroll Muffett, chief executive at the non-profit Center for International Environmental Law, described Egypt’s choice of turning to a PR firm known to be “one of the worst of the worst by reputation” to run media for the COP27 summit as both “remarkably instructive” and “profoundly disturbing.”

“Any PR firm that is actively supporting to promote [a] narrative of continued fossil fuel expansion under any circumstances is a problem,” Muffett told CNBC via telephone.

“On the flip side to that, there is a particularly deep irony of Hill and Knowlton, with this decades-long track record of supporting and facilitating corporate deception and corporate malfeasance, being a critical voice for the global climate negotiations,” he said.

Egypt’s COP presidency and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were not immediately available to respond to a CNBC request for comment.

It comes at a time of growing momentum for calls to end fossil fuel production worldwide.

The South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu last week became the first country to use the U.N.’s flagship climate talks to push for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. The European Parliament, the Vatican and the World Health Organization have all backed the proposal in recent months.

Only a handful of small countries have endorsed the initiative to date, however, and the fossil fuel industry has typically sought to underline the importance of energy security in the transition to renewables.

To be sure, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate emergency.

The role PR firms and ad agencies play in “greenwashing” fossil fuels has typically been overlooked, in large part because communications firms have sought to remain in keeping with the adage that “the best PR is invisible PR.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called out what he described as the “massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny.”
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, however, recently called out what he described as the “massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny.”

“Just as they did for the tobacco industry decades before, lobbyists and spin doctors have spewed harmful misinformation,” Guterres said in a speech to the U.N. general assembly on Sept. 20.

“Fossil fuel interests need to spend less time averting a PR disaster — and more time averting a planetary one.”

‘A clear conflict of interest’

A peer-reviewed study published late last year in the journal Climatic Change was the first to comprehensively document the role that PR firms have played in helping the world’s most profitable oil and gas companies improve their environmental image and block climate action.

It found that energy giants have relied on PR firms and ad agencies to finesse their public messaging for more than three decades.

Christine Arena, a former executive vice president at U.S. PR giant Edelman who resigned in 2015 over the firm’s stance on climate change, told CNBC that it was concerning to see the United Nations Climate Change Conference choose to partner with Hill and Knowlton.

“Hill & Knowlton is one of the top five most highly utilized PR firms for gas, oil, coal, and utility clients — including Saudi Aramco, Exxon and the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative to name a few,” Arena said.

“This presents a clear conflict of interest and an increased likelihood that the same fossil fuel talking points will remain center stage at the most significant climate event of the year.”

“Equally concerning is the fact that, in response to increasing calls for accountability, both H&K and its parent company WPP remain silent,” she added.

Intel Says Its Deepfake Detector Has 96% Accuracy

The company says its FakeCatcher can operate in real-time to detect deepfake videos.

By
Kevin Hurler
Published Yesterday 

EVEN I CAN DETECT THIS SO CALLED DEEP FAKE

A video of Vladimir Putin that has been deepfaked with Donald Trump’s likeness.

Deepfake technology—where someone’s likeness is digitally placed over someone else’s—has some very spooky implications. Intel says that its new deepfake detection tech, called FakeCatcher, is able to clock a deepfake video 96% of the time.

Intel announced that FakeCatcher can operate in real-time to detect deepfake videos, further claiming that it is the first of its kind in the world. FakeCatcher apparently has a 96% success rate at detecting fake likenesses and collects data on subtle blood flow mechanics on a person’s face by scanning the pixels in a video. Then a deep learning AI can determine if the subject’s likeness is authentic or not. FakeCatcher was developed by Intel researcher Ilke Demir and Umur Ciftci from the State University of New York at Binghamton using Intel tech.

“Deepfake videos are everywhere now. You have probably already seen them; videos of celebrities doing or saying things they never actually did,” says Intel Labs senior staff research Ilke Demir in an Intel press release.

FakeCatcher is hosted on a server but interfaces with videos using a web-based platform. According to Intel, the tech’s approach is opposite of traditional deep-learning based detectors, which usually try to find what’s fake about a video, whereas FakeCatcher is looking for what’s real.

In an interview with VentureBeat, Demir explained that FakeCatcher’s approach is based on photoplethysmography (PPG), which is a method to determine the change in blood flow in human tissue. If a real person is on screen, their tissue will change color ever-so-slightly microscopically as blood is pumped through their veins. Deepfakes can’t replicate this change in complexion (at least not yet).

Deepfake technology has seemingly grown in recent years. This summer, the FBI reported to its Internet Crime Complaint Center that it had received an increase in complaints regarding people who were using deepfakes to apply to remote jobs—with specific attention to voice spoofing. In August, Binance CCO Patrick Hillman stated in a blog post that hackers were copying his digital likeness to impersonate him in meetings.

Australia risks being a ‘state sponsoring greenwashing’ if it relies on carbon offsets, expert warns

‘The wild west approach needs to end,’ says climate scientist Bill Hare, amid warning targets should be met by cuts in absolute emissions

Cop27: address of US President Joe Biden. An expert panel member warns Australia not to rely on carbon offsets.

