U.S. doesn't want to build new sections of border wall, Mexico says

Reuters
Fri, October 6, 2023 

A member of the Texas National Guard works on a razor wire fence near a border wall on the banks of the Rio Bravo River, as seen from Ciudad Juarez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -The U.S. government does not want to build new sections of wall on its border with Mexico, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday, expressing doubt that the planned construction would be carried out.

"It's pure publicity," Lopez Obrador said in a regular morning press conference, after the Biden administration announced it would build additional sections of border wall, carrying forward a signature policy of the Trump administration.

A high-ranking delegation of U.S. officials met Thursday with their Mexican counterparts, among them U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"They don't want to (build more sections of the wall), that's what they told us," Lopez Obrador said.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday that the funds allocated for the construction were appropriated by Congress and that he could not, by law, redirect the money.

Biden, when he took office in 2021, pledged that "no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall."

Mexico's president added that in the meetings the day before, the Mexican delegation expressed that Mexico "does not believe (additional border wall construction) to be the answer to the migration problem."

"We've always spoken about tending to the root causes," Lopez Obrador said.

(Reporting by Kylie Madry)

Climate change is a fiscal disaster for local governments − our study shows how it's testing communities in Florida

William Butler, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida State University, 

Linda Shi, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University,

Tisha Joseph Holmes, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida State University

THE CONVERSATION

Thu, October 5, 2023 a

Crews clear lots of destroyed homes in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., in February 2022, four months after Hurricane Ian. Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesMore

Climate change is affecting communities nationwide, but Florida often seems like ground zero. In September 2022, Hurricane Ian devastated southwest Florida, killing at least 156 people and causing an estimated US$113 billion in damages. Then Hurricane Idalia shut down the Florida Panhandle in September 2023, augmented by a blue supermoon that also increased tidal flooding in southeast Florida.

Communities can adapt to some of these effects, or at least buy time, by taking steps such as upgrading stormwater systems and raising roads and sidewalks. But climate disasters and sea-level rise also harm local governments financially by increasing costs and undercutting their property tax bases. Local reliance on property taxes also can discourage cities from steering development out of flood zones, which is essential for reducing long-term risks.

In a newly published study and supporting online StoryMap, we present the first-ever municipal fiscal impact assessment of sea-level rise in Florida and combine it with a statewide survey of coastal planners and managers. We wanted to know how sea-level rise would affect municipal tax revenues and whether coastal planners and managers are accounting for these fiscal impacts.

Our study finds that over half of Florida’s 410 municipalities will be affected by 6.6 feet of sea-level rise. Almost 30% of all local revenues currently generated by these 211 municipalities come from buildings in areas that will become chronically flooded, potentially by the end of the century. Yet, planners and managers remain largely unaware of how much climate change will affect local fiscal health. Some communities with the most at risk are doing the least to prepare.

Property tax and climate change: A Catch-22

Property taxes are critically important for municipal governments. Nationwide, they provide 30% of local revenues. They are one of the few funding sources that local governments control, and climate change directly threatens them.

As climate change warms ocean waters, it fuels hurricanes and increases their reach and intensity. Climate change also is raising sea levels, which increases coastal flooding during both storms and high tides, often referred to as sunny-day flooding. Unlike storms, sea-level rise doesn’t recede, so it threatens to permanently inundate coastal lands over time.

Property tax revenues may decline as insurance companies and property markets downgrade property values to reflect climate impacts, such as increasing flood risks and wildfires. Already, a growing number of insurance companies have decided to stop covering some regions and types of weather events, raise premiums and deductibles and drop existing policies as payouts rise in the wake of natural disasters. Growing costs of insuring or repairing homes may further hurt property values and increase home abandonment.

Climate change also makes it more expensive to provide municipal services like water, sewage and road maintenance. For example, high heat buckles roads, rising water tables wash out their substructure, and heavier rains stress stormwater systems. If cities don’t adapt, increasing damage from climate-driven disasters and sea-level rise will create a vicious fiscal cycle, eroding local tax bases and driving up services costs – which in turn leaves less money for adaptation.

However, if cities reduce development in vulnerable areas, their property taxes and other revenues will take a hit. And if they build more seawalls and homes fortified to withstand hurricanes and storms, they will induce more people to live in harm’s way.

In Florida, we found that these theoretical dynamics are already occurring.

Florida’s local revenues at risk

Our analysis shows that sea-level rise could flood properties that have a combined assessed value of US$619 billion and currently generate $2.36 billion in annual property taxes. Five million Floridians live in towns where at least 10% of local revenues comes from properties at risk of chronic and permanent flooding. For 64 municipalities, 50% of their revenues come from these risk zones.

Actual fiscal effects would likely be worse after accounting for other lost revenues, rising expenditures and the impacts of multiple climate hazards, such as hotter weather and more intense hurricanes.

These impacts are not evenly distributed. Municipalities with the greatest fiscal risks are geographically and demographically smaller, denser, wealthier and whiter. Lower-risk municipalities tend to be more populous, more diverse, lower-income and have larger land areas.

For instance, the 6,800 residents of the city of Treasure Island in southwest Florida are 95% white and have a median household income of $75,000. The town occupies 3 square miles of land on a barrier island. In our model, its potential lost revenues due to sea-level rise equal its entire municipal revenue stream.

