Grant Shapps urges P&O Ferries to U-turn on sacking of 800 workers

The transport secretary is expected to close loopholes to ensure ferry companies pay the UK minimum wage

The European Causeway moored at the port of Larne on the north-east coast of Northern Ireland after it was detained by British authorities after ‘failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training’. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images


Rupert Jones

THE GUARDIAN

Sun 27 Mar 2022

Grant Shapps is writing to the chief executive of P&O Ferries urging him to announce a U-turn on the decision to sack 800 workers without notice, as unions pledged to “ratchet up the fight” after a weekend of protests.

The transport secretary is expected to present a package of legislation on Wednesday to close loopholes and ensure ferry companies running regular services to and from the British Isles pay their crew the UK minimum wage.

Government officials are understood to be meeting the rival operators Stena Line and DFDS on Monday to discuss the legislation, along with measures to tackle possible Easter travel chaos if services remain disrupted.

Fresh demonstrations against the sackings are planned for this week, with the RMT union turning its attention to P&O Ferries’ supply chain, including the maritime agencies involved with recruiting workers. The union said there would be a protest outside the Glasgow offices of Clyde Marine Recruitment, which describes itself as Europe’s leading supplier of marine personnel, on Monday morning.

Demonstrations took place in Liverpool, Dover and Hull on Saturday as the outcry continued over P&O Ferries’ decision to sack its crews and replace them with cheaper foreign workers.

The firm’s chief executive, Peter Hebblethwaite, admitted last week that it broke the law by dismissing the workers without consultation. He told a Commons hearing on Thursday: “There’s absolutely no doubt we were required to consult with the unions. We chose not to do that.”

It is understood Shapps will write to Hebblethwaite to say there is still time for the firm to reconsider its strategy,and it may as well act because otherwise the government will force its hand.

After calls from MPs and others for emergency action to be taken, the minister has pledged new legislation designed to make sure ferries using UK ports observe the national minimum wage, which is currently £8.91 an hour, rising to £9.50 on 1 April.

Meanwhile, a P&O Ferries source told the PA news agency that it conducted a study last year into options, which calculated it would cost £309m to keep the business going through a consultation period of at least three months, costs that would have seriously undermined the business and possibly dealt a fatal blow.

The RMT’s general secretary, Mick Lynch, has already called for the government to seize P&O’s fleet of ships, and for crew who were sacked without being consulted or given any notice to be reinstated.

Lynch said on Sunday: “There will be more protests, more campaigning and more political pressure this week as we ratchet up the fight and harness the public anger at the jobs carve-up on our ferries.” He claimed there would be “nowhere to run and nowhere to hide” for those involved.

On Sunday P&O Ferries said it would be “unable to run some of our services over the next few days”. As of Sunday afternoon, sailings from Dover to Calais were cancelled up to and including Thursday 31 March, and those between Larne and Cairnryan in Scotland remained suspended. Monday’s service between Rotterdam and Hull has been cancelled.

The government is subjecting all P&O ferries to inspections before allowing them back into service. One ship, the European Causeway, was impounded in Northern Ireland on Friday by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency after being deemed “unfit to sail” after an inspection found “failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training”.

At the moment passengers due to travel on some routes such as Dover to Calais are typically being advised by P&O Ferries that “we will get you away on an alternative carrier” such as DFDS, though it is unclear what will happen if rivals are fully booked, as may be the case over Easter.

Be ready to 'pivot' back to COVID 

restrictions, Anthony Fauci warns leaders

James Morris

·Freelance news writer, Yahoo UK

Sun, March 27, 2022, 

Dr Anthony Fauci (AFP via Getty Images)

Leaders need to be “flexible enough to pivot” back to coronavirus restrictions, America’s chief medical adviser has warned.

Dr Anthony Fauci, who advises US president Joe Biden, told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme “we need to be prepared for the possibility” of “a more rigid type of restrictions” should another potentially harmful new variant emerge.

His warning comes as COVID cases, driven by the Omicron subvariant, once again surge around the world.

In England, the latest ONS infection survey - considered the gold standard in assessing the prevalence of COVID in the community - has estimated one in 16 people have the virus.

Meanwhile, there has been a sharp uptick in UK hospital admissions in March, though the number - 2,227 - admitted on Monday is still half the admissions - 4,580 - at the peak of the second wave of the pandemic in January last year.

