It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, November 12, 2021
Goldman just figured out why the labor shortage will last for a long time: 60% of the missing workers retired, many for good
Juliana Kaplan,Madison Hoff Fri, November 12, 2021 The people who retired during the pandemic probably won't come back. MoMo Productions/Getty
Labor shortages have persisted for months on end as the economy recovers from the pandemic.
Goldman Sachs finds that 5 million people left the labor force during the pandemic.
And about 2.5 million of those people retired, and won't come back - leaving big labor holes.
Reports of labor shortages may not end anytime soon because a hefty number of retirement age workers have left the labor force - and a whole lot of them may not be coming back.
A Friday note from Goldman Sachs researchers led by Jan Hatzius finds that 3.4 million of the people who left the labor force - meaning they're not working or aren't actively looking for work - are over 55. Roughly 1.5 million of them were early retirements, and 1 million were normal retirements. Those two groups of retirements "likely won't reverse," meaning that, out of the five million workers Goldman estimates are still missing from the labor force, about half may not ever return.
That's bad news for a labor-crunched market as Wendy's closes dining rooms early, a childcare company in California is shutters because it can't hire, and cleaning companies are canceling jobs because they don't have the people to staff them. However, it could be good news for the job seekers who remain, and have been able to leverage shortages to get better wages and demand better conditions.
The pandemic ushered in an era of older workers throwing in the towel sooner
Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City found that, had retirement kept pace with its trend from 2010-2020, there would have been 1.5 million more retirees during the pandemic. But that number actually came in over three million; the number of early retirees alone accounted for predicted retirement numbers.
As Goldman notes, retiring "tends to be stickier" than other reasons someone might leave the labor force. Because of that, "we therefore expect that the participation shortfall from early retirees will unwind relatively slowly through fewer new retirements going forward."
Interestingly, the Kansas Fed found that increases in retirement were driven by retirees opting not to come back to the labor force; normally, some retirees return for a variety of reasons. As Glassdoor senior economist Daniel Zhao noted in a tweet, the "return flow to the labor is diminished," but the best case scenario in the future is the end of the pandemic - coupled with a tight labor market - luring those retirees back.
But, as Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Insider, the pandemic brought about unprecedented times, and older workers may still be concerned about the health risks the virus continues to pose.
Those 2.5 million retirees abstaining will probably be acutely felt for now. The number of workers quitting their jobs just reached yet another record high. That's good news for workers, who continue to switch into new roles and push wages higher, but it means that labor shortages may stick around for a little while longer.
Hating work is having a moment
Americans aren’t just quitting their jobs; they’re fighting back.
Union workers and nurses picket outside the Kaiser Permanente
San Francisco Medical Center on November 10.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Workers are fed up and fighting back against low pay, poor conditions, and the general idea that work is the center of their lives.
That fighting back is taking on many forms, from the performative to the transformative. Posts about standing up to abusive bosses have become their own genre on TikTok, Reddit, and other platforms. Some workers are participating in collective actions, and approval of unions is at its highest rate since 1965. Others are finding alternative sources of income or committing to getting by on less. Perhaps, most directly, people are quitting their jobs at record rates in what’s become known as the Great Resignation.
Many had expected people to return to the workforce en masse after federal unemployment benefits expired in September. While that’s happened to some degree — the economy added more than half a million jobs last month — there are still many more Americans holding out, thanks to a variety of reasons, from savings to lack of child care to the ongoing risks of the pandemic.
Importantly, the pandemic — as well as government social safety nets like extended unemployment benefits — gave people the time, distance, and perspective to reevaluate the place of work in their lives. This is especially notable for Americans, for whom work is considered a part of their identity and who put in more hours than most other industrialized nations.
There’s also an element of retribution to workers fighting back. When Covid-19 hit, millions of Americans found themselves suddenly jobless. Companies to which people had given years of their lives and labor dropped them in an instant. Now, as the economy recovers and these companies are again hiring, many Americans are angry and don’t want to go back.
“Sources of outrage right now are not lacking,” Heidi Shierholz, president of Economic Policy Institute, told Recode. “It’s against the backdrop of your employer making all kinds of profits, and we’ve all just gone through total hell. I would guess it ups the outrage factor.”
There are still more than 4 million fewer people in the workforce than there would be if labor force participation were at pre-pandemic levels. There are 10.4 million open jobs and just 7.4 million unemployed, according to the latest data. Of course, many of these open jobs are bad: They have bad pay, dangerous working conditions, or just aren’t remote (remote positions on LinkedIn get 2.5 times more applications than non-remote, according to the company).
The result is a situation where many employers — especially those in industries with notoriously bad pay and conditions — are having difficulty finding and retaining workers. To counter it, they’re raising wages, offering better benefits, and even altering the nature of their work. Depending on their strength and duration, these various actions could have long-lasting impacts on the future of work for all Americans. How workers are fighting back
The most obvious sign of worker power is how many of them are quitting. In September, a high of 4.4 million people quit their jobs, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has been tracking this data since 2000. That’s 3 percent of all employment and follows a summer of record quit numbers. Quitting has been especially prevalent in lower-paying, lower-status jobs like those in leisure, hospitality, and retail.
