UK warned it is unprepared for climate chaos

By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst
Our Planet Now

Expect more of this: extreme weather will put infrastructure under pressure

The UK is woefully unprepared to deal with changes occurring to the climate, government advisers say.

A report by the independent Climate Change Committee predicts warming will hit the UK harder than first thought.

It warns of more severe heatwaves, especially in big cities, and more intense rainfall, with an increased flood risk across most of the UK.

It says homes, infrastructure and services must be made resilient to floods, heat and humid nights.
The authors of the report on adaptation, or "climate-proofing", warn that global warming can cause damage running into tens of billions of pounds over short periods - and they say they're frustrated at the lack of government action.

Climate change 'driving UK's extreme weather'

Extreme weather causes major global losses in 2020

The committee, also known as the CCC, says the UK is even worse prepared than it was five years ago, at the time of its last report on the risks of climate change.

The CCC is an independent group of experts set up to provide the government with advice on the climate crisis

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The chairwoman of the CCC's sub-committee on adaptation, Baroness Brown, said ministers appeared to be deterred from taking action by the upfront costs of protecting infrastructure. This is because the benefits sometimes are not seen for several years.

"They think they can put adaptation off until tomorrow," she said. "But now's the time for urgent action."

Responding to the report's findings, a government spokesman said many of the issues raised were being addressed in policy.

Here's what the CCC says the government must do to better prepare for the impacts of climate change:

Buildings


There's a need to insulate buildings to save emissions, but overheating has emerged as a deadly risk - especially in flats. The government must force landlords to improve cooling by, say, installing sunshades. Ministers must ensure all new homes are built for a hotter climate.

Shutters can help shade the interiors of homes during periods of intense heat

Nature


The state of UK nature has been declining for some time, with habitat loss one of the factors driving the loss of plant and animal species. Climate change will make the situation worse. Beech trees won't be able to tolerate conditions in southern England by 2050.


Three-quarters of upland species are likely to struggle by the end of century, the report says. Meanwhile, peat bogs currently help reduce the effects of climate change by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. But if the world continues to warm at the current rate, peatlands could dry out, and begin releasing their stored carbon into the air.

The government must re-wet 100% of upland peat moors urgently, the report says.

Climate change threatens the supply chains for essential medicines

Supply chains

Climate change will place pressure on our increasingly connected world and the effects can take us by surprise. For example, around 10 years ago, flooding in Thailand caused a global shortage of computer hard drives.

Rising temperatures will put supply chains at risk for food, medicines, goods and services. The report says businesses must be told to make information available to the public on threats to their supply chains.

The electrical grid

As the UK makes the transition to a low-carbon economy, we'll need more electricity for heating, lighting, and for our vehicles. So power cuts due to extreme weather will hurt the country more.

In one recent example, a lightning strike caused power cuts across England and stranded people on trains in August 2019.

A lightning strike in 2019 led to chaos on train networks

The committee says a heating climate will bring some opportunities for the UK - such as the ability to grow different crops, a longer growing season that will benefit farmers and fewer winter deaths from cold - but it says these are massively outweighed by the risks.

The committee's chief executive, Chris Stark, said CCC members were so frustrated with the lack of progress on climate-proofing the UK that they deliberately made this report "spiky".

He said: "It's really troubling how little attention the government has paid to this." He told BBC News: "The extent of planning for many of the risks is really shocking. We are not thinking clearly about what lies ahead."

While the world could warm by an average of 4C by 2100, the report say the UK government's plans are inadequate to cope even with a 2C temperature rise.

Ministers must factor climate change more into policy-making, the committee says.


The report notes that, over the last five years, more than 500,000 homes have been built to inadequate standards. These will now need to be adapted at considerable expense to cope with more severe heatwaves.


The report foresees a potential "cascade" of problems from extreme weather, in which different risks combine.


These might include heatwaves and floods leading to IT failures and problems with sewage, water, power and transport.