In contrast, St. Petersburg, the nearest big city, has a population of 246,000 residents that is 69% white and a median household income of $53,800. It covers 72 square miles, with only 12% of its property tax revenues at risk from flooding.
Heads in the sand

We see our findings as a wake-up call for state and local governments. Without urgent action to adapt to climate change, dozens of municipalities could end up fiscally underwater.

Instead, many Florida cities are pursuing continued growth through infrastructure expansion. Even after devastating events like Hurricane Ian, administrative boundaries, service obligations and budgetary responsibilities make it hard for municipal leaders to make room for water or retreat onto higher ground.

Treasure Island, for instance, is allocating property taxes to upgrade the town’s causeway bridge. This protects against modest climate impacts in the short term but will eventually be overwhelmed by bigger storm surges, rising water tables and accelerating sea-level rise.

These dynamics can worsen displacement and gentrification. In Miami, developers are already buying and consolidating properties in longtime Black and lower-income neighborhoods like Little Haiti, Overtown and Liberty City that are slightly more elevated than areas along the shore.

If this pattern continues, we expect that inland and upland areas of cities like St. Petersburg, Tampa and Miami will attract more resilient, high-end development, while displaced low-income and minority residents are forced to move either out of the region or to coastal zones with declining resources.

Charting a different future

We don’t see this outcome as inevitable, in Florida or elsewhere. There are ways for municipalities to manage and govern land that promote fiscally sound, equitable and sustainable ways of adapting to climate change. The key is recognizing and addressing the property tax Catch-22.

As a first step, governments could assess how climate change will affect their fiscal health. Second, state governments could enact legislation that expands local revenue sources, such as sales or consumption taxes, vacancy taxes, stormwater impact fees and resilience bonds or fees.

Regional sharing of land and taxes is another way for small, cash-strapped communities to reduce development in vulnerable places while maintaining services for their residents. For example, New Hampshire passed a bill in 2019 to allow coastal municipalities to merge in response to sea-level rise.

Finally, state governments could pass legislation to help low-income neighborhoods gain more control over land and housing. Tested tools include limited equity cooperatives, where residents buy an affordable share in a development and later resell at below-market prices to maintain affordability; community land trusts, where a nonprofit buys and holds land title to keep land costs down; and resident-owned mobile home parks, where residents jointly buy the land. All of these strategies help communities keep housing affordable and avoid displacement.

Shifting away from a business-as-usual development model won’t be easy. But our study shows that Florida, with its flat topography and thousands of miles of coastline, faces cascading fiscal impacts if it continues down its current path.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

It was written by: Linda Shi, Cornell University; Tisha Joseph Holmes, Florida State University, and William Butler, Florida State University.

Read more:

Cities worldwide aren’t adapting to climate change quickly enough


California and Florida grew quickly on the promise of perfect climates in the 1900s – today, they lead the country in climate change risks

Linda Shi receives funding from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Tisha Joseph Holmes received funding from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Disease Control and Provention. She is affiliated with REfire Culinary.

William Butler received funding from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in support of this research.

U.S tackles climate-warming HFC industrial gases with new rules

Reuters
Fri, October 6, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen at the headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday announced two new measures aimed at reducing climate-warming chemicals used in refrigerators and air conditioners that can help the U.S. meet its goals to halve its greenhouse gas emissions this decade.

The agency issued a final rule that restricts the use of gases known as hydroflourocarbons, or HFCs, used in 40 types of imported or domestically-manufactured foams, aerosol products, and refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pump equipment, setting compliance dates from 2025 to 2028.

HFCs are significantly more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming.

The EPA also issued a proposal that aims to improve how HFCs are managed and reused, setting requirements for repairing leaky equipment, rules for using reclaimed HFCs and leak detection rules for large refrigeration equipment.

The two regulatory actions come after the EPA issued a final rule in July phasing down the use of HFCs by 40% below historic levels from 2024 to 2028.

The Senate voted 69-27 in September last year to ratify the global Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol that calls for the phase-down of HFCs.

Congress also passed the 2020 American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which called on the EPA to deliver plans to reduce the production and consumption of climate-damaging chemicals by 85% by 2036.

White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said by ratifying the Kiangali amendment, a rare environmental treaty that has bipartisan support, and executing steps to meet its targets, the U.S. is positioned "to lead on innovating and manufacturing alternatives to super-polluting HFCs."

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Alexander Smith

If you've seen this climate chart going viral, this is why scientists are so worried about it

James Cheng-Morris
·Freelance news writer, Yahoo UK
Updated Fri, 6 October 2023 

Police remove a climate activist during a demonstration in The Hague, Netherlands, earlier this month. September this year was the hottest on record. (AFP via Getty Images)

In this era of climate change, we have become well accustomed to record-breaking temperatures.

It’s barely even a surprise when you see the Pope wading in, as he did earlier this week, to say the world is “collapsing” and “nearing breaking point” because of climate change.

But since his intervention, new figures have emerged which have really shocked scientists.

On Thursday, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) released data showing last month was the hottest September, globally, since records began.

