AFP UK

California's power grid is struggling to cope with the huge demand for air conditioning during an extreme heat

Californians were told Wednesday not to charge their electric vehicles during peak hours, just days after the state said it would stop selling gas-powered cars, as the aging electricity grid struggles with a fearsome heatwave.

Temperatures as high as 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius) were forecast in some Los Angeles suburbs as a huge heat dome bakes a swathe of the western United States.

The sweltering weather will put huge demands on the already-stretched power grid, especially when people crank up the air conditioners during the broiling hours after work and school.

“Consumers are urged to conserve power by setting thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, if health permits, avoiding use of major appliances and turning off unnecessary lights,” said the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s power grid.

Between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm, “they should also avoid charging electric vehicles.”

“Reducing energy use during a Flex Alert can help stabilize the power grid during tight supply conditions and prevent further emergency measures, including rotating power outages.”

California’s power companies routinely ask households to limit their usage during the so-called “shoulder hours,” when rooftop solar panels stop producing electricity but demand remains high because of still-elevated temperatures.

The call to limit electric vehicle charging comes a week after state regulators banned the sale of new petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles from 2035.

All but a handful of SUVs, cars and light trucks will have to produce zero tailpipe emissions, with only highly efficient plug-in hybrids permitted to burn fossil fuels.

The move was hailed as a game-changer for the EV industry because of the size of California’s auto market and the potential it has to set national, and even international, standards.

– ‘Dangerously hot’ –

Wednesday’s plea to conserve power was greeted with derision on Twitter, where some said it was proof the state had not thought through its green agenda.

“Perhaps we should figure out how to fix our electric grid before we outlaw gas cars…just a thought,” tweeted @AerysGG

“So………this is what they want. Walking? Hitchin’ A Ride?? Moving to a more reasonable state??” tweeted @cinda_scheef

In response to soaring power demands, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency that temporarily removes pollution controls on fossil fuel power plants to allow them to generate more electricity.

He pointed to the punishing drought in the US West that has crippled hydroelectric plants, and noted the direct effect that climate change is having on day-to-day lives.

“Energy reliability becomes more and more challenging… because demand increases at the same time supply decreases,” he said.

He also called on households to do their part “to help us get through the next week or so, to turn up a little bit the thermostat at home to 78 degrees, try to pre-cool earlier in the day; try not to use too much electricity… between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm.”

The National Weather Service has issued an “excessive heat warning” for most of California, as well as parts of Arizona and Nevada.

“Dangerously hot conditions expected… until Sunday evening,” the NWS said.

“A prolonged period of excessive heat will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.”

“Those without access to adequate or reliable cooling or hydration will be at most risk, but much of the population could be susceptible to impacts as well,” the NWS warned.

Nighttime temperatures are not expected to offer much relief, with lows struggling to get below 80 degrees Fahrenheit in many places.

It is not unusual for southern California to experience heat waves in September, but temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit are considered hot even for a place almost perpetually baked by sunshine.

The heat wave comes after swathes of the southwest were lashed with torrential rains over recent weeks.

Some areas, including the notoriously dusty Death Valley, suffered flooding, and one person died after being swept away in Zion National Park in Utah.

Scientists say global warming, which is being driven chiefly by humanity’s use of fossil fuels, is making natural weather variations more extreme.

Heat waves are getting hotter and more intense, while storms are getting wetter and, in many cases, more dangerous.

Previous treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis required up to 23 pills a day — the new BPaL course needs five

Volodymyr is celebrating a major milestone on Wednesday — it’s his final day of taking a new treatment hailed as a turning point in the fight against drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The 25-year-old doctor in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv said he had nasty neurological side effects when he was on a previous drug regimen, which takes up to two years, involves a huge number of pills and is less than 60-percent effective. 

But the new treatment course took just six months, and gave him very few side effects. “It was very easy,” he told AFP.

A scan on Wednesday showed he was clear of tuberculosis, and he plans to start work next week after eight months off sick.

