AFP UK

Palestinians in Gaza are burning plastic to make affordable diesel, an economic and practical solution in a territory blockaded by Israel for 15 years

Living in one of the poorest parts of the Middle East and facing some of the region’s highest fuel costs, Palestinians in Gaza are burning plastic to make affordable diesel.

It’s an economic and practical solution in a territory blockaded by Israel for 15 years, but one which poses serious environmental and health risks, experts say.

Standing before rusty metal machinery and fuel containers, Mahmoud al-Kafarneh described how he and his brothers came up with their plastic recycling project.

“We started experimenting to implement the project in 2018, through searching the internet,” he told AFP, at the site in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.

“We failed a few times; after eight months we succeeded in extracting the fuel.”

The distilling setup features a series of crude-looking tanks and connecting pipes set up outside on the dirt.

The process starts with the burning of wood in a furnace below a large mud-covered tank holding up to 1.5 tonnes (tons) of shredded plastic. When the plastic melts, the vapours flow through a pipe into a water tank where they cool and drip as fuel into containers, ready to be sold.

Black-grey smoke pours from several pipes extending above the furnace and the tank holding the plastic.

Only a few of the workers wear face masks and gloves as they melt bagfuls of shredded plastic. Their clothing is stained black.

Kafarneh said no-one has experienced health problems since starting work at the site, which sits beside olive trees and away from residential buildings.

“We follow all safety procedures at work”, he said. 

But Ahmed Hillis, director of Gaza’s National Institute for the Environment and Development, fears an environmental catastrophe from this unregulated industry.

“The method used is rudimentary and very harmful to the workers,” mainly because they inhale toxic fumes, he told AFP.

Burning plastic releases dioxins, mercury and other toxic gases which pose “a threat to vegetation, human and animal health”, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Hillis adds another danger of burning plastic, which is derived from petroleum hydrocarbons.

The tank is “a time bomb because it could explode” from the heat, he says.

In Gaza, where exchanges of fire between Palestinian militants and Israel for three days earlier this month killed at least 49 Palestinians, health risks are outweighed by economic reality.

– ‘Same quality’ –

Kafarneh, 25, said he would ideally upgrade their kit to a safer tank operated by electricity.

“But it’s unavailable due to the Israeli blockade,” he said. 

Since 2007, when the Islamist movement Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, Israel has severely restricted the flow of people and goods in and out of the coastal enclave where 2.3 million people live.

The territory is increasingly impoverished.

Unemployment has hit 47 percent and the average daily wage is around 60 shekels ($18), according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Petrol delivered from Israel shot up to eight shekels ($2.40) a litre in Gaza, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent global fuel prices spiking, before a pullback.

That sent demand soaring for Kafarneh’s fuel, with fishermen and farmers among the top customers.

At the portside in Gaza City, Abd al-Muti al-Habil is using a hose to fill the tank of his fishing boat.

“We use this diesel because it’s half the cost of the Israeli equivalent,” he said.

“There are no disadvantages. It’s the same quality, it doesn’t affect the motor and it’s working efficiently.”

The only problem for Habil is the shortage of supply, with around 10 boats currently using diesel made from recycled plastic. 

“Unfortunately the quantities are not enough. I barely get 500 litres (132 gallons) every two days,” he said.

Habil’s boat burns through 900 litres (237 gallons) of fuel during 12 hours at sea, quantities which are unaffordable if he relies solely on imported fuel.

One tankful of plastic can produce 1,000 litres (264 gallons) of fuel every 12-14 hours, but Kafarneh’s team must wait eight hours for the equipment to cool before they can restart the process. 

The amount produced also depends on the availability of raw materials.

At a sorting facility near the distilling site, six men are combing through a towering heap of baskets, bowls, buckets and other plastic waste.

“We get the plastic from workers who collect it from the street. We buy it from them, then we separate it and grind it through a special machine,” said Imad Hamed, whose hands are stained black from the work.

With the grinder relying on electricity, Hamed said they are frequently interrupted by Gaza’s chronic power cuts.

“We have to work at night sometimes, to coincide with the availability of electricity,” he said.