 Photograph: Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock


Graham Readfearn and Adam Morton

THE GUARDIAN

Sat 12 Nov 2022 

The Australian government risks becoming a “state sponsoring greenwashing” if it keeps allowing companies to use carbon offsets without much tighter regulations, according to a member of an expert panel advising the UN on net zero climate pledges.

The UN panel released recommendations at the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt for corporations, regions and policymakers around the world on credible net zero pledges.

Experts said many Australian companies’ pledges would fail to meet the panel’s recommendations, which said continued fossil fuel exploration and production and unlimited use of carbon offsets were incompatible with net zero plans.
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Dr Bill Hare, an Australian climate scientist, adviser and member of the High-Level Expert Group on the Net Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities, told the Guardian the main implication from the report was “whether or not Australia will bite the bullet and move away from relying upon offsets”.


UN experts demand crackdown on greenwashing of net zero pledges

“If the government doubles down on the present system whereby offsets are allowed to be used to do all of the so-called emission reductions, then there is a serious risk that the Australian government becomes a state sponsoring greenwashing,” he said.

Policymakers, regulators and boardrooms will be examining the expert group’s report closely. It stressed companies should be making deep cuts in absolute pollution by 2030, in line with the global goal of aiming to limit heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and using high-integrity offsets only for additional reductions beyond that to “balance out” remaining emissions.

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The report also said companies with net zero plans must building or investing in new coal, oil and gas supplies, and fossil fuel businesses need to account for “scope 3” emissions – those released through the use of their products by their customers – as well as their direct pollution.

Hare said the group had called for a taskforce to be developed to ensure the recommendations were incorporated into regulation and law around the world. In Australia, he said that should involve federal and state governments and corporate and consumer watchdogs.
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“There needs to be regulation,” Hare said. “The wild west approach to corporate net zero targets needs to end so that public, consumers and investors have confidence that net zero claims of companies are real and not greenwashing.

“We’ve reached a point in time where we cannot afford to cheat on the climate. It’s too important and the implications for future generations too great.”

Q&A

What are carbon credits?

The use of carbon offsets and the rules that govern them is a major focus at the talks in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh. The US climate envoy, John Kerry, who last week announced the creation of a carbon offset plan known as the Energy Transition Accelerator, promised to help developing countries move more rapidly away from fossil fuels.

The plan was criticised by environment groups, which said it would delay genuine efforts to cut emissions. Kerry responded that fossil fuel companies would not be allowed to participate in the program.

In Australia, there has been a rapid expansion of net zero pledges in boardrooms, including at many major fossil fuel corporations. Polly Hemming, a climate researcher at the Australia Institute, said the lack of regulation meant it was “like a choose-your-own adventure”.

She said most fossil fuel companies relied on buying offsets to reduce their reported emissions in their net zero plans. “There’s a complete over-reliance from the private sector on offsets and the government is allowing that,” Hemming said.

The Albanese government is consulting with industry on changes to a Coalition-era scheme – known as the safeguard mechanism - that is promised to cap and gradually reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the country’s 215 highest-emitting sites.

In a consultation paper, the government said it intended to allow the companies to buy and surrender Australian offsets “as an alternative to reducing their onsite emissions” – a step explicitly ruled out by the UN expert group.

Erwin Jackson, policy director at the Investor Group on Climate Change, said the group’s recommendations would help to establish benchmarks to assess company commitments and would ultimately be “the regulatory system that governed greenwashing”.

“This science-based assessment will be how every Australian company’s commitment to addressing climate change will be judged,” he said.

He said investors had shown at fossil fuel annual general meetings in Australia that they already considered new fossil fuel development to be incompatible with credible net zero plans. “You can’t say you’re committed to the Paris agreement and go out and expand fossil fuels, and you can’t offset your way to net zero,” Jackson said.

A recent review of 187 companies on the ASX200 by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors – a group that represents investment funds and asset owners in boardrooms – found nearly half had net zero commitments, but only 3% counted all emissions caused by the company’s activities.

The council’s chief executive, Louise Davidson, said it found “a higher reliance on offsets than we were comfortable with”.

“The research found a lot of targets have been set and there’s growing corporate ambition,” she said. “But commitments on disclosure around those didn’t give us confidence that corporate Australia is heading for 1.5C.”

The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, said through a spokesperson that “abatement is still delivered” where offsets were used and the government was committed to ensuring “confidence in the integrity of climate-related commitments of Australian companies”.

“The government stands by its safeguard [mechanism] reforms, which allows facilities to use offsets to meet reductions in their baselines,” the spokesperson said.

Bowen has commissioned a review of the Australian carbon credit scheme led by a former chief scientist, Prof Ian Chubb.

The review is considering allegations by academics, including a former head of a carbon credit integrity assurance body, Prof Andrew Macintosh, that up to 80% of credits approved in Australia were not delivering a genuine reduction in emissions due to flawed management of the system by the government regulator. It is due to report by the end of the year.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

‘Vast’ mass of microbes being released by melting glaciers

Bacteria can fertilise ecosystems but need to be studied closely to identify potential pathogens, scientists say

Researchers collected surface meltwaters from eight glaciers in Europe, North America and Greenland. Photograph: Dr Arwyn Edwards/Dr Tristram Irvine-Fynn, Aberystwyth University

Damian Carrington 

Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN
Thu 17 Nov 2022 07.00 GMT

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of bacteria are being released by melting glaciers, a study has shown.

