AFP UK

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European countries have been scrambling for alternative sources of gas

Wealthy Western nations facing an energy crunch are eyeing natural gas in Africa at the expense of supporting green transition in poorer countries, climate activists at COP27 charge.

European countries have been scrambling for alternative sources of gas after the continent’s former top supplier, Russia, slashed exports in apparent retaliation for Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Gas-rich Norway has since overtaken Russia as a leading supplier, but Europe sees great potential in African fossil fuel reserves, including promising oil and gas discoveries in Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Europe wants “to turn Africa into its gas station,” Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa think tank, said at the UN climate summit in Egypt.

“We don’t have to follow the footsteps of the rich world that actually caused climate change in the first place.”

Exporting natural gas may bring short-term profits but exacerbate the climate crisis and leave African nations worse off in the long run, activists, researchers and advocacy groups said.

Research group Climate Action Tracker called the global dash for gas a “serious threat” to the Paris Agreement goals — of keeping global warming well below two degrees Celsius, and preferably at 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels.

– ‘Stranded assets’ –

Some African leaders argued the potential benefits for people on the world’s poorest continent outweighed the harm from the production and export of fossil fuels.

“We are in favour of a just and fair green transition, instead of decisions that harm our development process,” Senegalese President Macky Sall told some 100 world leaders last week at COP27.

Germany — the European country most dependent on Russian supplies before the war — has been keen to tap Senegal’s gas deposits.

Omar Farouk Ibrahim, secretary general of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization, argued the slight increase in the continent’s marginal contribution to greenhouse gas emissions “would make a fundamental difference in whether people live or die”.

“We have 600 million people in Africa who don’t have access to electricity at all. We have over 900 million people in Africa who do not have access to modern form of energy for cooking or domestic heating,” he said.

“No progress can be made in any society without energy.”

But advocacy groups were not convinced Africa’s poor would reap any benefits.

“History shows us that… extraction in African countries has not resulted in development,” said Thuli Makama, African programme director at Oil Change International.

Makama, a lawyer from Eswatini, said the Ukraine war would only trigger “short-term” demand from Western nations, leaving African countries with “stranded assets” — infrastructure that becomes obsolete as the world turns to renewables.

Governments and companies would have invested in infrastructure only to be “left with stranded assets, clean-up expenses and all the devastation that comes with the industry for local people”, Makama warned.

– ‘Incredible’ potential –

A report released Monday by the Carbon Tracker Initiative think tank said Western investment in fossil fuels will eventually evaporate, encouraging African countries instead to seize on the potential offered by solar power.

“The way to help us actually address our energy poverty challenge is for us to tap the incredible renewable energy potential that exists on the continent of Africa,” Adow said.

African nations could refuse any further extraction of fossil fuels and make the continent a “green leader”, he added.

But investment in renewable energy across the continent last year fell to its lowest level in 11 years, the research group BloombergNEF said on Wednesday.

Out of the $434 billion invested worldwide in renewables in 2021, a meagre 0.6 percent went to projects in Africa, the report said.

The Carbon Tracker Initiative report said the solar industry across Africa provided 14 gigawatts of power in 2021.

It noted however that with production costs falling, solar power in Africa “has the potential to grow… to over 400 gigawatts by 2050” — half of the continent’s energy needs.

At Fort McKay in western Canada, in the heart of the country's boreal forest, the pines and the people were long ago cleared out to make way for huge open-pit mines dedicated to excavation of oil sands

The acrid stench of gasoline permeates the air. And the soot coats everything in sight: the trees, the bushes, even the snow in winter. And all day long, explosions send the birds soaring to safety.

At Fort McKay near Fort McMurray in western Canada, in the heart of the country’s boreal forest, the pines and the people were long ago cleared out to make way for huge open-pit mines dedicated to excavation of oil sands.

It’s one of the biggest industrial projects in the world: as seen from above, the zone is in stark contrast to the vast expanse of green surrounding it. Huge black holes are gouged in the brown earth — they are giant pools of water.

Then there is the network of roads on which hundreds of trucks drive every day, and the immense factories, with smoke spewing from wide chimneys.

On the ground, the noise is deafening. And it’s quite a scene for the uninitiated: in the middle of the huge basins dug to capture the polluted waters stand huge metal scarecrows clad in helmets and security vests.

The ghoulish creatures are designed to scare away millions of migratory birds that arrive every year in this northern part of Alberta province. Adding to the mayhem: airhorns that are used several times a minute.

The mines have made the people left in Fort McKay — many of them Indigenous Canadians — very rich. But the installations have also profoundly altered and damaged the land on which their ancestors relied for centuries.

“Everything has changed, everything’s destroyed to me now,” says 74-year-old Margie Lacorde who lives in the center of town in a house chock full of knick knacks and framed photographs.

The talkative Lacorde, who belongs to the Metis people, is sad to see the parched, yellowing leaves due to drought, and wishes she could still swim in the rivers and gather berries in the forest like she did in her youth.

The hunting grounds are long gone — the land was sold for industrial use.

“The pollution is killing our nature,” Lacorde tells AFP, though she herself worked in the oil industry for years to provide for her family.

She remembers her childhood with a significant bit of nostalgia. 

Back then, families gathered snow and melted it to use as drinking and cooking water. Such a thing would be impossible today — once the snow hits the ground, it’s immediately filthy, covered in the dust that filters down from the factories.