What has particularly stunned scientists, however, is that September’s temperatures were nearly 1C above the 1990 to 2020 average. A C3S chart demonstrating this, below, has gone viral on social media.

'The Age of Stupid’: Read more

Scientists shocked by September’s record-breaking heat (Evening Standard)

Shell called out for promoting fossil fuels to youth via Fortnite game (The Guardian)

'The Age of Stupid': Stark warning from climate expert (Yahoo News UK)

What does the chart show?

Surface air temperature rises between 1940 and 2023. (C3S)

In September, the average surface air temperature was 16.38C. This was 0.93C above the 1991 to 2020 average for the month of September.

It was also a massive 0.5C above the previous warmest September, in 2020, and 1.75C warmer than the pre-industrial average between 1850 and 1900.

Meanwhile, the global temperature for January to September this year was 0.52C higher than average, and 1.4C higher than the pre-industrial average.

There were also alarming statistics in Europe, where last month was the hottest ever September at 2.51C higher than the 1991 to 2020 average… and 1.1C higher than September 2020, the previous hottest.

All this comes after C3S released an analysis last month showing summer 2023 was the hottest ever. It prompted Prof David Reay, executive director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, to say even climate sceptics “must now be wondering why their butts are so very hot”.

Here Yahoo News breaks down some of the opinions climate scientists have shared since the data came out.

'Gobsmackingly bananas'

Prominent climate scientist Zeke Hausfather posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: "This month [September] was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist - absolutely gobsmackingly bananas."

'COP28 will be critical'

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said: "The unprecedented temperatures for the time of year observed in September, following a record summer, have broken records by an extraordinary amount. Two months out from COP28, the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more critical.”

The UAE is host of this year’s COP summit, something which has been called into question given its plans to increase fossil fuel production and consumption.

What is more, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company - one of the world's biggest oil companies - is leading the talks. The UAE has a stated aim to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Pedestrians in Westminster, London, during a heatwave last month. (AFP via Getty Images)

'Surprising. Astounding. Staggering'

Prof Ed Hawkins, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, posted on X: "Surprising. Astounding. Staggering. Unnerving. Bewildering. Flabbergasting. Disquieting. Gobsmacking. Shocking. Mind-boggling."

'Anomalies are enormous'

Prof Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, said: “Since June, the world has experienced unprecedented heat on land and sea. The temperature anomalies are enormous, far bigger than anything we have ever seen in the past. Antarctic winter sea ice extent was the lowest on record for the time of year.

"What is especially worrying is that the warming El Nino event is still developing, and so we can expect these record-breaking temperatures to continue for months, with cascading impacts on our environment and society.”

'A death sentence'

Dr Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, told Euronews: "This is not a fancy weather statistic. It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. It destroys assets, infrastructure, harvest.”

Global temperatures are off the charts for a reason: 4 factors driving 2023's extreme heat and climate disasters

Michael Wysession, Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis

THE CONVERSATION
Fri, October 6, 2023 

2023's weather has been extreme in many ways. AP Photo/Michael Probst


Between the record-breaking global heat and extreme downpours, it’s hard to ignore that something unusual is going on with the weather in 2023.

People have been quick to blame climate change – and they’re right: Human-caused global warming does play the biggest role. For example, a study determined that the weekslong heat wave in Texas, the U.S. Southwest and Mexico that started in June 2023 would have been virtually impossible without it.

However, the extremes this year are sharper than anthropogenic global warming alone would be expected to cause. September temperatures were far above any previous September, and around 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.75 degrees Celsius) above the preindustrial average, according to the European Union’s earth observation program.

July was Earth’s hottest month on record, also by a large margin, with average global temperatures more than half a degree Fahrenheit (a third of a degree Celsius) above the previous record, set just a few years earlier in 2019.

September 2023’s temperatures were far above past Septembers. Copernicus

July 2023 was the hottest month on record and well above past Julys. Copernicus Climate Change Service

Human activities have been increasing temperatures at an average of about 0.2 F (0.1 C) per decade. But this year, three additional natural factors are also helping drive up global temperatures and fuel disasters: El Niño, solar fluctuations and a massive underwater volcanic eruption.

Unfortunately, these factors are combining in a way that is exacerbating global warming. Still worse, we can expect unusually high temperatures to continue, which means even more extreme weather in the near future

An illustration by the author shows the typical relative impact on temperature rise driven by human activities compared with natural forces. El Niño/La Niña and solar energy cycles fluctuate. The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano’s underwater eruption exacerbated global warming. Michael Wysession
How El Niño is involved

El Niño is a climate phenomenon that occurs every few years when surface water in the tropical Pacific reverses direction and heats up. That warms the atmosphere above, which influences temperatures and weather patterns around the globe.

Essentially, the atmosphere borrows heat out of the Pacific, and global temperatures increase slightly. This happened in 2016, the time of the last strong El Niño. Global temperatures increased by about 0.25 F (0.14 C) on average, making 2016 the warmest year on record. A weak El Niño also occurred in 2019-2020, contributing to 2020 becoming the world’s second-warmest year.

