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Ugndan climate activist Vanessa Nakate has been named UNICEF's new Goodwill Ambassador

Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate recently traveled to the drought-ravaged Horn of Africa to hear from children suffering from starvation. The next day she learned that one of the boys she met had died.

It is for such children, whose lives have been shattered by the global climate crisis, that Nakate, UNICEF’s newest Goodwill Ambassador, has set out to make their voices heard.

“I’m hoping to continue doing the same thing to amplify, and really platform, the stories of the children … that are suffering, because of the climate crisis,” Nakate, who is 25, told AFP in an interview.

Inspired by Sweden’s climate crusader Greta Thunberg, several years ago Nakate founded the Rise Up Climate Movement in her native Uganda and has spoken at prestigious international climate events.

On Thursday, she was appointed the newest Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, joining recent high-profile supporters such as actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas, singer Katy Perry and Syrian refugee and education activist Muzoon Almellehan.

“In my journey of activism, I’ve always told myself, and I’ve always believed that every activist has a story to tell,” Nakate said. “And every story has a solution to give and every solution has a life to change.”

The activist says children and women suffer the most from global warming and her mission is make their voices heard — but not to speak on their behalf.

“I cannot say that I can give a voice to anyone, because I believe everyone has their own distinct voice,” she added.

“But the question is, who is listening to what we are saying? Who is paying attention?”

– ‘Roof for all of us’ –

Last week, Nakate visited UNICEF-run hospitals and nutrition centers in Turkana, a Kenyan region in the Horn of Africa hit by devastating drought.

There she witnessed the tragedy firsthand.

“I got to meet many children suffering from severe, acute malnutrition, because of this drought,” Nakate said of the trip. “One of the children that I got to meet that day, I got to learn the following morning that he had passed.”

UNICEF says about half of the world’s children — roughly 1 billion — live in one of 33 countries classified as “extremely high risk” due to climate change impacts.

Scientists say that droughts, floods, storms and heat waves will only get stronger and more frequent due to global warming, and Nakate is frustrated that governments around the world, busy with the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic, are not doing enough to save the planet.

“It can be discouraging to see that the world is not paying the attention that it should to climate issues, it can be very frustrating,” said the activist.

“Leaders especially need to understand that Earth is a home for all of us, is like that roof for all of us. And we have to ensure that the entire roof is well and no part is leaking,” Nakate said. “Because any leak in a part of a roof will eventually affect everyone in that house.”

Percy cored two samples from a rock called "Wildcat Ridge," which is about three feet (one meter) wide, and on July 20 abraded some of its surface so it could be analyzed with an instrument called SHERLOC that uses ultraviolet light

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has detected its highest concentrations yet of organic molecules, in a potential signal of ancient microbes that scientists are eager to confirm when the rock samples are eventually brought to Earth.

While organic matter has been found on the Red Planet before, the new discovery is seen as especially promising because it came from an area where sediment and salts were deposited into a lake — conditions where life could have arisen.

“It is very fair to say that these are going to be, these already are, the most valuable rock samples that have ever been collected,” David Shuster, a Perseverance return sample scientist, told reporters during a briefing.

Organic molecules — compounds made primarily of carbon that usually include hydrogen and oxygen, but also at times other elements — are not always created by biological processes.

Further analysis and conclusions will have to wait for the Mars Sample Return mission — a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to bring back the rocks that is set for 2033.

Nicknamed Percy, the rover landed on Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021, tasked with caching samples that may contain signs of ancient life, as well as characterizing the planet’s geology and past climate.

The delta it is exploring formed 3.5 billion years ago. The rover is currently there investigating sedimentary rocks, which came about from particles of various sizes settling in the then watery environment.

Percy cored two samples from a rock called “Wildcat Ridge,” which is about three feet (one meter) wide, and on July 20 abraded some of its surface so it could be analyzed with an instrument called SHERLOC that uses ultraviolet light.

The results showed a class of organic molecules called aromatics, which play a key role in biochemistry.

“This is a treasure hunt for potential signs of life on another planet,” NASA astrobiologist Sunanda Sharma said. 

“Organic matter is a clue and we’re getting stronger and stronger clues…I personally find these results so moving because it feels like we’re in the right place, with the right tools, at a very pivotal moment.”

