CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; GREENWASHING

Delta Air Lines faces lawsuit over $1bn carbon neutrality claim

The case argues that there is a market premium for green products and that Delta has profited from a misleading environmental claim. Photograph: Jetlinerimages/Getty Images

US airline pledged to go carbon neutral but plaintiffs say it is relying on offsets that do almost nothing to mitigate global heating


Patrick Greenfield

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023

Delta Air Lines is facing a lawsuit over its $1bn carbon neutrality claim which plaintiffs say is “false and misleading” as it relies on offsets that do little to mitigate global heating.

In February 2020, the US airline announced plans to go carbon neutral, pledging $1bn to mitigate all greenhouse gas emissions from its business worldwide over the next decade. It included plans to purchase carbon credits generated from conserving rainforest, wetlands and grasslands along with decreasing the use of jet fuel and increasing plane efficiency.


The new legal action, filed in California on Tuesday, targets Delta’s statement that it is “the world’s first carbon-neutral airline”, a claim it has made in adverts, LinkedIn posts, in-flight napkins and comments by company executives, according to the lawsuit.


The class-action lawsuit says Delta’s carbon neutrality claim is demonstrably false as it heavily relies on junk offsets that do nothing to counteract the climate crisis. It alleges that customers would have purchased Delta tickets believing they had no impact on the environment and many would not have bought them without the carbon neutrality claim.

A Delta spokesperson said: “This lawsuit is without legal merit. Delta is a vigorous advocate for more sustainable aviation, adopting industry-leading climate goals as we work towards achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Delta committed to carbon neutrality in March 2020, and since 31 March 2022, has fully transitioned its focus away from carbon offsets toward decarbonisation of our operations, focusing our efforts on investing in sustainable aviation fuel, renewing our fleet for more fuel-efficient aircraft and implementing operational efficiencies.”

“The language carbon neutral is so provocative,” says Krikor Kouyoumdjian, a partner with the legal firm Haderlein and Kouyoumdjian LLP which is bringing the case. “When companies say: ‘Don’t worry about our emissions, they’re sorted,’ they are communicating complacency. They are letting consumers pay to feel better and not have to worry about the impact of their consumption. But that is counterfactual to reality. It is not something that you can pay away.

“When I hear ‘carbon neutral’, I think you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re not hurting the environment in any way. It’s like you don’t exist. That’s what the words mean to any rational person: that we can participate in your business without any guilt. Most of us who care about the environment walk around with this giant cloud of guilt that our very existence hurts the environment in a bunch of ways.”

The case argues that there is a market premium for green products and that Delta has profited from a misleading environmental claim. It cites scientific and journalistic evidence that there are deep flaws with carbon credits from the unregulated voluntary market that Delta has purchased for its environmental claims.

In January, a nine-month investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and the investigative group SourceMaterial found Verra rainforest credits used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations were largely worthless, often based on stopping the destruction of rainforests that were not threatened, according to independent studies. The lawsuit against Delta mentions the investigation. Verra strongly disputed the findings.

Haderlein and Kouyoumdjian said they wanted the company to drop the carbon neutrality claim and explain the full scale of the pollution that their business causes.


“The voluntary carbon offset market cannot meaningfully guarantee carbon neutrality from a company in the way it’s currently being operated. The market is replete with severe methodological errors that appear both intentional and unintentional. In our opinion, it’s frankly reckless to predicate a company’s ESG strategy on climate change on the basis of the purchase of these offsets,” says attorney Jonathan Haderlein.


‘Worthless’: Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says

“This is more than a climate change case. This is also a business case. People are paying more for these greener products. If a company like Delta is raking that premium in by claiming they do it first and then doing a huge advertising blitz to try to get people flying again, we think that’s unfair to other companies that are buying higher-quality offsets or doing far better sustainability. And frankly, unfair to consumers.”

At the time Delta launched its plans to go carbon neutral in 2020, its chief executive, Ed Bastian, said: “There’s no challenge we face that is in greater need of innovation than environmental sustainability, and we know there is no single solution. We are digging deep into the issues, examining every corner of our business, engaging experts, building coalitions, fostering partnerships and driving innovation.”

The new lawsuit comes amid a wider regulatory crackdown on green claims in the UK and Europe. In New York, Evian is being sued over its carbon neutrality claim which relies on offsets. Danone, who own the water brand, has argued it should be thrown out and say the case “defies science and common sense”.

A judge will now decide whether or not to progress the case.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features

Climate change to blame for up to 17 deaths on Mount Everest, experts say

Nepal’s head of tourism says variable weather on the mountain has led to one of the deadliest years on record

Hannah Ellis-Petersen 

South Asia correspondent

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023 

Experts say this is likely to be one of the deadliest years on record on Mount Everest, with variable weather caused by climate change being blamed as one of the main reasons for the deaths of up to 17 people.

A total of 12 people have now been confirmed dead during Everest expeditions this season and another five are missing, presumed dead, as no contact has been made for at least five days in all cases, according to the Himalayan Database, which tracks mountain fatalities.

The figure was confirmed by Yuba Raj Khatiwada, the director of Nepal’s tourism department. “Altogether this year we lost 17 people on the mountain this season,” he said. “The main cause is the changing in the weather. This season the weather conditions were not favourable, it was very variable. Climate change is having a big impact in the mountains.”