Those quits are showing up elsewhere, too. Searches for a variety of resignation-related topics have spiked recently. At one point, searches for how to send a resignation email in the last three months were up about 3,500 percent, both in English and in Spanish, compared to the previous three months, according to Google’s trends newsletter.
And seeing how others quit their jobs and respond to bad bosses has become a veritable pastime online. Posts about quitting are proliferating across the internet, including on TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter. To wit, a TikTok product manager recently went viral on YouTube with her post on why she left. Groups on Reddit are also using the platform to mobilize.
The subreddit Antiwork — whose tagline is “Unemployment for all, not just the rich!” — swelled from just a couple hundred thousand subscribers at the beginning of the year to over 1 million by November. The popular forum is full of screenshots of people telling off bad bosses and asserting their own worth as workers. Some of its most upvoted posts are screenshots of employees talking back to ridiculous employer demands, and they provide clear illustrations of why these workers want to quit. Members, called “Idlers,” give each other confidence to leave what they see as toxic work environments. The Antiwork community has also been organizing a Black Friday boycott, asking retail workers to “withhold their labor” and consumers to “withhold their purchasing power” on what’s traditionally the biggest retail spending day of the year.
This is evidence of how, instead of just leaving their jobs or complaining about them online, a growing number of people are actively fighting to make their jobs better.
In 2021, approval of labor unions grew to 68 percent of Americans, its highest rate in more than 50 years. This is happening as many American workers are attempting to unionize their workplaces. Recent unionization efforts include Starbucks, Amazon, and meal-kit delivery service HelloFresh. Last month was dubbed “Striketober,” as more than 100,000 workers across industries, including workers at John Deere and in film and TV crews, participated in various labor actions. This is one of the many worker trends bulwarked by social media, which is rampant with support for unions.
Shelly Steward, director of the Future of Work Initiative at the Aspen Institute, sees unionization efforts on social media as a more modern version of how workers have always organized: by talking to each other. But social media’s scale, she says, could be contributing to redoubled unionization efforts that could have more permanent effects on labor.
“For a long time, the focus was on individual problems and individual solutions, so if your job isn’t good, walk away from it — it’s that worker’s responsibility to get training and get a better job,” Steward told Recode. “But changing that whole situation, changing the power dynamics between workers and large employers, is going to set everyone up for longer-lasting change.”
While as of 2020 only 11 percent of Americans are part of a union — a statistic that’s been trending downward for decades — Steward believes that declines are slowing and that we may begin to see unionization numbers tick upward when the 2021 dataset is released.
Other workers are employing the timeworn (albeit less savory) tactic of slacking to fight back against their employers or to assert that work is simply not the most important aspect of their lives. So-called “time millionaires” steal time back from their employers by pretending to work or otherwise shirking their responsibilities. They use that time in pursuit of what they consider more important things in life, like family and leisure. People who hold multiple remote jobs but only put in one job’s worth of work are doing something similar.
And then there are people looking to opt out of work entirely by finding alternate sources of income. Many Americans are ascribing to lifestyle trends like FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) — a financial movement in which people use a combination of extreme cost-cutting and passive investments to leave the workforce early. One could also see the rise of WallStreetBets, where regular people discuss using free trading platforms like Robinhood to trade stocks, as a rejection of typical forms of employment.
These trends as well as the fact that more Americans are quitting their jobs than ever recorded are signs of a robust job market that’s squarely in workers’ favor. How long the situation can last depends on a number of factors and whether workers are able to enact long-term changes soon.
Americans keep quitting their jobs in record numbers
Some 4.4 million Americans – or roughly 3 percent of all employed workers in the nation – quit their jobs in September, the US Department of Labor said on Friday.
United States job hunters certainly have plenty of breathing room to be choosy about who they work for, with the number of job openings in September little changed at 10.4 million [File: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP]
It’s been decades since workers have held the upper hand in the United States job market, and the latest data suggests the odds will continue to be stacked in their favour.
Some 4.4 million Americans – that’s 3 percent of all employed workers in the nation – quit their jobs in September, the United States Department of Labor said on Friday. That was 164,000 more than in August and marked the second straight month of a record-shattering quits rate in the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)
The quits rate is a barometer of workers’ ability or willingness to leave jobs. And job hunters certainly have plenty of breathing room to be choosy about who they work for, with the number of job openings in September little changed at 10.4 million.
Though lower than in July, when a record 11.1 million jobs went begging, job openings in September were still well above the pre-pandemic high of 7.3 million reached back in October 2019
Shortages of workers and raw materials, as well as supply chain snarls, have become a hallmark of this year’s economic recovery.
The paucity of available workers has baffled many economists, because the US labour market is still 4.2 million jobs short of where it stood in February 2020 – right before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Factors ranging from fear of contracting COVID-19 to childcare constraints to older workers opting to take early retirement thanks to swelling stock and home values have all been cited as possible reasons for keeping workers on the sidelines.
The increased competition for workers is especially tough on small businesses.
In October, nearly half of small business owners surveyed by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) said they had job openings they could not fill and that they were less optimistic about future business conditions.
“One of the biggest problems for small businesses is the lack of workers for unfilled positions and inventory shortages, which will continue to be a problem during the holiday season,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg in a statement this week.