Palestinians in Gaza are burning plastic to make affordable diesel, an economic and practical solution in a territory blockaded by Israel for 15 years

Living in one of the poorest parts of the Middle East and facing some of the region’s highest fuel costs, Palestinians in Gaza are burning plastic to make affordable diesel.

It’s an economic and practical solution in a territory blockaded by Israel for 15 years, but one which poses serious environmental and health risks, experts say.

Standing before rusty metal machinery and fuel containers, Mahmoud al-Kafarneh described how he and his brothers came up with their plastic recycling project.

“We started experimenting to implement the project in 2018, through searching the internet,” he told AFP, at the site in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.

“We failed a few times; after eight months we succeeded in extracting the fuel.”

The distilling setup features a series of crude-looking tanks and connecting pipes set up outside on the dirt.

The process starts with the burning of wood in a furnace below a large mud-covered tank holding up to 1.5 tonnes (tons) of shredded plastic. When the plastic melts, the vapours flow through a pipe into a water tank where they cool and drip as fuel into containers, ready to be sold.

Black-grey smoke pours from several pipes extending above the furnace and the tank holding the plastic.

Only a few of the workers wear face masks and gloves as they melt bagfuls of shredded plastic. Their clothing is stained black.

Kafarneh said no-one has experienced health problems since starting work at the site, which sits beside olive trees and away from residential buildings.

“We follow all safety procedures at work”, he said. 

But Ahmed Hillis, director of Gaza’s National Institute for the Environment and Development, fears an environmental catastrophe from this unregulated industry.

“The method used is rudimentary and very harmful to the workers,” mainly because they inhale toxic fumes, he told AFP.

Burning plastic releases dioxins, mercury and other toxic gases which pose “a threat to vegetation, human and animal health”, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Hillis adds another danger of burning plastic, which is derived from petroleum hydrocarbons.

The tank is “a time bomb because it could explode” from the heat, he says.

In Gaza, where exchanges of fire between Palestinian militants and Israel for three days earlier this month killed at least 49 Palestinians, health risks are outweighed by economic reality.

– ‘Same quality’ –

Kafarneh, 25, said he would ideally upgrade their kit to a safer tank operated by electricity.

“But it’s unavailable due to the Israeli blockade,” he said. 

Since 2007, when the Islamist movement Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, Israel has severely restricted the flow of people and goods in and out of the coastal enclave where 2.3 million people live.

The territory is increasingly impoverished.

Unemployment has hit 47 percent and the average daily wage is around 60 shekels ($18), according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Petrol delivered from Israel shot up to eight shekels ($2.40) a litre in Gaza, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent global fuel prices spiking, before a pullback.

That sent demand soaring for Kafarneh’s fuel, with fishermen and farmers among the top customers.

At the portside in Gaza City, Abd al-Muti al-Habil is using a hose to fill the tank of his fishing boat.

“We use this diesel because it’s half the cost of the Israeli equivalent,” he said.

“There are no disadvantages. It’s the same quality, it doesn’t affect the motor and it’s working efficiently.”

The only problem for Habil is the shortage of supply, with around 10 boats currently using diesel made from recycled plastic. 

“Unfortunately the quantities are not enough. I barely get 500 litres (132 gallons) every two days,” he said.

Habil’s boat burns through 900 litres (237 gallons) of fuel during 12 hours at sea, quantities which are unaffordable if he relies solely on imported fuel.

One tankful of plastic can produce 1,000 litres (264 gallons) of fuel every 12-14 hours, but Kafarneh’s team must wait eight hours for the equipment to cool before they can restart the process. 

The amount produced also depends on the availability of raw materials.

At a sorting facility near the distilling site, six men are combing through a towering heap of baskets, bowls, buckets and other plastic waste.

“We get the plastic from workers who collect it from the street. We buy it from them, then we separate it and grind it through a special machine,” said Imad Hamed, whose hands are stained black from the work.

With the grinder relying on electricity, Hamed said they are frequently interrupted by Gaza’s chronic power cuts.

“We have to work at night sometimes, to coincide with the availability of electricity,” he said.

This photo taken on October 01, 2019 shows a fire near Itaituba, Para state, Brazil, in the Amazon rainforest

The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon hit a nearly 15-year high this week, according to official figures that provided the latest warning on the advancing destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest.