El Niño’s opposite, La Niña, involves cooler-than-usual Pacific currents flowing westward, absorbing heat out of the atmosphere, which cools the globe. The world just came out of three straight years of La Niña, meaning we’re experiencing an even greater temperature swing

Comparing global temperatures (top chart) with El Niño and La Niña events. NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

Based on increasing Pacific sea surface temperatures in mid-2023, climate modeling now suggests a 90% chance that Earth is headed toward its first strong El Niño since 2016.

Combined with the steady human-induced warming, Earth may soon again be breaking its annual temperature records. June 2023 was the hottest in modern record. July saw global records for the hottest days and a large number of regional records, including an incomprehensible heat index of 152 F (67 C) in Iran.

Solar fluctuations

The Sun may seem to shine at a constant rate, but it is a seething, churning ball of plasma whose radiating energy changes over many different time scales.

The Sun is slowly heating up and in half a billion years will boil away Earth’s oceans. On human time scales, however, the Sun’s energy output varies only slightly, about 1 part in 1,000, over a repeating 11-year cycle. The peaks of this cycle are too small for us to notice at a daily level, but they affect Earth’s climate systems.

Rapid convection within the Sun both generates a strong magnetic field aligned with its spin axis and causes this field to fully flip and reverse every 11 years. This is what causes the 11-year cycle in emitted solar radiation.

Sunspot activity is considered a proxy for the Sun’s energy output. The last 11-year solar cycle was unusually weak. The current cycle isn’t yet at its maximum. NOAA Space Weather Prediction CenterMore

Earth’s temperature increase during a solar maximum, compared with average solar output, is only about 0.09 F (0.05 C), roughly a third of a large El Niño. The opposite happens during a solar minimum. However, unlike the variable and unpredictable El Niño changes, the 11-year solar cycle is comparatively regular, consistent and predictable.

The last solar cycle hit its minimum in 2020, reducing the effect of the modest 2020 El Niño. The current solar cycle has already surpassed the peak of the relatively weak previous cycle (which was in 2014) and will peak in 2025, with the Sun’s energy output increasing until then.
A massive volcanic eruption

Volcanic eruptions can also significantly affect global climates. They usually do this by lowering global temperatures when erupted sulfate aerosols shield and block a portion of incoming sunlight – but not always.

In an unusual twist, the largest volcanic eruption of the 21st century so far, the 2022 eruption of Tonga’s Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, is having a warming and not cooling effect.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano’s eruption was enormous, but underwater. It hurled large amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere. NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens using GOES imagery courtesy of NOAA and NESDISMore

The eruption released an unusually small amount of cooling sulfate aerosols but an enormous amount of water vapor. The molten magma exploded underwater, vaporizing a huge volume of ocean water that erupted like a geyser high into the atmosphere.

Water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, and the eruption may end up warming Earth’s surface by about 0.06 F (0.035 C), according to one estimate. Unlike the cooling sulfate aerosols, which are actually tiny droplets of sulfuric acid that fall out of the atmosphere within one to two years, water vapor is a gas that can stay in the atmosphere for many years. The warming impact of the Tonga volcano is expected to last for at least five years.
Underlying it all: Global warming

All of this comes on top of anthropogenic, or human-caused, global warming.

Humans have raised global average temperatures by about 2 F (1.1 C) since 1900 by releasing large volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is up 50%, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels in vehicles and power plants. The warming from greenhouse gases is actually greater than 2 F (1.1 C), but it has been masked by other human factors that have a cooling effect, such as air pollution.

Sea surface temperatures in 2023 (bold black line) have been far above any temperature seen since satellite records began in the 1970s. University of Maine Climate Change Institute, CC BY-NDMore

If human impacts were the only factors, each successive year would set a new record as the hottest year ever, but that doesn’t happen. The year 2016 was the warmest in part because temperatures were boosted by the last large El Niño.
What does this mean for the future?

The next couple of years could be very rough.

If a strong El Niño develops over the coming months as forecasters expect, combined with the solar maximum and the effects of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption, Earth’s temperatures will likely continue to soar.

As temperatures continue to increase, weather events can get more extreme. The excess heat can mean more heat waves, forest fires, flash floods and other extreme weather events, climate models show.

A heavy downpour flooded streets across the New York City region, shutting down subways, schools and businesses on Sept. 29, 2023. AP Photo/Jake OffenhartzMore

In January 2023, scientists wrote that Earth’s temperature had a greater than 50% chance of reaching 2.7 F (1.5 C) above preindustrial era temperatures by the year 2028, at least temporarily, increasing the risk of triggering climate tipping points with even greater human impacts. Because of the unfortunate timing of several parts of the climate system, it seems the odds are not in our favor.

This article, originally published July 27, 2023, has been updated with September’s record heat.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Michael Wysession, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Read more:

Extreme heat is particularly hard on older adults – an aging population and climate change put ever more people at risk

How well-managed dams and smart forecasting can limit flooding as extreme storms become more common in a warming world

Dangerous urban heat exposure has tripled since the 1980s, with the poor most at risk

SCOTLAND
Support for independence leads support for Union by four points, new report finds

Adam Robertson
Fri, 6 October 2023 

New data has revealed that 45% of people would vote Yes in a Scottish independence referendum compared to 41% who would vote No

SUPPORT for Scottish independence leads support for the Union by four points, a new report from the Tony Blair institute has found.