There have been other tantalizing clues about the possibility of life on Mars before, including repeated detections of methane by Perseverance’s predecessor, Curiosity.

While methane is a digestive byproduct of microbes here on Earth, it can also be generated by geothermal reactions where no biology is at play.

Typhoon Muifa hit Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang province

High winds and heavy rain lashed China’s densely populated east coast on Friday, after Typhoon Muifa forced around 1.6 million people to leave their homes and grounded most flights at Shanghai’s main airports.

Muifa is the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Shanghai — home to more than 25 million people — since record-keeping began in 1949, state broadcaster CCTV said.

However, there were no immediate reports of any deaths or casualties.

At least 426,000 people were evacuated in Shanghai and another 1.2 million people were taken to temporary shelters in neighbouring Zhejiang province, CCTV added. 

Heavy rainfall led to traffic tailbacks and floods in several areas of the Yangtze river delta region, a major global manufacturing hub.

Giant waves were seen crashing onto the coastline in Hangzhou bay, to the south of Shanghai, and national radio reported a landslide in Ninghai County in Zhejiang province.

Packing winds of up to 82 kilometres (50 miles) per hour, the storm made landfall at around 12:00 am Friday (1600 GMT Thursday) in coastal areas of Qingdao, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Muifa previously hit the city of Zhoushan in Zhejiang on Wednesday and Shanghai’s Fengxian district on Thursday.

It also led to the cancellation of all flights to China’s biggest financial hub.

Air travel slowly resumed in Shanghai as the storm moved north, but most flights from the city’s two main airports were cancelled Thursday morning, according to aviation data provider Flightradar24.

Operations at some of Asia’s largest container shipping ports in Shanghai and neighbouring Ningbo that were halted because of the typhoon were scheduled to resume Thursday, according to statements from port officials. 

Officials ordered all fishing vessels in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea to anchor in ports as northeast China braced for the typhoon.

The storm came soon after Typhoon Hinnamnoor hit Shanghai and its neighbouring region last week, causing the suspension of Shanghai ferry services and school closures in parts of Zhejiang.

Muifa is the 12th typhoon to hit China this year, according to state media.

Tropical storms, which are expected to increase as the planet warms, were sharply up in 2021, a report by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said earlier this month.

Somalia drought: An emaciated cow stands on a dried-up lake at Iresteno, a town near the Ethiopian border

US climate envoy John Kerry on Thursday urged African countries to help overcome divisions between rich and poor nations at the upcoming UN COP27 talks.

Meeting African environment ministers, Kerry acknowledged the historic role of wealthy countries in stoking climate change but said tackling today’s emissions was a global problem.

“There are some folks unfortunately who are willing to sort of allocate responsibility in a sort of historical… way,” he said at talks in the Senegalese capital Dakar.

“(They are) pointing a finger at us — ‘what you guys created, you guys need to clear’,” Kerry said.

“Well, guess what: Mother Nature does not measure where the emissions come from — they don’t have a label of one country or another.”

The United States is the world’s richest country and its second biggest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

But the first place goes to China, which joins developing economies in a negotiating bloc at the UN climate talks.

Kerry pointed to the worsening impact from climate change on Africa. 

“(The) climate crisis here in Africa is more acute than it is in some other parts of the world,” Kerry said.

“This year has seen devastating floods in South Africa, Mozambique and Uganda that just killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands.

“Meanwhile, the Horn of Africa is in its fourth year of drought, with more than 18 million suffering from food insecurity as a consequence.”

– Money and emissions –

COP27 — the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — will take place at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh from November 6-18.

The annual climate parlays are dominated by often fierce debate on national pledges on emissions curbs and on funding.

Wealthy countries have previously promised billions of dollars to help poorer nations avert carbon emissions and build resilience against climate change.

On Wednesday, a bloc of the world’s poorest countries said they would urge COP27 to push ahead with another envisioned area of climate finance — a fund to compensate vulnerable nations for damage such as floods and rising seas.

Ministers and experts from the 46-nation Least Developed Countries (LDC) bloc, also meeting in Dakar, said setting up a funding mechanism for the proposed fund was of “crucial importance.”

