AFP UK

Lanzarote's geology can be uncannily similar to that of the Moon and Mars

Kneeling on the edge of a deep crater, astronaut Alexander Gerst uses a chisel to collect a sample of volcanic rock which he carefully puts inside a white plastic bag.

Gerst is not on the Moon, even if it looks like it. He is in the middle of Los Volcanes Natural Park on the island of Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa.

With its blackened lava fields, craters and volcanic tubes, Lanzarote’s geology can be uncannily similar to that of the Moon and Mars — so much so that the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA have for years been sending astronauts to the island to train.

“This place has lavas that are very, very similar to the ones that we find on the Moon,” Gerst, a 46-year-old German astronaut with the ESA, told AFP.

He said the island was “a unique training ground”.

Gerst, who has completed two missions on the International Space Station, is one of about a dozen astronauts who have taken part in the ESA’s Pangaea training course in Lanzarote over the past decade.

Named after the ancient supercontinent, Pangaea seeks to give astronauts as well as space engineers and geologists the skills needed for expeditions to other planets.

Trainees learn how to identify rock samples and collect them, do on-the-spot DNA analysis of microorganisms, and communicate their findings back to mission control.

“Here, they are put into the field to experience the exploration of a terrain, which is something they will have to do on the Moon,” said Francesco Sauro, the technical director of the course. 

– Six-year eruption –

Gerst said the Pangaea training course, which he has just completed, helps prepare astronauts to work in a remote setting on their own.

“If we run into a problem, we have to solve it ourselves,” he said.

He completed the Pangaea training along with Stephanie Wilson, one of NASA’s most senior astronauts. Both are possible candidates for NASA’s next crewed Moon missions.

Named for the goddess who was Apollo’s twin sister in ancient Greek mythology, NASA’s Artemis programme aims to return astronauts to the Moon’s surface as early as 2025, though many experts believe that time frame might slip.

Twelve astronauts walked on the Moon during six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972, the only spaceflights yet to place humans on the lunar surface.

NASA and the ESA also regularly use Lanzarote’s landscape of twisted mounds of solidified lava to test Mars Rovers — remote controlled vehicles designed to travel on the surface of the Red Planet.

Lanzarote’s unique geography stems from a volcanic eruption that began in 1730 and lasted six years, spewing ash and lava over large swathes of land.

Considered one of the greatest volcanic cataclysms in recorded history, the eruption devastated over 200 square kilometres (77 square miles) of terrain — about a quarter of the island which is currently home to around 156,000 people.

– ‘See far away’ –

While there are other volcanic areas such as Hawaii that could also be used for astronaut training, Lanzarote has the advantage that it has little vegetation due to its desert-like climate.

“You have a lot of different types of volcanic rocks in Lanzarote. And they are exposed. You don’t have trees,” said Pangaea project leader Loredana Bessone.

“You can see far away, as if you were on the Moon,” she told AFP.

The Canary Islands is making a big contribution to space exploration in another way too. The island of La Palma is home to one of the world’s largest optical telescopes.

Located on a peak, the Great Canary Telescope is able to spot some of the faintest, most distant objects in the Universe.

La Palma was selected as the site for the telescope because of its cloud-free skies and relatively low light pollution.

Protesters hope to stop the village being bulldozed to allow the extension of a neighbouring open-air coal mine

After the last farmer packed up and left in October, climate activists are the only people left in the village of Luetzerath, Germany, which sits above a rich vein of coal.

In huts perched six metres (19 feet) above ground in the trees, the young campaigners say they can hold out against the authorities if they try to clear them out. 

They are there in an effort to stop the village being bulldozed to allow the extension of a neighbouring open-air coal mine. 

They do not know when the police might come to force them out, but with Germany in need of more coal, most think it will be soon.

Europe’s largest economy has restarted part of its mothballed inventory of coal power plants to relieve the pressure on gas-powered facilities, following a cut to supplies from Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. 