Estimates of COVID infection numbers in the UK, according to the ONS infection survey. (PA)

And Dr Fauci added the surge "doesn’t appear to be associated with any increase in severity in the form of increased hospitalisations" in the context of eased restrictions.

Boris Johnson dropped all of England's COVID restrictions last month, with the Westminster government now using a “living with COVID” approach. More than 600,000 people will be invited for a booster jab next week.

But Dr Fauci, asked about the possible necessity of future restrictions, warned “we should be prepared”.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘lockdown’ as that has a charged element to it, but I believe that we must keep our eye on the pattern of what we’re seeing with infections right now.

“We need to be prepared for the possibility that we would have another variant that would come along and then things change.

“And if we do get a variance that does give us an uptick in cases and hospitalisation, we should be prepared and flexible enough to pivot towards going back - at least temporarily - to a more rigid type of restrictions, such as requiring masks indoors.”

Read more: COVID infections seven times higher than government figures this month, ONS data shows

On what next winter will look like, Dr Fauci added: “I think it’s really unpredictable. This virus has fooled us so often. We really don’t know and I think anyone who says they’re going to predict with any certainty what’s going to happen in the winter I think, is a bit of a stretch.”

Meanwhile, reflecting on COVID restrictions, UK education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has admitted the "mistake" of school closures between March and May 2020 and January and March last year.

Zahawi pledged this would “never again” happen following the disruption caused for millions of pupils.

Russian Actress Goes Into Exile In Latvia: Chulpan Khamatova Says “I Am Not A Traitor”


Caroline Frost
Sat, March 26, 2022


Chulpan Khamatova, a leading Russian actress who has also made several international film appearances, has given an interview saying that she has gone into exile in Latvia, following her country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Khamatova recorded an interview that was broadcast earlier this week on YouTube, explaining that she travelled to Riga on holiday several weeks ago with her daughters, but has decided to stay put rather than return to Russia.

“I thought at the start that I would just wait. Then I signed the petition against the war. And then it was made clear to me it would be undesirable for me to go back,” she said, according to RadioFreeEurope’s translation. “I know I am not a traitor. I love my motherland very much.”

Khamatova added that to make her return to Russia possible, she would either have to deny that a war was taking place or apologize for not supporting what President Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation.”

“Lie to yourself, lie to the whole world, live not according to the truth,” she said.

Khamatova came to international renown for her role of Lara in the 2003 film Goodbye Lenin! In 2018, she appeared in The White Crow, Ralph Fiennes’ film chronicling the life and professional career of Rudolf Nureyev, and last year’s Cannes Film Festival prize-winning Petrov’s Flu.

She was on the six-person jury headed by Catherine Deneuve at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival in 2006. She also leads the Gift of Life children’s cancer charity in Russia and several years previously appeared in a video praising Putin for his support.

Khamatova is the latest of several Russian cultural stars who have come out against the war being waged by their leader. Olga Smirnova was a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow until last week, when she left Russia for the Netherlands, and immediately took up a role with the Dutch National Ballet.

Smirnova, who has a Ukrainian grandfather and describes herself as “one-quarter Ukrainian” recently denounced Russia’s invasion of the country.

A totally-paralyzed man was able to speak again thanks to a brain implant, a controversial study claims. It says he asked for beer and told his son he loved him.

Marianne Guenot

Fri, March 25, 2022, 

Scientists said the software pictured in this image can read the neural signals of the man with locked-in syndrome.Wyss Center, Geneva

• A study claims to describe how a man with locked-in syndrome could speak with his family again.

• Using a brain implant, the man was able to ask for a beer and tell his son he loves him, it said.

• Experts are split about the study as the authors' track record has been controversial.

Scientists say they have been able to communicate with a man with locked-in syndrome by using a brain implant, a medical first, they claim.

The findings could provide hope for patients in that state. But experts have been cautious to celebrate the study because of the author's controversial track record.

Per the case study, the brain implant was able to read the brain waves of a 34-year-old man who is completely paralyzed and has lost even the ability to move his eyes.

The man with locked-in syndrome is shown in his bed at home. He has not been named and is referred to as K1 in the paper.Wyss Center, Geneva

He was not named in the study, from the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering and the University of Tübingen.

It was published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications.

Per the study, the man learned how to formulate sentences 107 days into his training.

On day 245, he spelled out: "wili ch tool balbum mal laut hoerenzn," a rough spelling in German which the scientists translated to "I would like to listen to the album by Tool loud," the study said. Tool is a rock band.