Kerry took a swing at former president Donald Trump, who ditched the UN’s landmark 2015 agreement on climate change.

“President (Joe) Biden has brought unprecedented resources to the table, joining the Paris Agreement again on Day One after the miserable decision of a president who didn’t know the science,” he said.

Kerry, a former secretary of state, also pointed to the United States’ help for Africa, which last year amounted to $8.2 billion in humanitarian and climate adaptation aid.

“I will say to you bluntly: the developed world needs to do more… but we need you to also be at the table to do the things that make the difference to be able to deploy the funding and make it work,” he said.

Ireland was once the darling of the data industry but now has a de facto moratorium on new centres

Every time we make a call on Zoom, upload a document to the cloud or stream a video, our computers connect to vast warehouses filled with servers to store or access data.

Not so long ago, European countries were falling over each other to welcome the firms that run these warehouses, known as data centres or bit barns.

Wide-eyed politicians trumpeted investments and dreamt of creating global tech hubs.

But then the dream went sour.

The sheer amount of energy and water needed to power and cool these server farms shocked the public.

The industry sucked up 14 percent of Ireland’s power last year, London warned home builders that power shortages caused by bit barns could affect new projects, and Amsterdam said it simply had no more room for the warehouses.

Then things got worse.

The war in Ukraine helped spark an energy crisis across the continent, leaving consumers facing rocketing bills and countries contemplating energy shortages.

“Data centres will be a target,” critical blogger Dwayne Monroe told AFP, saying the focus would only grow if Europe cannot fix its energy crisis.

Grassroots campaigns and local opposition have already helped to halt projects this year by Amazon in France, Google in Luxembourg and Meta in the Netherlands.

The Irish government, while reaffirming support for the industry, put strict limits on new developments until 2028.

The data industry says it feels unfairly targeted, stressing its efforts to source green energy and arguing that outsourcing storage to bit barns has helped slash consumption.

– ‘Veil of shadow’ –

These arguments are playing out most spectacularly in Ireland.

Activists are campaigning on a broad range of topics and using local forums to push their case.

“They take up a huge amount of space but provide basically no employment,” says Madeleine Johansson, a Dublin councillor for the People Before Profit party, which is campaigning on the issue.

Johansson recently had a motion passed in her council area banning the centres, sparking an almighty row with the national government that is yet to be resolved.

Dylan Murphy of Not Here, Not Anywhere, one of several climate groups pushing the issue in Ireland, has filed a motion in his local council in Fingal calling for companies to reveal the kind of information they are holding.

“There’s a complete lack of transparency… about what data is actually being stored in these data centres,” he said, calling it a “veil of shadow”. 

The data industry says revealing that information would be impossible.

Michael McCarthy of Cloud Infrastructure Ireland, a lobby group, said activists had lost the argument on sustainability and were now throwing everything at the wall. 

“Data centres definitely are large energy users but they’re part of a cohort of larger energy users,” he said.

McCarthy and industry figures in other countries say the real problem is years of underinvestment in national energy infrastructure. 

He also pointed out that the industry in Europe had pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030.

And there are still countries hankering to get data firms to locate there — particularly Iceland and Norway.

– Questions over metaverse –

Against this backdrop, the tech industry continues to innovate new products that invariably require vast amounts of processing power and data storage.

Machine-learning tools, for example, are hugely energy hungry — Google said earlier this year they accounted for between 10 and 15 percent of its total energy usage.

The metaverse, an emerging concept for a 3D internet championed by Facebook owner Meta, would also be hugely energy intensive. 

Critical blogger Monroe reckons the metaverse will buckle under its own weight, partly because of its data requirements.  

“The construction of the metaverse would require Facebook to build out a distribution of data centres that would rival what Amazon, Microsoft and Google have done for their clouds,” he said.

Meta did not respond directly to questions about the metaverse but told AFP that it was “proud to build some of the most energy and water efficient data centres in the world”.

As far as the carbon footprint of such innovation goes, energy experts interviewed by AFP said it would be difficult to assess.

The metaverse, for example, could help to reduce emissions in other areas by reducing the need for travel.

An energy official who did not want to be named questioned whether data centres were the best target for criticism when cryptocurrencies were so wasteful.