Satellite monitoring detected 3,358 fires on Monday, August 22, the highest number for any 24-hour period since September 2007, according to the Brazilian space agency, INPE.

The number was nearly triple that recorded on the so-called “Day of Fire” — August 10, 2019 — when farmers launched a coordinated plan to burn huge amounts of felled rainforest in the northern state of Para.

Then, fires sent thick gray smoke all the way to Sao Paulo, some 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) away, and triggered a global outcry over images of one of Earth’s most vital resources burning.

There is no indication that Monday’s fires were coordinated, said Alberto Setzer, head of INPE’s fire monitoring program.

Rather, they appear to fit a pattern of increasing deforestation and burning, he said.

Experts say Amazon fires are caused mainly by illegal farmers, ranchers and speculators clearing land and torching the trees.

In Brazil, the so-called “arc of deforestation” has been advancing.

“The regions where the most fires are occurring are moving farther and farther north,” Setzer told AFP.

“The ‘arc of deforestation’ is undoubtedly evolving.”

August is typically when fire season starts in earnest in the Amazon, with the arrival of drier weather.

This has been a worrying year so far for the forest, a key buffer against global warming: INPE detected 5,373 fires last month, up eight percent from July last year.

And with 24,124 fires so far this month, it is on track to be the worst August under President Jair Bolsonaro — though well below the 63,764 fires detected in August 2005, the worse for the month since records began in 1998.

Bolsonaro, an agribusiness ally, faces international criticism for a surge in Amazon destruction on his watch. Since he took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.

The far-right president rejects that criticism.

“None of those who are attacking us have the right. If they wanted a pretty forest to call their own, they should have preserved the ones in their countries,” he wrote on Twitter Thursday.

“The Amazon belongs to Brazilians, and always will.”

But with Bolsonaro running for reelection in October, the destruction risks accelerating, said Ane Alencar, director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM).

“We know from previous years that there is a link between elections and deforestation,” with officials and enforcement agencies distracted by the campaign, she said.

This year, “we have high rates of deforestation… and there are still lots of felled trees waiting to burn.”

Cars, trucks, SUVs and other vehicles drive in traffic on the 405 freeway in SantaMonica, California, on August 25, 2022

California ruled Thursday that all new cars sold in America’s most populous state must be zero emission from 2035, in what was billed as a nation-leading step to slash the pollutants that cause global warming.

The widely touted move has been hailed by environmentalists, who hope it will prod other parts of the United States to quicken the adoption of electric vehicles.

The rules demand an ever-increasing percentage of new cars sold to California’s 40 million inhabitants produce no tailpipe pollutants, until their total ban in 13 years’ time.

“The timeline is ambitious but achievable: by the time a child born this year is ready to enter middle school, only zero-emission vehicles or a limited number of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) will be offered for sale new in California,” the California Air Resources Board said.

The board, which was tasked with finding a way to implement Governor Gavin Newsom’s order to transition the state’s automotive sector, said the health benefits would be significant.

“By 2037, the regulation delivers a 25 percent reduction in smog-causing pollution from light-duty vehicles.

“This benefits all Californians but especially the state’s most environmentally and economically burdened communities along freeways and other heavily traveled thoroughfares.”

From 2026 through 2040 the regulation is expected to result in 1,290 fewer cardiopulmonary deaths, 460 fewer hospital admissions for cardiovascular or respiratory illness, and 650 fewer emergency room visits for asthma, it said.

– Popularity –

California already accounts for the lion’s share of electric vehicles in the United States, with 1.13 million of them on the state’s roads — 43 percent of the nation’s total.

Their popularity has mushroomed in the years since they were seen as little more than novelty golf carts for tree-huggers content to drive no more than a few dozen miles (kilometers).

Ten years ago only two percent of new cars sold in the state were electric; that figure is now 16 percent, and Teslas and other premium offerings with a range of hundreds of miles are a common sight on roads around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Still, the vehicles remain more expensive than their fossil fuel-powered equivalents and critics say only federal subsidies of up to $7,500 make them viable for many buyers.

But supporters say the incentives are necessary short-term supports that will fade away as increased adoption boosts economies of scale and drives down prices.