The microbes being washed downstream could fertilise ecosystems, the researchers said, but needed to be much better studied to identify any potential pathogens.


The scientists said the rapid melting of the ice by the climate crisis meant the glaciers and the unique microbial ecosystems they harboured were “dying before our eyes”, leaving researchers racing to understand them before they disappeared.

Some of the microbes may also be a future source of useful biological molecules, such as new antibiotics.

The scientists collected surface meltwaters from eight glaciers across Europe and North America and from two sites on the Greenland ice cap. They found tens of thousands of microbes in each millilitre of water.

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of microbes will be released every year in all future scenarios for global heating, according to the study. 

Photograph: Dr Arwyn Edwards/Dr Tristram Irvine-Fynn, Aberystwyth University

The data enabled them to estimate the bacteria and algae being flushed out would deliver an average of 650,000 tonnes of carbon a year for the next 80 years in the northern hemisphere, excluding the Himalaya Hindu Kush region, which was not sampled. This estimate assumes a continued modest rise in CO2 emissions. If carbon emissions are cut, slowing global heating and ice melting, the mass of microbes released would be reduced by about a third.

“We are seeing the glaciers die before our eyes, affecting the microbes that are there, with implications for us locally and globally,” said Dr Arwyn Edwards, at Aberystwyth University in Wales, and part of the study team. “The mass of microbes released is vast even with moderate warming.”

“We don’t have enough data to understand the value and the threat of these organisms. I routinely get inquiries about whether there is going to be a doomsday pathogen melting out of the glaciers. I think that’s a very minor risk, but it’s not a zero risk, so we need risk assessment of these microbes.”

Until recently, very little was known about the many thousands of microbial species inhabiting the surface of ice. Almost 1,000 new species were revealed in Tibetan glaciers in June. A consortium of researchers, the Vanishing Glaciers Project (VGP), is conducting expeditions around the world to collect samples and assess this biodiversity.

Prof Tom Battin, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and part of VGP, said people should not be concerned about pathogens emerging from the ice. He also said most of the ice microbes did not seem to persist downstream.

Other recent research on viruses in Lake Hazen in Canada, the largest high Arctic freshwater lake in the world, suggested that the risk of viruses spilling over to new hosts was higher at locations close to where large amounts of glacial meltwater flowed in.

The new research, published in the Nature Communications Earth and Environment journal, used surface meltwater samples from four glaciers in the European Alps, as well as glaciers in Canada, Sweden, Svalbard, and the western Greenland ice sheet.

The study found that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of microbes would be released every year in all future scenarios for global heating. The bacteria and algae usually contain pigments to protect themselves from damage from sunlight. But these dark pigments absorb sunlight, adding to warming and speeding up the destruction of their icy habitat.

Russia supply shock forces rethink for chemicals and fertiliser groups

FT 2 days ago

The war in Ukraine is wreaking havoc on global supply chains. Western sanctions in response to the invasion, price shocks resulting from Russia’s weaponisation of energy, and disruptions to goods shipments have punctured normal procurement practices. The reverberations are being felt across the span of global industries — but the effects on the chemicals and agribusiness sectors have been particularly severe.

“Energy-intensive industrials and European fertiliser producers are the two groups that have been hit the most,” says Sebastian Bray, lead chemicals analyst at German investment bank Berenberg. “Any chemical company that is power or gas intense has generally not had a good past few months.”

The world had come to rely on Russia for much of the energy and raw materials that power the food chain and global industries. Though accounting for less than 3 per cent of global gross domestic product, Russia, Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus play an outsized role as producers and exporters of agricultural commodities, minerals, fertilisers and energy.

Russia is the world’s principal supplier of fertilisers and their core components. It accounts for roughly 45 per cent of the global ammonia nitrate market, 18 per cent of the potash market, and 14 per cent of global phosphate fertiliser exports.

Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Norwegian chemicals group Yara International, one of the world’s largest producers of nitrogen-based mineral fertilisers, says the disruption following the invasion of Ukraine was rapid and profound — piling pressure on already tight market conditions. Even before the war, global fertiliser supplies had been stretched by Covid shutdowns, labour shortages, and general volatility.

“The value chains were incredibly integrated,” he says. “When you look at the map — where Europe is, where Russia is, where the locations for natural resources are — these chains have been created over decades. Even during the coldest parts of the cold war, these products kept flowing so business was running. And that all changed radically in the course of a few days.”

Even during the coldest parts of the cold war products kept flowing. That changed in the course of a few days

Though no direct bans have been levied on food and fertiliser products from Russia, western nations say the war has cut off Ukraine’s food exports and Moscow is blaming sanctions for restricting its shipments.

The invasion and those western sanctions swiftly blocked access to suppliers, while Russia’s suspension of gas flows to Europe has caused energy costs to soar. Producing fertiliser components such as nitrogen and ammonia requires vast quantities of natural gas: it accounts for some 80 per cent of production costs. But gas prices have surged 200 per cent in Europe this year, hitting record highs in August (although wholesale gas prices have since dipped, as nations build stockpiles).