It would make this year one of the worst on record for deaths on Everest, matched only by the events of 2014 when 17 died, most of whom were local sherpas killed in an avalanche. On average, between five and 10 people die on Everest every year but recent years have seen a spike.

Among those who lost their lives climbing Everest this year were Jason Kennison, a 40-year-old mechanic from Australia who had overcome spinal injuries to climb to the top but could not make it back down, a Canadian doctor, Pieter Swart, and three Nepalese sherpas who died in an avalanche in April.

Those still missing include solo Hungarian climber Suhajda Szilárd, who scaled the mountain without a sherpa guide or additional oxygen, and an Indian-Singaporean climber who is feared to have fallen off the mountain.

This year has been more deadly than 2019, when images went viral of overcrowding and “carnage” on Everest, with hundreds of climbers waiting up to 12 hours to scale the mountain and reports that people were forced to clamber over bodies and incapacitated climbers. A total of 11 people died that year.


What’s the weather like near the summit of Mount Everest?

The Nepal government has been criticised for issuing 479 permits this year, the highest number ever. At £12,000 each, they are a major income generator for the small cash-strapped country, and the government has been reluctant to scale back numbers.


Khatiwada denied it was too many, saying the number was high this year because the window for climbing had opened earlier and the season had been longer than usual, so that there was no overcrowding.

The rising death toll comes as the 70th anniversary of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s historic first ascent to the peak of Everest was celebrated on Monday. It marked the start of a global obsession among mountaineers to scale the world’s highest peak, with over 10,000 ascents since and demand for climbing permits increasing every year.

Ang Norbu Sherpa, the president of the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, said “too many” permits were being issued and it was putting environmental pressure on the mountain.

“The climbing has pattern has changed, it used to be hardened climbers but now it is a lot of novice climbers who want to get to the summit of Everest,” said Sherpa.

Experts and celebrated mountaineers have warned that Everest, which tops 8,848 metres, is now seen as a “tourist destination” and a playground for the thrill-seeking rich, even those with little experience of climbing at high altitude, who are willing to pay upwards of £48,000 to be guided to the summit.


Alan Arnette, a mountaineer who climbed Everest in 2011 and now writes regularly on conditions, said this year had been “chaos”. “The root cause of the high number of deaths lies with inexperienced clients who push themselves too hard and do not turn back soon enough,” he said.

“Many guide companies have no experience requirements and accept anyone, telling them ‘We will teach you everything you need to know.’ But when the client gets in trouble, they can be abandoned to save the lives of the support staff. We saw several clients abandoned this season, left alone on the upper mountain, with some still missing today.”


Microplastic pollution found near summit of Mount Everest

There had also been concerns that the increased human activity at Everest base camp, which is located on the Khumbu glacier, is making it unstable and unsafe, exacerbating dangerous conditions already created by global warming. According to a recent survey, Everest’s glaciers have lost 2,000 years of ice in just the past 30 years.

In order to cater to the demands of upwards of 400 climbers annually, about 1,500 people will come to base camp during the season, where luxury facilities can include massages and evening entertainment. Helicopters are also now a common way to reach base camp.

A plan was put forward last year by Nepal officials to move the base camp to a spot lower down the mountain, off the thinning glacier. Khatiwada confirmed that a plan was under way to change the rules so no trekkers could spend the night at base camp, and instead would have to stay lower down.

However, this plan has faced resistance by the sherpa community, who voiced concern that it would add three hours to the Everest climb and could potentially make it more dangerous. Sherpa said there were plans to learn how to better manage the base camp, rather than moving it. “It is a big question mark for local people where it could be moved to,” he said.

The high number of climbers is also escalating the problem of the massive amount of rubbish left strewn on Everest. Though the situation has improved slightly since the introduction of a £3,200 “garbage deposit”, which is only returned if they bring back 8kg of rubbish, local guides say the mountain is still littered with rubbish, particularly plastic, at the end of every season.

NOT JUST EVEREST

German mountaineer Luis Stitzinger found dead near Himalayan peak

Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas has the third highest peak in the world. Photograph: Dinodia Photos/Alamy

Body found on Mount Kanchenjunga five days after he went missing shortly after reaching summit


Philip Oltermann in Berlin
THE GUARDIAN

Wed 31 May 2023 

A leading German mountaineer and extreme skier has been found dead on the world’s third highest mountain, in the Himalayas, five days after going missing.

The body of Luis Stitzinger was discovered on Tuesday on Mount Kanchenjunga at a height of 8,400 metres, the head Sherpa of the company that organised the climb to find him told the Himalayan Times.

Stitzinger, 54, who made a name for himself in the mountain sports scene through spectacular skiing descents, had climbed Kanchenjunga without supplemental oxygen or assistance from local guides.

He started his push for the summit at 6pm last Wednesday from a camp at a height of about 7,600 metres, and reached the peak at 5pm the following day. He last communicated via radio at 9pm later that day.

Stitzinger had planned to return to the camp on skis but never arrived at the site and could not be located via GPS. Due to extreme weather conditions at the summit, a rescue team did not set off until four days later.

According to his website, the Bavarian had previously scaled seven of the 14 “eight-thousanders” – mountains taller than 8,000 metres – recognised by the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation. He finished each of these expeditions by skiing down long and steep slopes in treacherous terrain.