– ‘Desecrated’ –

“We’re First Nations and this is our territory that is all being desecrated by the oil industry for the sake of the dollar, money, prosperity,” says Jean L’Hommecourt, an environmental activist who took up the fight her parents once championed.

Even if agreements were reached with Indigenous communities to create jobs and protect some natural resources, the ecological impact of mining the oil sands have been so great that the 59-year-old woman says her people are now at risk.

“I lost my prosperity when the industry came in and took over all our lands and our waters and our access to our wildlife… everything that we depend on to sustain our culture has been compromised by industry,” she says bitterly.

The area is a far cry from the picture postcard ideal of the Canadian West. There are no crystalline blue waterways or fish-filled rivers here. 

Instead, Moose Lake — sacred to L’Hommecourt’s Dene people — is now only accessible by all-terrain vehicle, a five-hour drive on a road pockmarked by potholes that runs in between the mines.

When she was growing up, L’Hommecourt’s family cabin was in the middle of the forest, far away from the noise and bustle. But after the first oil sands mine was built in 1967, development proceeded at a rapid pace.

Today, the active oil sands extraction sites form a chain that is more than 60 kilometers (40 miles) long, hugging the shores of the Athabasca River. 

Fort McKay — population, 800 or so — is a tiny speck on a map of this industrial complex.

Canada is home to 10 percent of the world’s known crude oil reserves — much of that is found in the oil sands of Alberta.

Every day, nearly three million barrels of crude are extracted from the sands, according to official government data, helping to make Canada the world’s fourth largest oil producer, and the primary exporter of crude to the United States.

In all, more than 4,800 square kilometers are used for oil sands mining.

At first, local populations were consulted and their fears were noted, L’Hommecourt says.

“And then they just said okay, well, we collected the information, we collected their concerns and everything else and we’ll mitigate with the money,” she added.

– Pollution –

Many environmental activists say the impact of the oil industry is so great that the term “ecocide” is not too strong. Beyond the tangible destruction of the boreal forest, there is the massive amount of pollution in the air.

The oil and gas sector accounts for a quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the latest official figures released this year. Of that total, the oil sands are responsible for 12 percent.

And traces of other toxic emissions, such as sulfur and nitrogen oxides, have been detected in the soil and the snow dozens of kilometers from the mining zone.

The industry also consumes a massive amount of water, taken from nearby rivers and lakes.

“There’s still a lot we need to do on recognizing the harm from cleaning up existing operations,” says Keith Stewart of the environmental pressure group Greenpeace, slamming companies that drag their feet on such matters.

Stewart nevertheless acknowledges a “huge shift” on protecting the environment in recent years.

“For a long time, even the notion that we could limit expansion was viewed as crazy and now… the idea of large-scale expansion now seems crazy,” he said.

That reversal is not uniformly popular, as not everyone here sees the oil sands as a bad thing.

“The reality is that they shut off the oil sands tomorrow, my community would starve,” says Ron Quintal, chief of the Fort McKay Metis, noting that nearly everyone around works in or for the industry.

For Quintal, “Indigenous communities have spent 30 to 40 years… trying to get their foot in the door” so it would be “very difficult for us to try to take our people backward.”

He added matter-of-factly: “The development of the oil has empowered us to be able to do things that weren’t possible before.”

An aerial view shows the boat of caribou researcher Jean-Luc Kanape, a member of the Innu Indigenous group, on a waterway in Canada's boreal forest

Even though he lives in the middle of Canada’s boreal forest, Jean-Luc Kanape can sometimes go weeks without seeing a single caribou. But for as long as he can remember, the animals have been part of his life.

For centuries, “our ancestors survived thanks to the caribous — using its meat, pelts and tools made from its bones,” says Kanape, a member of the Innu Indigenous group.

“Now, it’s our turn to help them.”

The caribou is a symbol of the power of the subarctic boreal forest, but also the beating heart of Canada’s Indigenous culture.

But the broad-snouted deer is “at risk,” Kanape says, notably because of the loss of its natural habitat.

In Quebec province, the animal’s future is threatened by the lumber industry, which is crucial in some areas, providing 60,000 jobs, but which also contributes to mass deforestation.

Governments “are supposed to protect all living beings in their territory” but “do nothing” for the caribous, says Kanape, who helps the community identify and tag the remaining herds.

All around the 47-year-old’s cabin, located not far from the St Lawrence River but a two-hour drive from the nearest village, there is evidence of deforestation — the once lush mass of spruces and poplars has been hacked up.

As seen from above, the woods look like a jigsaw puzzle that has been taken apart. In some areas, trees line the ground — they will be chopped up and taken away. for the most part, they are pulped to make paper or used in construction.

– Predators –

Recent data suggests that caribous, which are called reindeer in Europe, have a better chance of survival if at least 65 percent of their living habitat is preserved.

But in this part of Canada, roughly 80 percent of their habitat has been disturbed in some way. Tree harvesting helps renew the forest, but that also brings about changes in the native flora and fauna.

Moose have arrived en masse — which also means the animals that prey on them have arrived too, notably wolves, whose migration has been facilitated by paths cut in the wilderness by the lumber companies. 

When new trees sprout up, the tiny fruit bushes that crop up alongside them also bring bears — another hunter of caribous — to the area. 