As the biggest auto market in the United States, one manufacturers cannot ignore, California has an outsized influence in effectively setting national standards.

Thursday’s ruling comes on the heels of a climate law signed last week by US President Joe Biden, which sets aside hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives for clean energy programs.

Biden and his Democratic Party are rushing to make up climate policy ground they feel was lost under former president Donald Trump, who yanked the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord and reversed what many environmentalists viewed as already-weak progress in reducing the fossil fuel emissions that drive global warming.

Newsom, a leading light in the Democratic Party, who is rumored to have presidential ambitions, welcomed the ruling.

– ‘Groundbreaking’ –

“California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading… roadmap to reducing dangerous carbon emissions and moving away from fossil fuels,” he said.

The reduction in the number of petrol and diesel-powered cars on the roads is equivalent to “915 million oil barrels’ worth of emissions that won’t pollute our communities.”

“With the historic $10 billion we’re investing to accelerate the transition… we’re making it easier and cheaper for all Californians to purchase electric cars.”

In recent years jurisdictions around the world, notably in Europe, have set their sights on the polluting automobile sector.

Norway is aiming to have all new cars produce zero tailpipe emissions by 2025.

The UK, Singapore and Israel are eyeing 2030, while the European Union wants to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035. 

Human-caused global warming has already raised average temperatures around the planet, affecting weather patterns and worsening natural hazards like wildfires and storms.

Scientists say dramatic action is required to limit the damage, and point to curbing emissions from fossil fuels as key to the battle.

Cars, trucks, SUVs and other vehicles drive in traffic on the 405 freeway in SantaMonica, California, on August 25, 2022

California ruled Thursday that all new cars sold in America’s most populous state must be zero emission from 2035, in what was billed as a nation-leading step to slash the pollutants that cause global warming.

The widely touted move has been hailed by environmentalists, who hope it will prod other parts of the United States to quicken the adoption of electric vehicles.

The rules demand an ever-increasing percentage of new cars sold to California’s 40 million inhabitants produce no tailpipe pollutants, until their total ban in 13 years’ time.

“The timeline is ambitious but achievable: by the time a child born this year is ready to enter middle school, only zero-emission vehicles or a limited number of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) will be offered for sale new in California,” the California Air Resources Board said.

The board, which was tasked with finding a way to implement Governor Gavin Newsom’s order to transition the state’s automotive sector, said the health benefits would be significant.

“By 2037, the regulation delivers a 25 percent reduction in smog-causing pollution from light-duty vehicles.

“This benefits all Californians but especially the state’s most environmentally and economically burdened communities along freeways and other heavily traveled thoroughfares.”

From 2026 through 2040 the regulation is expected to result in 1,290 fewer cardiopulmonary deaths, 460 fewer hospital admissions for cardiovascular or respiratory illness, and 650 fewer emergency room visits for asthma, it said.

– Popularity –

California already accounts for the lion’s share of electric vehicles in the United States, with 1.13 million of them on the state’s roads — 43 percent of the nation’s total.

Their popularity has mushroomed in the years since they were seen as little more than novelty golf carts for tree-huggers content to drive no more than a few dozen miles (kilometers).

Ten years ago only two percent of new cars sold in the state were electric; that figure is now 16 percent, and Teslas and other premium offerings with a range of hundreds of miles are a common sight on roads around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Still, the vehicles remain more expensive than their fossil fuel-powered equivalents and critics say only federal subsidies of up to $7,500 make them viable for many buyers.

But supporters say the incentives are necessary short-term supports that will fade away as increased adoption boosts economies of scale and drives down prices.

As the biggest auto market in the United States, one manufacturers cannot ignore, California has an outsized influence in effectively setting national standards.

Thursday’s ruling comes on the heels of a climate law signed last week by US President Joe Biden, which sets aside hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives for clean energy programs.

Biden and his Democratic Party are rushing to make up climate policy ground they feel was lost under former president Donald Trump, who yanked the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord and reversed what many environmentalists viewed as already-weak progress in reducing the fossil fuel emissions that drive global warming.

Newsom, a leading light in the Democratic Party, who is rumored to have presidential ambitions, welcomed the ruling.