On day 247, he spelled: "und jetwzt ein bier"— "and now a beer," per the study, which the study authors say would have to be delivered by a gastrointestinal tube

On day 251, he spelled "ich liebe meinen coolen" followed by his son's name, which translated to "I love my cool son" per the study.

It said the man has degenerative amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and was first diagnosed in August 2015.

He lost the ability to speak and walk by the end of 2015, per the study.

He has been in home care and machines have fed him and controlled his breathing since 2016, per the study.

He had been able to communicate with his wife and child by moving his eyes, the study said, but lost this ability in 2019.

The brain implant is 0.1 inches wide and has 64 needle‐like electrodes that record neural signals.Wyss Center, Geneva

Results mired by controversial track records

This is not the first foray into this field for two of the study authors: Niel Birbaumer, a now-retired neuroscientist, and Ujwal Chaudhary, a bioengineer, per The New York Times.

The authors have previously published research claiming to be able to communicate with patients with locked-in syndrome, but both papers were ultimately retracted — a process by which peer-reviewed journals signal a mistake that makes the paper invalid.

A 2019 investigation conducted by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which funded some of the work, found "several cases of scientific misconduct" from Birbaumer and Chaudhary, including that they "only partially recorded the examinations of their patients on video."

The DFG imposed severe sanctions against Birbaumer, banning him from applying for grants and from serving as an evaluator for five years, per Nature News.

Chaudhary and Birbaumer have stood by their research. "This is finally our redemption," Chaudhary told STAT News.

Birbaumer has taken legal action against the DFG and the result of the lawsuit will be published in coming weeks, per the Times.

A DFG spokesperson told The Times the body expects to win the case and aims to investigate Birbaumer's latest research as well.

Neural data recorded by the implant is shown here.Wyss Center, Geneva

Experts split on the interpretation of the data

Experts who were not involved in the study do not agree on how significant it is.

Femke Nijboer, biomedical researcher of the Dutch University of Twente, said that the finding was "important," per STAT News.

It shows people with locked-in syndrome can manipulate their brain signals to communicate, Nijboer said per STAT News.

"It's a game-changer," said Steven Laureys, a neurologist at the University of Liège said, per the Times. The study could have ethical implications for euthanasia of patients in locked-in states, the Times reported.

But Brendan Allison, a University of California San Diego researcher, said the study "like other work by Birbaumer, should be taken with a massive mountain of salt given his history," per the Times.

Gas prices: Middle-class 'impacted the most,' says economist

Ines Ferré

·Markets Reporter

Fri, March 25, 2022, 

While high gas prices are a heavy burden on low-income consumers—it's the middle class that's being impacted the most from rising fuel costs, says one economist.

"There's this narrative or understanding that higher gas prices disproportionately impact low-income people. And it certainly is a heavy burden on them," Tim Quinlan, Wells Fargo senior economist, told Yahoo Finance Live.

"But the group that actually is impacted the most—the ones that spend a larger share of their disposable income on gasoline — is actually the middle class," he said.

"The way to rationalize that is that lower income households are actually taking the bus or walking to work," said the economist.

"Middle income houses may have the benefit of a second vehicle, which of course requires more gas," he added. "So the outlays on the middle class are actually larger even adjusted for the size of their income."

The average price of gas in the U.S. currently sits at $4.24, according to AAA. California's gasoline is well north of $5 per gallon.

Prices above $4 tend to lead to demand destruction, as noted by one energy expert.

U.S. West Texas intermediate (CL=F) and Brent (BZ=F) have been volatile amid the Russia-Ukraine war. WTI is currently sitting above $111/barrel while Brent hovers above $117/barrel.

Western nations imposed sanctions against Russia, a world crude exporter. The U.S. and U.K. also implemented a ban on Russian oil imports.

HOMESTEADING

Pioneer or squatter? YouTuber’s cabin sparks fight over Canada’s wilderness



Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, March 27, 2022, 

As much of North America was locked down during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Matty Clarke was in a boat full of supplies, motoring up the Yukon River. He was searching for wild lands where he could strike it rich.

“Getting myself a goldmine,” he told viewers on his YouTube channel. “Everyone’s heard about all this gold up there. You must be curious yourself – what’s actually going on up there? Can I just show up with all this stuff and end up having a goldmine? I think so.”

For the last two years, Clarke has battled the bitter cold and relentless mosquitoes of the boreal forests as he set up a new home in Canada’s northern hinterlands, chronicling his survival in regular YouTube updates.