More than a thousand protesters descended Saturday on Luetzerath, now a symbol of the resistance to fossil fuels, to urge more action from participants at the COP27 conference in Egypt.

Many had painted their faces with the words “Stop coal”.

Activists unfurled a huge yellow cross — a symbol against coal mine expansion — in a field.

Alma, a French activist who uses a pseudonym, earlier said she did not know when the evacuation was planned.

“It’s a question of responsibility, one that is difficult to take for the authorities because it’s a huge operation, for which thousands of police officers need to be mobilised over several weeks,” she said.

– Mining deal –

After studying, Alma decided to go full time as an activist and was one of the first to set up the activist camp in Luetzerath two years ago.

One by one, the residents of Luetzerath have left as their homes were expropriated and they were compensated and rehoused. 

She and the dozens of others who have joined her in the occupied village felt betrayed earlier this year when the government, led by Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, announced a compromise with the energy giant RWE to allow the extension of the nearby mine.

Under the agreement, five nearby villages will be spared, but Luetzerath is set to disappear.

Even though RWE, long one of Europe’s biggest emitters, said it would stop producing electricity with carbon in 2030, the activists are not persuaded.

“If RWE extracts all the coal under Luetzerath, Germany will certainly violate the Paris (climate) accord because of the emissions from the mine. The village is therefore not just a symbol, it’s a critical point in the fight against climate change,” said Alma. 

– ‘In danger’ –

On the other side of the road, sits the coal pit, where excavators move across golden-black dunes of sand.

The lignite still in the ground here will be needed “from 2024” to supply power plants as other mines close, RWE says. 

According to a 2021 report by the DIW economic think-tank, the energy company could extract a further 100 million tonnes of coal without having to demolish Luetzerath and the other five villages.

Despite resorting to more coal power in the current energy crisis, Germany says it is not wavering from its aim of exiting coal power in 2030.

The climate activists want action accelerated to bring down emissions.

In recent months, some activists have turned to more extreme means to get their voices heard — including by glueing themselves to main roads and halting traffic. 

Recently, some activists also flung mashed potatoes at a Monet painting in a Potsdam museum.

In Luezerath, climate activists have set up an intricate camp in the trees to avoid being quickly evicted by the police.

Using a network of cables, they have connected their encampment. The militants think they can hold out for several weeks, six metres (12 feet) above the ground. 

On the ground in the middle of the camp, around twenty militants try to raise a pole made of a giant tree trunk with a system of pulleys.

“The poles are tied to the trees in a way that ought to make it impossible to cut the ropes without putting someone’s life in danger,” Alma says. 

Underlining their commitment, an anonymous activist said facing death is the activists’ “entire strategy”.

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-regime 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 said.

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 the UK, 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.

The family made an official request for a presidential 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.”

A woman poses for a picture in front of a globe inside the venue hosting the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh

Wheelchair struggles, scarce drinking water, $15 sandwiches and hotel price-gouging at the COP27 climate summit have sparked anger and forced host country Egypt into damage-control mode, participants at the two-week meet said.

Organising a UN climate conference — which brings together up to 35,000 people from 195 countries each year — is a world-class logistical challenge, and veterans of the nearly 30-year process are used to minor inconvenience.   

But this year’s sprawling event in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh has been plagued with problems, participants say, the most basic perhaps being accessibility.

Pratima Gurung, who works with a disability advocacy group, said she and the Disability Rights Fund’s Krishna Gahatraj, who uses a wheelchair, have been left in the middle of the road “multiple times” while waiting for shuttle buses.

Organisers “haven’t clearly instructed the drivers” on how to accommodate people with disabilities, said Gurung, who runs the National Indigenous Disabled Women Association in Nepal.

Though ramps abound, attendees with physical impairments say they are not standard, and that the UN climate summit has been especially difficult for them to navigate.