While data centres accounted for one percent of global electricity use in 2020, cryptocurrency mining used about half that amount, according to the International Energy Agency.

McCarthy said those who opposed data centres needed to reckon with just how embedded they had become in everyday life, particularly since the coronavirus pandemic.

“They facilitate how we can work and live online, that’s the reality of it,” he said.

Enthusiasts hope a greener ethereum will spark wider acceptance

Leading cryptocurrency figures hailed on Thursday the completion of one of the biggest software upgrades the sector has ever attempted, an overhaul of the Ethereum blockchain aimed at reducing its massive energy consumption.

Developers had spent years working on an energy-efficient version of Ethereum, a digital ledger that underpins tens of billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies, digital tokens (NFTs), games and apps.

Ethereum is the second most important blockchain after bitcoin, but it has faced criticism for burning through more power each year than New Zealand.

“And we finalized!” tweeted Ethereum’s co-creator Vitalik Buterin, calling it a “big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem”.

Buterin quoted research claiming that the “merge”, as developers have called the software upgrade, would reduce global electricity consumption by 0.2 percent.

Enthusiasts hope a more energy efficient Ethereum will spur wider adoption of blockchain technology, particularly for banks and financial firms to automate backend processes.

But so far the technology has been used largely to create speculative financial products.

And critics remain sceptical of the energy saving claims, pointing out that it is unclear how much energy the new system will need.

– Trading resumes –

Blockchain company Consensys called it a “monumental technological milestone” but the scale of the work and potential for glitches led several companies and major exchanges to halt trading during the merge process.

The biggest exchange, Binance, said on Thursday it had resumed trading in ether, the native currency of Ethereum, tweeting: “The Ethereum Merge is complete.”

Ether was down slightly in early trading and has lost more than half of its value since the start of the year, suffering a rout along with the rest of the crypto world as investors shied away from risky assets.

But ether has recovered better than most crypto assets and Edouard Hindi of Geneva-based crypto hedge fund Tyr Capital told AFP the currency was now likely to rise against the dollar and bitcoin as cautious investors begin to buy.

Ether accounts for almost 20 percent of a cryptocurrency market valued at around $1 trillion, according to the site CoinGecko.

The upgrade changes the way transactions are logged on the Ethereum blockchain.

From the start of Ethereum in 2015, so-called crypto miners competed for the prize of adding entries to the blockchain.

They used vast computer power to solve complex equations with only the winners getting the reward, a mechanism known as “proof of work”.

The new system scraps the competition element and eliminates the miners and their energy-guzzling computer stacks.

Instead, potential “validators” need to put up 32 ether (worth $55,000) with the winner chosen in a lottery-style system to update the chain and receive the reward, a system known as “proof of stake”.

“It makes Ethereum much easier to understand conceptually and far less controversial,” Charlie Erith of ByteTree Asset Management told AFP.

He said it would make it harder for investors and regulators to take a tough line on the technology.

However, the upgraded blockchain could face a rocky start.

Some crypto mining companies have already promised to keep running the old mechanism on a smaller blockchain, “forked” from the main Ethereum chain.

And even if the “merge” is successful, Ethereum will remain expensive and slow compared with non-blockchain alternatives.

The 46-nation Least Developed Countries (LDC) bloc says its countries were most exposed to climate impact but least to blame for the carbon emissions that cause it

The world’s poorest countries say they will insist that the UN’s upcoming climate talks push ahead with proposals for a fund to compensate vulnerable nations for climate-inflicted damage.

Ministers and experts from the 46-nation Least Developed Countries (LDC) bloc, meeting in Dakar, said their countries were most exposed to climate impact but least to blame for the carbon emissions that cause it.

In a statement issued late Wednesday ahead of the November climate talks, they said that setting up a funding mechanism for loss and damage was of “crucial importance.”

They also reiterated a call for “all parties, particularly major emitters” to make swift and deep cuts in carbon emissions, and for rich economies to honour past pledges on climate aid.

COP27 — the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — runs in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh from November 6-18.

The annual parlays are dominated by often fierce debate on national pledges on emissions curbs and on funding.

Wealthy countries have previously promised billions of dollars to help poorer nations avert carbon emissions and build resilience against climate change.