But he now finds himself squaring off against a new foe: a frustrated government trying to evict him from his homestead on Ensley Creek, south of the town of Dawson City.   Interactive

The Yukon’s most famous poet once described the region as “unpeopled and still”, but despite its vast scale, the territory’s government says people can’t just show up to a clearing in the forest and build homes without permits.

Since last year, officials have been trying to get Clarke and another self-styled pioneer, Simon Tourigny, to leave. The territory says they are illegally occupying public land and have defied orders to vacate. They are now petitioning a court to intervene.

Originally from Newfoundland, Clarke operates a popular YouTube channel called “Skote outdoors”, which documented his 2020 journey up the Yukon River to stake a mining claim and a real-life tutorial on building a log cabin. In the videos, he is seen felling trees and chopping notches into the logs.

“This is the real dream for me here now,” he says in one video as he speeds along a snowy landscape on a snowmobile. “It’s a good life out here. Everyone told me it was going to be a real struggle. And it was … But the hard times are vastly outweighed by the good times.”

His videos often receive nearly 10,000 views – and the government has used them and his social media post as their evidence against him.

The territory alleges that Clarke had errors in his mining claim and permit – and says that officials saw no evidence of mining by the YouTuber.

“Even if Mr Clarke had honestly and properly staked the Claim, doing so did not give Mr Clarke authority under the [Placer Mining Act] or any other Yukon legislation to construct a cabin at the Site for his permanent residence,” said the government’s court petition.

In an email to a territorial land manager, Clarke says the fight is about more than one log cabin.

“I do not look at myself as a trespasser but a guardian or steward of the land,” he wrote. Clarke did not respond to a request for comment.

While his videos stress Clarke’s isolation – the second season of his show is called Alone in the Yukon – his cabin is less than a kilometre from Simon Tourigny’s, as well as those of two other squatters.

Tourigny, who sees himself as someone learning the “old skills” of backcountry living, arrived in the region in 2016 and admits he has no valid permits to occupy the land. But like Clarke, he has no intention of leaving.

Rather than fussing over bylaws and building codes, Tourigny has employed a more abstract defence, arguing in an editorial last year that his values were under attack.

“Which part of what we are doing is ‘unauthorized’? Our cabins or our lifestyles? They won’t say, either because they don’t know or because the truth cannot be admitted,” Tourigny wrote in the Yukon News. “Are we not allowed to exist in the forest?”

Tourigny, who the Guardian was unable to reach, says he and others “simply took responsibility for our own lives” and are “literally living the dream of millions”.

The letter kicked off fierce debate in the Yukon, with a subsequent letter from a resident calling Tourigny’s claims “whining, snivelling, self-righteous”.

Both Tourigny and Clarke have built their cabins on the land of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation. While Tourigny has claimed “Every Indigenous person I’ve ever met seems to genuinely appreciate what I’m doing” the band has not made any public comment on their presence on the land.

Neither case has been heard in court yet, but the territorial government is requesting both Tourigny and Clarke be required to leave the land – and not be able to settle anywhere else in the territory without prior authority.

In his editorial, Tourigny suggests he is unwilling to back down.

“We are waiting to be arrested and forcibly taken to court to be put before a judge, the last person in a long line of people refusing to listen to us where fines or imprisonment await.”

India leans toward continued import of Russian coking coal -minister

Sun, March 27, 2022,
By Neha Arora

NEW DELHI, March 27 (Reuters) - India is leaning toward continuing to import coking coal from Russia, the steel minister said on Sunday, seeming to buck a global trend to shun Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

"We are moving in the direction of importing coking coal from Russia," Ramchandra Prasad Singh told a conference in New Delhi.

India plans to double imports of Russian coking coal, a key ingredient in making steel, the minister said. He said the country had imported 4.5 million tonnes but did not indicate the period he was referring to.

Western countries and Japan have slapped unexpectedly heavy sanctions on the government of President Vladimir Putin and people associated with him. India, a major buyer of Russian goods from commodities to weapons, has abstained from several key United Nations votes condemning the Feb. 24 invasion.

"Smooth supplies" from Russia of coking coal have been affected, Singh said, in an apparent reference to the war. He did not elaborate.

Vessels carrying at least 1.06 million tonnes of coking coal, mainly used for steelmaking, and thermal coal used primarily for electricity generation, are set to deliver the fuel to Indian ports this month, the most since January 2020, data from consultancy Kpler showed.

Russia, typically India's sixth-largest supplier of coking and thermal coal, could start offering more competitive prices to Chinese and Indian buyers as European and other customers spurn Russia because of sanctions, traders say.