Peers described Stitzinger as a prudent and seasoned mountaineer whose experience also made him a sought-after guide. In 2022, he accompanied 68-year-old Graham Keene on an expedition that made Keene the oldest Briton to scale Mount Everest.

Stitzinger carried out several of his expeditions with his wife, Alix von Melle, who leads the list of female German alpinists to scale eight-thousanders, with seven such summits. In 2015, the pair published a book about their joint passion for mountaineering.

“I don’t go up a mountain because I want to break a record”, Stitzinger told Die Welt in 2007. “To me it is about the experience of nature and physicality. That is even more intense when the body is revved up.”

SCI FI TEK

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE (CCS)

Rock ‘flour’ from Greenland can capture significant CO2, study shows

Powder produced by ice sheets could be used to help tackle climate crisis when spread on farm fields

Eight-thousand-year-old marine deposits, exposed by the slow rise of Greenland after the last ice age. The cliffs are about 15 metres high. Photograph: Minik Rosing

Damian Carrington 

Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023

Rock “flour” produced by the grinding under Greenland’s glaciers can trap climate-heating carbon dioxide when spread on farm fields, research has shown for the first time.

Natural chemical reactions break down the rock powder and lead to CO2 from the air being fixed in new carbonate minerals. Scientists believe measures to speed up the process, called enhanced rock weathering (ERW), have global potential and could remove billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, helping to prevent extreme global heating.

Soil fertility naturally depends on rock weathering to provide essential nutrients, so enhancing the process delivers an extra benefit. Spreading the Greenland rock flour on fields in Denmark, including those growing barley for the Carlsberg brewery, significantly increased yields.

Greenland’s giant ice sheet produces 1bn tonnes a year of rock flour, which flows as mud from under the glaciers. This means the potential supply of rock flour is essentially unlimited, the researchers said, and removing some would have very little effect on the local environment.Graphic showing the rock weathering process

The weathering process is relatively slow, taking decades to complete, but the researchers said ERW could make a meaningful difference in meeting the key target of net zero emissions by 2050. Phasing out the burning of fossil fuels remains the most critical climate action, but most scientists agree that ways of removing CO2 from the atmosphere will also be needed to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis.

“If you want something to have a global impact, it has to be very simple,” said Prof Minik Rosing at the University of Copenhagen, who was part of the research team. “You can’t have very sophisticated things with all kinds of hi-tech components. So the simpler the better, and nothing is simpler than mud.”

He added: “Above all this is a scalable solution. Rock flour has been piling up in Greenland for the past 8,000 years or so. The whole Earth’s agricultural areas could be covered with this, if you wished.”

Other researchers are investigating the use of mechanically ground rock for ERW. “But unlike other sources, glacial rock flour does not need any processing,” said Dr Christiana Dietzen, also at the University of Copenhagen. The rock flour weathers extremely slowly in the cold conditions in Greenland, but the process speeds up when it is spread in warmer places.

The research on the CO2 uptake of Greenland rock flour, published in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, estimated that 250kg of CO2 can be trapped per tonne of rock flour. After three years in soil in Denmark, the researchers found about 8% of this had been achieved. The scientists also calculated that 27m tonnes of CO2 could be captured if all farmland in Denmark was spread with the rock flour, an amount similar to the country’s total annual CO2 emissions.

Raised seabeds with some vegetation and active tidal delta mud deposits in Ilulialik, Nuuk fjord, west Greenland.

 Photograph: Minik Rosing

Another study by the same team, published in the journal Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, showed increases in yields of maize and potatoes of 24% and 19% respectively after rock flour was spread in Denmark. Dietzen hopes the first commercial applications will be spread within three years.

The team is also running experiments in less fertile soils, in Ghana, where even greater increases in maize yield have been seen. “In environments like Ghana, the fertiliser benefit alone may be enough reason to import glacial rock flour,” Dietzen said, though the impact of transporting the rock flour long distances from Greenland would have to be weighed up.

Other ERW research has used mechanically ground basalt and a 2020 study estimated that treating about half of global farmland with this could capture 2bn tonnes of CO2 each year, equivalent to the combined emissions of Germany and Japan.

Prof David Beerling at the University of Sheffield, who led the 2020 work, said basalt had significant advantages. Its chemical composition absorbs CO2 faster than glacial rock flour, may increase crop yields by more and it is widely available close to many farming areas. “We need all the weapons we can muster in the fight against climate change and my sense is that glacial rock flour could be a useful one,” he said. “But it is not a gamechanger.”

However, the rock flour is much finer than the ground basalt and so exposes more surface area to weathering. The advantages and disadvantages of both types of rock dust are still being studied. The Danish group is planning trials in Australia and assessing the energy requirements of shipping. Beerling’s team expects to publish results of yield gains in corn following basalt application in the US in the near future. “I don’t think it has to be one or the other. I think there’s probably room for both,” said Rosing.

Other proposed ways of pulling CO2 from the atmosphere include using technology to capture it directly from the air, or growing energy crops, burning them to produce electricity and then burying the CO2 emissions. The 2020 study suggested ERW would be less expensive than either and, unlike energy crops, does not compete with food for land.