The LDC bloc, gathering countries mainly from Africa and Asia, is campaigning in particular for compensation for vulnerable countries which suffer from climate-related damage such as floods and rising seas.

It wants the upcoming talks to establish a mechanism to provide funding.

“Countries are being left to fend for themselves” in the face of climate damage, Senegalese Environment Minister Abdou Karim Sall told reporters.

“It is imperative for a fund to be set up which takes care of loss and damage, especially for least developed countries.”

The pre-COP meeting among LDC representatives in the Senegalese capital was to be followed by talks on Thursday among African environment ministers, attended by US climate envoy John Kerry.

Shell CEO Ben van Beurden presided this year over the company's costly withdrawal from Russian gas and oil after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine

Shell on Thursday announced the exit of chief executive Ben van Beurden as the British oil and gas giant looks to reinvent itself under group renewables boss Wael Sawan.

Dutchman van Beurden, 64, will step down at the end of 2022 after nine years in charge of the energy major and nearly four decades as a Shell employee.

Van Beurden has presided over rollercoaster oil prices fuelled by the Covid pandemic and Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as overseeing a major corporate overhaul that saw it ditch “Royal Dutch” from its name.

The outgoing CEO “can look back with great pride on an extraordinary 39-year Shell career”, chairman Andrew Mackenzie said in a statement.

He said van Beurden had been “in the vanguard for the transition of Shell to a net zero emissions energy business by 2050”, adding that he “leaves a financially strong and profitable company”.

Oil and gas prices have rocketed this year, leaving Shell “with a robust balance sheet, very strong cash generation capability and a compelling set of options for growth”, Mackenzie added.

Shell has faced strong criticism over its net-zero plans from the environmental lobby, which accuses it of “greenwashing”, or marketing a company as overly climate-friendly.

Energy companies and businesses generally are seeking to slash carbon emissions in line with government targets on tackling climate change.

– Strategy ‘tweaks’ –

Shell hopes Beirut-born Sawan, 48, will boost the transition plans.

“For a group whose renewable strategy has been somewhat vague, though grand sounding, this is a clear marker that Shell intends to change this,” said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Sophie Lund-Yates.

“Change won’t happen overnight, but it’s reasonable to think that at least tweaks to the existing renewable strategy could be on the cards.”

Mackenzie called Sawan “an exceptional leader, with all the qualities needed to drive Shell safely and profitably through its next phase of transition and growth”.

The incoming boss had a “track record of commercial, operational and transformational success” and a deep understanding of Shell and the broader energy sector, the chairman added.

A dual Lebanese-Canadian national, Sawan has worked at Shell for 25 years in various roles in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

He is currently director of integrated gas, renewables and energy solutions.

“I’m looking forward to… grasp the opportunities presented by the energy transition,” Sawan said in a statement.

– Oil price boom –

Van Beurden’s tenure included oil prices collapsing into negative territory in 2020, as Covid lockdowns ravaged demand.

Shell dived into a net loss of $21.7 billion in 2020 as factories shut and planes were grounded. 

That resulted in the group shedding thousands of jobs, mirroring the likes of British rival BP.

Oil prices have since rebounded sharply after economies reopened from pandemic lockdowns and following the attack on Ukraine by major crude producer Russia.

Gas prices have also surged owing to the conflict, resulting in Shell’s net profits rocketing more than five-fold to $18 billion in the second quarter of this year.

This even as van Beurden carried out Shell’s costly withdrawal from Russian gas and oil.

Soaring profits for Shell and BP come as Britain’s faces a cost-of-living crisis, igniting calls for the pair to be slapped with a far higher windfall tax than unveiled earlier this year by former finance minister Rishi Sunak.

Last year, Van Beurden ushered in a simplification of Shell’s complex structure, switching headquarters from the Netherlands to the UK and axing Royal Dutch from the front of its name.

Van Beurden, appointed CEO in January 2014, will continue to work as advisor to the board until mid-2023. 

Shell’s share price was largely flat in morning deals on London’s rising stock market.

Enthusiasts hope a greener ethereum will spark wider acceptance

Senior figures in the crypto world said on Thursday that one of the biggest software upgrades the sector has ever seen was completed, an overhaul of the Ethereum blockchain aimed at reducing its massive energy consumption.