“As a disabled person, COP is inherently inaccessible for me,” said SustainedAbility’s Jason Boberg, who has attended the past five summits organised by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC.

But playing on the acronym, he has dubbed this year’s event the “UN Framework Convention on Concrete Curbs”.

Last year’s meeting in Glasgow also saw accessibility issues, with the Israeli energy minister initially unable to enter in her wheelchair.

– ‘Most confusing COP ever’ –

Another recurrent complaint in Sharm el-Sheikh is poor and scarce signage. 

“This is the most confusing COP ever,” said Bianca, a three-time climate summit attendee who asked to be identified only by her first name.

The size of a small town, the COP27 area is a sprawling archipelago of pavilions, meeting rooms, halls connected by bitumen roads that soak up the 30 degree Celsius (86 degree Fahrenheit) heat.

Journalists in a hangar-like media centre could be seen wrapped in jackets and shawls to protect themselves against the industrial-strength air-conditioning.

Also problematic and ironic, given the topic at hand, is a chronic shortage of drinking water.

During the first week of the conference, which runs until November 18, sparse water dispensers stood empty for hours at a stretch.

Delegates took to bringing in their own supplies, and a few were said to have ignored warnings not to drink desalinated water running from bathroom taps.

“People already under stress” should not “have to look for water all the time”, said one climate COP veteran from an NGO.

Exorbitant food prices, including sandwiches going for up to $15, have been especially problematic for those on tight budgets. 

“I have never seen prices like this at a COP,” the NGO representative said, declining to be identified.

In response to the complaints, organisers on Thursday made drinks free and slashed food prices in half for the rest of the conference.

Well before COP27 kicked off on November 6, alarm bells were ringing as the tourist town’s hotels suddenly tripled or quadrupled room rates, even for those with confirmed bookings. 

Some delegates arrived to find their reservations had been cancelled.

“People are now stranded, sleeping on the road, in bus stations,” youth activist Olumide Idowu from Nigeria wrote on Twitter Monday.

At a press briefing Thursday, special representative of the COP27 presidency, Wael Aboulmagd, told reporters that the “one case where people were asked to leave” will “not happen again”, and that “government officials have intervened.”

Lanzarote's geology can be uncannily similar to that of the Moon and Mars

Kneeling on the edge of a deep crater, astronaut Alexander Gerst uses a chisel to collect a sample of volcanic rock which he carefully puts inside a white plastic bag.

Gerst is not on the Moon, even if it looks like it. He is in the middle of Los Volcanes Natural Park on the island of Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa.

With its blackened lava fields, craters and volcanic tubes, Lanzarote’s geology can be uncannily similar to that of the Moon and Mars — so much so that the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA have for years been sending astronauts to the island to train.

“This place has lavas that are very, very similar to the ones that we find on the Moon,” Gerst, a 46-year-old German astronaut with the ESA, told AFP.

He said the island was “a unique training ground”.

Gerst, who has completed two missions on the International Space Station, is one of about a dozen astronauts who have taken part in the ESA’s Pangaea training course in Lanzarote over the past decade.

Named after the ancient supercontinent, Pangaea seeks to give astronauts as well as space engineers and geologists the skills needed for expeditions to other planets.

Trainees learn how to identify rock samples and collect them, do on-the-spot DNA analysis of microorganisms, and communicate their findings back to mission control.

“Here, they are put into the field to experience the exploration of a terrain, which is something they will have to do on the Moon,” said Francesco Sauro, the technical director of the course. 

– Six-year eruption –

Gerst said the Pangaea training course, which he has just completed, helps prepare astronauts to work in a remote setting on their own.

“If we run into a problem, we have to solve it ourselves,” he said.

He completed the Pangaea training along with Stephanie Wilson, one of NASA’s most senior astronauts. Both are possible candidates for NASA’s next crewed Moon missions.