“Now I can start life again,” said Volodymyr, who did not give his last name.

Tuberculosis, once called consumption, was the world’s biggest infectious killer before the arrival of Covid-19, with 1.5 million people dying from the disease each year.

Around five percent of new cases are resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics, making them difficult to treat.

However a new drug regimen, called BPaL because it combines the antibiotics bedaquiline, pretomanid and linezolid, has been seen as a breakthrough since it was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019.

– From 23 to five pills a day –

Research in 2020 showed that the BPaL regimen cured more than 90 percent of drug-resistant patients, however there was a high rate of side effects linked to linezolid, including nerve pain and bone marrow suppression.

But a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday indicated that the dosage of linezolid can be halved.

A trial involving 181 participants with drug-resistant tuberculosis was carried out in Russia, South Africa, Georgia and Moldova — all countries with high TB rates.

It found that while 1,200 milligrams of linezolid over six months had a cure rate of 93 percent, that number only dropped to 91 percent if the dosage was halved to 600 milligrams.

The number of participants with the side of peripheral neuropathy — which causes nerve pain — fell from 38 to 24 percent at the lower dosage, while the rate of bone marrow suppression dropped from 22 to two percent.

The study’s lead author, Francesca Conradie of South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, said she was “overwhelmed with how successful this regimen was”.

“This is the beginning of the end of drug-resistant TB,” she told AFP.

“The quicker you treat someone’s TB, the less infectious they are — it’s like Covid in many ways.”

It is also far easier for patients to take BPaL, she added, saying previous courses could involve 23 pills a day — and up to 14,000 total pills over the maximum two-year course. 

BPaL involves five pills a day — and fewer than 750 over six months.

– Could TB surpass Covid? –

Nataliia Lytvynenko, who has overseen BPaL treatments in Ukraine, said the more manageable amount of pills meant it was easier for patients to continue treatment after being displaced by the war in her country.

The World Health Organization indicated earlier this year that it would soon update its guidelines to recommend most patients with drug-resistant TB use BPaL with 600 milligrams of linezolid.

Two experts not involved in Wednesday’s study said the research and the WHO guidance were “major advances”.

The BPaL treatment “is one of the defining achievements of the tuberculosis research community in this century,” Guy Thwaites of Britain’s Oxford University and Nguyen Viet Nhung of Vietnam’s National Tuberculosis Control Programme wrote in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The advances come amid warnings that the pandemic has stalled progress against tuberculosis.

“I very much worry that TB will — whether it’s this year or next — again become the largest single killer of any infectious disease in the world,” said Mel Spigelman, the president of the non-profit TB Alliance which funded the research.

Volodymyr meanwhile said he hoped that progress would continue so the treatment timeline gets even shorter.

“Maybe it will be two months — or even one,” he said with a smile.

Previous treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis required up to 23 pills a day — the new BPaL course needs five

Volodymyr is celebrating a major milestone on Wednesday — it’s his final day of taking a new treatment hailed as a turning point in the fight against drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The 25-year-old doctor in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv said he had nasty neurological side effects when he was on a previous drug regimen, which takes up to two years, involves a huge number of pills and is less than 60-percent effective. 

But the new treatment course took just six months, and gave him very few side effects. “It was very easy,” he told AFP.

A scan on Wednesday showed he was clear of tuberculosis, and he plans to start work next week after eight months off sick.

“Now I can start life again,” said Volodymyr, who did not give his last name.

Tuberculosis, once called consumption, was the world’s biggest infectious killer before the arrival of Covid-19, with 1.5 million people dying from the disease each year.

Around five percent of new cases are resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics, making them difficult to treat.

However a new drug regimen, called BPaL because it combines the antibiotics bedaquiline, pretomanid and linezolid, has been seen as a breakthrough since it was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019.

– From 23 to five pills a day –

Research in 2020 showed that the BPaL regimen cured more than 90 percent of drug-resistant patients, however there was a high rate of side effects linked to linezolid, including nerve pain and bone marrow suppression.