Developers had spent years working on a more energy-efficient version of Ethereum, a digital ledger that underpins a multibillion dollar ecosystem of cryptocurrencies, digital tokens (NFTs), games and apps.

“And we finalized!” tweeted Ethereum’s co-creator Vitalik Buterin, calling it a “big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem”.

Ethereum is the second most important blockchain after bitcoin, but it has faced criticism for burning through more power each year than New Zealand.

Buterin quoted research claiming that the “merge”, as developers have called the software upgrade, would reduce global energy consumption by 0.2 percent.

Enthusiasts hope a more energy efficient Ethereum will spur wider adoption, particularly as a way of enabling banks to automate transactions and other processes.

But so far the technology has been used largely to create speculative financial products.

And critics remain sceptical of the claims of massive energy savings, pointing out that it is unclear much energy the new system will need.

– Trading resumes –

The switchover changes the way transactions are logged on the Ethereum blockchain.

From the start of Ethereum in 2015, so-called crypto miners have competed against each other to solve equations — a system known as “proof of work”.

The process required vast computing power and only the winner would be chosen to update the blockchain and get rewards. 

The new system scraps the competition element, the miners and their energy-guzzling computer stacks.

Instead, “validators” will now be chosen in a lottery-style system.

Rather than solving an equation, they put up 32 ether (worth $55,000) — Ethereum’s cryptocurrency — and wait to be chosen in a system known as “proof of stake”.

Blockchain company Consensys called it a “monumental technological milestone” and the biggest update to Ethereum since it was launched.

The world’s biggest crypto exchange, Binance, had stopped trading ether during the merge process.

“The Ethereum Merge is complete,” the firm tweeted on Thursday morning, saying it was resuming trading in ether. 

The upgrade is likely to face a rocky beginning as crypto mining companies have already promised to keep running the old mechanism on a smaller blockchain “forked” from the main Ethereum chain.

And even if the “merge” is successful, Ethereum will still face major hurdles before it can be more widely adopted.

For example, it is expensive to use and the update will not reduce fees.

And the wider crypto sector is still beset by wildly fluctuating prices, security flaws and scams.

Typhoon Muifa hit Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang province

High winds and heavy rain lashed China’s densely populated east coast on Thursday, after Typhoon Muifa forced around 1.6 million people to leave their homes and grounded most flights at Shanghai’s main airports.

Muifa is the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Shanghai — home to more than 25 million people — since record-keeping began in 1949, state broadcaster CCTV said.

However, there were no immediate reports of any deaths or casualties.

At least 426,000 people were evacuated in Shanghai and another 1.2 million people were taken to temporary shelters in neighbouring Zhejiang province, CCTV added. 

Heavy rainfall led to traffic tailbacks and floods in several areas of the Yangtze river delta region, a major global manufacturing hub.

Giant waves were seen crashing onto the coastline in Hangzhou bay, to the south of Shanghai, and national radio reported a landslide in Ninghai County in Zhejiang province.

Packing winds of up to 125 kilometres (78 miles) per hour, the storm made landfall at 12:30 am Thursday (1630 GMT Wednesday) in Shanghai’s Fengxian district.

It had earlier led to the cancellation of all flights to China’s biggest financial hub.

Muifa previously hit the city of Zhoushan in Zhejiang on Wednesday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Air travel slowly resumed in Shanghai as the storm moved north, but most flights from the city’s two main airports were cancelled Thursday morning, according to aviation data provider Flightradar24.

Operations at some of Asia’s largest container shipping ports in Shanghai and neighbouring Ningbo that were halted because of the typhoon were scheduled to resume later Thursday, according to statements from port officials. 

Officials ordered all fishing vessels in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea to anchor in ports as northeast China braced for the typhoon.

The storm entered east China’s Jiangsu province on Thursday morning and the wind speed weakened to about 90 kilometres (56 miles) per hour, the Central Meteorological Observatory said.

The storm came soon after Typhoon Hinnamnoor hit Shanghai and its neighbouring region last week, causing the suspension of Shanghai ferry services and school closures in parts of Zhejiang.

Muifa is the 12th typhoon to hit China this year, according to state media.

Tropical storms, which are expected to increase as the planet warms, were sharply up in 2021, a report by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said earlier this month.