Many of Europe’s chemical companies — including sector behemoths Grupa Azoty, Achema and CF Industries — have responded to the turmoil with shutdowns and cutbacks. Europe has lost about half of its ammonia capacity and 33 per cent of its nitrogen fertiliser operations, according to industry researcher CRU Group. More than two-thirds of fertiliser production has been slashed in the region.

Yara had to cut 65 per cent of its ammonia production on economic grounds. Roughly 30mn British thermal units (mmbtu) of gas are used to produce 1 tonne of ammonia. So, if Russia pays $2 for gas, Holsether says, the variable cost to produce ammonia in Russia is about $60. But the contrast with the rest of Europe is stark. In August, the respective prices were $80 and $3,000. “It was not a marginal few dollars negative that made this decision,” Holsether says. “It was hugely unprofitable.”

A fall in gas prices has enabled Yara to restart some production, but Holsether says the future remains uncertain: “We have to be very careful not to allow this to evolve to the extent that we destroy significant parts of the European fertiliser industry.”

Dwindling fertiliser supplies are adding inflationary pressure to already elevated consumer prices and stoking concerns that the inevitable fall in crop yields will worsen the global food crisis. Talks to extend a UN brokered deal with Russia to allow the flow of foodstuffs and fertilisers from Ukraine beyond this month are under way.

Holsether hopes the supply shock will be a reckoning for the world’s reliance on Russia. “[Moscow is] using energy and food as weapons of war,” he says. “That’s a huge wake-up call to all of us that we need to create a new food system, one that is less dependent on Russia.”

Germany is often cited as an example of Europe’s precarious relationship with Russia. Before the invasion of Ukraine, 55 per cent of Germany’s gas came from Russia and, last year, Germany was the third greatest chemical exporter by value, after China and the US. Now, the industry is struggling to compete in the global market.

European sellers have been among the worst affected, says Bray, as products are often priced on a global basis. “This limits the ability to pass on higher costs to end consumers for chemicals produced in Europe, because the customers can source the product for cheaper elsewhere, or simply can’t afford it.”

Germany’s BASF, the world’s largest chemicals company by revenue, was hit both by surging gas prices and the limited availability and higher costs of naphtha, made from crude oil and used for resins and plastics. For the first nine months of 2022, the company’s natural gas costs in Europe were €2.2bn higher than the previous year. In response, BASF is to downsize in the region.

Germany’s BASF is permanently cutting back its operations after its natural gas costs rose €2.2bn this year © Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Then, this week, the Paris-based International Energy Agency warned that diesel, another key commodity for chemicals groups, could be the next focus of Europe’s energy crisis.

“High diesel prices are fuelling inflation, adding pressure on the global economy and world oil demand,” it said — adding that “competition for non-Russian diesel barrels will be fierce” once an EU embargo on Russian oil imports is implemented in February.

Industries in Europe are looking to alternatives to reduce fossil fuel dependency and build resilience.

BASF says it is “working to significantly reduce its dependence on fossil energy, especially gas, in the medium term”.

“We need to build out renewable energy at a pace that we’ve never seen before,” says Holsether. Yara is developing a “green”, fossil-free fertiliser that will be fuelled by hydropower. A pilot plant is under way in Norway and the fertiliser is expected to reach market next year.

Bray reckons the energy crisis will ultimately accelerate Europe’s investment in renewables but it will be a “tricky transition period”.

“There is a cost in terms of procuring more gas, shutting plants, and also in the outlook for European economic growth,” he says. “It may be a case of near-term to midterm pain and some long-term gain to make up for it.”

Chess: Magnus Carlsen faces his nemesis in final round of Meltwater tour

The world No 1 is favourite to win the $210,000 event going into the weekend matches, but still has to meet Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who has twice defeated the Norwegian in prestige events

3842: Alexey Shirov v Samuel Sevian, Stockholm 2016. Black to move and win. It’s a wild position, but the US grandmaster found a way through.

Leonard Barden

THE GUARDIAN

Fri 18 Nov 2022

Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, is favourite for the $210,000 Meltwater Tour final going into the decisive weekend rounds but the Norwegian, 31, will meet his most difficult opponent in Sunday’s best-of-four games mini-match, right at the end of the eight-player tournament.

Carlsen faces Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Poland’s No 1, the grandmaster who has been his nemesis on more than one big occasion. It was Duda who ended Carlsen’s world record sequence of 125 games unbeaten in autumn 2020 and who the following year knocked him out of the World Cup in their semi-final match.

Duda has continued to be a problem rival for Carlsen during online tournaments and is currently in second place in the overall Tour standings.


Chess: Shreyas Royal, 13, leads Bavarian Open as records beckon

Duda’s round-three win this week against Anish Giri included a combination so exceptionally brilliant that it is already being labelled a 21st-century Immortal. Starting at move 28, Duda launched a nine-move (11 moves counting hopeless interpositions) all-checking sequence where he sacrificed first a rook, then his queen and finally a knight for a forced checkmate.