Named for the goddess who was Apollo’s twin sister in ancient Greek mythology, NASA’s Artemis programme aims to return astronauts to the Moon’s surface as early as 2025, though many experts believe that time frame might slip.

Twelve astronauts walked on the Moon during six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972, the only spaceflights yet to place humans on the lunar surface.

NASA and the ESA also regularly use Lanzarote’s landscape of twisted mounds of solidified lava to test Mars Rovers — remote controlled vehicles designed to travel on the surface of the Red Planet.

Lanzarote’s unique geography stems from a volcanic eruption that began in 1730 and lasted six years, spewing ash and lava over large swathes of land.

Considered one of the greatest volcanic cataclysms in recorded history, the eruption devastated over 200 square kilometres (77 square miles) of terrain — about a quarter of the island which is currently home to around 156,000 people.

– ‘See far away’ –

While there are other volcanic areas such as Hawaii that could also be used for astronaut training, Lanzarote has the advantage that it has little vegetation due to its desert-like climate.

“You have a lot of different types of volcanic rocks in Lanzarote. And they are exposed. You don’t have trees,” said Pangaea project leader Loredana Bessone.

“You can see far away, as if you were on the Moon,” she told AFP.

The Canary Islands is making a big contribution to space exploration in another way too. The island of La Palma is home to one of the world’s largest optical telescopes.

Located on a peak, the Great Canary Telescope is able to spot some of the faintest, most distant objects in the Universe.

La Palma was selected as the site for the telescope because of its cloud-free skies and relatively low light pollution.

Sunak was criticised for initially saying he wouldn't attend the UN climate change talks

As world leaders and environmental experts meet at the COP27 climate change talks in Egypt, last year’s host Britain is under scrutiny about its commitment to tackling global warming.

London has ambitious long-standing targets to help try to stop the increase in temperatures and has enshrined in law its 2050 pledge for carbon neutrality.

It has vowed under the Paris agreement to cut carbon emissions by 68 percent by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.

Nevertheless, ministers have come under fire from environmental pressure groups and the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC), a UK body which advises the government. 

– ‘Way off track’ –

Green lobby groups gave the government, headed by new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a mixed reception and urged a raft of policy changes.

“The UK is currently way off track for meeting its legally binding climate targets,” said Mike Childs, director of policy at Friends of the Earth England.

“Sunak made a good start to his tenure as prime minister last month by reintroducing the fracking ban.

“But there are many important decisions Mr Sunak and his government have to make to show real climate leadership.”

Sunak, who took office just three weeks ago, swiftly restored a fracking ban that was controversially lifted by his short-lived predecessor Liz Truss.

At the same time, Britain has sought to ramp up renewable energy and curb coal.

“We are ahead of many nations on cutting our CO2,” Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, told AFP.

“However, much of this reduction is attributable to the decline of coal and the increase in renewables.”

The CCC, in its most recent report, declared: “Tangible progress is lagging the policy ambition.”

It cautioned that “important policy gaps remain”, including the need to reduce demand for fossil fuels.

And the advisory body noted that CO2 emissions in Britain had in fact increased by four percent in 2021 from the previous year.

– Coal mine –

In a faltering start to his premiership, Sunak first said he would not attend COP27 due to pressing domestic commitments.

He was then bounced into a U-turn after former prime minister Boris Johnson, whom he helped to oust, said he was going.

Critics contend Sunak did little to tackle the climate emergency in his previous role as finance minister in Johnson’s administration, which preceded that of Truss.

Green campaigners want Sunak to scrap proposals for Britain’s first new deep coal mine in decades. 

The controversial project, in Cumbria, northwestern England, has long faced outcry from environmental campaigners.

And it is in sharp contrast to Britain’s commitment to scrap dirty coal-powered electricity generation by October 2024.

“Friends of the Earth and others are urging the government to make coal history by refusing planning permission for the mine,” said Childs.

He added they were also strongly opposed to more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, which Johnson and Truss had authorised in the teeth of green opposition, particularly from direct action protest groups such as Just Stop Oil.