But a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday indicated that the dosage of linezolid can be halved.

A trial involving 181 participants with drug-resistant tuberculosis was carried out in Russia, South Africa, Georgia and Moldova — all countries with high TB rates.

It found that while 1,200 milligrams of linezolid over six months had a cure rate of 93 percent, that number only dropped to 91 percent if the dosage was halved to 600 milligrams.

The number of participants with the side of peripheral neuropathy — which causes nerve pain — fell from 38 to 24 percent at the lower dosage, while the rate of bone marrow suppression dropped from 22 to two percent.

The study’s lead author, Francesca Conradie of South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, said she was “overwhelmed with how successful this regimen was”.

“This is the beginning of the end of drug-resistant TB,” she told AFP.

“The quicker you treat someone’s TB, the less infectious they are — it’s like Covid in many ways.”

It is also far easier for patients to take BPaL, she added, saying previous courses could involve 23 pills a day — and up to 14,000 total pills over the maximum two-year course. 

BPaL involves five pills a day — and fewer than 750 over six months.

– Could TB surpass Covid? –

Nataliia Lytvynenko, who has overseen BPaL treatments in Ukraine, said the more manageable amount of pills meant it was easier for patients to continue treatment after being displaced by the war in her country.

The World Health Organization indicated earlier this year that it would soon update its guidelines to recommend most patients with drug-resistant TB use BPaL with 600 milligrams of linezolid.

Two experts not involved in Wednesday’s study said the research and the WHO guidance were “major advances”.

The BPaL treatment “is one of the defining achievements of the tuberculosis research community in this century,” Guy Thwaites of Britain’s Oxford University and Nguyen Viet Nhung of Vietnam’s National Tuberculosis Control Programme wrote in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The advances come amid warnings that the pandemic has stalled progress against tuberculosis.

“I very much worry that TB will — whether it’s this year or next — again become the largest single killer of any infectious disease in the world,” said Mel Spigelman, the president of the non-profit TB Alliance which funded the research.

Volodymyr meanwhile said he hoped that progress would continue so the treatment timeline gets even shorter.

“Maybe it will be two months — or even one,” he said with a smile.

UN inspectors are expected to arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Thursday

UN inspectors said Wednesday they would seek to establish a permanent presence at a Russian-held plant in southern Ukraine to avoid “a nuclear accident” at the facility on the frontline of the fighting.

The 14-strong team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which lies inside Russian-held territory, on Thursday.

“My mission is… to prevent a nuclear accident and preserve the largest nuclear power plant in Europe,” IAEA director general Rafael Grossi told reporters after travelling from Kyiv to the city of Zaporizhzhia. 

“We are preparing for the real work which begins tomorrow,” he said. “We are going to try to establish a permanent presence for the agency.”

Fresh shelling struck the town next to Europe’s largest atomic facility on Wednesday, with the fate of the plant on the banks of the Dnipro River stoking global concern. 

“The Russian army is shelling Energodar,” local military official Evhen Yevtushenko said on Wednesday morning, of the town next to the plant which had a pre-war population of 50,000 people. 

Both sides have repeatedly traded blame over attacks in the area. 

One of the shells hit Energodar’s city council, Mayor Dmytro Orlov wrote on Telegram, posting pictures of the damaged building with a hole punched into the side. 

“The Russian occupying forces must stop shelling the corridors to be used by the IAEA mission and not obstruct its activities at the plant,” foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. 

– ‘Explicit safety guarantees’ –

Although Zaporizhzhia is normally about a two-hour drive from the plant, it was not immediately clear how the IAEA team would reach the site which would involve crossing the frontline to enter Russian-held areas.

But Grossi said his team had received “explicit” safety guarantees from both sides for their visit which would last “a few days”.

“These are very complex operations,” he said. 

The plant has been occupied by Russian troops since March and Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying hundreds of soldiers and storing ammunition there.

Kyiv has insisted the team access the plant via Ukrainian-held territory.