– ‘Groundbreaking’ –

“California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading… roadmap to reducing dangerous carbon emissions and moving away from fossil fuels,” he said.

The reduction in the number of petrol and diesel-powered cars on the roads is equivalent to “915 million oil barrels’ worth of emissions that won’t pollute our communities.”

“With the historic $10 billion we’re investing to accelerate the transition… we’re making it easier and cheaper for all Californians to purchase electric cars.”

In recent years jurisdictions around the world, notably in Europe, have set their sights on the polluting automobile sector.

Norway is aiming to have all new cars produce zero tailpipe emissions by 2025.

The UK, Singapore and Israel are eyeing 2030, while the European Union wants to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035. 

Human-caused global warming has already raised average temperatures around the planet, affecting weather patterns and worsening natural hazards like wildfires and storms.

Scientists say dramatic action is required to limit the damage, and point to curbing emissions from fossil fuels as key to the battle.

Scientists hope that new instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope — seen here in an artist's illustration — will allow closer study of exoplanet atmospheres.

The months-old James Webb Space Telescope has added another major scientific discovery to its growing list: detecting for the first time signs of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system.

Although the exoplanet would never be able to support life as we know it, the successful discovery of CO2 gives researchers hope that similar observations could be carried out on rocky objects more hospitable to life.

“My first thought: wow, we really do have a chance to detect the atmospheres of terrestrial-size planets,” tweeted Natalie Batalha, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz and one of hundreds who worked on the Webb project.

Their study of exoplanet WASP-39, a hot gas giant closely orbiting a star 700 light years away, will soon be published in the journal Nature.

“For me, it opens a door for future research on super-Earths (planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune), or even Earth-sized planets,” Pierre-Olivier Lagage, an astrophysicist with France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), told AFP.

The detection of CO2 will also help scientists learn more about how WASP-39 formed, NASA said in a press release. The exoplanet, which orbits its star once every four Earth days, has a mass one-quarter that of Jupiter but a diameter 1.3 times bigger.

The frequency of its orbit and large atmosphere made WASP-39 an ideal candidate for an early test of Webb’s state-of-the-art infrared sensor, known as NIRSpec.

Each time the exoplanet crosses in front of its star, it blocks out an almost imperceptible amount of light.

But around the edges of the planet, a tiny amount of light passes through the atmosphere.

Webb’s highly sensitive NIRSpec can detect the small changes that the atmosphere has on the light, allowing scientists to determine its gas composition.

The Hubble and Spitzer telescopes had already detected water vapor, sodium and potassium in WASP-39’s atmosphere, but carbon dioxide can now be added to that list thanks to Webb and its NIRSpec instrument.

“It was a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet sciences,” said Zafar Rustamkulov, a Johns Hopkins University researcher, in the NASA press release.

Boeing is readying the first crewed flight of its Starliner capsule to the International Space Station (ISS)

The first crewed flight of Boeing’s space capsule Starliner is scheduled for February 2023, the company and NASA announced Thursday, as the United States seeks to secure a second way for its astronauts to reach the International Space Station.

Since 2020, American astronauts have traveled to the ISS aboard SpaceX’s vessels but the US space agency wants to widen its options.

After a series of hiccups in its space program that led to serious delays, including a 2019 flight that did not reach the ISS, Boeing finally managed to send the gumdrop-shaped capsule to the station in May — without a crew.

This time, the aerospace giant will send the Starliner up with humans aboard, to earn NASA’s green light to begin regular missions — at an expected pace of one per year.

“Currently, we’re targeting a launch date as early as February of 2023,” Steve Stich, the manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters.

“We’re in good shape to execute these plans to be ready for that flight in February,” added Mark Nappi, the Starliner program manager at Boeing.

The test flight — aptly named CFT, or Crew flight test — will carry US astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams. 

They are expected to be docked for eight days at the ISS, where they will conduct a series of experiments, said ISS program manager Joel Montalbano.

“Our agency goal is to get two US commercial providers up and running as soon as we can.”

Boeing had hoped to conduct this test flight before the end of the year, but a few glitches experienced in the uncrewed May flight led to necessary adjustments to the vessel.

An issue was detected in the propulsion system: two thrusters responsible for placing Starliner in a stable orbit failed, though officials insisted there was plenty of redundancy built into the system to overcome the problem.