Campaigners also want Sunak to allow more onshore wind power and increase energy insulation support for homes across Britain.

And they have urged the Treasury to adapt tax policies to incentivise companies and households to emit less damaging carbon dioxide, particularly by introducing an expanded windfall tax on the profits of energy producers.

Yet campaigners remain unconvinced of the new PM’s approach to climate change.

Green spending was slashed on most energy efficiency projects before the Ukraine conflict and the explosion of domestic fuel prices, they argue.

The CCC wants the government to align its net-zero goal with curbing the cost of living, particularly via increased efficiency measures such as better home insulation, to soften the blow of rising bills.

“So far, Rishi Sunak’s attitude to climate action has been lacklustre,” Parr concluded.

“As chancellor, Sunak failed to even mention climate change in major economic statements or conference speeches.

“And as prime minister, he only appeared at COP27 after being pushed into attending.”

The Artemis 1 unmanned lunar rocket is seen at the Kennedy Space Center on September 27, 2022

NASA said Friday it plans to attempt its long-delayed uncrewed mission to the Moon as scheduled next Wednesday, after inspections revealed only minor damage from Hurricane Nicole’s passage through Florida.

Jim Free, a senior official at the US space agency, told journalists there was “nothing preventing” a launch on that date, and said that NASA teams had managed to access the launch pad on Thursday.

The launch of the heavy lift rocket, the most powerful ever built by contractors for NASA, is now due to take place at 01:04am local time (0604 GMT) on Wednesday, with a possible launch window of two hours.

The uncrewed mission, dubbed Artemis 1, will bring the United States a step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.

The rocket will propel the empty Orion crew capsule to the Moon, without landing on its surface. If the launch takes place as planned, the mission will last 25-and-a-half days before the capsule returns on December 11 with splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

However, the US space agency has “some work to do” before the launch, said Free, such as powering up the vehicle and carrying out some technical tests.

One element on the base of the rocket, which may have been damaged, may need to be replaced.

The highly anticipated launch has already been delayed three times in as many months. 

Free, who is NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development, said two back-up launch dates have been set for November 19 and November 25, if necessary.

Winds from Hurricane Nicole, a category 1 storm, battered the rocket as it stood on its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center. However, the wind speeds did not surpass the limits the vehicle can withstand, said Free.

However, he conceded that if NASA had known the hurricane was approaching, the SLS rocket would have been left in the vehicle assembly building.

The rocket was returned to the building in September to protect it from Hurricane Ian, but was taken back out to the launch pad just days before Nicole arrived.

Artemis 1 will mark the launch of the flagship Artemis program, which is aimed at taking the first woman and the first person of color to the Moon, by 2025, at the earliest.

NASA wants to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon, including the construction of a space station in orbit around the Moon. This is seen as a step that could lead to the first trip to Mars.

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.

“CITES is only about international trade, and markets for live wildlife, such as in Wuhan, of course, are not are not under the purview of international trading societies,” said Lieberman.

“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.”

US President Joe Biden addresses UN climate talks in Egypt in a lightning stop on a tour that will also take him to Cambodia and Indonesia

President Joe Biden vowed at UN climate talks on Friday that the United States was on track to slash its carbon emissions, urging all nations to ramp up their own efforts to avert catastrophic global warming.

His speech came at the halfway point of a two-week COP27 conference in Egypt where rich polluters like the US are under pressure to finally provide the funding developing countries have been promised in the battle against climate change.

Biden touted the passage of a massive, $369 billion spending package to green the US economy as an achievement that would “shift the paradigm” for his country and the entire world.

“The climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security and the very life of the planet,” Biden said.

In an hours-long visit to Egypt before heading to Asia for ASEAN and G20 summits, Biden said the United States “will meet” its goal of cutting emissions 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. 