He visualised it all in a few seconds and said later: “ I did see it very, very quickly but you calculate 1,000 times to make sure it’s really checkmate, that I don’t blunder anything, because otherwise it would be a disaster, and it’s very, very nice.”

The Carlsen v Duda series will start at 8pm and can be watched live and free on Chess24.com. It will be a mini-match of four games, with two blitz games and an Armageddon to follow if tiebreaks are needed.

Viewers have a choice of two commentary teams. Strong players can listen to expert analysis by the former world title finalists Peter Leko and Rustam Kasimdzhanov while those less experienced may prefer the English team, consisting of the 2022 Olympiad gold medallist David Howell, England’s No 1 woman, Jovanka Houska, and the popular streamer Simon Williams. Norway’s Kaja Snare does the post-game interviews.

The hybrid tournament format is a mixture of four players physically present in California, while the other four compete from their homes. Due to the time difference, both Shak Mamedyarov in Baku and the Indian champion Arjun Erigaisi in Warangal face playing in the small hours.

Carlsen struck in fine style in game three of his opening match against Wesley So, using what he called the Anti-Berlin to counter a well known drawing sequence: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 and now 4 d3!? instead of 4 0-0 Nxe4. Carlsen had already played 4 d3 with success against So in 2016, and there could be more of 4 d3 in future tournaments.

So could have made it 2-2 in game four, but in a winning position allowed a fortress where his queen could not infiltrate Carlsen’s defensive set-up of rook, bishop and king’s side pawns. During his 2016 world title match with Sergey Karjakin, Carlsen famously declared that he did not believe in fortresses, and since then he has had his fair share of them and been quizzed every time about his statement.


Chess: Hikaru Nakamura follows Fischer’s footsteps to win in Reykjavik

This week he made a fuller explanation: “There are a lot of positions that look like fortresses that can be broken down … but some positions are obviously fortresses.”

England has been dominant this year in senior chess for over-50s and over-65s, winning the world team championships in both categories, plus the European team title. This week GM John Nunn is the top seed and favourite in the 11-round world 65+ championship, staged at Assisi in Italy. At his peak Nunn was ranked among the world top 10 grandmasters, and his 2580 rating outranks his nearest rival by more than 100 points.

The Fide president, Arkady Dvorkovich, made the ceremonial first move for Nunn in Tuesday’s opening round, where his Lebanese opponent tried a surprise with the O’Kelly Sicilian 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 a6, and was swiftly crushed as Nunn played the theoretical refutation and won in 23 moves. Nunn has since advanced to 4/4, but is still in a multiple tie for first among the huge 192-player field. Free live coverage (2pm start) is available at Chess24.com.

ANSWER
3842: 1...Qb4+ 2 Kd5 Be4+! 3 Qxe4 Qc5 mate.

We Asked Strangers In Toronto About Chess

Chess.com

 Nov 18, 2022

@Daniel Rensch is joined by U.S. champion Fabiano Caruana and @James Canty III to find out what Toronto knows about chess!

Follow us here 😀:

✅ Join the world's largest chess community: http://www.Chess.com

The energy transition will fail unless industry fixes wind power issues, Siemens Energy CEO says

PUBLISHED THU, NOV 17 2022

CNBC
Anmar Frangoul

KEY POINTS
“Never forget, renewables like wind roughly, roughly, need 10 times the material [compared to] what conventional technologies need,” Siemens Energy CEO tells CNBC.

“So if you have problems on the supply chain, it hits … wind extremely hard, and this is what we see,” Christian Bruch adds.

Siemens Energy says its “overall performance” has been “held back by the negative development at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy,” a wind turbine manufacturer it has a majority stake in.


Wind turbine blades photographed at a Siemens Gamesa facility in Hull, England, in January 2022.
Paul Ellis | AFP | Getty Images

The CEO of Siemens Energy on Wednesday argued that the energy transition would fail unless his industry addressed a number of issues currently facing the wind power sector.

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe,” Christian Bruch said his firm was “in the heart of the energy transition” but noted that there were “challenges in wind” especially when it came to supply chains.

“Never forget, renewables like wind roughly, roughly, need 10 times the material [compared to] ... what conventional technologies need,” he said.

“So if you have problems on the supply chain, it hits … wind extremely hard, and this is what we see.”

“And this, unfortunately, obviously, leads to the situation [where] … it impacts the overall group results substantially.”

On Wednesday, Siemens Energy said its “overall performance” had been “held back by the negative development at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy,” a wind turbine manufacturer in which it has a majority stake.

In a statement, Siemens Energy said its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization — and special items — had fallen to 379 million euros (around $393.8 million) compared to 661 million euros for the 2021 fiscal year.

“While Gas and Power benefited from its turnaround plan and saw adjusted EBITA rise sharply, the increase was more than offset by a wider loss at SGRE,” it added. This was “due to difficulties in the ramp-up of the 5.X onshore platform as well as supply chain delays.”

Siemens Energy posted a net loss of 647 million euros against a 560 million euro loss in the previous year but also reported a record order backlog of 97.4 billion euros.

“Due to the widening loss, and the challenges facing the company now and in the coming year, the executive board of Siemens Energy will suggest to the Supervisory Board not to propose a dividend for 2022 at its annual shareholder meeting in February 2023,” it added.