“Sadly, Russia is not stopping its provocations precisely in the direction the mission needs to travel to reach the plant,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Tuesday after meeting Grossi.

The situation was “extremely menacing”, he said, accusing the Russians of “continuing bombardments” and calling for “an immediate and total demilitarisation” of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. 

In Moscow, the Russian defence ministry accused Kyiv of “continued provocations aimed at disrupting the work of the IAEA mission” saying it had shelled the area around the plant on Tuesday hitting a building containing “the solid radioactive waste processing complex”.

– Counteroffensive in the south –

Meanwhile, intensive fighting raged across the nearby southern region of Kherson where Ukraine began a counteroffensive on Monday. 

Most of the region and its provincial capital of the same name were seized by Russian forces at the start of the invasion six months ago.

With the war in the eastern Donbas region largely stalled, analysts have said for weeks that combat is likely to shift south to break the stalemate before winter comes.

In its morning update, the president’s office in Kyiv said “fighting continued throughout the night” in Kherson, and that one person had been killed and two injured in an overnight bombing in the Mykolaiv area. 

But the Russian defence ministry said Kyiv’s attempts to advance its counteroffensive had “failed” with Ukrainian forces suffering “significant losses and were driven back by Russian troops”. 

As Ukraine presses its offensive, the White House said Wednesday that there would be an announcement in the coming days on additional military aid for Kyiv, on top of $13 billion already pledged by Washington.

EU foreign ministers on Wednesday agreed to suspend a 2007 visa facilitation deal with Russia, which will make it more difficult and longer for Russian nationals to get visas.

EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said ministers had agreed that relations with Moscow “cannot be business as usual”. 

Zelensky, who has called for a total ban on EU tourist visas for Russians, said Wednesday that Russian society must pay the price for the war.

“I think it is humiliating for Europe when it is considered simply as one big boutique or restaurant,” he said in his daily address to the nation. “Europe is a territory of values first of all, not primitive consumption.”

And earlier in the day, Russian energy giant Gazprom suspended gas deliveries to Germany, citing maintenance issues in the latest of a series of supply stoppages that have fuelled an energy crisis in Europe.

The move comes as European countries have faced soaring energy prices since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and subsequently curbed its gas deliveries to the region.

California's power grid is struggling to cope with the huge demand for air conditioning during an extreme heat

Californians were told Wednesday not to charge their electric vehicles, just days after the state said it would stop selling gas-powered cars, as the aging electricity grid struggles with a fearsome heatwave.

Temperatures as high as 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) were expected in some Los Angeles suburbs as a huge heat dome bakes a swathe of the western United States.

The sweltering weather is expected to put huge demands on the already-stretched power grid, especially when people crank up the air conditioners during the broiling hours after work and school.

“Consumers are urged to reduce energy use from 4 to 9pm when the system is most stressed because demand for electricity remains high and there is less solar energy available,” said the American Public Power Association, a body that represents public utilities.

“The top three conservation actions are to set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, avoid using large appliances and charging electric vehicles, and turn off unnecessary lights.”

California’s power companies routinely call for households to limit their usage during the so-called “shoulder hours,” when rooftop solar panels stop producing electricity but demand remains high because of still-elevated temperatures.

The call to limit electric vehicle charging comes a week after state regulators banned the sale of new petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles from 2035.

All but a handful of SUVs, cars and light trucks will have to produce zero tailpipe emissions, with only highly efficient plug-in hybrids permitted to burn fossil fuels.

The move was hailed as a game-changer for the EV industry because of the size of California’s auto market and the potential it has to set national, and even international, standards.

– ‘Dangerously hot’ –

Wednesday’s call to conserve power was greeted with derision on Twitter, where some said it was proof the state had not thought through its green agenda.

“Perhaps we should figure out how to fix our electric grid before we outlaw gas cars…just a thought,” tweeted @AerysGG

“So………this is what they want. Walking? Hitchin’ A Ride?? Moving to a more reasonable state??” tweeted @cinda_scheef

The National Weather Service has issued an “excessive heat warning” for most of California, as well as parts of Arizona and Nevada.