When Kanape heads out to track caribou herds, he uses both ancestral teachings and surveillance data collected by drones.

Whether traveling by boat along the river, in his pickup truck or on foot, he scours the ground for hoof prints. Each autumn, those hoofs adapt, their edges sharpening to allow the caribous to break through the ice to get at a major food source: lichen.

In recent weeks, Kanape was tracking a female caribou and her calf, who were living in a partially deforested area — putting them at risk.

“How can I make them understand that they’d be better off in more wooded areas?” says Kanape. “She came here because she knows the area, which is totally normal.” 

He sometimes chases away the wolves to give the caribous a better chance to survive through the summer.

As things stands now, a precipitous fall in the calf population of the region’s caribous makes their long-term survival not very likely, experts from Quebec’s forests ministry warn.

– Growth –

From the Canadian Rockies in the west to Quebec’s forests in the east, the caribou has seen its territory dwindle over the last 150 years, and the population has declined — a shift that nothing seems to reverse.

Since 2003, the caribou has been listed as a species at risk of extinction, and is one of the most studied animals in North America.

In Canada, its survival will depend on the expansion of the oil, lumber and mining industries. The country has struggled to implement viable plans to protect the species, researchers say.

Overall, experts are concerned that the fate of the caribou is a “tipping point” — and thus that the animal should be considered an “umbrella species” worthy of protecting, so that other animals in their habitat are indirectly saved.

“Dozens of species that don’t get the same attention also need ancestral forests — it’s a natural habitat that is vital for many,” explains Martin-Hugues Saint-Laurent, a biologist at the University of Quebec in Rimouski.

Canada’s boreal forest is home to 85 species of mammals, 130 species of fish and 300 different bird species, many of them migratory.

“The forest is not just about the trees,” says Louis De Grandpre, a scientist who has been researching the issue for 30 years.

“We are just barely starting to understand the scope of what’s happening under our feet in the forest subsoil, where bacteria, mushrooms and a myriad of microorganisms are all at work.”

The Innu people, who believe they are just as much a part of the forest ecosystem as all other living creatures, advocate for the creation of a protected forest zone. 

Kanape has a far-reaching, philosophical outlook — the animal kingdom will ultimately triumph.

“When humans disappear from the Earth, the planet will be even more beautiful — it will reclaim itself,” he says.

The boreal forest, second only to the Amazon in terms of its vital role in ensuring the planet's future, stretches across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and Alaska

It burns, it drifts, it falls victim to insects. And it’s shrinking.

The boreal forest, which is second only to the Amazon in terms of its vital role in ensuring the future of the planet, encircles the Arctic — and it is in just as much danger from climate change as the South American rainforest.

The deep, verdant green ring — which stretches across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and Alaska — has been weakened by increasing forest fires, the melting of permafrost, intensifying insect infestations and warming temperatures.

Experts are categorical in their warnings: the forest is encroaching on the tundra, and the prairies are slowly taking the place of the trees.

In his cabin in Quebec, not far from the banks of the St Lawrence River amid the trembling aspen and black spruces, Jean-Luc Kanape, a member of the Innu Indigenous group, says he likes to feel the “energy of the wind, the cold.”

“When I’m in the heart of the forest, I feel like I’m part of it. The trees are like my roots,” says the brawny 47-year-old, his hair askew and his skin bronzed from the sun.

Kanape has dedicated his life to the protection of the caribou, a species whose habitat is under threat because of the effects of deforestation and global warming. And he is worried. 

“We often say we need to save the planet, but that’s not true,” he says, suggesting humanity’s own existence is what is at stake.

The forest — named for Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind — covers 10 percent of the world’s land surface and has a decisive impact on the globe’s northern oceans and overall climate.

Its 1.2 billion hectares (nearly three billion acres), which account for nearly a third of all forested land in the world, help slow global warming by absorbing a significant amount of carbon emissions.

The boreal forest holds twice as much carbon as all tropical forests combined, and also helps purify a massive amount of freshwater. 

There have always been natural changes to its makeup, but scientists are now concerned that those changes are happening more often, and are even becoming the norm.

– ‘Monster’ fire –

Dead tree trunks stretch towards the sky — ghostly white shadows staining the green canopy in this corner of Alberta province. 

On the ground, shrubs and grass battle to stay alive.

“I’ll never again see a spruce tree in these hills,” laments Harvey Sykes, a 70-year-old former oil industry worker who lives in the Fort McMurray area, home to the world’s biggest oil sands production complex.

Here, the boreal forest still bears the signs of a huge fire in May 2016 that sent 90,000 residents scrambling for safety from a wall of flames along a lone access road.

“This one was a monster,” recalls Sykes, pointing to the hills where the blaze began. “A fire like that, you don’t confront it… you get out of there.”

Like many in the region, Sykes lost everything in the inferno — his house, his belongings and a lifetime of mementos.

The wildfire remains the most destructive natural disaster in Canada’s history, with 2,500 buildings destroyed and damages totalling nearly 10 billion Canadian dollars ($7.4 billion US).

It was the first time in the country’s history that residents found themselves in danger as a direct result of the consequences of climate change on the boreal forest.

– Adaptation –

Today, wildfires are multiplying in Alaska, Canada and Siberia. They are one of the greatest threats to northern woodlands even if, paradoxically, they are also essential to the forest’s survival and evolution.