New management has been installed at SGRE — which has faced a period of turbulence — and Siemens Energy on Wednesday also referenced its announcement in May of a “voluntary cash tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares in SGRE.”

Overall, Bruch appeared optimistic about Siemens Gamesa’s prospects. “I think we have seen now that we have initiated all the relevant measures, and with Jochen Eickholt [SGRE’s new CEO], have a person on board who is step after step, tackling the different elements going forward.”

“And I’m confident that we can tap into this mid-term and long-term fantastic potential of wind, which is there,” he said. “And to be crystal clear, [the] energy transition without wind energy does not work.”
‘No option but to fix it’

Despite this positive outlook, Bruch noted that several issues facing the sector would need to be ironed out. There was, he argued, “still a way to go” when it came to the wind industry maturing.

“How do you manage that business, how do you manage long-term risk,” he said.

“And also — between our customers, the operators and ourselves — how do you distribute risk along the supply chain in a world which is much more volatile, much more difficult, much more multilateral than before.”

There were, he explained, certain areas that the industry needed to fix itself, including sourcing and supply chains.

“And there are certain elements where the market needs to fix certain things,” he added.

This included shortening approval times for projects and distributing risk between operators, who were making “good profits”, and equipment suppliers.

These were the “discussions which we will need to have over the course of the next 12 months to drive this business forward.”

“But there’s no question — if we don’t resolve it as an industry, we are missing a substantial part of the energy transition, and we’ll fail with the energy transition. So there’s no option but to fix it.”

Glassy fangs and glowing fins: amazing deep sea animals found near Cocos Islands

Discovered in the deep: Scientists exploring the uncharted waters of the Indian Ocean uncover a multitude of dazzling sea creatures around a remote Australian island group


A ferocious looking conger eel with large fang-like teeth was collected from a depth of 1,000 metres. Photograph: Benjamin Healley/Museums Victoria

by Helen Scales

THE GUARDIAN
Seascape: the state of our oceans
About this content
Mon 14 Nov 2022 

A shipload of scientists has just returned from exploring the uncharted waters of the Indian Ocean, where they mapped giant underwater mountains and encountered a multitude of deep-sea animals decked out in twinkling lights, with velvety black skin and mouths full of needle-sharp, glassy fangs.

The team of biologists was the first to study the waters around the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory more than 600 miles off the coast of Sumatra. “It’s just a complete blank slate,” says the expedition’s chief scientist, Dr Tim O’Hara, from Museum Victoria Research Institute.


“That area of the world is so rarely studied,” says Dr Michelle Taylor from the University of Essex and president of the Deep-Sea Biology Society, who wasn’t involved in the expedition.

Few research expeditions make it to the Indian Ocean, chiefly because it’s so remote. It took the team six days to get to Cocos (Keeling) Islands from Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory, on the research vessel Investigator, operated by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.


The Sloane’s viperfish has huge fang-like teeth, visible even when the mouth is closed. It has light-producing organs on its belly and upper fin, which help disguise it from predators and lure prey. Photograph: Benjamin Healley

“The real stars of the show are the fish,” says O’Hara, who specialises in invertebrates. “There are blind eels and tripod fish, hatchetfish and dragonfish, with all of these bioluminescent organs on them and lures coming out of their heads. They’re just extraordinary.”

Among the huge variety of life they found, the deep-sea batfish was a highlight. It sits on the seabed like an ornate pancake and struts about on two stubby fins that act as legs. It wiggles a tiny lure tucked into a hollow on its snout, presumably hoping to trick prey into thinking it is a tasty worm.





Clockwise from top left: a deep-sea batfish; a voracious highfin lizard fish; tribute spiderfish on its ‘stilts’; a previously unknown blind eel. Photographs: Benjamin Healley
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They spotted the tribute spiderfish, which has long lower fins it uses as stilts to perch above the seabed, catching passing morsels of food. They found a previously unknown blind eel, collected from 5,000m down, covered in jelly-like, transparent skin. And they saw stoplight loose jaws, a type of dragonfish, which have huge unfolding jaws with double hinges and the unusual habit of spying on other animals with red bioluminescent light, a colour which most deep-sea animals can’t see.


Discovered in the deep: the sharks that glow in the dark

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A sampling net dragged across the abyssal plain came up full of ancient shark teeth. “They were gigantic sharks that lived millions of years ago,” says O’Hara. Based on photographs, fossil experts think these came from “megalodon-like animals”. They’ll know more once they get their hands on the teeth, which are now being sent to museums along with all the rest of the collections.



Scientists Nelson Kuna from CSIRO, left, and Tim O’Hara from Museums Victoria. Right, the RV Investigator. Photographs: Robert French and Mike Kuhn

As well as shining a light on the deep-sea life of this unstudied region, the team also uncovered a dramatic seascape, including huge submerged volcanoes, or seamounts, which at 5,000 metres high are more than twice as tall as Australia’s highest land mountain. “From the surface you wouldn’t know,” says O’Hara.