Boeing’s teams later determined that “debris-related conditions” were to blame, Nappi said, adding that the origin of said debris was still unknown.

Some filters were removed to fix a pressure problem, and flight software was updated to avoid a data overload.

Boeing and SpaceX were awarded contracts in 2014, shortly after the end of the space shuttle program, during a time when the United States was left reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets for rides to the ISS.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX filled the void first, providing space “taxi” service since a successful test mission for its Dragon capsule in 2020.

This photo taken on October 01, 2019 shows a fire near Itaituba, Para state, Brazil, in the Amazon rainforest

The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon hit a nearly 15-year high this week, according to official figures that provided the latest warning on the advancing destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest.

Satellite monitoring detected 3,358 fires on Monday, August 22, the highest number for any 24-hour period since September 2007, according to the Brazilian space agency, INPE.

The number was nearly triple that recorded on the so-called “Day of Fire” — August 10, 2019 — when farmers launched a coordinated plan to burn huge amounts of felled rainforest in the northern state of Para.

Then, fires sent thick gray smoke all the way to Sao Paulo, some 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) away, and triggered a global outcry over images of one of Earth’s most vital resources burning.

There is no indication that Monday’s fires were coordinated, said Alberto Setzer, head of INPE’s fire monitoring program.

Rather, they appear to fit a pattern of increasing deforestation and burning, he said.

Experts say Amazon fires are caused mainly by illegal farmers, ranchers and speculators clearing land and torching the trees.

In Brazil, the so-called “arc of deforestation” has been advancing.

“The regions where the most fires are occurring are moving farther and farther north,” Setzer told AFP.

“The ‘arc of deforestation’ is undoubtedly evolving.”

August is typically when fire season starts in earnest in the Amazon, with the arrival of drier weather.

This has been a worrying year so far for the forest, a key buffer against global warming: INPE detected 5,373 fires last month, up eight percent from July last year.

And with 24,124 fires so far this month, it is on track to be the worst August under President Jair Bolsonaro — though well below the 63,764 fires detected in August 2005, the worse for the month since records began in 1998.

Bolsonaro, an agribusiness ally, faces international criticism for a surge in Amazon destruction on his watch. Since he took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.

The far-right president rejects that criticism.

“None of those who are attacking us have the right. If they wanted a pretty forest to call their own, they should have preserved the ones in their countries,” he wrote on Twitter Thursday.

“The Amazon belongs to Brazilians, and always will.”

But with Bolsonaro running for reelection in October, the destruction risks accelerating, said Ane Alencar, director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM).

“We know from previous years that there is a link between elections and deforestation,” with officials and enforcement agencies distracted by the campaign, she said.

This year, “we have high rates of deforestation… and there are still lots of felled trees waiting to burn.”

Dangerous levels of heat exposure pose a risk particularly to outdoor workers

Many millions of people in the tropics could be exposed to dangerous heat for half the year by 2100 even if humanity manages to meet climate goals, researchers warned Thursday.

In the most likely scenario, the world would miss those targets — potentially subjecting people across the tropics to harmful temperatures most days of each typical year by the end of the century, the study found.

If emissions go unchecked, large numbers of people in these regions could face potentially “nightmarish” periods of extreme heat.

“There’s a possibility that if we don’t get our act together, billions of people are going to be really, really overexposed to these extremely dangerous temperatures in a way that we just fundamentally haven’t seen,” said lead author Lucas Vargas Zeppetello of Harvard University. 

Severe heatwaves — made hotter and more frequent by climate change — are already being felt across the world, threatening human health, wildlife and crop yields.

Most climate projections predict temperature increases under different policy scenarios, but do not say which of those pathways is more likely. 

In this study, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, researchers estimated potential exposure to dangerous heat and humidity.

They used statistical projections to predict levels of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity and the resultant levels of global warming.

They found that many people in tropical regions could face dangerous heat levels for half the year by the end of the century, even if the world limits temperature rises to the Paris climate deal goal of less than two degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

Outside the tropics, they said deadly heatwaves will likely become annual occurrences. 