When a total of 1004 respondents were asked how they would vote in a new independence referendum, 45% of respondents said they would vote Yes while 41% said they would vote No.

The report notes that “as other polls have found, neither side has established a significant and sustained lead”.

READ MORE: Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election must be wake-up call for SNP

The report made a number of key findings about independence, specifically that 29% of people regard it as a priority while 14% say they want it but that there are more urgent issues to contend with.

Meanwhile, SNP voters are divided by 47% to 41% over the party leadership’s desire for the vote to be held as soon as possible.

“They would prefer to wait until victory seems likely.” the report notes.

“Figures suggest that even when Yes voters narrowly outnumber those who say No, only minorities back the SNP’s official view that independence is an urgent necessity as the party prepares for the next General Election.”
What about the next Westminster election?

Based on the report’s polling, the SNP would still return by far the largest contingent of Scottish MPs although its dominance would nonetheless be substantially reduced.

According to the figures, 37% of voters said they would vote SNP at the next election while 28% said they would vote Labour.

This would result in 34 seats for the SNP (down from the 48 won in 2019) and 13 for Labour (an increase of 11 on the two they currently have).

READ MORE: John Curtice: 'Uncertain' if Labour have 'sealed the deal' with electorate

The Tories meanwhile would stay the same with six MPs across Scotland.

However, the report did note that the SNP could face risks relating to “Unionist tactical voting” with figures showing that Labour “might gain two or three extra seats from the SNP”.

It comes after the Tories put their crushing loss in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, in which their candidate lost his deposit, down to tactical voting.
Record in government

When it came to the record of the Scottish Government, many voters were left “unimpressed”, according to the report.

Respondents were asked about a range of issues including:

Crime


Poverty


Schools


Housing


Drug abuse


Railways


NHS

The percentages of people who said the Scottish Government was doing “very well” on these issues did not rise above 7% (which they received for the NHS) while the lowest was 3% (which they scored for work tackling drug abuse).

The percentages of people saying the Scottish Government was doing “fairly well” or “neither well nor badly” on all these issues ranged from 16% to 27%.

However, the percentage scores for “very badly” on these issues ranged from 18% to 25%.

The report added: “These figures are by no means fatal to the SNP, given the significance of other issues and attitudes to Labour and the Conservatives.

“But they do suggest that SNP support might be vulnerable. If the SNP’s less committed supporters find other reasons for their loyalty to waver, the party might not have its record in tackling Scotland’s problems to fall back on.”
Approval ratings

The report found that First Minister Humza Yousaf (below) had a net approval rating of -15, the same as Labour leader Keir Starmer.

The National: Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf will speak at the event in Edinburgh (Jane Barlow/PA)

Yousaf’s rival in the SNP leadership contest Kate Forbes had a net approval rating of -7 while Anas Sarwar sat at -9.

The report did not make good reading for Douglas Ross or Rishi Sunak who had ratings of -30 and -41 respectively.
EU relationship

The report also found that voters wanted a closer relationship with the EU. Statistics showed that 69% of SNP voters said they wanted to rejoin the EU, while 51% of Labour voters said the same.

By contrast, just 9% of Tory voters wanted to rejoin while only 26% said there should be a “closer relationship”.

UK
Trans church minister warns community in ‘greater danger’ after Sunak’s comments


Aisling Grace and Danielle Desouza, PA
Fri, 6 October 2023 

Members of the transgender community have criticised Rishi Sunak’s remarks at the Conservative Party conference, claiming his comments “put trans people in greater danger”.

The Prime Minister weighed in on debates about transgender rights during his speech in Manchester on Wednesday, saying: “We shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t, a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.”

Methodist minister Dr Karl Rutlidge, 39, who is a transgender man, said he has faced “a difficult few days” following what he described as “transphobic” comments made by Government ministers at the Conservative Party conference.

Dr Karl Rutlidge said comments made by Rishi Sunak towards the transgender community were ‘appalling’ (Dr Karl Rutlidge/PA)

Mr Rutlidge, who is based in Kingston-upon-Thames, told the PA news agency: “It isn’t just Rishi Sunak who has made transphobic comments.

“Steve Barclay made comments about hospital wards… Suella Braverman made various inflammatory comments… followed by Rishi Sunak effectively dismissing the reality of trans lives and trans identities, which in the context of figures out showing that (transgender) hate crimes have gone up by 11% in the year ending March 2023 is appalling from the person who’s meant to set the tone as our Prime Minister.”

He said that these comments have the potential to empower those “who are already inclined towards transphobic attitudes” and “legitimises, potentially, even violence”.

“I think that having Government politicians make these kinds of comments puts trans people in greater danger,” he added.

“All I want to do is get on with my life with safety and dignity and peace.

“There’s so much more to me than the fact I happen to be trans and it feels like I’m treated like I’m not really a human being, like I’m an issue, and that’s incredibly difficult to deal with.

“I want to say to some of these politicians, ‘come and look me in the eye and talk to me as a real person’, because it just never seems to happen.”