Greenland is usually in the news because of the huge and accelerating melting of its ice cap, which is driving up sea level. Rosing, who is originally from Greenland, said: “It would be much nicer for the nation to be part of the [climate] solution, rather than just a symptom of the problem.”

Cop28 president’s team accused of Wikipedia ‘greenwashing’

WANTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Sultan Al Jaber, the Cop28 president, is the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. 

Photograph: Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images

Exclusive: UAE using site to ‘control narrative’ amid criticism of oil boss leading climate summit, say critics

Ben Stockton

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023

The Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, has been accused of attempting to “greenwash” his image after it emerged that members of his team had edited Wikipedia pages that highlighted his role as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

Work by Al Jaber’s team on his and the climate summit’s Wikipedia entries include adding a quote from an editorial that said Al Jaber – the United Arab Emirates minister for industry and advanced technology – was “precisely the kind of ally the climate movement needs”. They also suggested that editors remove reference to a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline deal he signed in 2019, the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian can reveal.

“Oil companies and their CEOs are taking greenwash to a whole new level – seizing control of global climate conferences, then getting their own employees to airbrush out criticism of their blatant hypocrisy on Wikipedia,” said Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP.

The UAE government, which controls about 6% of the world’s oil reserves, has been criticised for appointing a fossil fuel boss as head of Cop28, which will be held in Dubai in November. Last week, 130 US and EU lawmakers called on Al Jaber to be removed from his post as the summit’s president.

Meanwhile, Al Jaber has been working with major consultancy firms and PR agencies to promote his work as an advocate for Emirati investment in green energy. His appointment as Cop28 president was welcomed by the likes of John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, and other key figures in international climate diplomacy.

Pointing to Al Jaber’s work on climate issues over the past decade, a spokesperson for Cop28 said: “We will continue to ensure that all publicly available sources of information about the presidency and its leadership remain factually accurate and up to date.”

Al Jaber’s role as both CEO of Adnoc and Cop28 president is at the centre of the controversy. The company is forging a major expansion of the UAE’s fossil fuel output despite the International Energy Agency having said there must be no new oil and gas projects if the world is to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. A series of edits to Al Jaber’s Wikipedia page since March last year reveal the extent to which his team has tried to control public perception of his record in the fossil fuel industry.

A Wikipedia user, whose identity is unknown but who disclosed they were being paid by Adnoc, suggested editors remove the reference to a $4bn agreement Al Jaber signed in 2019 with US investment giants BlackRock and KKR for the development of oil pipeline infrastructure. The user said there was “too much detail” and suggested the page say that Al Jaber had simply attracted “international investment” in Adnoc.

The user also recommended that editors delete a quote from the Financial Times which highlighted the dissonance between Al Jaber’s role as the UAE’s climate tsar and his driving of Adnoc’s fossil fuel expansion. Instead, they suggested that the page note the company was using the revenues from this increased oil output to “invest in carbon capture and green fuel technologies”.

In this case, only some of the changes they suggested were actually added to Al Jaber’s Wikipedia page.

“Well sourced material that includes pertinent information (even if it’s a little more detail than ideally the company would like to see shared in an article) would always be retained,” an editor told the user.

A spokesperson for Adnoc said: “We are very proud of Dr Sultan’s achievements as a global energy leader and regularly review content to ensure accuracy. Update requests were submitted to Wikipedia in the spring and summer of 2022, which were fully transparent and compliant as per Wikipedia’s guidelines.”

More recently, a member of the Cop28 team has been directly editing Wikipedia articles, despite having been “strongly discouraged” from doing so.

In February, a user going by the alias Junktuner made a number of edits to the climate summit’s Wikipedia page. The Cop28 team confirmed that its head of marketing, Ramzi Haddad, who uses the same handle on Twitter, owns the Junktuner account. Haddad only disclosed his ties to Al Jaber after being questioned by another user.

The US senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who led last week for Al Jaber to be replaced as the summit’s president, said: “It’s not surprising that Cop28 is trying to burnish Al Jaber’s green credentials, but the fact remains that as an oil executive he is also overseeing a lot of damage to the planet.”

Whitehouse called on the UN, which oversees the Cop process, to “rethink how to run these very important forums” to avoid undue influence by the fossil fuel industry.

The climate summit’s Wikipedia page includes a quote from Amnesty International saying: “[Sultan Al Jaber] cannot be an honest broker for climate talks when the company he leads is planning to cause more climate damage.” Beneath it, Haddad added a quote from a Bloomberg editorial which stated that “Al Jaber is precisely the kind of ally the climate movement needs”. He has also added links to Al Jaber’s website and social media accounts.

The administrator wrote to Haddad: “The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic.

“Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing.”

Despite later disclosing his conflict of interest and saying he would “refrain from further edits”, Haddad has continued to make minor changes to Wikipedia pages.

It has also come to light that Haddad made a series of edits anonymously – where only an IP address is visible – before he was “aware of the proper conflict of interest procedures”. Haddad revealed the information in response to more questions from the Wikipedia administrator after the Centre for Climate Reporting contacted the administrator.

Haddad also promoted Al Jaber’s green credentials anonymously. He added to Al Jaber’s Wikipedia page that he was “the first CEO to ever serve as Cop president, having played a key role in shaping the country’s clean energy pathway”.