Climate-proofing: What you can do


Kathryn Brown, head of adaptation at the CCC, has planted creepers to shade her walls. She recommends that home owners - especially in south-east England - should also fit window shutters to keep the sun off the glass.

The CCC's Kathryn Brown has planted creepers to shade her walls

She also recommends people plant trees to help shade buildings, and avoid paving over gardens because the slabs can absorb heat.

She insists the government must help ensure that people in flats are protected from heatwaves, by improving ventilation and shading. Developers could improve shading by building in architectural features that shield homes from the sun's rays.

Kathryn Brown says people can do more to prepare for floods by signing up to free flood warnings, and looking at options for flood protection, such as door guards.

The document is based on a huge review of the scientific literature by 450 experts from 130 organisations.

One of the lead authors was Prof Dame Julia Slingo, former chief scientist at the UK Met Office in Exeter. She told BBC News: "Things are worse than we have anticipated."

Downpours that dump 20mm of water in an hour will become twice as frequent as previously projected. Winter extreme rainfall could be up to 40% more intense.

Surface water flooding will become a serious hazard as drains overflow during these rainstorms.

Co-author Prof Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the Met Office, told BBC News: "The main thing is that the risks of climate change to the UK are even higher than we appreciated five years ago."

Unless global emissions are drastically cut, he says, the UK could experience temperatures highs of 40C every 3.5 years.

A government spokesman said action to adapt to climate change was "integrated" across different government departments.

He added: "The UK was the first major world economy to set a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Our plan to further reduce emissions in 2035 by at least 78% compared to 1990 levels is the highest reduction target by a major economy to date.

"We welcome this report and will consider its recommendations closely as we continue to demonstrate global leadership on climate change ahead of COP26 (the climate summit to be held in Glasgow) in November."

The extreme heatwave baked sea creatures in their shells in Western Canada

By David Williams, CNN 

© Courtesy Christopher Harley Christopher Harley estimates that a billion mussels, clams and other animals may have died from the heat.

The devastating heat wave that ravaged British Columbia last week is being blamed for a massive die-off of mussels, clams and other marine animals that live on the beaches of Western Canada.

Christopher Harley, a professor in the zoology department at The University of British Columbia, found countless dead mussels popped open and rotting in their shells on Sunday at Kitsilano Beach, which is a few blocks away from his Vancouver home.

Harley studies the effects of climate change on the ecology of rocky shores where clams, mussels and sea stars live, so he wanted to see how the intertidal invertebrates were faring in the record heat wave that hit the area on June 26-28.

"I could smell that beach before I got to it, because there was already a lot of dead animals from the previous day, which was not the hottest of three," he said. "I started having a look around just on my local beach and thought, 'Oh, this, this can't be good.'"

The next day, Harley and one of his students went to Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver, which he has been visiting for more than 12 years.

"It was a catastrophe over there," he said. "There's a really extensive mussel bed that coats the shore and most of those animals had died."

Unprecedented heat

Mussels attach themselves to rocks and other surfaces and are used to being exposed to the air and sunlight during low tide, Harley said, but they generally can't survive temperatures over 100 degrees for very long.

Temperatures in downtown Vancouver were 98.6 degrees on June 26, 99.5 on the 27th and 101.5 on the 28th.

It was even hotter on the beach.

Harley and his student used a FLIR thermal imaging camera that found surface temperatures topping 125 degrees.

At this time of the year, low tide hits at the hottest part of the day in the area, so the animals can't make it until the tide comes back in, he said.

Climate scientists called the heat wave in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest in the United States "unprecedented" and warned that climate change would make these events more frequent and intense.

"We saw heat records over the weekend only to be broken again the next day," Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told CNN, "particularly for a part of the country where this type of heat does not happen very often."

An analysis by more than two dozen scientists at World Weather Attribution found that the heat wave "would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change."

It was also incredibly dangerous.

Lytton, British Columbia, broke Canada's all-time record on June 30 when the temperature topped 121 degrees. The town was all but destroyed in a deadly wildfire.