“Dangerously hot conditions expected… until Sunday evening,” the NWS said.

“A prolonged period of excessive heat will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.”

“Those without access to adequate or reliable cooling or hydration will be at most risk, but much of the population could be susceptible to impacts as well,” the NWS warned.

Nighttime temperatures are not expected to offer much relief, with lows struggling to get below 80 degrees Fahrenheit in many places.

It is not unusual for southern California to experience heat waves in September, but temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit are considered hot even for a place almost perpetually baked by sunshine.

The heat wave comes after swathes of the southwest were lashed with torrential rains over recent weeks.

Some areas, including the notoriously dusty Death Valley, suffered flooding, and one person died after being swept away in Zion National Park in Utah.

Scientists say global warming, which is being driven chiefly by humanity’s use of fossil fuels, is making natural weather variations more extreme.

Heat waves are getting hotter and more intense, while storms are getting wetter and, in many cases, more dangerous.

The wreckage of a home in General Luna town, Siargao island, in the Philippines in December 2021 following Typhoon Rai, one of a series of deadly storms over the year amid mounting concern on climate change

Earth’s concentration of greenhouse gases and sea levels hit new highs in 2021, a US government report said Wednesday, showing that climate change keeps surging ahead despite renewed efforts to curb emissions.

“The data presented in this report are clear — we continue to see more compelling scientific evidence that climate change has global impacts and shows no sign of slowing,” said Rick Spinrad, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“With many communities hit with 1,000-year floods, exceptional drought and historic heat this year, it shows that the climate crisis is not a future threat but something we must address today,” he said in a statement.

The rise in greenhouse gas levels comes despite an easing of fossil fuel emissions the previous year as much of the global economy slowed sharply due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US agency said that the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere stood at 414.7 parts per million in 2021, 2.3 parts higher than in 2020.

The level is “the highest in at least the last million years based on paleoclimatic records,” the annual State of the Climate report found.

The planet’s sea levels rose for the 10th straight year, reaching a new record of 3.8 inches (97 millimeters) above the average in 1993 when satellite measurements began.

Last year was among the six warmest on record since the mid-19th century, with the last seven years all the seven hottest on record, it said.

The less headline-grabbing average temperatures were in part due to La Nina, an occasional phenomenon in the Pacific that cools waters, which took place early in the year and contributed to February being the coldest since 2014.

But water temperatures were also at records, with exceptionally high recordings documented in particular in lakes in Tibet, an environmentally crucial region as a water source for many of Asia’s major rivers.

– Rising disasters and fears –

Tropical storms, which are expected to increase as the planet warms, were sharply up in 2021, the report said. They included Typhoon Rai, which killed nearly 400 people in the Philippines in December, and Ida, which swept the Caribbean before becoming the second strongest hurricane to hit Louisiana after Katrina.

Among other extraordinary events cited in the report, the celebrated cherry trees in Kyoto, Japan, bloomed at their earliest since 1409.

Wildfires, also expected to rise due to climate change, were comparatively low following recent years although devastating blazes were witnessed both in the American West and Siberia.

The 2021 report comes days after a study said Greenland’s ice sheet is already set to melt at dangerous levels, even without any future warming, with major effects for low-lying areas around the globe that are home to hundreds of millions of people.

The planet remains far off track from an ambition set by the Paris climate accord in 2015 to aspire to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

In August, the United States under President Joe Biden pushed through the most expansive government package ever to address emissions from the world’s largest economy.

The effort will invest heavily in clean energy and comes as California moves to require all cars to be zero-emission by 2035, a decision with far-reaching consequences for the automobile industry.

Pakistan has estimated the cost of rebuilding at around $10 billion

Rich carbon polluters should feel “moral pressure” to help fund climate-vulnerable nations wracked by weather extremes such as Pakistan, where monstrous flooding has caused devastation, diplomats and observers told AFP.