To entice job seekers, firms have been raising wages and offering more generous job benefits.
That was reflected in average hourly earnings, which jumped 4.9 percent in October over the year before.
Still, that pay bump is not keeping workers ahead of inflation. Because as businesses shell out more for workers and raw materials, those costs are being passed on to consumers.
In October, US consumer prices jumped a blistering 6.2 percent from the same period a year ago. That is the fastest pace in 30 years.
Leading the surge were energy prices, which were up 30 percent over the past 12 months. Prices of food and rents also increased sharply in October.
But some analysts see rising wages playing a bigger role in inflationary pressures in the months ahead.
“The September Job Opening and Labour Turnover survey shows labour market conditions are far tighter than the 4.6% unemployment rate suggests, and points to continued rapid wage growth,” said Capital Economics’ Senior US Economist Michael Pearce in a note to clients.
“With productivity stagnant, that will add to mounting cyclical price pressures, which we expect to take over from supply bottlenecks and energy prices as the key source of upward pressure on inflation next year.”
US consumers, meanwhile, are bracing for more pain in their wallets, with the most recent monthly survey of consumer expectations by the New York Fed showing median inflation expectations for the coming year have hit an all-time high.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
UN rep slams Lebanon central bank chief over economic crisis
A UN expert blasted the country’s banking sector for failing to recognize its role in the country’s crippling economic crisis.
UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier De Schutter said he had seen 'scenes I never expected to see in a middle-income country' during his visit to Lebanon
Beirut, Lebanon – United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier De Schutter on Friday blasted Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh for not recognizing the bank’s role in the country’s crippling economic crisis.
“The role of commercial banks and the Central Bank [BDL] has been very problematic,” De Schutter told Al Jazeera.
For years, the central bank bolstered its foreign currency reserves – and enabled the government to spend beyond its means- by paying out exorbitant interest rates to entice commercial banks to lend it US dollars. In order to stay flush with dollars, commercial banks would in turn offer their depositors ever-higher interest rates.
Many have likened the practice to a Ponzi scheme.
For his part, De Schutter said it was unsustainable and the central bank should have known that.
“The Central Bank should have entirely been much more alert to this, and it should have warned the government about this unsustainable scheme. The BDL has a responsibility to what has happened,” he said.
On Friday, De Schutter wrapped up a 12-day mission to Lebanon in which he met with officials, residents, and experts to assess the country’s poverty situation and the government’s response to alleviating it.
But he said he could not secure meetings with The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL), which represents the country’s top commercial banks.
The Central Bank should have entirely been much more alert
UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON EXTREME POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER
“I request to meet with ABL, and we negotiated for days – and it was cancelled last minute by the president of ABL,” De Schutter said. “I think ABL is now realizing they cannot continue to drive the country to the ground.”
Not only has the banking sector been blamed for plunging the country into an economic and financial crisis that took hold in August 2019 and has steadily worsened over two years, but it has also been accused of obstructing government efforts to mount a credible financial reform blueprint that is a precondition for unlocking billions of dollars in desperately needed financial aid.
Talks with the International Monetary Fund hit the rocks in July 2020, after the Central Bank, commercial banks, and Parliament opposed the recovery plan championed by the government of former Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
De Schutter said this “shows the disproportionate influence banks have on the political system in Lebanon”.
“We lost a year that could have been avoided, if the former financial recovery plan had not been blocked by ABL,” he added.
Lebanon’s commercial banks rejected past government rescue plans, arguing that they would be unfairly detrimental to the banking sector. They have also disagreed with the Finance Ministry’s and the IMF’s estimates of economic losses. Central Bank Governor Salameh has repeatedly rejected the notion that the Central Bank ran a Ponzi scheme, and has said that his “conscience was clear” and he is the victim of a “campaign” being waged against him. Downward spiral
The Lebanese economy continues to spiral and continues to face shortages of hard currency.
Three-quarters of Lebanon’s population is now living in poverty, the Lebanese pound has lost about 90 percent of its value against the US dollar, and much of public life has been paralyzed due to power cuts, staggering food and fuel inflation, and medicine shortages. De Schutter, who described the country’s crisis as “manufactured”, said Lebanon’s drop in economic output – from $55bn in 2017 to about $33bn in 2020 – is “unprecedented in times of peace”.
The country’s inflation rate according to Bloomberg is among the highest globally, exceeding Zimbabwe’s.
De Schutter said at a press conference on Friday that Lebanon was “one of the most unequal countries on the planet”, and that it lacks viable social programmes, taxation policies, and a long-term strategy to alleviate poverty.
During his visit, he met with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, nine ministers, experts, humanitarian organizations, and residents across the country.
“I saw scenes I never expected to see in a middle-income country,” he said, as he recalled meeting a woman in Tripoli who said she “wished she were an animal”.
Unfortunately, I heard no credible poverty alleviation plan from the government that does not rely on international donors and non-governmental organizations
UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON EXTREME POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER
“With the wealth this country has, the high level of education it can boast … that is simply unacceptable, that is indeed unprecedented, and to me, this was a huge surprise.”