The researchers used a heat index that puts “dangerous” levels at 39.4C, while temperatures above 51C are considered “extremely dangerous” and totally unsafe for humans.

The extreme measure was originally developed for people working in scorching indoor environments, like a ship’s boiler room, and have rarely been observed outdoors, Zeppetello said.

But by the end of the century, the researcher said it was “virtually guaranteed” that people in some parts of the tropics would experience this level of heat every year unless emissions are severely curtailed, with swathes of sub-Saharan Africa and India particularly at risk.

“That’s pretty scary,” he told AFP, adding that even walking outside would be dangerous under those conditions. 

– ‘Nightmarish’ conditions –

Earth has warmed nearly 1.2C so far and current predictions based on countries’ carbon-cutting pledges would see the world far exceed the Paris Agreement’s 2C target for 2100, let alone its more ambitious 1.5C aspiration. 

In their research Zeppetello and colleagues analysed predictions from global climate models, human population projections, and looked at the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions.

They estimated that there is only a 0.1 percent chance of limiting global average warming to 1.5C by 2100, projecting that the world is likely to reach 1.8C by 2050. 

In 2100, the researchers found, the most likely global average temperature rise would be 3C, which Zeppetello said would spell “nightmarish” conditions for many people.  

In a worst case scenario, in which emissions continue unchecked, he said extreme temperatures could last up to two months every year in parts of the tropics. 

But he said it depends on how swiftly humanity can cut emissions. 

“We don’t have to go to that world. There’s nothing right now that says it is a certainty, but people need to be aware of just how dangerous that would be if it were to pass,” he said. 

The researchers said that under all scenarios there could be a large increase in heat-related illnesses, particularly among the elderly, vulnerable and those working outside. 

“I think this is a very important point that is receiving far too little attention,” said Kristin Aunan, a research professor at the Center for International Climate Research specialising in emissions and human health, who was not involved in the study. 

“Reduced workability in outdoor environments could have large economic impacts in addition to the human suffering arising from having to work under extreme temperatures,” she told AFP, adding crop production and livestock can also be affected by temperature extremes. 

Australian bushfires in 2019 and 2020 were so bad they affected the hole in the ozone layer, researchers say

Australia’s catastrophic “Black Summer” bushfires significantly affected the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer, according to a new report published Friday.

The report, which appeared in the Nature journal “Scientific Reports”, traced a link from the unprecedented smoke released by the fires to the ozone hole above Antarctica.

The fires, which burned through 5.8 million hectares of Australia’s east in late 2019 and early 2020, were so intense they caused dozens of smoke-infused pyrocumulonimbus clouds to form.

Pyrocumulonimbus clouds, referred to as the “fire-breathing dragon of clouds” by NASA, are so powerful they can affect the local weather, causing fire tornadoes and lightning storms.

During the “Black Summer”, these clouds shot more smoke high into the atmosphere than the previous record, set by the 2017 North American wildfires.

Around New Year 2019, uncontrolled fires along Australia’s east coast caused a pyrocumulonimbus event that stretched on for days.

The result was “millions of tonnes of smoke and associated gases being injected into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere”, according to researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Manchester.

A build-up of smoke particles, in turn, caused the lower stratosphere to warm to levels not seen since the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, they found.

Because of this stratospheric warming, the fires also prolonged the Antarctic ozone hole, which appears above Antarctica each spring and “reached record levels in observations in 2020”.

– Ozone gains threatened –

The hole was first created by human pollution — particularly the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were once emitted from many refrigerators — but in recent decades, global cooperation has given the ozone layer a chance to repair.

The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987 and since ratified by 195 countries, sharply reduced the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere, and the ozone layer was expected to fully recover by 2060, according to United Nations modelling.

However, the researchers warn that because climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of bushfires, similar events — in which pyrocumulonimbus clouds shoot smoke high into the stratosphere –- will become more likely.

Professor James Haywood told AFP that climate change could “absolutely” stymie the gains made by the Montreal Protocol. 

“Our climate models suggest an increase in frequency and intensity of wildfires in the future under global warming. This may lead to more events like that in 2020, which could in turn lead to more ozone depletion,” he said. 

“So the considerable efforts that we’ve put in protecting the ozone hole could be thwarted by global warming.”