There were 719 deaths reported to the province's coroners between June 25 and July 1 -- three times as many as would normally occur during that time period, according to a statement from Lisa Lapointe, British Columbia's chief coroner. Hundreds of people died in the US and many had to be hospitalized because of the heat.


A billion animals may have died

Harley said the heat may have killed as many as a billion mussels and other sea creatures in the Salish Sea, which includes the Strait of Georgia, the Puget Sound, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but he said that was a very preliminary estimate.

He said that 50 to 100 mussels could live in a spot the size of the palm of your hand and that several thousand could fit in an area the size of a kitchen stovetop.

"There's 4,000-some miles of shoreline in the Salish Sea, so when you start to scale up from what we're seeing locally to what we're expecting, based on what we know where mussels live, you get to some very big numbers very quickly," he said. "Then you start adding in all the other species, some of which are even more abundant."

He said he's worried that these sorts of events seem to be happening more often.

Brian Helmuth, a marine biology professor at Northeastern University, said that mussel beds, like coral reefs, serve as an early warning system for the health of the oceans.

"When we see mussel beds disappearing, they're the main structuring species, so they're almost like the trees in the forest that are providing a habitat for other species, so it's really obvious when a mussel bed disappears," he said. "When we start seeing die-offs of other smaller animals, because they're moving around, because they're not so dense, It's not quite as obvious."

He said the death of a mussel bed can cause "a cascading effect" on other species.

Both scientists said they were concerned that these heat waves were becoming more common and they weren't sure whether the mussel beds would be able to recover.

"What worries me is that if you start getting heat waves like this, every 10 years instead of every 1,000 years or every five years, then it's -- myou're getting hit too hard, too rapidly to actually ever recover," Harley said. "And then the ecosystem is going to just look very, very different."

© Courtesy Christopher Harley Dead mussels cover the beach at Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver.

NDP MPs Call For An Independent Investigation Into Residential School Abuses


(ANNews) – Two NDP MPs are demanding that Canada investigate the allegations of “crimes against humanity” in residential schools.

Mumilaaq Qaqqaq and Charlie Angus have told the Justice Minister of Canada, David Lametti, to launch an investigation into the system in order to bring justice to the perpetrators.

“Enough is enough. Indigenous people need truth and justice,” Qaqqaq said in a press conference. “We need a full and independent investigation that has the power to shine a light on every facet of this national crime and has the power to bring perpetrators to justice.”

“Minister Lametti, don’t you dare tell me you can’t do this. You have the authority. You just refuse to use it and that needs to end today,” she said.

The call for justice comes after the multiple discoveries of unmarked graves at Residential school sites across the country.

It began with the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation when they discovered 215 bodies at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. This was followed by the Cowessess First Nation discovery of 751unmarked graves near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

The most recent unmarked gravesite discovery happened last week when ʔaq̓am — one of four bands in the Ktunaxa Nation in B.C. — used radar at St. Eugenes Mission School to find 182 bodies.

From the late 1800s to 1996, Canada forcefully took 150,000 Indigenous children from their home and put them in Residential School Institutions — which were run by the church — where many were believed to be abused by staff and even murdered.

In 2005, 17 private investigation firms were contracted by the Federal Government to investigate the claims of abuse in the system. In 2016, the firms located 5,315 alleged abusers — both former employees and students.

Unfortunately, no criminal charges were laid, and only optional Independent Assessment Process (IAP) hearings were offered. The hearings did not involve the courts at all, but despite this 4,450 out of the 5,315 declined to participate.

“(Abusers) caused possible generations of trauma,” Qaqqaq said. “Child sexual abuse in Nunavut is rampant.”

“There is a reason for that.”

The two New Democrat MPs called on the Justice Minister for the appointment of a special prosecutor to lead the investigation.

“We cannot trust the Justice Department to do this without an independent special prosecutor and international observers,” Qaqqaq said.

The potential prosecutor should be completely funded and possess the power to compel testimonies and documents.