The slender snipe eel, found at depths of up to 4,000m. With its long tail, it can reach a metre in length. Curved jaws, permanently open, are covered in tiny hooked teeth that snag their prey. Photograph: Yi-Kai Tea
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Using high-resolution sonar, the team created detailed 3D maps of the deep seafloor, and discovered several smaller seamounts that were previously unknown.

Not only are many deep seamounts covered in rich habitats of corals, sponges and other wildlife, they play a crucial role in mixing the ocean. Deep currents sweep up the flanks of seamounts, bringing vital nutrients to the surface. “Some people call them the stirring rods of the oceans because they actually mix water at different levels,” says O’Hara.

One reason for going to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands was to provide baseline information to help manage and protect the newly established marine park there, set up in March 2022 with the nearby Christmas Island marine park, which the team visited last year.



A flatfish from the order Pleuronectiformes, left. Researchers also found ancient rocks and fossils, such as a tooth from a white shark, right. Photographs: Benjamin Healley

The area isn’t threatened by deep-sea mining because, as O’Hara says, geologists prospected for seafloor minerals and decided they weren’t worth exploiting. The main threat, according the team, was plastic pollution. “Even when you’re that far off the continent, at four kilometres deep, you’ll dredge up plastics,” he says. “You see it in the water, you see it on top of the water, and we saw it in our collections.”

It will take years for experts to work their way through all the specimens the expedition collected, but O’Hara estimates that between 10% and 30% will be species new to science. “I’m really excited about what new future science discoveries come out from this in the years to come,” says Taylor.

One thing the team already has planned is to match up DNA from the specimens with DNA snippets sifted from seawater, known as environmental or eDNA, which is shed by organisms in slime and skin cells. The idea is that in the future, scientists will be able to identify which species are present in the deep sea just from the genetic calling cards left behind in the seawater.


Deep-sea batfish move over the seafloor on their armlike fins. They have a tiny “fishing lure” in their snout which they wiggle about to help them attract prey. Photograph: Benjamin Healley

“Who knows what’s going to happen with those specimens in museums in 100 years’ time,” says Taylor. “Trying to maximise the science possible from each one of the specimens is so important, because it’s such a rare privilege to be able to visit these deep-sea areas.”

Elon Musk’s Twitter Teeters on the Edge After Another 1,200 Leave

Mr. Musk sent emails on Friday asking to learn about Twitter’s underlying technology as key infrastructure teams have been decimated.

Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. So many workers have left that Twitter users have questioned whether the site would survive.

Credit...Jason Henry for The New York Times

By Ryan Mac, Mike Isaac and Kellen Browning

The New York Times
Nov. 18, 2022

Elon Musk sent a flurry of emails to Twitter employees on Friday morning with a plea.

“Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 p.m. today,” he wrote in a two-paragraph message, which was viewed by The New York Times. “Thanks, Elon.”

About 30 minutes later, Mr. Musk sent another email saying he wanted to learn about Twitter’s “tech stack,” a term used to describe a company’s software and related systems. Then in another email, he asked some people to fly to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to meet in person.

Twitter is teetering on the edge as Mr. Musk remakes the company after buying it for $44 billion last month. The billionaire has pushed relentlessly to put his imprint on the social media service, slashing 50 percent of its work force, firing dissenters, pursuing new subscription products and delivering a harsh message that the company needs to shape up or it will face bankruptcy.

Now the question is whether Mr. Musk, 51, has gone too far. On Thursday, hundreds of Twitter employees resigned en masse after Mr. Musk gave them a deadline to decide whether to leave or stay. So many workers chose to depart that Twitter users began questioning whether the site would survive, tweeting farewell messages to the service and turning hashtags like #TwitterMigration and #TwitterTakeover into trending topics.

Some internal estimates showed that at least 1,200 full-time employees resigned on Thursday, three people close to the company said. Twitter had 7,500 full-time employees at the end of October, which dropped to about 3,700 after mass layoffs earlier this month.

The employee numbers are likely to remain fluid as the dust settles on the exits, with confusion abounding over who is keeping a tally of workers and running other workplace systems. Some employees who quit said they were separating themselves from the company by disconnecting from email and logging out of the internal messaging system Slack because human resources representatives were not available.

Mr. Musk and representatives for Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.

Elon Musk pushed relentlessly to put his imprint on the social media service, slashing 50 percent of its work force.

Credit...Ryan Lash/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images

But the billionaire on Friday tweeted what he said would be changes to Twitter’s content policy. Hateful tweets will no longer be promoted algorithmically in users’ feeds, he said, but they will not be taken down. He also reinstated several previously banned accounts, including the comedian Kathy Griffin and the author Jordan Peterson.

Perhaps the most crucial question now is how Twitter can keep running after the giant reduction to its work force in such a short time. The effects of the cuts and resignations have played out across the company’s technology teams, people with knowledge of the matter said.

One team known as Twitter Command Center, a 20-person organization crucial to preventing outages and technology failures during high-traffic events, had multiple people from around the world resign, two former employees said. The “core services” team, which handles computing architecture, was cut to four people from more than 100. Other teams that deal with how media appears in tweets or how profiles show follower counts were down to zero people.

“Wednesday offered a clean exit and 80 percent of the remaining were gone,” Peter Clowes, a senior software engineer, tweeted on Thursday about the departures on his team. “3/75 engineers stayed.” He said on Twitter that he quit on Thursday.