Fires release precious nutrients into the forest soil, and create holes in the tree canopy that allow sunlight to break through, contributing to the growth of new trees.

In the boreal forest, the most prevalent type of fire is a crown fire, which spreads quickly from treetop to treetop. These blazes are more intense and more difficult to fight than fires on the ground.

Fires can burn all winter under the snow, producing toxic smoke and significant amounts of carbon monoxide.

The forest’s plants are resistant to the bitter Canadian cold, and have adapted to the recurrent fires — the trembling aspen burn quickly but regenerate easily.

Some species even depend on the fires — jack pines or black spruces have sap-coated cones that open up to deposit seeds as the flames spread, ensuring their survival.

But data collected over the last few decades indicates that the increasing frequency and intensity of the fires have reached an abnormal level.

“We now have a wildfire season that is longer and more severe. They are more fierce, and cover larger areas,” explains Yan Boulanger, a researcher in forest ecology at Canada’s ministry of natural resources.

Fires are now regularly twice as destructive in terms of surface area as they were a century ago, and 70 percent of the land consumed in fires over the last 20 years was in the boreal forest, according to satellite data made public in August.

Experts from Global Forest Watch, the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland — who collected the data — also revealed that extreme heat waves are five times as likely as they were 150 years ago.

Global warming is having an especially devastating effect on northern lands including the boreal zone, as temperatures are increasing two or three times quicker than on the rest of the planet.

Extreme heat leads to more lightning, which in turn sparks the worst fires, Boulanger says. Destruction of forested lands in these blazes leads to massive greenhouse gas emissions, which fuel climate change.

While forest fires are one of the most extreme and visible results of warming temperatures, the actual increase in heat has even worse implications.

– ‘Drunken trees’ –

They are known as “drunken trees” — tilted sideways due to melting permafrost. Eventually, the soil will completely erode away from the roots, and the trees will tumble.

This buckling and sinking is because of the degradation of the permafrost, ground that has remained frozen for at least two years in a row.

“You have potential for large shifts,” says Diana Stralberg, an Edmonton-based researcher for the natural resources ministry. Sometimes areas “might be flooded and lose forests,” she explains, becoming bogs or lakes.

As the ground is thawing, bacteria eat away at the biomass compiled for thousands of years, generating carbon and methane emissions that are contributing to the acceleration of global warming.

Elsewhere, in the far north of the boreal zone, trees are crowding the tundra, which features better conditions for their survival.

Scientists recently discovered that white spruces were being displaced towards the north in Alaska, to a part of the Arctic tundra that had not seen such tree growth in thousands of years.

In a decade, the tree cover advanced a whopping four kilometers (2.5 miles).

On the southern edge of the boreal forest, drought has reduced stands of trees to shrubs and high grasses.

“In the west, we could end up with forests that simply become prairies because the extent of the drought or the frequency of climatic change is too great to sustain the tree population,” Boulanger warns.

Stralberg remembers seeing computer maps modeling the effects of climate change for the first time when she started working on issues related to the boreal forest a few years ago.

“I thought it was just wrong, because it was just so extreme,” she says. 

And then her colleagues started reaching the same conclusions: that the boreal forest was rapidly shifting north, absorbing a part of the tundra and losing ground to the prairies at the southern edge.

The displacement of an ecosystem is not without consequences.

“You can lose forest a lot faster than it can grow and provide habitat for wildlife,” says the 52-year-old Stralberg. 

As the mercury rises, evaporation occurs more easily and plants lose water more quickly due to transpiration. They close the pores of their leaves and battle to survive. 

But by slowing their own growth, the plants lose some of their capacity to eliminate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — a vicious circle indeed.

– ‘Snowball effect’ –

In the western part of Quebec province, government research scientist David Pare and his team are studying tree litter — the decomposing organic material on the forest floor that has acted as a giant carbon sink for centuries.

Here, the sun struggles to break through due to the twisting, intertwined tree canopy. Thousands of pine needles cover the mossy ground.

Tree litter can store five to six times as much carbon dioxide as other plant matter, and Pare wants to see how resilient the ground is. 

A plethora of experiments are being carried out across Canada to better understand the tree litter and predict its future role in reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

In some areas, the subsoil is heated, and in others, the amount of organic matter on the ground is varied. Tree roots are cut elsewhere.

Dozens of tiny orange flags and wooden trays embedded in the fallen pine needles mark off the various trials that have been in place for six years.

“We want to know how much carbon has accumulated in the soil and how it happens,” Pare explains.

“Because if global warming is diminishing the carbon sink, that will only lead to more warming,” says the 59-year-old Pare. 

Scientists are fearful of such a “snowball effect,” which could eventually lead to significant loss of the boreal forest’s role as a carbon sink. 

But the forest is also at risk of falling victim to another phenomenon brought on by higher temperatures: insect infestations.

– The curious case of the hemlock looper –

It’s a surprising sight: on a green hillside peppered with vibrant trees, there is a square marked off by dead trees stripped of their limbs, their dried out trunks stretching skyward.

“It’s like a bomb went off. All the trees are dead in this area, killed by the hemlock looper,” says Pare, his white hair covered by a construction helmet.

The hemlock looper is a moth native to North America that can devour all leaves and needles on trees in one season, explains the researcher as he walks through the raspberry bushes that have cropped up in the area.