MP Angus said that the Federal Government has enough classified documents to extend the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“(The Commission) did not have a mandate to pursue justice, to go after the perpetrators,” he said. “Canadians and Indigenous communities are calling for justice.”

The call for investigations should also be broadened to include other Federal Institutions, such Day Schools and Tuberculosis Sanatoriums, said the MPs.

However, Justice Minister Lametti stated that in order to appoint a special prosecutor, the police must first launch an investigation.

“This is an exclusive power of the police,” Lametti’s press secretary Chantalle Aubertin, said. “We will consider all options that will allow the survivors, their communities and the country to move forward on the path to healing and reconciliation.”

Jacob Cardinal, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alberta Native News

Billionaire Richard Branson reaches space in his own ship

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) — Swashbuckling entrepreneur Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship Sunday in his boldest adventure yet, beating out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

The nearly 71-year-old Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company reached an altitude of about 53 miles (88 kilometers) over the New Mexico desert — enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth — and then safely glided to a runway landing.

“The whole thing, it was just magical,” a jubilant Branson said after the trip home aboard the sleek, white space plane, named Unity.

The brief, up-and-down flight — the rocket ship's portion took only about 15 minutes, or about as long as Alan Shepard's first U.S. spaceflight in 1961 — was intended as a confidence-boosting plug for Virgin Galactic, which plans to start taking paying customers on joyrides next year.

Branson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship, beating Bezos by nine days. He also became only the second septuagenarian to go into space. (Astronaut John Glenn flew on the shuttle at age 77 in 1998.)

With about 500 people watching, including Branson's family, a twin-fuselage aircraft with Unity attached underneath took off in the first stage of the flight. Unity then detached from the mother ship at an altitude of about 8 1/2 miles (13 kilometers) and fired its engine, reaching more than Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound, as it pierced the edge of space.

Spectators cheered, jumped into the air and embraced as the rocket plane touched down. He pumped his fists as he stepped out onto the runway and ran toward his family, bear-hugging his wife and children and scooping up his three grandchildren in his arms.

“That was an amazing accomplishment,” former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, a one-time commander of the International Space Station, said from the sidelines. “I’m just so delighted at what this open door is going to lead to now. It’s a great moment.”

Virgin Galactic conducted three previous test flights into space with crews of just two or three.

The flamboyant, London-born founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways wasn’t supposed to fly until later this summer. But he assigned himself to an earlier flight after Bezos announced plans to ride his own rocket into space from Texas on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Branson denied he was trying to outdo Bezos.

Before climbing aboard, Branson, who has kite-surfed the English Channel and attempted to circle the world in a hot-air balloon, signed the astronaut log book and wisecracked: “The name’s Branson. Sir Richard Branson. Astronaut Double-oh one. License to thrill.”

One of Branson’s chief rivals in the space-tourism race among the world’s richest men, SpaceX’s Elon Musk, came to New Mexico to witness the flight, wishing Branson via Twitter, “Godspeed!”

Bezos likewise sent his wishes for a safe and successful flight, though he also took to Twitter to enumerate the ways in which be believes his company’s rides will be better.

Bezos’ Blue Origin company intends to send tourists past the so-called Karman line 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth, which is is recognized by international aviation and aerospace federations as the threshold of space.

But NASA, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration and some astrophysicists consider the boundary between the atmosphere and space to begin 50 miles (80 kilometers) up.

The risks to Branson and his crew were underscored in 2007, when a rocket motor test in California’s Mojave Desert left three workers dead, and in 2014, when a Virgin Galactic rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.

Ever the showman, Branson insisted on a global livestream of the Sunday morning flight and invited celebrities and former space station astronauts to the company’s Spaceport America base in New Mexico.

R&B singer Khalid performed his new single “New Normal” — a nod to the dawning of space tourism — while CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert served as master of ceremonies.

Upon his return to Earth, he announced a sweepstakes drawing for two seats on a Virgin Galactic jaunt once tourist flights begin.

Virgin Galactic already has more than 600 reservations from would-be space tourists, with tickets initially costing $250,000 apiece. Blue Origin is waiting for Bezos’ flight before announcing its ticket prices.