Torrential monsoon rains have killed more than a thousand, left a third of Pakistan under water and displaced hundreds of thousands, months after the country was scorched by record-shattering heat, intensified by climate change.

While it is too early to quantify the contribution of warming, scientists say the rains are broadly consistent with expectations that climate change will make the Indian monsoon wetter. 

The United Nations chief has called them a “climate catastrophe”.

“This is not a freak accident,” said Nabeel Munir, Pakistan’s ambassador to Seoul and chair of the largest negotiating bloc of developing nations at UN climate negotiations. 

“The science proves the frequency and the impact of these disasters is only going to increase and we have to be prepared for that.”

The human and economic impact is already staggering and “this is an ongoing disaster; the rains are still going on”, he told AFP.  

Countries like Pakistan that have contributed the least to global warming are often battered by the worst impacts, observers say. 

Pressures are mounting for UN negotiations in November to ringfence specific “loss and damage” funding for countries slammed by increasingly extreme and expensive climate impacts.

The issue will be thrown into sharp relief with Pakistan fronting the important G77+China bloc — representing more than a hundred nations and a significant proportion of the global population — as it reels from weather disasters.

Munir said wealthy nations that have contributed the most to climate change from burning fossil fuels should recognise their role and provide more funding to help vulnerable countries, adding that the UN process so far had produced “not even peanuts” for loss and damage.

“We will continue the moral pressure. But I think a lot of the political and moral pressure has to come from within these countries,” he said.

Pakistan has contributed less than 0.5 percent of heat-trapping emissions pumped into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, said Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The United States is responsible for 25 percent.    

“Understanding the forces behind disasters like Pakistan’s current floods is an important step toward holding developed nations accountable for the changes they have wrought,” she told AFP.

– ‘Unliveable’ heat threat –

In March a blistering hot spell began to develop across parts of South Asia, with Pakistan registering record temperatures.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution climate group estimated that climate change had made the heatwave 30 times more likely. 

The region’s “breadbasket” in northwestern India and south Pakistan was particularly affected. Crops wilted, while sheep collapsed and died of heatstroke. 

In May the temperatures were still spiking. 

“We had temperatures in the cities touching 50 degrees (Celsius, 122 degrees Fahrenheit), can you even imagine?” said Munir. 

“There are cities which might become unliveable because of the temperatures they will regularly have.”

And the heat had another devastating effect in a country home to more than 7,000 glaciers, the largest number for any region outside the poles.

Quickly melting glaciers can saturate the landscape and cause glacial lake outburst floods, unleashing torrents of ice, rock and water. 

That can lead to a “compound effect where we’ve got higher than average river levels, on top of higher than average rainfall”, said Helen Griffith, a researcher of hydrology and environmental science at the University of Reading.

While Pakistan suffered severe flooding in the heavy monsoon of 2010, she said rainfall this year was “unprecedented” and deluging areas where people would never have experienced rains on this scale.

In Balochistan province rainfall was 466 percent higher than normal, Munir said, while the country itself has had three times the national average.  

So far the floods have affected around 33 million people, destroyed nearly a million homes and wiped out almost 200 bridges and 3,500 kilometres (2,200 miles) of roads, hampering efforts to reach those in need.  

Some 800,000 livestock and two million acres (809,000 hectares) of farmland have been “washed away”, Munir said, threatening food security in the coming months. 

– ‘Undermined’ –

The UN is trying to raise $160 million for humanitarian relief. 

But that money is for people in immediate crisis — and there is no guarantee it will come. 

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s government has put the estimated rebuilding costs at around $10 billion.  

While humanitarian aid following disasters like the Pakistan floods can assist, “developing countries need to be able to rely on a longer-term and consistent source of resources as the impacts of climate change mount,” said Dahl.

High-income emitters, particularly the US and European Union, have “consistently undermined” efforts to address loss and damage, she said.

After richer nations failed to meet a promise of $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to future climate impacts, finance and global inequality will be a key flashpoint at November’s UN talks in Egypt. 