The trade could also be boosted by a rouble-rupee trading arrangement, they said. (Reporting by Neha Arora in New Delhi; Writing by Rupam Jain, William Mallard)

The Beginning Of The End Of Globalization


Editor OilPrice.com
Sat, March 26, 2022

There is an eternal debate among various experts as to when globalization actually started; whether it was with the Silk Road, the Vikings, Columbus's voyage, or even before then, with the earliest human migratory routes.

Now, it’s no longer relevant when it started. Instead, the new question is whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will end it.

Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Western sanctions that necessarily followed, could have a lasting impact on globalization, a process that regardless of when the first seeds were planted, really became entrenched a few decades ago.

Globalization was under attack on some level prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Most significantly, the global pandemic let us all see very clearly the vulnerabilities, especially with supply chains and our dependence on their global nature.

Now, everyone is desperately calling for “independence”, whether it is of energy or other resources.

In Q2 2020, at the dramatic start of the pandemic, global trade was down 18.5%, compared to the same period the previous year.

Since then, the global economy has started to recover, only to be hit again by a war on the European continent–a war that could shake the balance of power.

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, thinks we are now seeing the beginning of the end of globalization.

In a letter to shareholders, Fink wrote that Russia's "decoupling from the global economy" following its assault on Ukraine has caused governments and companies to examine their reliance on other nations.

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades," Fink wrote.

For its part, BlackRock, which oversees more than $10 trillion, has already suspended the purchase of any Russian securities in its active or index portfolios.

Oaktree Capital Management founder Howard Marks shares Fink’s opinion, even if his take is less dramatic. He is warning investors that countries are going to start a major push to return to localized sourcing.

“Rather than the cheapest, easiest and greenest sources, there’ll probably be more of a premium on the safest and surest,” Marks said.

St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard seems something similar. The direct macroeconomic effects on the US economy from Russia's invasion are not that large, Bullard says, but “Russia's war will mean less globalization, more fragmentation around the world.”

Aside from oil and gas, Russia is one of the world's largest suppliers of metals. Currently, governments and large corporations that imposed sanctions on Russia are now scrambling to obtain alternative supplies. Supplies in turn are tightening, resulting in dramatic upward price swings and costs that are passed on to consumers.

The pandemic, along with geopolitical tensions with China and a US-China trade battle, had already driven many businesses to explore bringing their operations and relevant input materials closer to home, including some attempts to reverse the outsourcing of manufacturing.

Inter-dependence, however, is so great and so entrenched, that it will take just as long to undo globalization as it took to build it in the first place–unless it’s simply forced apart by war.

Semiconductors, which are undergoing a supply squeeze amid soaring demand, are a case in point. For two years the American auto industry has been suffering from this shortage and dependence on Asia hasn’t been sufficiently addressed, with efforts just now getting underway to secure domestic supply.

Now, Intel, the largest chipmaker in the United States, has announced (only recently) that it will spend $20 billion to build two semiconductor factories at home, but they won’t begin production until 2025.

Several automakers and battery manufacturers are also planning to make dozens of new electric vehicle battery factories in the United States within the next five years.

Similar announcements have been made recently in the solar and biotech industries.

Three decades ago, the US produced about 37% of the world's semiconductors, compared to 12 percent nowadays. Profit got in the way of strategic planning here. Cheap costs were chosen over independence, and that is the sacrifice of globalization.

By Michael Kern via Safehaven.com

HEAD HUNTING
Exclusive-Sierra Space taps Boeing veteran as CFO after hefty capital raise -sources


Artist's rendering of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser space plane

Fri, March 25, 2022, 1:01 PM·2 min read
By Eric M. Johnson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Months after receiving a major infusion of capital, Sierra Nevada Corp's space unit, Sierra Space, has tapped a veteran Boeing Co executive to helm its finances as it races to develop its flagship space plane and studies a public offering, two people familiar with the matter said.

Outgoing Sierra Space CFO Robert Rodgers pitched investors and led due diligence efforts for around a year leading up to the landmark $1.4 billion capital round it announced in November, according to his LinkedIn profile. Sierra said it was the second-largest private capital infusion ever in the aerospace and defense sector and boosted Sierra's value to $4.5 billion.

Replacing Rodgers will be 10-year Boeing Co veteran Troy Lahr, who departed as CFO of the aerospace company's defense, space and security unit in recent weeks.