A Cop28 spokesperson said: “Cop28 has and will continue to ensure online descriptions of the Cop28 presidency are accurate across all online platforms, including Wikipedia.” They added that the changes were “all evidence based”.

Edits have also been made by a user being paid by Masdar, the UAE government-owned clean energy company of which Al Jaber was formerly CEO and is now chairman of the board. They worked to make Al Jaber’s role at Masdar more prominent on his page the day after the Guardian revealed his appointment as Cop28 president in January. They added that Al Jaber’s “goal is to expand Masdar’s clean energy capacity to 100GW by 2030, making it the second largest renewable investor in the world”. Masdar did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Marwa Fatafta, who leads work in the Middle East by the digital rights group Access Now, said the “alarming” revelations were part of broader attempts by the UAE to “control the narrative” and “polish up the image of Al Jaber”.

“Once he was appointed, there was pushback,” she said. “And I think these criticisms will be amplified further and further as we get closer to Cop28, so I see it as a preemptive step to try and control and shape the narrative as much as they can.”

France opens first electric vehicle battery gigafactory

The electric car battery production line inside ACC’s gigafactory during its inauguration. Photograph: Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

Plant expected to create 2,000 jobs as France aims to be self-sufficient in vehicle battery production by 2027

Kim Willsher in Paris

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023 

France’s first electric car battery plant has opened in the country’s former mining heartland as part of Emmanuel Macron’s “reindustrialisation” plan.

Three government ministers and numerous local officials attended the inauguration of the Automative Cell Company’s (ACC) gigafactory near Lens, seen as the first step towards France challenging China’s dominance in the sector.

ACC, which is equally owned by TotalEnergies, Jeep maker Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz, has received a €1.3bn package of state aid from France, Germany and Italy as part of a €7bn plan to build a string of new facilities across the countries.


‘We’re going all in’: how France raced ahead of UK on electric car batteries

The Lens plant, which will begin production this summer, is expected to eventually create 2,000 jobs – including 400 this year – and produce 800,000 batteries a year. It is the first of three such plants, with sites in Germany and Italy to follow.

The area of northern France, less than 40 miles from the British coast, that has been hit by industrial decline, has been named ‘Battery Valley’. Earlier this month the Taiwanese battery maker ProLogium chose Dunkirk in the same region for its first foreign facility.

Macron hopes to create thousands of jobs by encouraging companies to invest in new factories.

Battery Valley has the enthusiastic support of the French president who this month unveiled a raft of green measures and tax credits – including electric vehicle (EV) subsidies – aimed at attracting billions of euros in new investment to “reindustrialise” France, create jobs and increase manufacturing from 10% of the country’s economic output to 15%.

By contrast, Britain has been warned it is losing the electric vehicle battery race. Earlier this month, three major vehicle makers called on the UK government to renegotiate the Brexit deal saying elements threaten the future of the country’s automotive industry.

Ford, Jaguar Land Rover and Stellantis, which also owns the Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroën brands, warned the transition to EVs will be derailed unless the UK and EU delay stricter “rules of origin”, due to kick in next year, that could add tariffs on car exports.

Separately, startup Britishvolt collapsed earlier this year. It had hoped to build a gigafactory at Blyth in Northumberland.

But, in a fillip for the UK’s battery industry, the BBC reported last week that the Tata group, which owns Jaguar Land Rover, has lined up a possible deal to site a car battery plant in Somerset, picking Britain over Spain.

France aims to be self-sufficient in vehicle battery production by 2027. Experts say the challenge could be hampered by China’s domination of extraction and production of nickel, cobalt and manganese elements essential for lithium-ion batteries.

The EU will ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2035.

Local mayor, Jean Michel Dupont, said the ACC factory, the first of several planned in the region, was good news for the high unemployment area.

“There’s the tax revenue paid back to the area, but above all, it’s the attractiveness of our regions, because instead of having a wasteland, we have a fine company coming to set up here,” Dupont said.

French union representatives were less enthusiastic, pointing out that any employment gains are expected to be offset by the loss of jobs at a nearby factory making petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicle engines due to close by 2025, expected to put 1,200 people out of work.

Spain’s centre-right Citizens party says it will not run in general election


Decision follows poor performance in Sunday’s regional and municipal elections


Sam Jones in Madrid
THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023 

Spain’s centre-right Citizens party, once seen as a potential kingmaker, has announced it will not run in July’s snap general election after an abysmal performance in Sunday’s regional and municipal elections, ceding its space to the triumphant conservative People’s party (PP).

Citizens attracted just 1.35% of the vote and lost its seats in 12 regional parliaments on Sunday, suggesting that the party is in its death throes. Its decline began in 2018 when it refused to back the socialists’ successful vote of no confidence in the corruption-mired PP government of Mariano Rajoy, and was exacerbated by its decision to abandon the centre ground and shift to the right.

“The message from Sunday’s regional and municipal elections has been very clear,” the party’s general secretary, Adrián Vázquez Lázara, told a press conference on Tuesday. “We have concluded that as things stand today, the Spanish people do not see us as a transformative political alternative for our country. That’s not good news for us and it’s not good news for the thousands of liberals in Spain and in Europe.”

For that reason, he added, the national committee had decided the party would not run in the next general election and would instead prepare itself “for the new political scenario”.