Kerianne Flynn, who signed up in 2011 to fly with Virgin Galactic, had butterflies ahead of the launch Sunday.

“I think there’s going to be nothing like going up there and looking back down on the Earth, which is what I think I’m most excited about,” she said. She added: “Hopefully the next generations will be able to explore what’s up there."

Musk’s SpaceX, which is already launching astronauts to the space station for NASA and building moon and Mars ships, plans to take tourists on more than just brief, up-and-down trips. They will instead go into orbit around the Earth for days, with seats costing well into the millions. Its first private flight is set for September.

Musk himself has not committed to going into space anytime soon.

“It’s a whole new horizon out there, new opportunities, new destinations,” said former NASA astronaut Chris Ferguson, who commanded the last shuttle flight 10 years ago. He now works for Boeing, which is test-flying its own space capsule.

“This is really sort of like the advent of commercial air travel, only 100 years later,” Ferguson added. “There’s a lot waiting in the wings.”

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Dunn reported from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Susan Montoya Bryan And Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

 

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fuel shortages cause power cuts

Delivering the dead and helping the living in Myanmar virus spike

Issued on: 11/07/2021 

Volunteers carry the body of a coronavirus victim to a cemetery in Hle Guu Ye Aung THU AFP

Yangon (AFP)

Volunteers in white hazmat suits unload a stretcher from a pick-up truck parked in a Yangon suburb and carry their neighbourhood's latest Covid-19 victim towards the crematorium.

There will be no traditional funeral rites, as Myanmar confronts a new and growing outbreak, with thousands of health workers on strike against a February coup.

The State Administration Council -- as the military junta calls itself -- reported more than 4,300 new cases Saturday, up from fewer than 50 per day in early May.


"Before... people were scared to see emergency teams wearing PPE," Tun Khine, one of the volunteers in Hle Guu township north of Yangon, told AFP on Saturday.

"But now, they are looking for us. The situation is upside down."

Tun Khine, a businessman who spoke under a pseudonym, was already a member of a local volunteer group before the pandemic hit.#photo1

Last year they began providing a free taxi service for those stricken with the virus, taking them to hospitals or quarantine centres.

On Saturday the group took seven bodies away, he says -- one from the hospital which was confirmed positive, and six others who were suspected to have died of the virus.

Tun Khine and his team load the bodies into a giant coffin-like box on the back of a white pick-up truck, which bumps down the road, the volunteers riding with it in the back.

The journey ends outside a crematorium, where the body is committed to the flames, with no family members present and without the ritual that is usual in the majority-Buddhist nation.

- 'Of course we are afraid' -

"Of course we are afraid" of becoming infected, says Tun Khine.

"But our bigger fear is our people being infected and risking their lives."#photo2

The team is also struggling to find places that will take the living, he says.

Many quarantine centres stopped operating in the chaos that followed the coup, where mass protests in Yangon and other cities were met with a brutal military crackdown.

Top health officials, including the head of Myanmar's vaccination programme, have been detained by the junta.

Only around 1.75 million of the country's 54 million people have been vaccinated, according to state media.#photo3

At the end of the shift, Tun Khine and his team hose each other down with disinfectant, and prepare for another day of transporting patients and bodies.

But they vow to continue.

"More people are going to die if we stop working because we are afraid," he says.

© 2021 AFP

Sean Penn: Trump 'machine-gunned the vulnerable' during Covid


Issued on: 11/07/2021 - 

Sean Penn and daughter Dylan Penn, co-stars in 'Flag Day' which received a standing ovation at its premiere in Cannes on Saturday. Valery HACHE AFP


Cannes (France) (AFP)

Actor-director Sean Penn, who mobilised a huge network to help with the Covid crisis in the US, made it clear on Sunday that he does not miss the Trump administration.

At the Cannes film festival to present his new film "Flag Day", Penn responded to a question about the pandemic response in the United States in typically forthright style.