Mr Rutlidge said comments made by Government ministers at the Conservative Party conference were ‘worse than I expected’ (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Mr Rutlidge spoke about Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old trans girl who was found with fatal stab wounds in February, adding that further violence towards the community “will only get worse”.

A transgender civil servant, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed that Rishi Sunak’s comments regarding transgender people at the Conservative Party conference are a “distraction” and “emboldening” transphobic people.

He told PA: “I would say the vast majority of people are far more bothered about the fact that their mortgages are doubling, that their food bills are doubling, they’re struggling to heat their homes and put food on the table, as opposed to anything to do with what is essentially other people’s medical history and medical background.”

A transgender civil servant claimed comments made about the transgender community at the Conservative Party conference are a ‘distraction’ (Danny Lawson/PA)

He claimed Mr Sunak’s speech “emboldens a certain sort of person that wants to be hostile towards us to think that they can be”.

“I’m openly trans on the internet but I’m not in day-to-day life, so no one knows and it’s no one’s business and no one has the right to know,” he said.

He continued: “It’s just pure dog-whistle politics, and they’ve got this distance that they’ve created where they don’t ever meet with any of us face to face.

“It’s all to do with ideology.”

A UK Government spokesperson said: “The Government has a proud history of advancing LGBT rights and one of the most robust legislative protection frameworks for LGBT people in the world.

“There is no place for hate crime in our society, it does not reflect the values of modern Britain, and we remain committed to ensuring these abhorrent offences are stamped out – which is why we have a robust framework to tackle it wherever it is found.

“However, we are clear that biological sex is fundamentally important to protecting single-sex spaces and providing appropriate healthcare as set out by ministers.”

Sunak is a bully, says Belgium’s trans deputy prime minister

James Crisp
Fri, 6 October 2023 

Petra De Sutter said Rishi Sunak’s comments were ‘hurtful and very disappointing’ - James Arthur Gekiere/AFP via Getty

Belgian’s transgender deputy prime minister has called Rishi Sunak a “bully” after he said a “man is a man” during his showpiece speech at the Conservative Party conference.

Petra De Sutter, the world’s first transgender cabinet minister, said Mr Sunak’s remarks on gender were “hurtful and very disappointing” and accused the Prime Minister of “fuelling transphobia”.

In his closing speech in Manchester on Wednesday, Mr Sunak claimed it was “common sense” to say that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman”.

“Hurtful and very disappointing,” Ms De Sutter wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, above a video of the speech.

“These words are fuelling transphobia and endangering the lives of many people around the world. Trans women are women, and in no way a threat to others.”

Ms De Sutter also appealed to Mr Sunak not to “join the real bullies” after he made the remarks – his most explicit on the subject – in his hour-long address to the Tory grassroots.

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, whose party is leading the Tories in the polls, has struggled to explain his own stance on trans rights ahead of its conference, which begins this weekend.

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, also took aim at “gender ideology” in her speech, while Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, said he would ban transgender patients being treated in single-sex wards.

Ms De Sutter, 60, is a member of the Green party and became a deputy prime minister in the coalition government in 2020. The former MEP was a doctor and gynaecology professor before becoming a politician.

As Belgium’s first transgender MP, she earned a reputation for combining a passion for LGBTQ+ rights with a sense of humour.

“I entered politics in 2014 and I was already under attack,” she once said. “I have the skin of an elephant – I am not afraid of attacks. I expect it. The trolls will continue, but I will ignore them. Fortunately, they are a minority.”

UK

Angela Rayner to open Labour conference with pledge to ‘make work pay’


Labour Party conference – a look at what to expect as members gather in Liverpool


Sophie Wingate, PA Political Correspondent
Fri, 6 October 2023 

Angela Rayner will set out Labour’s plan to make workers better off as she opens the party’s conference in Liverpool on Sunday.

Labour MPs, delegates and lobbyists will descend on the city for five days of policy debate, rallies and networking.

Party leader Sir Keir Starmer will head to the annual gathering boosted by a comfortable lead in the polls and a resounding by-election victory over the SNP in Scotland’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat.

His deputy Ms Rayner, who is also shadow levelling up secretary, will use her main speech to pledge “a decent job, a secure home and a strong community” for all under a Labour government.

She accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of “taking a sledgehammer” to these.

Ahead of the conference, which carries the slogan “Let’s get Britain’s future back”, she said: “With five prime ministers in seven years and constant chaos and instability, Britain’s future has been left to take a back seat. The Tories’ legacy is national decline – a nation levelled down and starved of hope.

“While the Tories have stolen Britain’s future, it’s Labour that will give it back with our plan to make working people better off by securing growth for all people and in all places.”

Ms Rayner will flesh out Labour’s planned new deal for workers, which she said aims to “boost wages, make work more secure and support working people to thrive”.

“It’s how Labour will make work pay,” she said.

Labour’s by-election victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West provided Sir Keir Starmer with a boost ahead of the conference (Jane Barlow/PA)

She recently gave unions a “cast-iron commitment” to push through an Employment Rights Bill within 100 days of being in office if the party enters Downing Street.

The Opposition’s plan for secure homes to “end the Tories’ housing emergency” will also feature in Ms Rayner’s speech, as well as a pledge to oversee the “biggest ever transfer of power out of Westminster” to help the places “abandoned” by the Conservatives.