The party’s absence will serve to further strengthen the PP, which gobbled up Citizens’ votes on Sunday as it won an emphatic victory that prompted Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to call a general election five months ahead of schedule.

The PP far exceeded expectations, securing an absolute majority in the Madrid region and taking six other regions that had been run by the Socialists. Sánchez’s junior coalition partner in the far left, the anti-austerity Podemos party – who, like Citizens, once offered an alternative to the political duopoly of the Socialists and the PP – took huge losses in the elections and is currently negotiating with the new, leftwing Sumar alliance in an effort to bring together the fractured Spanish left.

Earlier on Tuesday, the PP’s leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, welcomed preliminary reports of Citizens’ decision not to run on 23 July. “In my opinion, it would be a mature and responsible thing to do – and, in the name of the Spain that is hoping for a change, I’d like to recognise that,” he said. “They have recognised Sunday’s message, which was that we can’t let even a few votes go to waste and not translate them into seats.”

Feijóo’s party succeeded in turning the regional and municipal elections into a referendum on Sánchez’s style of government, which it calls “Sanchismo” and depicts as cynical, weak, overly dependent on Basque and Catalan nationalists, and fixated on remaining in office.

Its campaign was helped by Podemos’s bungled sexual offences reforms – which have allowed more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders to have their sentences cut and more than 100 to win early release – and by the spectre of the defunct Basque terror group Eta.

The PP quickly, noisily and successfully attacked the decision of the pro-independence Basque party EH Bildu – on whom Sánchez’s minority government relies for support in congress – to field 44 convicted Eta members, including seven people found guilty of violent crimes, as candidates.

However, despite Feijóo’s buoyant tone and his glee at the prospect of ending Sanchismo five months earlier than planned, the PP will still need to rely on the support of the far-right Vox party to form new regional governments in many of the areas where it triumphed on Sunday

Although the PP already runs the Castilla y León region in coalition with Vox, the party knows that its claims to represent the political centre could be seriously undermined by more deals with the far right. It will instead be hoping to secure Vox’s abstention in regional investiture votes rather than risk any more governing alliances in the coming weeks. But the party’s refusal to explicitly rule out any deals with Vox – either regionally or nationally – could come at a price.

Sánchez, a politician with a long history of high-stakes gambles, is hoping that his decision to call the snap election will unite and galvanise the Spanish left in the face of any possible union between the conservatives and the far right.

Among those congratulating Vox on its strong showing on Sunday were Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, and Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who expressed his delighted at what he called the party’s “rightwing reconquest” at the polls.

Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, thanked Orbán for his support and said: “There are many threats to freedom and sovereignty across all of Europe, but we’ll defeat them by working together.”
Topics

Tunisia was the hope of the Arab spring. Now my father could face the death penalty for his words

The leader of the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha, Rached Ghannouchi, was arrested in April. Photograph: Hassene Dridi/AP

The president, Kais Saied, has turned our country into a dictatorship, while Europe looks the other way

Soumaya Ghannoushi

THE GUARDIAN

OPINION 
Tue 30 May 2023 

“Historic” – that is how Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, described his meeting with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad on the eve of the Arab League summit in Jeddah earlier this month. Snaps of him standing alongside al-Assad and Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi during the summit were widely shared around the region, signalling Tunisia’s return to the grand old club of Arab dictatorships.

For all their internecine conflicts and rivalries, hidden and visible, Arab leaders are again united around one sacred goal: aborting their people’s aspirations for change. Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali may no longer be on the stage, but their spirit lives on in a new generation.

But let us focus on Tunisia – once seen as the last democratic hope of the Arab world. Since the era of the Arab spring, which in Tunisia saw Ben Ali deposed, the country has resisted the dark fates of its sisters such as Egypt, Yemen, Libya or Syria. Democratisation seemed to be in train. But no longer – as the experience of my 81-year-old father, Rached Ghannouchi, attests.

My father, the leader of the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha and the former elected speaker of Tunisia’s parliament, was arrested in April, as the family prepared to break its fast at the end of Ramadan. About 100 security officers raided our home. My sister says my father was taken to a military barrack, where he spent almost 48 hours, waiting to be allowed access to his lawyers, before he was charged with “conspiring against state security”.

The reason – I should say, pretext – are the following comments he made: “There is a paralysis, intellectual and ideological, which, in reality, lays the ground for civil war. Because imagining Tunisia without this or that side, Tunisia without Ennahdha, Tunisia without political Islam, without the Left, without any of its components, is a civil war project. It is a crime. That is why those who welcomed this coup with celebrations cannot be democrats.”

The ludicrous charge against him carries the possibility of the death penalty.

How did we get here? In the years after the revolution, Tunisia managed to adopt a consensual progressive constitution and lay down the foundations for local governance. It was on the verge of completing its democratic transition, ready to focus on confronting its mighty socioeconomic challenges, having devoted much of its energy to political rebuilding.

Then it was dismantled from within. Kais Saied, a relatively unknown assistant university lecturer, was in 2019 voted president, using pro-revolutionary and ultra-conservative rhetoric. But as soon as he set foot in the presidential Carthage palace, he pulled up the democratic ladder upon which he had climbed to power. In 2021, he barricaded parliament with military vehicles and started running the country through presidential decrees, before dissolving the legislature in 2022. He moved to overthrow the constitution, writing his own instead, which was passed after a referendum with a 30% turnout, giving him immense power over his subjects’ bodies and souls.