A recent study, based on climate models, predicted that exceptionally wet monsoons in the Indian subcontinent would become six times more likely during the 21st century, even if humanity rachets down carbon emissions.

“It’s an established fact: this is happening because of climate change,” Munir said. 

“So the funding has to come from somewhere and you know where that somewhere is.”

Homes are still submerged in many parts of the flooded south of Pakistan, with nowhere for the waters to drain

Army helicopters flew sorties over cut-off areas in Pakistan’s mountainous north Wednesday and rescue parties fanned out across waterlogged plains in the south as misery mounted for millions trapped by the worst floods in the country’s history.

Monsoon rains have submerged a third of Pakistan, claiming at least 1,190 lives since June and unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called it “a monsoon on steroids” as he launched an international appeal late Tuesday for $160 million in emergency funding.

The World Health Organization announced a Grade 3 emergency for the Pakistan floods — its highest level.

Officials say more than 33 million people are affected — one in every seven Pakistanis — and it will cost more than $10 billion to rebuild.

The focus for now, however, is reaching tens of thousands still stranded on hills and in valleys in the north, as well as remote villages in the south and west.

“We appeal to the government to help end our miseries at the soonest,” said Mohammad Safar, 38, outside his submerged home in Shikarpur in the southeastern province of Sindh on Wednesday.

“The water must be drained out from here immediately so we can go back to our homes.”

There is so much water however that there is nowhere for it to drain.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman described the country as “like a fully soaked sponge”, incapable of absorbing any more rain.

– ‘Burning with pain’ –

Pakistan has received twice its usual monsoon rainfall, weather authorities say, but Balochistan and Sindh provinces have seen more than four times the average of the last three decades.

Padidan, a small town in Sindh, has been drenched with an astonishing 1.75 metres (70 inches) since June.

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which are crucial for agriculture and water supplies, but such intense downpours have not been seen for three decades.

Officials have blamed climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather around the world.

Earlier this year much of the nation was in the grip of a drought and heatwave, with temperatures hitting 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) in Sindh province.

The latest disaster could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised aid donors that any funding would be responsibly spent.

“I want to give my solemn pledge and solemn commitment… every penny will be spent in a very transparent fashion. Every penny will reach the needy,” he said.

Pakistan was already desperate for international support and the floods have compounded the challenge.

Prices of basic goods — particularly onions, tomatoes and chickpeas — are soaring as vendors bemoan a lack of supplies from the flooded breadbasket provinces of Sindh and Punjab.

Makeshift relief camps have sprung up all over Pakistan — in schools, on motorways and in military bases.

Displaced people are sweltering in the summer heat with sporadic food aid and little access to water.

In Sindh, doctors treated patients who made their way to a makeshift clinic after walking barefoot through dirty floodwater, mud and streets full of debris and manure.

“My child’s foot is burning with pain. My feet too,” said Azra Bhambro, a 23-year-old woman who had come to the clinic for help.

In the northwestern town of Nowshera, a technical college was turned into a shelter for up to 2,500 flood victims.

The army said its helicopters had flown more than 140 sorties in the past 24 hours, plucking people from cut-off areas in the north, and dropping off food and fresh water elsewhere.

One road to the north in Swat Valley now ends in the town of Bahrain, in ruins after flash floods obliterated the bridge across the Swat River.

Hotels have disappeared, the town’s mosque is a bare shell, and waist-high water still gushes through the main bazaar.

“It was a heavenly place but now it is a wreckage,” Muhammad Asif, a 22-year-old college student, told AFP. 

Aid flights have arrived in recent days from China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, while other countries including Canada, Australia and Japan have also pledged assistance.

The wreckage of a home in General Luna town, Siargao island, in the Philippines in December 2021 following Typhoon Rai, one of a series of deadly storms over the year amid mounting concern on climate change

Earth’s concentration of greenhouse gases and sea levels hit new highs in 2021, a US government report said Wednesday, showing that climate change keeps surging ahead despite efforts to curb emissions.