“Unfortunately, I heard no credible poverty alleviation plan from the government that does not rely on international donors and non-governmental organizations,” De Schutter said. “Worryingly, political leadership seems unwilling to see the relationship between tax reform and poverty alleviation and underestimates the benefits of social protection systems for rebuilding the economy…”
De Schutter said that politicians often blamed Syrian refugees for the country’s economic crisis, which he described as an “extremely worrying trend”.
The UN expert said that Lebanon is “not yet a failed state”, but risks becoming one as more children drop out of school and more people leave the country for better job opportunities.
“The resources are there if only it were mobilized in the public interest,” he said.
Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.
The international community continues to provide humanitarian aid to Lebanon, but has withheld billions in developmental aid until the country reforms its sluggish economy, mired in wasteful spending and corruption. The laundry list of reforms includes restructuring the electricity sector, conducting a forensic audit of the central bank and state institutions, implementing an anti-corruption strategy, and making the country’s judiciary financially and administratively independent of the government.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
#ENAZEDA #METOO Tunisia MP jailed for sexual harassment in landmark case
Zouhair Makhlouf’s case marks first time a high-profile figure has faced prosecution for sexual wrongdoing in Tunisia.
'EnaZeda', 'me too' in the Tunisian dialect, is inspired by the #MeToo movement
[File: Fethi Belaid/Getty Images]
Published On 12 Nov 2021
A Tunisian member of parliament has been sentenced to a year in prison for sexually harassing a schoolgirl, in a case that sparked a nationwide #MeToo movement.
The victim’s lawyer, Naima Chabbouh, said Makhlouf had been found guilty of indecent assault after a court session that went late into Thursday evening.
Zouhair Makhlouf, of the Qalb Tounes party, was photographed in October 2019 allegedly performing a sexual act in his car in the coastal city of Nabeul.
The high school student who took the photos, who was a minor at the time, said he had followed her to school. She posted the pictures on social media and pressed charges of sexual harassment and indecent assault.
The images, which went viral, sparked an unprecedented outpouring of testimonies of sexual harassment. Many women used the hashtag #EnaZeda (Tunisian Arabic for “me too”), an echo of the #MeToo movement sparked by the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein affair in the United States in 2017.
The landmark sentence marks the first time a high-profile figure has faced prosecution for sexual wrongdoing.
Makhlouf at first avoided prosecution due to his parliamentary immunity.
In July, President Kais Saied froze the Tunisian parliament and lifted political immunity for MPs, as well as taking on sweeping executive and legislative powers.
Makhlouf argued throughout the trial that he is diabetic and had needed to urgently urinate in a bottle.
Ahead of the verdict, dozens of women demonstrated outside the court in Nabeul, south of Tunis, chanting “my body is not a public space!”
Makhlouf was originally charged with sexual harassment before the charge was reduced to indecent exposure.
The charges were then bumped up again under public pressure.
Tunisia is seen as a pioneer in the Arab world in terms of women’s rights, and in July 2017 made sexual harassment in a public space punishable by a jail sentence of up to a year.
Is nuclear power the way forward to combat the climate crisis?
Nuclear power can go horribly wrong and is notorious for cost overruns, but it is gaining high-profile champions.
China, the United States and France are all are embracing nuclear power in the fight against the climate crisis
As the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) wraps up and countries prepare to throw a lot more money towards decarbonising their economies, the debate over the role nuclear energy should play in achieving net-zero targets is heating up.
Nuclear power plants have been around since the 1950s. The technology is relatively basic: Atoms are split and the energy that’s released heats water to produce steam that moves electricity-generating turbines.
Of course, when things go wrong with that 20th-century technology – whether due to nature or human error – they can go horribly wrong. Chernobyl. Fukushima. Three Mile Island.
Nuclear power is also notorious for cost overruns and is relatively more expensive compared to renewables like solar and wind.
But some countries are embracing nuclear power in a big way. China – the world’s biggest carbon emitter – is planning to build at least 150 nuclear reactors over the next 15 years, Bloomberg News reported (paywall). That is more than the entire world has built over the past three and a half decades.
French President Emmanuel Macron said this week that his country “will for the first time in decades revive the construction of nuclear reactors” to reach its net-zero goal.
United States Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm reportedly told an audience at COP26 that the US is “all in on nuclear” as part of its clean electricity plans.
There are also business A-listers throwing their weight behind nuclear power. Through firms TerraPower and PacifiCorp, billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are championing a type of advanced small modular reactor (SMR) known as a “fast” Natrium reactor.
Even the UN is throwing its support behind SMRs and advanced reactor technology, lauding its benefits in a recent technology brief (PDF).
So should countries go nuclear to save the planet?
Allison Macfarlane is a professor and the director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. Before that, she was chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
She wrote an article for Foreign Affairs (paywall) this summer on the subject of nuclear energy and climate goals. Her arguments generated some pointed pushback (paywall) as world leaders descended on Glasgow, Scotland for COP26.
Macfarlane describes herself as neither a proponent nor a detractor of nuclear power, but an analyst who prefers to give a “measured analytical response” to questions surrounding nuclear energy.