Mr. Musk is also considering shuttering one of Twitter’s three main U.S. data centers, a location known as SMF1 in Sacramento, Calif., which is used to store information needed to run the social media site, four people with knowledge of the effort said. If the data center in Sacramento is taken offline, it will leave the company with data centers in Atlanta and Portland, Ore., with potentially less back up computing capacity in case something fails.

Twitter is still operating, but it may become harder for the company to fix serious issues when they come up, former employees said. One former Twitter engineer likened the service’s current state to Wile E. Coyote, the Looney Tunes cartoon character, as he runs off the edge of a cliff. Though he may still be running in midair for some time, once he looks down, he drops like a stone.

“The larger and more prominent a platform is, the more care and feeding is needed to keep it running and maintain the expectations of the users,” said Richard Forno, the assistant director of the Center for Cybersecurity at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “It’s a huge challenge.”

Mr. Musk sent a flurry of emails to Twitter employees on Friday morning with a plea: “Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 p.m. today.”

Credit...Jason Henry for The New York Times

The employee reductions are coinciding with Twitter entering one of its busiest periods in terms of visitors to the site. The World Cup, which begins on Sunday, is expected to bring a deluge of traffic to Twitter, which is the world’s fourth most visited website, according to Similarweb, a digital intelligence platform that tracks web traffic. Twitter gets 6.9 billion visits each month, slightly more than Instagram’s 6.4 billion, though far fewer than Google, YouTube or Facebook, according to Similarweb estimates.

On Twitter late Thursday, Mr. Musk professed confidence that the service would be fine.

“The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” he tweeted.

More on Elon Musk’s Twitter TakeoverTargeting Critics: After laying off nearly half the company, Elon Musk has continued cutting Twitter’s work force by firing employees who had criticized him.

Musk’s Tweeting Spree: Under tremendous scrutiny since buying Twitter, Mr. Musk is using the platform to push back, spar and justify his actions.

Users’ Confessions: Sensing that Twitter’s days might be numbered, users are disclosing long-ago indiscretions, making pleas for money and revealing silly quirks.

‘Hard Fork’: In an episode of The Times’s tech podcast, two Twitter employees described the atmosphere inside the company.

Fortune reported earlier that 1,000 to 1,200 Twitter employees had resigned. The Information earlier reported on some of Twitter’s infrastructure issues. The Verge earlier reported on departures from the Twitter Command Center.

Keeping a site like Twitter online is typically a task for senior engineers, who must constantly guard against cyberattacks and monitor web traffic to ensure servers are not overloaded, Dr. Forno said. If too many veteran employees depart, leaving Twitter without the expertise or manpower to monitor or quickly fix issues, problems could start, he said.

Many tech issues can be fixed remotely, but some may require workers at Twitter’s data centers around the country, Dr. Forno added. If issues fall through the cracks, Twitter users are not likely to see the site disappear all at once, at least at first. But timelines could start refreshing more slowly, the site might struggle to load and users would find Twitter to be full of glitches.

“It’s like putting a car on the road, hitting the accelerator and then the driver jumps out,” he said. “How far is it going to go before it crashes?”

Inside Twitter on Friday, remaining employees said they were bewildered by Mr. Musk’s changing directives. The company had said on Thursday afternoon that it was closing “our office buildings” and disabling employee badge access until Monday. But in his emails on Friday, Mr. Musk appeared to want to talk to people in person at the company’s San Francisco offices.

Employees were also having difficulties figuring out who was still on staff, and what areas of infrastructure needed more support to keep things up and running.

One worker who wanted to resign said she had spent two days looking for her manager, whose identity she no longer knew because so many people had quit in the days beforehand. After finally finding her direct supervisor, she tendered her resignation. The next day, her supervisor also quit.

Others were spending hours trying to track down which teams they were on. Some said they were asked to oversee duties they had never handled before.

The changes were occurring in a near total information vacuum internally, employees said. Twitter’s internal communications staff has been laid off or left and workers said they were looking outward for information from media articles. Mr. Musk has increasingly downplayed the role of traditional media over the past few months, citing Twitter as one of the best platforms for the rise in “citizen journalism,” as he put it.

Kate Conger contributed reporting.

A New Twitter

Resignations Roil Twitter as Elon Musk Tries Persuading Some Workers to Stay
Nov. 17, 2022

How to Prepare for Life After Twitter
Nov. 16, 2022

Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter
Nov. 11, 2022

Ryan Mac is a technology reporter focused on corporate accountability across the global tech industry. He won a 2020 George Polk award for his coverage of Facebook and is based in Los Angeles. @RMac18

Mike Isaac is a technology correspondent and the author of “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” a best-selling book on the dramatic rise and fall of the ride-hailing company. He regularly covers Facebook and Silicon Valley, and is based in San Francisco. @MikeIsaac • Facebook

Kellen Browning is a technology reporter in San Francisco, where he covers the gig economy, the video game industry and general tech news. @kellen_browning

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 19, 2022 of the New York edition with the headline: Twitter’s Cuts To Work Force Put It on Brink.