After his de facto coup, Saied directed his firepower at two targets: judges and the security services. He dissolved the independent Supreme Judicial Council, appointing his own, and dismissed 57 judges by a single presidential decree, accusing them of corruption.

Saied also restored Ben Ali’s old legacy in the security apparatus, reversing post-revolution reforms aimed at curbing police brutality. This is how he prepared the ground for the current crackdown against dissidents. The targets include not only political leaders of all tendencies, but civil society activists, journalists, solicitors, even people simply writing critical Facebook posts.

Opponents are called everything from “enemies” to “cancer cells”. The list grows by the day, from “agents of foreign powers” to vulnerable African migrants accused of being part of a conspiracy to change the country’s demography, echoing the far-right “great replacement” theory.

Tunisia has turned from a fragile democracy into a country resembling a full-fledged dictatorship. It is a cocktail of failures, robbed of its hard-won freedoms, and thrust into a deep economic crisis. People stand in long queues every day, hoping to get bread, some sugar, flour or oil.

This all unfolds in full sight of Europe, whose major capitals look the other way, confining themselves to the odd statement of concern, which are openly mocked by Tunisia’s despot, who retorts: “I, too, am concerned by your concern!” As tanks blocked parliament, destroying Tunisia’s nascent democracy, these countries would not even call what was happening a coup.

As my father, who has dedicated his life to reconciling Islam with democracy, in word and action, finds himself behind bars today, the message to the people of the region is loud and clear: democracy is not for them, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a naive idealist. But if change through peaceful means is not attainable, what is the way out of this Arab abyss?

Soumaya Ghannoushi is a British-Tunisian writer and researcher specialising in the Middle East and north Africa

South Africa grants Putin and Brics leaders diplomatic immunity for summit

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, speaks to his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, in 2019. Photograph: Sergei Chirikov/AP

ICC warrant for Russian president’s arrest issued in March over alleged war crimes in Ukraine


Patrick Wintour 

Diplomatic editor

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023

South Africa has issued blanket diplomatic immunity to all leaders attending an August summit, meaning Vladimir Putin might be able to travel to Johannesburg and not fear the country acting on an international criminal court warrant for his arrest.

South African officials insisted the broad offer of immunity, issued in a government gazette, may not trump the ICC arrest warrant. As an ICC member, South Africa would be under pressure, and possibly under a legal requirement, to arrest Putin. The court issued a warrant for his arrest in March over the alleged forcible deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

South Africa is hosting a summit of the Brics group: Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa, in August. A two-day planning meeting of foreign ministers is due to take place this Thursday.

“This is a standard conferment of immunities that we do for all international conferences and summits held in South Africa, irrespective of the level of participation,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. “The immunities are for the conference and not for specific individuals. They are meant to protect the conference and its attendees from the jurisdiction of the host country for the duration of the conference.”

In April, South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, appointed an inter-ministerial committee headed by his deputy president, Paul Mashatile, to look into how the law applied to a visit by the Russian president. The government is looking into the wording of the Rome Statute, the charter that established the ICC, for a loophole that would enable Putin to attend without South Africa having to arrest him.

Article 98 of the ICC Rome Statute states: “The court may not proceed with a request for surrender or assistance which would require the requested State to act inconsistently with its obligations under international law with respect to the State or diplomatic immunity of a person … of a third state, unless the court can first obtain the cooperation of that third State for the waiver of the immunity.” Some say this wording provides South Africa with a chance to invite Putin and not be under any obligation to arrest him.

A similar row occurred in 2005 when the then Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir came to South Africa. He swiftly left the county as it became increasingly likely that the South African high court was about to rule that he had to be arrested.

Russia has stepped up its drive to boost ties with Africa to help offset a chill in relations with the west prompted by its invasion of Ukraine, and plans to hold an Africa-Russia summit in St Petersburg in July.

It is not clear yet if Putin would be willing to save South Africa from the diplomatic dilemma by not attending in person. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia would take part at the “proper level”. The foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is already slated to attend the planning meeting.

The Brics group of large emerging economies is increasingly seen as a rival to the G7 group of western industrialised countries.

Asked at a regular news briefing about the possibility of an arrest warrant, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said: “Of course we count as a bare minimum on partner countries in such an important format not being guided by such illegal decisions.”

South Africa has been accused of fence-sitting over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The US embassy recently claimed South Africa had sent weapons to Russia. Support for Russia inside the ruling ANC is strong due to the Soviet Union’s role in opposing colonialism.

The government notice about immunity, which was gazetted on Monday, was routine protocol to protect the conference, the foreign ministry said, adding: “These immunities do not override any warrant that may have been issued by any international tribunal against any attendee of the conference.”

ICYMI

Recovery of ancient DNA identifies 20,000-year-old pendant’s owner

An artistic interpretation of the pendant, found at the Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, which belonged to a stone age woman. Photograph: Myrthe Lucas/Reuters

Elk tooth pendant unearthed in Siberia is first prehistoric artefact to be linked to specific person using genetic sleuthing


Reuters

Wed 3 May 2023 

Scientists have used a new method for extracting ancient DNA to identify the owner of a 20,000-year-old pendant fashioned from an elk’s canine tooth.