She recently shared her views with Al Jazeera Digital’s Managing Business Editor Patricia Sabga about nations building more nuclear power plants to battle the climate crisis.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Patricia Sabga: Proponents of nuclear energy say it has a bigger role to play in decarbonisation plans. Does the world need more nuclear power plants to fight the climate crisis?
Allison Macfarlane: Almost 19 percent of the power [in the United States] right now is produced by nuclear power. That’s carbon free. That’s really helpful. We don’t want to shut that off right now. But I live in a pragmatic, realistic world. And I don’t think, at least in the next 10 or 20 years, that nuclear power will be able to have a big impact on reducing carbon emissions because we can’t build new plants fast enough.
PS: And why is that? Why can’t we build new plants fast enough?
AM: It’s complicated. These are mega projects, and they require a level of quality control and programme management that doesn’t exist in a lot of other industries. And though people may promote some of the newer reactor designs as being easy to produce in factories, if we look at the existing reactors that have been produced in factories – for instance, the ones that are under construction in Georgia, the Vogtle plant [where two additional reactor units are under construction] – the experience in factories has not been good.
The factory that built the modules for the Georgia plant built them incorrectly for years. They welded them incorrectly and they had to be rewelded at the reactor site. That factory led in large part to the bankruptcy of Westinghouse.
We can’t build new plants fast enough.
PS: You mentioned newer reactor designs. What are these designs and what challenges do they face?
AM: First of all, a lot of them aren’t new. A lot of these designs are 70 years old or older. But given that, there are new sorts of twists to some of these designs.
Many of them exist only on paper, or as small-scale models. And the way engineering works is that you design something – these days, it’s computer-assisted – and then you build a scale model. When you build the scale model, you see where you are wrong in your computer design, and so you fix that. Then you have to build the full-scale design. And when you scale up again, there will be things that you’ve gotten wrong in the scale model, and you’re going to have to fix that.
And so, for many of these designs, we’re still at the computer model stage. We haven’t done the other steps. And those steps take years. And when you get to the full-scale model, that’s really expensive. Where’s that money coming from?
PS: Let’s talk about expense then. In terms of just cost, how does nuclear stack up to say wind or solar?
AM: It’s significantly more expensive. Of course, it depends on what solar you’re talking about. But if you look at Lazard’s recent analysis of levelized costs of energy [an analysis that takes into account how much it costs to finance and build a power plant and to keep it running throughout its lifetime and then divides that cost by how much energy it kicks out each year] and you look at solar PV [photovoltaic] utility scale, and wind, they are significantly cheaper than nuclear.
That’s not true of solar PV rooftop. It’s as expensive or maybe more expensive than nuclear.
These plants are very expensive to build.
PS: Why is nuclear so expensive compared to wind and utility-scale solar?
AM: Expenses are dominated by the capital costs of plant construction. These plants are very expensive to build. I think we’re up to at least $14bn a plant for the Vogtle plants in Georgia. That’s for a thousand gigawatts generation capacity. They’re just really expensive to build and they take a long time to build. And so not only do you have the cost of the capital of building the plant, but you have the cost of the interest on the capital, which becomes a big cost.
That’s really what hurts nuclear. Now there are claims made about the small modular reactors that they’ll be cheaper. But because nobody’s ever built one, and nobody’s established the supply chains to build them and to operate them, we really have no idea what those will cost.
PS: You wrote an article in Foreign Affairs in July. Subsequently, you’ve been criticised by Armond Cohen [of the Clean Air Task Force] and Kenneth Luongo [of the Partnership for Global Security] for comparing the lifetime cost of a nuclear power plant with the lifetime cost of wind and solar because wind and solar are not “always on” energy generators, whereas nuclear is.
AM: There’s a point that wind and solar are intermittent, and nuclear is not. I think the larger question is, how relevant is intermittency now?
Ten years ago, it was a really big deal. It’s becoming less of a deal, I think. What’s interesting to note is that when you talk to utility companies, they are really interested in having plants be load following [responding to surges and ebbs in power demand]. They’re really orienting themselves towards dealing with intermittency. But that means they need a plant that can ramp up and down quickly. Nuclear can’t do that. The existing nuclear fleet can’t do that. They’re either on or they’re off, and it takes a long time for them to ramp up to full scale on.
PS: What about when you factor in energy storage, because it’s still expensive? It’s still not where it needs to be to make solar and wind reliable 24-7. Is that a big concern?
AM: It is a legitimate concern. But there are storage options that you can go and buy right now and build in the next couple of years. But that kind of rapid construction and ability to have stuff that’s available on the shelf, pull it off right now, doesn’t exist [for nuclear energy], especially for these advanced reactor designs.
There are claims made about the small modular reactors that they’ll be cheaper.
PS: What about proliferation concerns? Do you think that those should factor into arguments about whether nuclear energy should be part of the new energy mix to respond to the climate crisis?
AM: Absolutely. We have to consider proliferation and the connection to nuclear weapons when we think about nuclear energy. We should be working to devalue nuclear weapons. That means getting rid of them. But we have to be careful. And there is an international structure set up to do this through the International Atomic Energy Agency and the safeguards agreements that countries fall under.