A Boeing spokesperson confirmed Lahr had left the company in recent weeks but declined further comment.

A Sierra Space spokesperson confirmed in a statement that Lahr would join the company soon.

"Sierra Space is assembling a world class management team, including Troy, that sees many lucrative opportunities in the marketplace for investors, while at the same time driving innovation and fueling our mission to explore space and benefit life on Earth," the Sierra Space spokesperson said.

The spokesperson declined further comment.

The reason for Rodgers' departure was not immediately clear. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Industry sources say Sierra is exploring a potential public offering among other options in the next two to three years but say that no decision has been made.

The financial leadership change comes as the Louisville, Colorado-based company races to develop a reusable space plane dubbed Dream Chaser to handle cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) starting in early 2023.

Sierra Space says Dream Chaser's ability to land on a traditional runway gives it an edge over rival solutions for delicate scientific research cargo. Rivals including Elon Musk's SpaceX are already carrying people and cargo to the ISS.

Sierra envisions a future where a fleet of its space planes - similar to the Space Shuttle, but much smaller - ferry humans and cargo from space ports across the world to a bustling new space economy.

"We are building the next generation of space transportation systems and in-space infrastructures and destinations that will enable humanity to build and sustain thriving civilizations beyond Earth," Sierra Space Chief Executive Officer Tom Vice said last year.

Sierra Space has also forged a partnership with billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to develop and operate a commercial space station in low earth orbit. Backers for the so-called orbital reef project include Boeing and Redwire Space.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

US plan to provide 15bn cubic meters of natural gas to EU alarms climate groups


Oliver Milman
Fri, March 25, 2022

Photograph: Rob Carr/AP

A major deal that will see the US ramp up its supply of gas to Europe in an attempt to shift away from Russian fossil fuel imports risks “disaster” for the climate crisis, environmental groups have warned.

Under the agreement, unveiled on Friday, the US will provide an extra 15bn cubic meters of liquified natural gas (LNG) to the European Union this year. This represents about a tenth of the gas the EU now gets from Russia, which provides 40% of the bloc’s total gas supply.

Related: Biden and EU agree landmark gas deal to break Kremlin’s hold

The increased gas exports from the US will escalate further, with the EU aiming to get 50bn cubic meters of gas a year from America and other countries in order to reduce its reliance upon Russia after its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Joe Biden, who announced the deal during a trip to Brussels, said the increased supply will ensure “families in Europe can get through this winter” while also hampering Vladimir Putin, who has used gas income to “drive his war machine”.

But environmental groups have reacted to the agreement with alarm, arguing that it will help embed years of future gas use at a time when scientists say the world must rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“We should be rapidly transitioning to affordable clean energy, not doubling down on fossil fuels,” said Kelly Sheehan, senior director of energy campaigns at the Sierra Club. “Reducing reliance on fossil fuels is the only way to stop being vulnerable to the whims of greedy industries and geopolitics.”

The US has in recent years become a net exporter of energy, with fracking technology helping draw upon its huge reserves of gas. When frozen into LNG, this gas can be loaded on to ships and exported around the world. The US is already running at near capacity for the amount it is able to ship out.

However, there are 16 proposed LNG terminals dotted along the US’s Gulf of Mexico coast that have already been awarded the necessary federal permits to proceed with construction. The deal with the EU could make these projects, which would take several years to build and operate, possibly for decades to come, appear more viable than previously.

“Allowing for the expansion of new and expanded gas export facilities would lock in decades of reliance on risky, volatile fossil fuels and spell disaster for our climate and already overburdened Gulf coast communities,” said Sheehan.

Biden has insisted the plan will not compromise his climate goals, claiming that the war in Ukraine will act as a “catalyst” for the deployment of renewable energy.

The US and EU have pledged to work together to push forward approvals for solar and wind projects, plug leaks from gas pipelines that spew methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere and work on energy efficiency measures that will reduce demand for fossil fuels.

But climate activists warn time is running out to avoid disastrous global heating. The International Energy Agency has said that no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be built worldwide if the planet is to avoid 1.5C of heating above the pre-industrial era, a point beyond which scientists say will dramatically increase dangerous heatwaves, flooding, droughts, wildfires and displacement of people.

“Pushing new toxic export facilities and decades more methane gas is a death sentence for those on the frontlines of the climate emergency, and it won’t solve Europe’s current crisis,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

“Approving more export terminals, pipelines and fossil fuel production only throws fuel on the fire of our burning world.”