"When my team and I would come home from test and vaccination sites at night... watching the maddening news, it really felt like there was someone with a machine gun, gunning down communities that were the most vulnerable from a turret at the White House," Penn said of former president Donald Trump's administration.


"We were, not only as a country but as a world, let down and ultimately neglected, misinformed, had truth and reason assaulted, under what was in all terms, an obscene administration, humanly and politically," he added.

Penn, who has a history of highly energetic aid work from Haiti to Hurricane Katrina, used his non-profit group to set up his country's biggest Covid-19 testing site in Los Angeles in the early months of the pandemic.

His group, CORE Response, later set up vaccination sites in LA and Chicago, along with food distribution for affected communities.

Penn plays a very different role in his new film, which he also directed, as a deadbeat father constantly disappointing his daughter, played by his real-life off-spring, Dylan Penn.

He admitted he was reluctant to both act and direct, but was finally won over by Matt Damon.

"The last effort I made to not play it was when I sent the script... to Matt Damon who was generous enough to give it a quick read and call me, not to say that he can do it, not to say he can't do it, but to say that I was a stupid schmuck not to do it and take this opportunity to act with my daughter," Penn told reporters.

Dylan, Penn's child with ex-wife Robin Wright, said their relationship was nothing like the distant one in the film, despite her father's busy acting schedule.

"My parents were extremely present throughout my childhood. The fact that they took us out of Los Angeles where the industry is the focal point was an amazing decision in leading us to a normal upbringing," she said.

Her father said that, if anything, they had the opposite problem.

"While there were periods of time when I was away... once you get done with a job, you're the only parent who's there 24/7 -- that's when the kids get upset, when you're there all the time!" he said, laughing.

"Seems like they still like me OK, though."

"Flag Day" is among 24 films competing for the top Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes festival, which runs until Saturday.

© 2021 AFP

‘Openly neglected by an obscene administration’: Sean Penn criticises Trump’s handling of pandemic

Premiering new film Flag Day in Cannes, director and actor likens former president’s approach to ‘someone with a machine gunning down communities that were most vulnerable’

00:35

Sean Penn criticises Donald Trump's handling of coronavirus pandemic – video

Catherine Shoard

@catherineshoard

Sun 11 Jul 2021 12.49 BST

Sean Penn has criticised Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, likening the former president’s approach to someone opening fire on vulnerable communities.

Speaking at a press conference following the premiere of his new film, Flag Day, Penn said:

“We were — not only as a country, but as a world – let down and openly neglected, misinformed. We had truth and reason assaulted under what was in all terms an obscene administration.

“When my team and I would come home from test and vaccinations sites at night, particularly during testing under Trump, to maddening news — it felt like someone with a machine gun gunning down communities that were most vulnerable from a turret at the White House.”

Sean Penn and his daughter, Dylan. Photograph: Lionel Hahn/Getty Images

Penn, who wore a mask when he was not speaking, said he was optimistic about the future under the new administration.

“In the transition to the task force that President Biden put together, it was really that feeling like a sun was rising. There was no effort of integrity coming from the federal government until the Trump administration was dismissed.”

Earlier this year Penn, who has always made his contempt for Trump evident, described him as “a man who all would concede is guilty of negligent homicide on a grand scale.”

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Penn is the founder of non-profit organisation Community Organized Relief Effort, which aims to focus fundraising and relief efforts wherever they are urgently required. CORE recently devoted considerable resource to hastening testing and vaccination efforts in New York and India.

Flag Day review – Sean Penn shows he’s still got it in tale of unrepentant swindler

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Flag Day, in with Penn stars alongside real-life daughter, Dylan, and son, Hopper, as a con-man with a complicated relationship with his children, has been warmly received at the festival. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw hailed it as a return to form following the widely-ridiculed The Last Face, which premiered to boos and laughter five years ago.

“As an actor he’s still got the chops,” wrote Bradshaw, “a fierce masculine presence, a buzzard-like watchfulness always liable to break into a scornful grimace or lethal grin. His seductive address to the camera is almost unrivalled. Moreover, as a director, he knows how to bring the horsepower. And so it proves in this very watchable and well-made family drama.”