So there is a structure. It’s been in place for many, many decades. But we do have to be cognisant of this. The light-water reactors that exist in many countries today don’t pose big proliferation risks. But some of the new designs that are being talked about may produce materials that could be used directly in nuclear weapons. And so those we have to be more careful, and understand the proliferation implications better, and make sure that there are safeguards in place to ensure that materials aren’t diverted.
PS: What role do you see nuclear power playing in the future of energy, not only in the United States but globally?
AM: Right now it plays a fairly significant role in electricity production in a number of countries. I imagine that will continue for many decades. And then we’ll see what happens. I don’t know. I don’t have a good crystal ball. I can just tell you that we’re going through a massive change. I don’t know whether there’s the will, globally, to move away from fossil fuels as seriously and as quickly as we need to. We need to do it yesterday. And nuclear power would be part of that mix, potentially, if we were really, really serious. But it means a lot of money. So somebody has to pay for this.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Fight for fossil fuels dominates COP26 climate deal
Analysts question the text of COP26’s final agreement citing ‘watered down’ language on hydrocarbon eradication and missing commitments on emission cuts.
President Xi Jinping has said China would stop financing coal-fired power plants abroad and 'step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy'
Glasgow, Scotland – Crucial moves to head off the climate emergency – such as walking away from fossil fuels – remained on the table on Friday as climate negotiators zeroed in on a COP26 deal with only hours to go at the summit.
However, the latest draft for a final climate change agreement in Glasgow was inserted with caveats that “watered down” hard targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions, analysts said.
“Fortunately, we still have some reference to getting rid of fossil fuels, and we have some reference to coal. That’s a good thing – many expected there would be strong pushback to remove it completely,” said Richie Merzian, a former Australian government climate negotiator now with The Australia Institute.
“But, having said that, there have been multiple caveats placed on it – enough that you can run a coal train right through it,” he added.
COP26’s first draft was released on Wednesday, raising hopes for real action as ending coal use and fossil fuel subsidies made it into UN climate text for the first time. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China have long fought to banish any such language.
One caveat inserted on Friday – which threatens the crucial goal to keep a 1.5-degrees Celsius (2.7-degrees Fahrenheit) temperature rise by the end of the century – was only old, outdated coal factories will be targeted for shutdown, not ones running on new technologies.
Another stipulation added from the previous draft communique was ending only “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies. “As if there are efficient ones,” Merzian noted wryly.
“Unfortunately these are weasel words that allow countries to get away with it,” he said. “These are the caveats that we expected, but at least there is some placeholders in there to actually address fossil fuels.”
In terms of stronger targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – a key demand at the climate talks – the language is totally absent, Merzian said.
What is needed, he added, is text that compels nations to clearly state their new emission-cut intentions – aligned with 1.5C – by next year.
“That is missing, that’s been watered down,” Merzian said.
Scientists say the planet needs hydrocarbon emissions to be extinguished by about 50 percent over the next eight years – otherwise keeping the 1.5C goal alive will be out of reach. Major funding shortfalls
One positive addition to the final draft was on financial compensation for developing nations already dealing with myriad climate disasters and those on the way.
Rich nations – which caused the climate crisis by pumping vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution – pledged years ago to pay $100bn annually to poorer ones hit hardest by climate chaos.
That promise has never been fulfilled. Friday’s draft text, however, outlined a fund for climate reparations and to help developing countries transition away from hydrocarbon energy, a welcomed move.
“I think it’s a step up in that we acknowledge the shortfall of $100bn, and we actually have a call to fully deliver it. That was a call very much missing from the previous text,” said Jennifer Tollmann from the European think-tank E3G.
She noted the need to double of funds to nations victimised by climate change to adapt to weather catastrophe was also inserted into the draft.
More powerful superstorms, ravaging floods, raging wildfires, and sea surges will intensify as the globe unrelentlessly warms in the decades ahead.
‘Doesn’t fill the gap’
Tollmann said while it was positive that finance for climate-vulnerable countries was addressed, the broader issue is serious funding shortfalls.
Some observers say $100bn per year is a drop in the ocean compared with what nations really need to fight the worst climate change effects, and to move away from fossil fuels. According to estimates, anywhere from $300bn to $800bn annually is what is actually required.
“So will it be enough? When we actually step back, the reality is doesn’t fill the gap of what developing countries need to fully adapt and to fully transition [to green economies],” she said.
It remains to be seen if the current COP26 text will survive as is on Friday. Climate negotiating teams are expected to work into Saturday, perhaps even longer, to nail down a deal.
For vulnerable nations of the Global South, they can only hope any agreement signifies a serious commitment to finally address the dire climate situation, after 30 years of empty words from world leaders.
COP26 in extra time, as climate negotiators struggle for deal
Thorny issues including funding, cutting gas emission pledges and phasing out coal were unresolved as deadline passed.
Climate activists wearing masks of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden protest outside the COP26 venue in Glasgow. on what was supposed to be the final day of negotiations [Robert Perry/EPA]
Published On 12 Nov 2021
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Negotiators at COP26 were due to meet again on Saturday, after failing to conclude a deal on the climate crisis to rein in rising temperatures that threaten the planet.