“The data presented in this report are clear — we continue to see more compelling scientific evidence that climate change has global impacts and shows no sign of slowing,” said Rick Spinrad, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The rise in greenhouse gas levels comes despite an easing of fossil fuel emissions the previous year as much of the global economy slowed sharply due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US agency said that the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere stood at 414.7 parts per million in 2021, 2.3 parts higher than in 2020.

The level is “the highest in at least the last million years based on paleoclimatic records,” the annual State of the Climate report found.

The planet’s sea levels rose for the 10th straight year, reaching a new record of 3.8 inches (97 millimeters) above the average in 1993 when satellite measurements began.

Last year was among the six warmest on record since the mid-19th century, with the last seven years all the seven hottest years on record, it said.

The number of tropical storms were also well above average last year including Typhoon Rai, which killed nearly 400 people in the Philippines in December, and Ida, which swept the Caribbean before becoming the second strongest hurricane to hit Louisiana after Katrina.

Some of the world's top economies and emerging nations are being increasingly hit by record heat, flash floods and droughts

Group of 20 climate talks in Bali ended without a joint communique Wednesday despite host Indonesia warning the world’s leading economies they must act together to combat a warming planet or risk plunging into “uncharted territory”.

The one-day meeting on the resort island concluded with Indonesia’s environment chief saying G20 chair Jakarta would only issue a summary of the forum’s aims, reflecting divisions between its members over how to tackle climate change.

The failure to agree a unified statement came at the end of a month in which more than 1,000 people died in Pakistan from flooding blamed on climate change and after a drought exacerbated by a record heatwave spread across half of China.

At a closing press conference, Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar said the summary would detail the forum’s “shared commitment and shared steps”.

It is a similar move to that seen in finance talks in Indonesia last month where the host — which maintains a neutral foreign policy — issued a chair statement after ministers disagreed over Russia’s responsibility for global economic turmoil in light of its invasion of Ukraine.

“We cannot say that,” Bakar told AFP when asked if there was no communique because of geopolitical disagreements. 

“But the chair summary is something we can achieve given the geopolitical issues and (given) some countries cannot be flexible on certain issues. 

“Just like in many working groups, issues on Russia and Ukraine have become geopolitical tension.”

Another source close to the meeting said G20 members “did not manage to reach a joint communique” and most countries started their speeches by condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though there were no walkouts or clashes when the Russian representative spoke.

“The reason that killed the communique from the start is the presence of Russia today,” the source told AFP.

Moscow only sent a deputy minister for economic development to the talks, according to a list of attendees seen by AFP.

In her opening remarks Bakar had told delegates that “global environmental problems require global solutions” and nations “cannot solve those global environmental problems on our own”.

Countries around the world are being increasingly hit by record heat, flash floods and droughts — phenomena that scientists say will become more frequent and intense due to climate change.

– ‘Hostile actors’ –

Research published this month showed the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet over the last 40 years, suggesting climate models and governments are underestimating the rate of polar heating.

“We cannot hide from the fact that the world is facing increasingly compounding challenges,” Bakar said, referencing energy price spikes and global food shortages.

“We know that climate change could become an amplifier and multiplier of the crises.”

She added that climate change “would not only wipe out all development progress that has been achieved over past decades, particularly in emerging economies, but it would also propel us over an environmental tipping point into uncharted territory where no future will be sustainable”.

At the meeting were US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, Britain’s climate minister Alok Sharma and officials from India, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and the European Union among others.

China –- the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases –- only sent a vice minister of ecology and environment, with higher-level officials staying home because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The meeting was a prelude to a November leaders’ summit which Indonesian President Joko Widodo has said Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will attend despite Moscow’s isolation after invading Ukraine.

Britain said the Russian military assault had exacerbated energy problems, with Sharma arguing it showed “the vulnerability of countries relying on fossil fuels controlled by hostile actors”. 

Climate security had become synonymous with energy security, he said.

The United Nations’ next climate change talks will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November.