Dubai does it again: now world's deepest pool

Issued on: 11/07/2021 - 

A diver experiences Deep Dive Dubai, the deepest swimming pool in the world GIUSEPPE CACACE, GIUSEPPE CACACE AFP

Dubai (AFP)

The city of superlatives with the world's tallest tower among its many records, Dubai now has the deepest swimming pool on the planet complete with a "sunken city" for divers to explore.

Deep Dive Dubai, which opened Wednesday but initially by invitation only, prides itself as "the only diving facility in the world" where you can go down 60 metres (almost 200 feet), 15 metres deeper than any other pool, as confirmed to AFP by Guinness World Records.

It contains 14.6 million litres (3.8 million gallons) of fresh water, a volume equivalent to six Olympic-size swimming pools.#photo1

Guided down by lights and ambient music, divers can play table football and other games at the bottom as well as explore an "abandoned sunken city" or just soak up the vegetation on the way.

The pool is equipped with more than 50 cameras, for entertainment and safety purposes.#photo2

A one-hour dive costs between $135 and $410, with Deep Dive vowing that it will open to the general public soon.

The oyster-shaped structure pays tribute to the pearl-diving tradition of the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a member, explained Deep Dive Dubai's director Jarrod Jablonski, an expat from Florida in the United States.

Dubai, which from October hosts the delayed Expo 2020, reopened to tourists in July of last year and has organised one of the world's fastest vaccination campaigns against Covid-19.

© 2021 AFP

The French nationals going 'childfree' to save the planet

Issued on: 11/07/2021 - 16:12

A nurse holds a newborn at the maternity of the Diaconesses hospital in Paris, on November 17, 2020. © Martin Bureau, AFP

Text by: Bahar MAKOOI

As the global population exceeds 7.8 billion people, some French people have made the decision not to have children – a radical choice born out of a desire to help the planet and do their part to reverse global warming.

"Having a child would be totally against my principles. I’ve never wanted children and am more certain of this decision the older I get,” says Manon, 26. “I don’t see why I would impose another consumer on this world. In the Western world, we consume more than the resources available,” she adds.

Like Manon, more and more young adults are deciding not to have children for environmental reasons. Online they call themselves "childfree" or even "ginks" – short for "green inclinations, no kids" – and they staunchly defend their decision not to have children. World Population Day, which falls on July 11, serves as another reminder of the world’s ballooning population. It comes from the Day of Five Billion – July 11, 1987 – chosen by the United Nations as the approximate day on which the world population reached 5 billion.

"I have absolutely no desire to leave this planet to a child,” YouTuber Anna Bogen tells her more than 15,000 subscribers in a video on her channel. “When the planet has no resources left, I’ll be six feet under. But if I have a child, they and their children will have to live with it. I don’t want to inflict that on anybody.”

Denis Garnier, the president of Démographie Responsable (Responsible Demographics), an organisation founded in 2009 to promote a lower birth rate, says that over the past 10 years, talking about not having children has become a lot more common. “Young people are a lot more aware, thanks to the publication of studies about global warming and more public questioning about the destruction of biodiversity,” he explains.

A graphic on the organisation’s website counts in real time the number of people alive on earth. The counter steadily ticks upwards. “We’re already at 7.8 billion. It’s already too much. We should hit 8 billion by 2022 or 2023,” says Garnier.

'One less child, that’s 40 tonnes of carbon saved a year'

"Overpopulation has major environmental consequences. The calculation is simple: the more of us there are, the more CO2 we emit, and the worse climate change is,” says Jean-Loup Bertaux, a director of studies at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the author of "Demographics, climate, migration: the state of emergency". “In France, one less child represents 40 tonnes of carbon saved per year. In comparison, choosing to use an electric car only represents two tonnes saved.”