Several events linked to global warming seem to be converging and could explain the insect infestations, which are also happening in Scandinavian forests.

Trees are already weakened by drought and so struggle to fend off the voracious bugs who take advantage of longer summers and warmer winters.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest land have been devastated by the eastern spruce budworm, another species native to Canada and the eastern United States that mainly attacks fir trees.

“As global warming progresses, the budworm now can reach areas that it could not get to in the past,” says researcher Louis De Grandpre, who has studied the boreal forest for 30 years.

The key now is to measure the long-term effects of these infestations “because we really don’t know what the future of these forests will look like,” he added.

– Tipping point? –

For Pare, “there is a limit to how much trees can endure.”

For now, scientists are pondering whether the boreal forest is approaching a so-called “tipping point,” a threshold beyond which carbon and methane emissions are inevitable and changes to the ecosystem are irreversible.

Experts say they still hope for the ecosystem’s continued resilience.

Stralberg believes the damage can still be limited.

“We looked at areas that will remain cooler and wetter in a warming world, like the shores of large interior lakes, large peatland complexes and north-facing hillsides,” she explains.

“These are areas where we can buy time for cold-adapted species like spruce trees and caribou to adjust to climate change in the near term.”

Careful monitoring, reforestation, legal protections, technological progress and time-honored Indigenous methods can help maintain the carbon sink.

“I think that cultural burning can be one of the solutions… combined with some of the new technology,” says Amy Cardinal Christianson, a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service who studies how fires affect Indigenous communities.

Cultural burning, long practiced by Indigenous communities, can help reduce the impact of forest fires by eliminating ground cover. Christianson, a member of the Metis people, explains the burning as “a slow fire, a cool burn.”

Unlike in the Amazon, in this inhospitable cold-climate forest, human action — like deforestation or oil sands mining — is less detrimental to the environment than natural phenomena caused by climate change.

Experts say that in order for the boreal forest to maintain its essential role in ensuring the survival of the planet, the solution must be a global one. 

For Boulanger, the government forest researcher, we must “have faith in the next generation.”

Members of the activist group Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) stage a protest during the COP27 climate conference in the Egyptian restort town of Sharm el-Sheikh

Seeking to speed up global efforts against climate change, Vanuatu is leading efforts to get the International Court of Justice involved, a move praised by activists at UN talks.

The COP27 climate summit in Egypt has been dominated by calls for nations to redouble their efforts to cut emissions and for rich polluters to finally provide the money that developing nations need to cope with global warming.

Threatened by rising sea levels, the small Pacific island of Vanuatu signalled last year that it would seek a non-binding “advisory opinion” from the Hague-based ICJ.

A year later, the initiative was formally launched at the UN General Assembly, which will have to vote on whether to back it in the next few months.

“I say let the gavel fall. Let judges inspire our leaders to act and let justice be done,” Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate said at the COP27 meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Speaking to some 100 world leaders attending a summit on Tuesday, Vanuatu President Nikenike Vurobaravu said the initiative had grown into a coalition of 85 countries.

“Clearly, something is not working,” Vurobaravu said, noting that emissions are rising, climate financing remains “wholly inadequate” and the ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius may not be met.

“I appeal in the strongest terms to leaders here at COP27 to vote in favour of the ICJ resolution at the UN General Assembly so that we can finally put human rights at the centre of climate decisions,” Vurobaravu said.

– ‘So much excitement’ –

Vanuatu’s UN ambassador, Odo Tevi, said the goal is to “clarify the rights and obligations of states under international law as it pertains to the adverse effects of climate change”.

Vanuatu also wants the ICJ to “clarify the due diligence requirements relating to climate action for emitters of greenhouse gases — past, present and future,” he said.

The question could irk developed countries that have historically been the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases but reject the idea of paying reparations to developing nations for the losses caused by natural disasters.

The issue of “loss and damage” is at the forefront of the COP27 talks that are scheduled to end on Friday.

Yeb Sano, executive director at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said Vanuatu’s effort has “generated so much excitement” and global support.

“The international community needs clarity of purpose and this campaign is a beacon of hope that has the power to breathe new life… into the multilateral negotiations,” Sano said.

– ‘A matter of survival’ –

A similar effort more than a decade ago by another Pacific island, Palau, fizzled. But times have changed, with a slew of climate-related disasters this year highlighting the urgency the planet faces.

Though a legal opinion by ICJ would not be binding, Vanuatu hopes it would shape international law for generations to come.

Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, an assistant professor of public international law at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said the ICJ can provide “legally relevant guidance” that is “very likely to be followed” by courts around the world.

While the Paris Agreement targets for emissions reduction are not binding, she said an ICJ opinion could signal that there are “legal obligations for taking action on climate change and legal consequences when these obligations are breached”. 

Perhaps more importantly, she added, an ICJ opinion could “inspire more ambitious climate action” from governments and big companies.

Harjeet Singh, a senior adviser at the Climate Action Network, said ICJ hearings on the matter would generate “much awareness” around climate change.

“It’s a matter of survival,” he told AFP.

Floating solar panels in a water reservoir in Le Kram, near Tunisia's capital Tunis, are part of efforts to harness the country's vast renewable energy potential

Solar panels glint in the sun on a Tunisian lagoon, part of a long-delayed drive to harness the North African country’s vast renewable energy potential.