In an interview with the Guardian, she promised the party would focus on getting tough on developers and reforming planning rules to deliver “the biggest boost to affordable housing for a generation”.

Under its plans, Labour would set up a new expert unit to give councils and housing associations advice to get the best deal during negotiations with property firms, the paper reported.

This would be aimed at preventing developers from “wriggling out” of their affordable housing obligations, known as section 106 rules, Ms Rayner said.

It would publish guidance that would effectively restrict them to challenging 106 rules only if there were genuine barriers to building homes, according to the paper.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will take to the main stage on Monday to detail how Labour would revive the sluggish economy, before Sir Keir’s keynote address on Tuesday.

Business chiefs are flocking to the Labour conference, with the party saying tickets to its business forum sold out in record time and noting an unprecedented interest in sponsorship.

The Labour Party women’s conference will take place in Liverpool on Saturday, the day before the main events get under way.

Rishi Sunak used his Tory conference speech to cancel the northern leg of HS2 (Danny Lawson/PA)

The gathering follows the Conservatives’ conference in Manchester, which was overshadowed by the fate of HS2.

Mr Sunak defied senior Tories and business leaders to scrap the rail line from Birmingham to Manchester, saying “the facts have changed” and the cost of the high-speed rail scheme had “more than doubled”.

Sir Keir has said Labour cannot commit to reversing the decision if it wins the next general election due to the “damage” done by the Government.

The Tories urged the Labour leader to clarify his position on HS2, as well as his support for a raft of transport schemes announced by Mr Sunak in place of the cancelled leg.

Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands said: “We all know Keir Starmer won’t tell us his plans if he becomes prime minister because he’s afraid of losing votes, and he changes his position to whatever he thinks people want to hear.

“Our country faces an important choice: Rishi Sunak, who will make the hard but necessary long-term decisions to get the country on the right path for the future, or Sir Keir Starmer, who is just like the same old politicians that have come before – always focused on the short-term and lacking the backbone to make the big changes Britain needs.”

Labour’s win in the Rutherglen by-election this week provided a huge boost to Sir Keir ahead of the conference, with analysts inferring its possible return to being the largest party north of the border and a clearer path to a Labour majority at Westminster if the same swing is replicated at the next national poll.

Labour Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds said: “In what is likely to be the final conference season before the general election, it has never been more clear that Labour has the plans to unlock growth, make our streets safe, secure the future of the NHS, break down barriers to opportunity and make the UK a green energy superpower.”

In its first policy announcement ahead of the Liverpool gathering, Labour pledged to create an extra 700,000 urgent dentist appointments and introduce supervised toothbrushing in schools across England under plans to improve the nation’s oral health.

UK
'Are You Not Mortified?': Dermot O'Leary Roasts Sunak Over Braverman's Immigration Comments

Alicia Fitzgerald
Fri, 6 October 2023 

Dermot O'Leary / Rishi Sunak

Dermot O'Leary grilled Rishi Sunak on ITV's This Morning

Rishi Sunak was asked on live TV if he was “mortified” by Suella Braverman’s controversial comments about immigration.

The home secretary said the west was facing a “hurricane” of migrants in the years to come during her speech to the Tory conference.

Appearing on ITV’s this morning, the prime minister was asked by presenter Dermot O’Leary for his thoughts on Braverman’s rhetoric.

In particular, he expressed concern about her use of the word “hurricane”.

“Are you not embarrassed and ashamed when you hear words like that? Because I’m meeting you for the first time and you seem like a decent guy” O’Leary asked.

The prime minister responded: “I think that this debate gets charged a lot where people focus on one thing. So, if you just take a step back, what do I think we all agree on? We all agree that Britain is incredibly welcoming place. We haven’t failed in any way.”

O’Leary said: “Are you not mortified? That’s evil. It’s not a good word.“

Sunak replied: “They are being exploited by criminal gangs. And that’s why I’ve said it’s got to be ... the British people who decide who comes to our country and not criminal gangs. They are exploiting vulnerable people.”

O’Leary did not let Sunak off the hook, adding, “It’s this weaponising of the word that worries me. It’s demonising the people that come here in the first place.

“It’s an issue, of course it is. It’s the incendiary use of that word, that I think most people find unhelpful and harmful because it’s not the people who are coming here’s fault.”

Failing to answer the question, Sunak replied, “I think your viewers probably feel that there is an enormous sense of frustration that there are tens of thousands of people who have come here illegally over the past few years, and that’s not right.

“And I think most people in their local community may now have a hotel that’s been put over to house illegal migrants that’s costing taxpayers.”

Rishi Sunak on This Morning

Meanwhile, the PM also sent well-wishes to This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby after a man was charged over an alleged plot to kidnap the presenter.

On Friday morning, it was reported that the daytime star was “under police guard at her home” after “sinister” messages were found on a man’s phone reportedly threatening to “seriously harm” the daytime TV presenter.

Sunak said he was “so sorry to hear about everything that is going on with Holly”.

“I wanted to send my best to her and her family and to all of you,” the PM added.