The method can isolate DNA that was present in skin cells, sweat or other body fluids and was absorbed by certain types of porous material including bones, teeth and tusks when handled by someone thousands of years ago.

Objects used as tools or for personal adornment – pendants, necklaces, bracelets, rings and the like – can offer insight into past behaviour and culture, though our understanding has been limited by an inability to tie a particular object to a particular person.

“I find these objects made in the deep past extremely fascinating since they allow us to open a small window to travel back and have a glance into these people’s lives,” said the molecular biologist Elena Essel of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, the lead author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The researchers who found the pendant, which was determined to be 19,000-25,000 years old, used gloves and face masks when excavating and handling it, avoiding contamination with modern DNA.

It became the first prehistoric artefact linked by genetic sleuthing to a specific person: a stone age woman closely related to a population of hunter-gatherers known to have lived in a part of Siberia east of the cave site in the foothills of the Altai mountains in Russia.

It is unknown whether the woman made or merely wore the pendant.


New analysis of ancient human protein could unlock secrets of evolution

Essel said in holding such an artefact in her own gloved hands, she felt “transported back in time, imagining the human hands that had created and used it thousands of years ago”.

She added: “As I looked at the object, a flood of questions came to mind. Who was the person who made it? Was this tool passed down from one generation to the next, from a mother to a daughter or from a father to a son? That we can start addressing these questions using genetic tools is still absolutely incredible to me.”

The pendant’s maker drilled a hole in the tooth to allow for some sort of now-lost cordage. The tooth alternatively could have been part of a head band or bracelet.

Our species Homo sapiens first arose more than 300,000 years ago in Africa. The oldest-known objects used as personal adornments date to about 100,000 years ago from the continent, according to the University of Leiden’s Marie Soressi, the study’s senior archeologist.

Denisova Cave was long ago inhabited at different times by the extinct human species called Denisovans, Neanderthals and our species. The cave over the years has yielded remarkable finds, including the first-known remains of Denisovans and various tools and other artefacts.

The nondestructive research technique, used at a “clean room” laboratory in Leipzig, works much like a washing machine. In this case, an artefact is immersed in a liquid that works to release DNA from it much as a washing machine lifts dirt from a blouse.

By linking objects with particular people, the technique could shed light on prehistoric social roles and division of labour between the sexes, or clarify whether or not an object was even made by our species. Some artefacts have been found in places known to have been inhabited, for instance, by Homo sapiens and Neanderthals simultaneously.

Soressi said: “This study opens huge opportunities to better reconstruct the role of individuals in the past according to their sex and ancestry.”

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-pendant-is-20000-years-old.html

FROM THE MUSEUM STORAGE ROOM

Giant flying reptiles revealed to have soared Australia’s skies 107m years ago

Fossils discovered in Victoria 30 years ago are of pterosaurs, the earliest known vertebrates to evolve true flight

Donna Lu 

Science writer
THE GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA

Tue 30 May 2023 

The oldest flying reptiles in Australia soared in the skies around 107m years ago, researchers have confirmed after examining fossils.

Palaeontologists have analysed bone specimens belonging to two separate pterosaurs – winged reptiles that were the earliest vertebrates to evolve true flight – which were originally discovered more than 30 years ago.


Fossilised partial skeleton of new flying reptile species found in Queensland

One specimen, a small wing bone, belonged to a juvenile pterosaur – the first ever reported in Australia. The other, a partial pelvic bone, came from a pterosaur with a wingspan exceeding 2 metres. They date to 107m years ago.

The bones were first discovered in the 1980s at Dinosaur Cove near Cape Otway in southern Victoria, by a team led by the Museums Victoria Research Institute’s Dr Tom Rich and Prof Pat Vickers-Rich.

Until now, they had never been described in peer-reviewed scientific research, which has been published in the journal Historical Biology.

The study’s lead author, Adele Pentland of Curtin University, said pterosaurs are known to have existed on every continent, including Antarctica.

Though both prehistoric and reptilian, pterosaurs are distinct from flying dinosaurs.

Pentland is completing a PhD in pterosaurs and in 2019 named a new species of the reptile, Ferrodraco lentoni, which was also the most complete Australian pterosaur found to date.

Pentland was unable to determine what exact species the two Cape Otway pterosaurs specimens are. Unusually, they were found a “high paleolatitude” site.

Prof Pat Vickers-Rich and Dr Tom Rich showing the pterosaur bone specimens they discovered in the 1980s. Photograph: Museums Victoria

“Back when [these pterosaurs] were alive, Australia was part of the big southern continent Gondwana,” Pentland said. “Victoria was much farther south than it is today and was in the polar circle.

“Sedimentary geology is telling us that these animals potentially lived in darkness for weeks, if not months, throughout the year. It would be great to answer in the future … did pterosaurs tough it out in these harsh conditions, were they permanent year-round residents, or could they migrate? We don’t know.”

Four pterosaur species have been described in Australia to date, based on fossils found in central western Queensland.

“In terms of the Australian pterosaur record, we have a bit of catching up to do,” Pentland said. “The first pterosaurs were described in the 18th century, but here in Australia, the first pterosaur bones weren’t published in a scientific journal until 1980.”