While industry insiders complain of red tape, fossil fuel prices that soared after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine created a powerful incentive for such investments across the Maghreb region.

“Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, each have an abundance of solar energy resources as well as ample wind energy resources,” said Michael Tanchum, an expert on the sector. 

“Extreme price pressures on natural gas, especially in Europe, have changed the calculus for investments in renewable energy.”

Omar Bey, of French-based renewables developer Qair, hopes the firm’s 200-kilowatt floating solar station on a lake next to a Tunis industrial park can be a prototype for bigger projects nationwide.

“Tunisia doesn’t have any choice but to go for renewables, given the situation around hydrocarbons and particularly gas,” he said, adding that innovations like floating solar stations could help. 

Being on reservoirs or lakes helps cool the panels, making them more efficient, and “means we can use water instead of taking up land that can be used for other things like farming or homes,” Bey said.

It also helps reduce evaporation, another benefit in the water-stressed region, he said.

Tunisia, on the sun-drenched Mediterranean Sea, is well-placed to produce clean energy both for domestic use and for export to energy-hungry Europe.

In 2015 the country set ambitious targets for renewables.

But last year green sources accounted for only 2.8 percent of the country’s energy mix and the rest came from natural gas, according to the state Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG).

Tanchum, a non-resident scholar at Washington’s Middle East Institute, said “political paralysis” was holding the sector back.

Tunisia has suffered more than a decade of turmoil since its 2011 revolution. Ideological wrangling has often taken precedence over transforming the economy, which depends heavily on food and energy imports.

The state’s fuel subsidies bill soared 370 percent in the first half of this year compared to the same period of 2021, official figures show.

Yet, despite incentives to push for renewables, such efforts have been held back by legal and administrative obstacles, according to Ali Kanzari, president of an association representing solar firms.

“Sometimes (imported solar panels) sit for a month or more in customs,” he said.

“We need more flexible laws. Everything needs to be sped up.”

– Morocco leads –

One major solar station in the desert near Tataouine was finally connected to the grid in October, two years after its completion. Project head Abdelmomen Ferchichi blamed difficulties in getting permits, and the station’s distance from the grid.

Bey said “misunderstandings” among some union members within STEG, wary of attempts to privatise the sector by stealth, had also delayed development.

“Today, all that’s behind us,” he said.

Tanchum told AFP that despite the renewables potential of the entire Maghreb, “only Morocco has emerged as a regional leader”.

Morocco decided in 2009 to boost renewables to 52 percent of its energy mix by 2030 and it currently produces around a fifth of its electricity from clean sources, according to the government.

Its energy ministry says “this vision has started bearing fruit, with 111 renewable energy projects completed or under development”.

They include a solar and wind facility to generate more than 10 gigawatts of power and send it to the United Kingdom via a 3,800-kilometre (2,360-mile) undersea cable.

Tunisia dreams of doing something similar.

In October, it applied for a European Union grant for an 800-million euro ($828 million) cable to Italy covering 200 kilometres, to go online by 2027.

For Kanzari, the association president, the link can’t come soon enough.

“They’re going to have a cold winter” in Europe, he said. “If we’d had a cable that was ready, and four or five gigawatt solar power stations in the desert, we’d be selling electricity and earning hard cash.”

Tanchum said that although Maghreb countries could benefit from this type of project, much of the energy should be for domestic use, so they “don’t become the green battery of Europe”.

– Algeria’s ambitious target –

Neighbouring Algeria, Africa’s top natural gas producer, has set the ambitious target of 15,000 megawatts from solar by 2035.

The first part of a 1,000-megawatt project is set to come online by late next year, but for now the country generates just three percent of its electricity from the sun.

Intissar Fakir, head of the North Africa and Sahel Programme at the Middle East Institute, said Algeria’s cash glut from gas exports is going to upgrade the fossil fuel infrastructure, not to renewables.

There are also “big hurdles for foreign investment in the sector — not least Algeria’s notorious bureaucracy,” she added.

Agrochemical companies have long developed seeds designed to thrive in particular local conditions

As a changing climate intensifies extreme weather, agricultural multinationals are hyping the ability of genetically modified crops to boost yields when facing drought, heat or even heavy rainfall.

But skeptics of engineered foods, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), still aren’t buying it.

“I don’t see why we should evolve our views when they’re still doing the same things,” said Bill Freese, science director at the non-profit Center for Food Safety, criticizing the “dramatically increased toxic herbicide use” following the proliferation of GMOs.

Seeds designed to thrive in specific local conditions have been developed for centuries through conventional breeding, by crossing together plants with relevant characteristics and selecting the desired offspring.

But as more severe weather creates hostile growing conditions for conventional seeds, companies such as Bayer/Monsanto, Corteva and Syngenta are promoting GMOs as more efficient.

And newer technologies can reduce development times for these heartier varieties “by many years” compared with traditional crop modification techniques, according to a spokesperson for Germany’s Bayer.

“Drought tolerance is a complex trait involving many genes,” the spokesperson said. “Therefore, the ability to develop drought-tolerant traits through classic breeding methods such as crossbreeding is limited.”

Longtime GMO critics say they are open to new approaches but are not sold on the latest industry pitch, viewing conventional seed products as safer and with fewer environmental drawbacks.