NAZI PUR BLUT

Fury as Donald Trump says immigrants ‘poison blood’ of US

David Millward
Fri, 6 October 2023 

Donald Trump said migrants coming into the US are ‘from mental institutions’ - Angela Weiss/AFP

Donald Trump has triggered outrage by accusing undocumented immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country” in a recent interview.

Mr Trump made his remarks in a 37-minute interview with Raheem Kassam, the editor-in-chief of The National Pulse and a former director of Breitbart News in London.

“Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons,” said the former president. “We know they come from mental institutions, insane asylums. We know they’re terrorists.

“Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have.”

The former president’s remarks echo far-Right and white supremacist rhetoric about the threat posed to America by immigrants.

The Great Replacement Theory, a popular far-Right trope, claims that white Americans are being replaced by non-white newcomers in the country’s demographic make-up.

Mr Trump’s comments also echo those he made early in the 2016 election campaign when he launched an attack on Mexican immigrants, saying: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Mehdi Hasan, a MSNBC talk show host, described the former president’s remarks as “a straight-up white supremacist neo-Nazi talking point”.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League said racist rhetoric had inspired deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and El Paso.

But Mr Trump’s remarks were defended by Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, who told The Telegraph: “That’s a normal phrase that is used in everyday life – in books, television, movies, and in news articles. For anyone to think that is racist or xenophobic is living in an alternate reality consumed with nonsensical outrage.”

Immigration is certain to be a key issue in the presidential election, with a surge in migrants has left the Joe Biden administration vulnerable.

DUCK AND COVER

Russia will revoke ratification of nuclear test ban treaty, envoy says


Julian Borger in Washington and agencies

THE GUARDIAN
Fri, 6 October 2023 

Photograph: Getty Images

Russia’s envoy to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has said that Moscow will revoke its ratification of the pact, a move that Washington denounced as endangering “the global norm” against nuclear test blasts.

Friday’s announcement by Mikhail Ulyanov added new fuel to tensions between Russia and the US over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and arms control disputes between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

Ulyanov, Moscow’s envoy to the CTBTO, said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “#Russia plans to revoke ratification (which took place in the year 2000) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

“The aim is to be on equal footing with the #US who signed the Treaty, but didn’t ratify it. Revocation doesn’t mean the intention to resume nuclear tests.”

Related: The Ukraine war is in a new phase. Biden must rethink the US position | Stephen Wertheim

While the US signed but did not ratify the treaty, it has observed a moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions since 1992 which it says it has no plans to abandon.

“We are disturbed by the comments of ambassador Ulyanov in Vienna today,” a US State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “A move like this by any state party needlessly endangers the global norm against nuclear explosive testing.”

Robert Floyd, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), said it would be “concerning and deeply unfortunate if any state signatory were to reconsider its ratification of the CTBT.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin had suggested that Russia could revoke its ratification of the 1996 CTBT agreement to “mirror” the US a day earlier.

Speaking in Sochi on Thursday, Putin made several references to nuclear weapons. He said he was “not ready to say now whether we really need or don’t need to conduct tests”.

“As a rule, experts say, with a new weapon - you need to make sure that the special warhead will work without failures,” Putin said.

Any Russian nuclear test would be the first since 1990, the last conducted by the Soviet Union. Renewed testing by a nuclear superpower would undo one of the principal advances in non-proliferation since the cold war.

Since the all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin and other Russian officials have frequently drawn attention to the country’s nuclear arsenal, the biggest in the world, in an attempt to deter other countries from helping Ukraine resist the invasion.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said after Putin’s remarks that it would swiftly consider whether revocation of Russia’s ratification of the CTBT was necessary.

Last week, Mikhail Kovalchuk, a close associate of Putin and head of the Kurchatov Institute research centre, said Russia could carry out a nuclear test “at least once” at Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic archipelago where the Soviet Union carried out testing.

Satellite images of Novaya Zemlya, published last month by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, showed recent construction activity at the old test site.

The institute also found signs of activities at the old US testing ground in the Nevada desert, and the Chinese site in Xinjiang province, suggesting the CTBT is increasingly fragile as international tensions rise, and the nuclear powers expand or modernise their arsenals.

National security officials in Donald Trump’s administration discussed in May 2020 a possible resumption of US tests for the first time since 1992.

In his remarks in Sochi, Putin claimed Russia had successfully tested an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik, and was close to producing a new type of nuclear-capable ballistic missile.

“A Russian nuclear test in the near future would be the latest in a stream of nuclear signals related to the war in Ukraine, which often come when Russia is facing battlefield losses,” said Heather Williams, the director of a project on nuclear issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Nonetheless, these threats should be taken seriously. If Russia withdrew ratification from the CTBT or did test a nuclear weapon, this would be a major strategic and diplomatic provocation.

“It would undermine one of the few remaining agreements managing nuclear risk, since Russia suspended participation in the 2010 New Start treaty earlier this year.”

The CTBT was opened for signature in 1996 and since then it has been signed by 187 countries, and ratified by 178. For the test ban to enter into force, however, it requires ratification by 44 states who participated in negotiating the agreement and who had nuclear power or research reactors at the time.

Of that 44, eight countries have yet to ratify the ban: China, North Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the US.

Reuters contributed to this report