A draft of the final deal of the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference was released early on Friday, which was supposed to be the final day of the two-week conference
But a final agreement on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) remains stuck over issues from coal and other fossil fuels to financial support for poorer nations from rich countries.
Alok Sharma, the COP26 president, called on negotiators from the nearly 200 countries at the conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow, to come together and conclude an agreement.
“We have come a long way over the past two weeks and now we need that final injection of that ‘can-do’ spirit, which is present at this COP, so we get this shared endeavour over the line,” Sharma said.
The draft deal includes a requirement that countries set tougher climate pledges next year in an attempt to bridge the gap between their current targets and the much deeper cuts scientists say are needed this decade to avert catastrophic climate change.
Talks were at a “bit of a stalemate,” and the United States, with support from the European Union, was holding back talks, said Lee White, Gabon’s minister for forests and climate change.
White said there was a lack of trust between rich and poor nations over payments from rich countries to the poor for damage from the worst effects of global warming – funds for adapting to climate change and carbon markets.
A police officer monitors protesters during a climate change demonstration outside of the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on November 12, 2021 [Andy Buchanan/AFP]COP26 began on October 31 amid dire warnings from leaders, activists and scientists that not enough was being done to curb global warming.
An agreement was supposed to be finalised 6pm local time (18:00 GMT) on Friday.
“The negotiating culture is not to make the hard compromises until the meeting goes into extra innings, as we now have done,” said longtime climate talks observer Alden Meyer of the European think-tank E3G.
“But the UK presidency is still going to have to make a lot of people somewhat unhappy to get the comprehensive agreement we need out of Glasgow.”
Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer and considered among the nations most resistant to strong wording on fossil fuels, said the latest draft was “workable”.
The Saudi delegate, Ayman Shasly, said the country would guard against any changes that “skew the balance” of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
A final deal will require the unanimous consent of the nearly 200 countries that signed the Paris accord.
Cutting fossil fuel subsidies
Friday morning’s draft proposals from the meeting’s chair called on countries to accelerate “the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”.
A previous draft on Wednesday had been stronger, calling on countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuel”.
US climate envoy John Kerry said Washington backed the current wording.
“We’re not talking about eliminating” coal, he told fellow climate diplomats. But, he said: “Those subsidies have to go.”
A protester holds a placard displaying a ‘Stop Climate Crime’ slogan during a climate change demonstration outside of the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on November 12, 2021 [Andy Buchanan/AFP]
There was a mixed response from activists and observers on how significant the addition of the words “unabated” and “inefficient” was.
Richie Merzian, a former Australian climate negotiator who directs the climate and energy programme at the Australia Institute think-tank, said the additional caveats were “enough that you can run a coal train through it”.
Countries like Australia and India, the world’s third-biggest emitter, have resisted calls to phase out coal any time soon.
Scientists agree the use of fossil fuels must end as soon as possible in order to keep the rise in global temperatures at 1.5C.
Rewording of some crucial text of the draft agreement around coal and fossil fuels is “very unfortunate”, Danish Environment Minister Dan Jorgensen told Al Jazeera.
“Some of the very strong wording that was in there, for instance, with regards to fossil fuels and coal … is being watered down,” he said.
Funding issues
Another crunch issue is the question of financial aid for poor countries to help them cope with, and adapt to, climate change.
Rich nations failed to provide them with $100bn annually by 2020, as agreed, causing considerable anger among developing countries going into the talks.
The latest draft reflects those concerns, expressing “deep regret” that the $100bn goal has not been met and urging rich countries to scale up their funding.
The sum, which falls far short of what the UN says countries would actually need, aims to address “mitigation”, to help poor countries with their ecological transition, and “adaptation”, to help them manage extreme climate events.
The new draft says that, by 2025, rich countries should double from current levels the funding they set aside for adaptation – a step forward from the previous version that did not set a date or a baseline.
Of roughly $80bn rich countries spent on climate finance for poor countries in 2019, only a quarter was for adaptation.
A more contentious aspect, known as “loss and damage”, would compensate them for the ravages they have already suffered from global warming, although this is outside the $100bn and some rich countries do not acknowledge the claim.
Updating emissions target
Updating emissions targets is another thorny issue as nations were asked to come back with new emissions-cutting targets that they were supposed to submit before the Glasgow talks.
The draft calls on the nations to submit another tougher target by the end of 2022, but some nations, such as Saudi Arabia, are baulking at the proposal, said the World Resources Institute’s David Waskow.
In 2015 in Paris, there was debate about whether targets should be updated every five or 10 years, so updating them one year after Glasgow is a big deal, said the Environmental Defense Fund’s Vice President for Global Climate Kelley Kizzier, a former EU negotiator.
Serbia restores warship that fired first shots of World War One
Fri, November 12, 2021, 6:28 AM·1 min read
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia has finally recalled to service as a floating museum a warship that fired the first shots that began World War One, following years of lobbying from navy ship enthusiasts who wanted it restored.
The SMS Bodrog was one of two Austro-Hungarian heavy gunboats that sailed into the confluence of the rivers Sava and Danube around midnight on July 28, 1914. Its two canons hurled shells at Serbian positions in Belgrade, marking the start of the four-year war in which around 20 million people died.