“How many times have we read that we won’t be able to feed the world by 2050 unless we have GMOs?” said Freese, referring to the argument of GMO proponents that genetically modified crops will be necessary to produce enough food for a growing population on a warming planet. 

But for Freese, that  claim is “just a really effective smoke screen put on by the pesticide and seeds conglomerates to put a good face on this new technology.”

US company Corteva said it, too, is focused on “new breeding technologies such as gene editing” to “take advantage of the genetic diversity that already exists within the plant’s DNA” when it comes to creating new seed types. 

Such GMO products can help normalize a crop’s performance, even if extreme moisture from rain or flooding promotes the spread of fungus or pests, companies say.

In July, the World Economic Forum highlighted the potential for GMOs to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating breeds that remove more carbon dioxide than conventionally grown crops.

– Safety, environmental concerns –

Many American growers favor GMO options because, while more costly, they require less human labor, Freese said.

More than 90 percent of the corn, cotton and soybeans grown in the United States is currently genetically modified to withstand herbicides and/or insects, according to US government figures.

Farmers have been growing corn meant to tolerate drought since 2011. Whether or not this trait is acheived with traditional breeding or with GMO seeds, the resulting plants are then usually combined with GMOs that can withstand herbicides.

“They told us in the ’70s and ’80s that GMOs were going to be more nutritious, fix the nitrogen level, withstand everything,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumer Reports. “What did we see? Mainly herbicide-tolerant crops.” 

Dana Perls, senior food and agricultural program manager at environmental network Friends of the Earth, said GMOs “go hand in hand with harsh chemicals that perpetuate pesticide pollution,” harming insect populations, soil health and water quality.

Perls acknowledged “incredible advances” in mapping and manipulating genetic material, but said scientists “are still quite limited in our understanding of the functioning of the incredible complexity of life, both within a single organism and within ecosystems.” 

For now, she advocates for regulatory oversight of new GMO technology “rooted in a precautionary approach.”

Andrew Smith of Rodale Institute said using GMOs to help crops withstand droughts and other extreme conditions is “nearsighted” unless the health of the soil is ensured.

Smith favors agricultural practices such as rotating crops, limiting chemical inputs and reducing soil tillage. Such techniques, known as regenerative agriculture, leads to healthier soil able to retain more water. 

“It’s a strategy to mitigate climate change,” said Smith.

Human demand for shark fin soup, particularly in East Asia, has threatened shark populations

The trade in shark fins, turtles, and other threatened species will come under scrutiny at a global wildlife summit in Panama, starting Monday, that will also focus on the spread of diseases such as Covid-19.

Conservation experts and representatives of more than 180 nations will gather to study 52 proposals aimed at modifying protection levels set by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The CITES delegates will also take stock of the fight against fraud, and vote on new resolutions, such as the increased risk of diseases spreading from animals to humans, which is linked to trafficking and became a major concern after the 2020 outbreak of Covid-19.

CITES, in force since 1975, regulates trade in some 36,000 species of plants and animals and provides mechanisms to help crack down on illegal trade. It sanctions countries that break the rules.

The meeting of the parties to the convention takes place every two or three years.

This year it is happening in the shadow of two major United Nations conferences with high stakes for the future of the planet and all of its inhabitants: the COP27 climate meeting currently underway in Egypt, and the COP15 conference on biodiversity in Montreal in December.

During its last meeting in Geneva, 2019, CITES boosted the protection of giraffes, and came close to imposing a total ban on sending African elephants caught in the wild to zoos. 

Delegates also maintained a ban on the sale of ivory in southern Africa, and decided to list 18 species of rays and sharks in CITES Appendix II, which requires the tracking and regulation of trade.

– ‘Shark extinction crisis’ –

This year delegates will weigh a proposal to regulate the trade in requiem sharks, hammerhead sharks, and guitarfish rays.

“It would be a historic moment if these three proposals are passed: We would go from controlling around 25 percent of the shark fin trade to more than 90 percent,” said Ilaria Di Silvestre, the head of European Union campaigns for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

Meanwhile, Luke Warwick of the Wildlife Conservation Society warned that “we are in the middle of a very large shark extinction crisis.”

He said that sharks, which are vital to the ocean’s ecosystem, are “the second most threatened vertebrate group on the planet.”

“The trade in shark products — particularly fins, which can have a value of about $1,000 a kilogram in markets in East Asia — for use in a luxury status dish of shark fin soup, is driving the decline of these ancient ocean predators around the world.”

Sue Lieberman, the vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, told AFP that China — one of the top consumers of shark fin soup — has never voted in favor of a CITES marine species proposal, but often “implements it after it’s adopted.”

“I like to say this is the reptile COP,” said Lieberman, who has attended every CITES summit since 1989. 

Three crocodile species, three lizard species, various snakes, and 12 freshwater turtles are up for a total ban in trade.

“The freshwater turtles of the world are being exploited unsustainably and illegally for the pet trade, the collectors trade, and the food trade in Asia,” said Lieberman.

– Endangered violin wood –

The trade of certain trees will also be examined, with proposals to add African mahogany and some species of brightly colored flowering Trumpet trees to Appendix II.

Brazil has asked for a total ban in the trade of Pernambuco wood — which is already protected — alarming musicians around the world as it has been used for centuries as the main source of wood to make bow instruments such as violins and the cello.