He also announced plans to step up efforts to cut methane emissions — a major contributor to global warming — by plugging fossil fuel leaks and requiring companies to act on leaks reported by credible third parties.

“To permanently bend the emissions curve, every nation needs to step up. At this gathering, we must renew and raise our climate ambitions,” he said.

“The United States has acted, everyone has to act. It’s a duty and responsibility of global leadership,” said Biden, whose administration also announced plans to require federal contractors to reduce their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

– Howl of protest –

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent energy prices soaring, has raised concerns that tackling climate change has dropped down the priority list of many countries.

“Russia’s war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels,” Biden said.

His 22-minute speech was briefly interrupted by a small group of demonstrators, who howled and attempted to unfurl a banner protesting fossil fuels before they were removed by UN security.

New research shows just how dauntingly hard it will be to meet the ambitious goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — requiring emissions to be slashed nearly in half by 2030.

The new study — published on Friday in the journal Earth System Science Data — found that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are on track to rise one percent in 2022 to reach an all-time high.

Before his speech, Biden met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of COP27, where he raised human rights issues with his host amid concerns over the health of jailed dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is on a months-long hunger strike.

Abdel Fattah’s family later announced that they had requested a presidential pardon for him following calls for his release from a raft of Western governments, including the United States.

– Mixed reviews –

Biden’s visit to COP27 came three days after US midterm elections that have raised questions about what the result could mean for US climate policy.

His climate speech earned mix reviews from COP27 participants.

“President Biden is advancing the boldest climate agenda of any American president by far,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute.

But he said the US was “grossly underperforming” on its commitments in a $100-billion-a-year global climate funding programme to help developing nations transition to renewable energy and build resilience.

Biden has pledged to double the US contribution to $11.4 billion, but Democrats may be running out of time to honour that as control of the House of Representatives appears poised to shift to the Republicans from January in the wake of this week’s vote.

Others pointed out that the United States has previously blocked efforts to establish a “loss and damage” mechanism that would see rich polluters compensate poorer countries for the destruction from climate-induced natural disasters.

Biden did not address the “loss and damage” mechanism idea in his speech, though the United States has allowed it to be on the official COP27 agenda.

“Joe Biden comes to COP27 and makes new promises but his old promises have not even been fulfilled,” said Mohamed Dowd, founder of the Power Shift Africa think tank.

“He is like a salesman selling goods with endless small print.”

bur-lth/klm/kir

Giant African snails are plucked from a garden in Maracaibo, Venezuela

A “plague” of giant African snails that pose potential health risks to humans is causing alarm in Venezuela where sustained rains have facilitated their proliferation.

The first colonies of the sub-Saharan Achatina fulica snail were discovered at the beginning of November on the shores of Lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela.

Since then, more snails have been found in agricultural areas in the region, as well as in neighboring Tachira state.

“Specific sites have been verified… where approximately 350 to 400 snails are being collected per day,” Rafael Ramirez, the mayor of the city of Maracaibo, told AFP.

He said authorities were working hard combat the snails.

The giant African snail is considered an invasive species because of its reproductive capacity — up to 600 eggs every two weeks — and its relatively long lifespan of six years on average.

It can be devastating to crops and also carries parasites that can cause meningitis, encephalitis and intestinal disorders in humans.

The snail has been present in Venezuela since 1997 with the last plague detected in 2017 although in smaller quantities, said Jose Sandoval, director of wildlife at the Azul Ambientalista NGO.

“This will be unstoppable because they are big and already adults: They have already laid eggs,” said Sandoval.

“We are faced with an invasion, a plague, and so it is hard to eradicate them when they reach these numbers, but they can be controlled.”

Sandoval took AFP on an eradication mission in Maracaibo in which he collected 437 snails in just two hours.

He said the prolonged rainy season was to blame for the snails’ reappearance and rapid reproduction.

“They will remain until March, they will damage crops… they are voracious,” he added.