Renamed Sava, it also served in World War Two after it was taken over by Nazi German-ruled Croatia and was part of the former Yugoslavia's navy until 1962 after which it was sold to a private company as a gravel barge.
It was left to rot for years at its moorings near Belgrade after it was retired before the Serbian government granted it heritage protection status in 2005.
"In 2015, the Defense Ministry decided that the ship should be placed under its auspices, it was added to the inventory of the Military Museum and over the next few years it has been restored and re-equipped," Natasa Tomic, a curator with the Belgrade-based Military Museum, told Reuters.
Sava, which is now fully restored and floats on the river Sava near Belgrade's city centre, is one of two surviving Austro-Hungarian river monitors which served during World War One. The other is SMS Leitha which is moored in Hungary's capital Budapest.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Why are giant conglomerates falling out of fashion?
This week, General Electric, Toshiba and Johnson & Johnson all announced they were breaking up their empires into separate companies.
Having struggled under its sheer weight for decades, GE finally decided to break itself up into three separate publically traded companies
[File: Charles Krupa/AP]
Published On 12 Nov 2021
Bigger is not always better. That appears to be the verdict sweeping some of the biggest corporations on the planet this week.
After once-mighty United States conglomerate General Electric announced on Tuesday that it’s breaking itself up into three separate units, Japanese industrial giant Toshiba and US drugs and healthcare behemoth Johnson & Johnson followed suit on Friday, with spin-off announcements of their own.
Each firm has its own unique reasons for wanting to get small, but in general, conglomerates start spinning off units because they want to “unlock value”.
Put simply, that means they think investors see less value in the company’s businesses if they remain combined, and that shareholders will be better off if those businesses are spun off into separate companies.
Of course, the reasoning behind forming a conglomerate is that a giant firm with lots of businesses can find synergies and cost savings.
But such is the ebb and flow of the corporate landscape.
Just look at General Electric. Back in the 1980s, then-CEO Jack Welch achieved rock-star executive status by ditching businesses where GE didn’t dominate, buying up new ones where he thought the firm could be a market leader, and ruthlessly firing underperforming employees and managers – earning him the moniker “Neutron Jack”.
But just as shoulder pads have fallen out of fashion, so too have Jack Welch-style industrial giants.
Having struggled under its sheer weight for decades, GE finally decided to break itself up into three separate publically traded companies: aviation (which will keep the GE name), healthcare and energy.
Toshiba said on Friday that it is also breaking itself up by spinning off its energy infrastructure and computer devices units into two separate companies. The rest of its assets will be held under the Toshiba name.
Also on Friday, Johnson & Johnson said it is splitting into two separate companies. One as-yet-to-be-named unit will focus on healthcare products like Band-Aids, Listerine and over-the-counter medicines. The other – which will keep the J&J name – will encompass prescription drugs and medical devices.
But this week’s announcements don’t mean investors are turning against all big corporations.
Just look at the technology sector. On Monday, Google parent Alphabet breached the $2 trillion value mark for the first time, joining the likes of Microsoft and Apple in the exclusive $2 trillion-and-higher valuation club.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
CVS withdraws US Supreme Court case on disability rights
Michael Roppolo Thu, November 11, 2021, 4:01 PM·2 min read The CVS pharmacy chain has reached an agreement with a coalition of disability rights organizations and dropped a legal case that had made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court was scheduled to hear arguments in the dispute next month, and the ruling could have had far-reaching effects on disability rights.
The company formally withdrew its complaint Thursday and announced a new partnership to work with four groups, including the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.
"We've agreed to pursue policy solutions in collaboration with the disability community to help protect access to affordable health plan programs that apply equally to all members," a CVS spokesperson told CBS News. "Any further legal proceedings will take place in district court when the case is remanded."
The case, CVS Pharmacy, Inc. vs. Doe, stemmed from a lawsuit filed against CVS by multiple people who take prescription drugs for HIV/AIDS. The plaintiffs objected to changes to the company's terms that meant they could not opt out of mail-only delivery or utilize another pharmacy with experience handling their special medication needs. They argued it had a discriminatory impact on them, even if that wasn't the company's intent.
"When encouraging CVS to withdraw this case, the disability community asked CVS to find a different regulatory or policy venue other than the Supreme Court to address its concerns and agreed to work with CVS to do so," Maria Town, president and CEO of AAPD, told CBS News in a statement.
"A core [tenet] of the disability rights movement is 'Nothing about us without us,' and that's what this partnership achieves," Town added.
CVS Health said the new partnership builds on their longstanding relationship with those in the disability community and they will be exploring solutions together.
Disability rights advocates celebrated news of the agreement when it was first announced Wednesday. Our power!!! https://t.co/QMnYxTa5lJ
— Imani Barbarin, MAGC | Crutches&Spice ♿️ (@Imani_Barbarin) November 11, 2021
When the case was first heard in trial court, the judge ruled the problems the plaintiffs described did not violate federal disability laws. But when they appealed, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the unnamed plaintiffs.
CVS then appealed to the Supreme Court, saying in court filings the ruling would "upend insurance plans and skyrocket healthcare costs nationwide." The justices agreed to take the case and scheduled arguments for December 7, but both sides have now asked the court to dismiss the case.
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