TRAFFIC, the scientific advisory body of CITES, has recommended rejecting the proposal, which is unlikely to obtain the required two-thirds of votes.

The Panama meeting, which will run until November 25, is the first to be held since the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wuhan, China, which many scientists believed originated in bats before infecting humans.

Liberman added that because CITES deals only with international trade, local markets for live wildlife, such as in Wuhan are not under its purview.

“But nevertheless, CITES needs to make a statement… It seems to us that it would be highly inappropriate for CITES for its first meeting after the pandemic started, not to mention it. So we’re, we’re hopeful that they’ll adopt something.”

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*** An earlier version of this story contained a quote in the penultimate paragraph mentioning “international trade societies” instead of CITES. That quote has been removed and the comment paraphrased for clarity.

The sister of jailed Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, Sanaa Seif (fourth from left), was at the front of the protest for climate justice and human rights

Chants of “free them all” and “no climate justice without human rights” rang out between the halls of COP27 Saturday, in the largest protest since the UN climate summit began.

Jailed Egyptian dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah’s sister, Sanaa Seif, who is at the summit campaigning for her brother’s release, marched in the front line with hundreds behind her.

Seven months into a hunger strike, Abdel Fattah began refusing water last Sunday, as world leaders arrived in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27. 

With them came Seif, who at two press conferences this week was heckled by apparently pro-government attendees, who called her brother a “criminal”, not a “political prisoner”.

Behind her on Saturday — winding between halls inside which world leaders negotiated over the climate crisis — hundreds of protesters demanded urgent action towards climate justice and human rights, an AFP correspondent reported.

Although demonstrations at COP27 must be approved by organising authorities and should take place only in a special zone, activists behind Saturday’s rally said they got UN permission for their action outside the designated area.

They marched behind a banner reading: “You have not yet been defeated” –- the title of Abdel Fattah’s book, which has become a rallying cry for summit activists.

The demonstrators incorporated the words into their demands for indigenous, women’s, labour and disability rights. Multiple speakers have ended their speeches in the conference’s formal proceedings with the same sentence.

“I came here thinking I would be alone. I am sure that those in power thought that my voice would be drowned out and ignored. Instead, I found that my family was already here waiting for me,” protest organiser Asad Rehman read from a statement from Seif.

She stood silently next to him.

Abdel Fattah was a key figure in Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising more than a decade ago. He began consuming “only 100 calories a day” in April, his family said, to protest the conditions he and about 60,000 other political prisoners face in the country.

His family say they fear for his life, and have made months-long appeals to the international community, particularly Britain, where Abdel Fattah gained citizenship this year from behind bars through his British-born mother.

Some world leaders have raised his case with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in bilateral meetings during the climate talks.

His lawyer, former presidential candidate Khaled Ali, on Saturday submitted another request for a permit to visit Abdel Fattah in the prison in northern Egypt where he is being held.

Ali had said on Thursday that he was denied entry to the Wadi al-Natroun prison despite having a permit from the prosecution.

The family requested a pardon from President Sisi Friday, Abdel Fattah’s other sister announced.

The plea has been picked up by one of Egypt’s most watched talk show hosts, the ardently pro-Sisi Amr Adib. On prime time television Friday, Adib said the pardon would be in “the interest of Egypt first and foremost”.

Brazilian politician and environmentalist Marina Silva

Brazil will protect the Amazon “with its own efforts” without waiting for international funding, the former environment minister of incoming President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Saturday at UN climate talks. 

Credited with curbing deforestation in the 2000s, Marina Silva outlined key environmental priorities for the new president, who will visit the climate talks next week in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Silva is tipped to reprise her role in Lula’s new government. 

Lula has vowed that the fight against deforestation in the Amazon would be “a strategic priority” of his government, countering the legacy of Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over a surge of rainforest destruction.

Silva said Lula’s visit to Egypt even before he takes office on January 1 shows that “Brazil is regaining environmental leadership in the multilateral arena”.

With a plan to combat the destruction of the Amazon and pursue a reforestation target of 12 million hectares (30 million acres), Brazil will lead “by example”, she said. 

Silva added that the country would act to preserve forests — a crucial buffer against global warming — without depending on international aid.

But she welcomed announcements from Norway and Germany that they would resume financial support. Both countries withdrew aid in 2019 shortly after Bolsonaro came to power. 

Norway is the largest contributor to that fund, which currently holds $641 million, according to its environment ministry.

Since Bolsonaro — a staunch ally of agribusiness — took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.

Silva said there was a need to create a national super-body to coordinate climate action among various ministries.

“It would be something innovative and powerful,” she said.

Lula, 77, secured a narrow win over far-right incumbent Bolsonaro in an October 30 runoff election.

The veteran leftist will be inaugurated for a third term on January 1, facing a far tougher outlook than the commodities-fuelled boom he presided over in the 2000s.

Silva travelled to Egypt to prepare the ground for Lula’s expected visit.

She called for a review of the market in carbon credits amid concerns that oil and gas majors use them as a way to avoid reducing their own emissions. 

“I do not believe that fossil energy generation should be perpetuated by relying on these credits,” she said. 

While she said Brazil would still need its oil resources “as a transition to other sources of energy generation”, she added that her personal opinion was that even state-owned oil company Petrobras should go beyond oil and contribute to Brazil’s energy transition.