Every year, the American NGO Global Footprint Network calculates Earth Overshoot Day, the day when the earth consumes more resources than it can regenerate that year. In 2020, that threshold was reached on August 22.

Those who have chosen to be childfree express anxiety about the future in online videos and comments, but also show a certain kind of defiance towards the previous generation. “I have never known an adult without children. For me, having kids was something mandatory, like getting up to go to school in the morning […] But we have to ask, what kind of world are we leaving to our kids? I don’t know if I want to leave them a world like this,” admits Clémence, a 27-year-old YouTuber.

'We’re lucky to be able to control pregnancy'

Manon finds the topic is difficult to raise with her parents, even if she was raised in a family where they were taught to “look after the planet”. “When we talk about it, they don’t really understand. For them, having a job, getting married, having kids is all part of the point of life. My position is beyond comprehension for them so we just avoid the subject.”

Her position is even harder for them to accept because she’s a woman, Manon says. “‘You’ll change your mind, you’re still young’, ‘You’ll see when you get a maternal instinct’… I don’t know if men receive the same comments as I do,” Manon says. “We’re lucky to be able to control pregnancy in France. That's not the case for women everywhere in the world. For some women, having a child or not isn’t a choice.”

This article was translated from the original in French.

Kabul urges Europe to halt forced deportations of Afghans

Issued on: 11/07/2021

There were almost 2.5 million registered refugees from Afghanistan in 2018 -- the second-largest refugee population in the world Ozan KOSE AFP/File

Kabul (AFP)

Afghanistan has urged European countries to halt forced deportations of Afghan migrants for the next three months, as security forces battle a wave of violence triggered by a dizzying Taliban offensive.

The United Nations said on Sunday the rising conflict is also causing "more suffering" across the violence-wracked country as it urged for continuous financial aid.

Afghanistan is facing a crisis as the insurgents snap up territory across the countryside, stretching government forces and leading to a fresh wave of internally displaced families, complicated by a renewed outbreak of Covid-19.

"The escalation of violence by the Taliban terrorist group in the country and the spread of the third wave of (Covid-19) have caused a great deal of economic and social unrest, creating concerns and challenges for the people," Afghanistan's refugees and repatriation ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

"The government's decision emphasises that host countries should refrain from forcibly deporting Afghan refugees... for the next three months," the ministry said, adding that the return of Afghans from Europe was worrying.

There were almost 2.5 million registered refugees from Afghanistan in 2018 -- the second-largest refugee population in the world, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

The vast majority are in neighbouring Pakistan, followed by Iran, and Europe.

While more than 570 Afghan refugees voluntarily returned to the country between January and March this year, aided by the UN, just six came from outside Pakistan and Iran, according to data from the UN's refugee agency.

- War causing more suffering -

Afghans make up a sizeable share of EU asylum seekers, with 44,190 first-time applications last year, out of a total of 416,600, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi last month said Europe should brace for a fresh inflow of migrants from Afghanistan after foreign forces leave the country.

This year, several EU countries agreed to offer asylum to Afghans who worked with foreign troops and are at risk of retaliatory attacks from the Taliban.

Afghanistan recorded more than 1,000 cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, the health ministry said.

Almost 135,000 cases and more than 5,700 deaths have been reported since the pandemic began, with the country reliant on donations from the international community to vaccinate its population.

Ramiz Alakbarov, the United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, said the country was also facing increased difficulties with the growing conflict since the Taliban launched their dizzying offensive.#photo1

"Pre-existing humanitarian needs are further exacerbated," he told reporters, adding that at least half of the country's 33.5 million people needed humanitarian assistance.

The "escalation of military activities and escalation of conflict and war is causing more suffering" apart from drought and Covid concerns, Alakbarov said.

He said that so far this year 25 humanitarian aid workers were killed while delivering relief items to the needy.

He called for continued financial support to meet Afghanistan's humanitarian assistance, adding that $450 million had come so far as global donations following an appeal of $1.3 billion made for 2021.

"The needs are so much greater, and continued assistance is needed," Alakbarov said.

© 2021 AFP